I am Elder Jake Rose, and I am currently serving in the Tonga Nuka'alofa mission. I left to the MTC January 5, 2011 and will arrive back to my home in Utah in two quick years.
This is my story and the stories of the people of Tonga.





Elder Jacob Aaron Rose

Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission

P.O. Box 58

Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu, Tonga

South Pacific

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Trying to come up with a subject week after week is hard. But fun?

Landon i just wanted you to see the subject line you don't need to read this email except this first line haha. Kinda an inside joke i got with Landon, i mean Elder Egan. Well everyone i hope this email finds you all well and happy! Cause this life is about experiencing joy! So why not make the best of it even in hard times! Stay postive! Things will always get better! Well to start off first congrats to cortnie, my step sister, she was engaged last week. That proves miracles really do happen from missions. ;) just kidding cortnie you know i love you! You had to expect a line like that from me! That really is good for her! Well last thursday 6/23, gave a missionary a haircut! I did a good job haha. First haircut complete! Man, a baptism had to be delayed cause one of the tongan missionaries didn't fill the font, he made up that someone else was doing it. That should never happen. It wasn't to good. but the baptism eventually happened. 6/24 we talked to the lady in charge of visiting teaching. no one is really doing their home or visiting teaching to the less active so we are trying to help get that going again. Then we just tried to set up our baptism all day for saturday. Then we interviewed misi that night. well the zone leaders did. Everything was good except he told them he didn't want to get baptised the next day. We were like huh? What? That kid was Pau (certain) I only know how to explain that in tongan really. like he was sure to get baptized. 6/25 what a busy day. woke up at 630 run to misi's and talk to him. Ask him why he doesn't want to be baptized, he said he just didn't want to, we both bore testimony and tried to help him see how important it was. We asked him again, still he said no. We told him he had his agency but we asked him to pray about it and we'll come back at 1030. We went home and we both said an out loud prayer to god. he works in mysterious ways. after we prayed we did some study. I came across 2 ne 21. That's a cool chapter. All symbolism from joseph smith but also the pioneers. In like verse 15 it says they were spoiled of the east and headed west towards moad. Well i was thinking, just thoughts, might not be true but these were my thoughts. Well wasn't the first temple operating st. george temple? And at that time it was probably called like moab territory or something. I dunno just my thoughts. I'd like to hear feedback. i just thought it was cool. Then we tried to figure out what the 7 streams represent! well then we went to misi's house at 1030 our plan was kinda to talk to his parents to see if they knew anything. we talked to his mom, after like one minute he comes out quickly and interupts "Missionaries, i will be baptized today, Right now?" haha we were like well that's awesome but we'll do it at 530 tonight. Well our prayers were answered and this is how. After we left that morning he told his mom we were coming back and she asked why, he said cause he told us no to baptism, well last week he went with his oldest brother who is catholic and was bound to scare him of getting baptized or something and just told him not too. Well his mom was mad and she gave him a good whap/slap. Well i guess if ya can't listen to the small prompting of the spirit ya listen to the loud prompting of mama's hand haha. he really did want to be baptized he was just scared. well we had a miracle happen. We had to get him to agree to baptism before we could tell anyone so once he did we had a busy day and were worried about filling the font. So right after we left we went to the font, it was already filled! Wow we are really wondering how it happened but that made us way less busy cause it takes a few hours to fill! That was so nice! Then we went around all day telling and inviting people and gettin it all set up. well we went back to the font after we did, at like 330 just to make sure it was still filled. Some kids had gotten in it and put bread and rocks and wrappers in it. We cleaned out the wrappers and bread best we could and pushed all the rocks to the side without getting in it. Then we went home to wait for our ZLs. Well there is always a new experience with me as makasini says. They came over and we got invited to a 1 yr old birthday at 5 so we were gonna go show for a sec then go to our baptism. I didn't want to take my baptism pants and towel and extra shirt so i asked if the ZLs could bring it at like 515. They stayed at our house and said they would. Well we leave show up to the Birthday for a sec and then go to the church, 530 comes around and everyone is there except the ZLs. We were thinking wow they fell asleep. So we went to the bishops house and called them. I guess i closed the door to our house when we left. It locks from the outside. Im just used to doing it when we leave so they were locked in. Well our neighbor who had come to the baptism took us back to get them out. we get them and the stuff and the rest of the baptism went smooth! It was good! I baptised Semisi Falefa Tu'ivai. he was all smiles. And caroline, the white lady, showed up just in time to see it. It was cool. 6/26 well we waited for misi to show up to church, he came the class before sacrament. We gave him one of the ties grandma sent me in the MTC to wear. He liked it haha. Well we were filling out his record during sacrament and we get his birthday 7/25/2002. Do the math. Makasini turns to me and is like rose, if i did the math right we just pulled a super 8. I count it up. MISI ISN"T 9 TIL NEXT MONTH! dang it haha doesn't count as a convert baptism, but we found that out right before we have to go up on stage to do the confirmation. Well we didn't stop it we did the confirmation and all was good. Nothing is wrong it just doesn't count as a convert. They said he was nine. Oh well we just get to hear that we pulled a super 8 the rest of our mission haha. But he's a good kid. He'll be like the first tongan prophet! Then we went to carolines that night. Talked to her for awhile. She loves the plan of salvation and we talked to her all about that. She loves reading the BOM already in Mosaiah. But, she has a hard time believing it, joseph smith, and jesus christ. She thinks joseph smith wrote the BOM. So we tried to just talk to her about it. And we are going to try to watch the JS movie with her. She left to Vava'u and doesn't come back til monday. We've been praying she'll be touched. We also asked her to pray and she agreed to. Hopefully we can baptize her before this transfer is over next week and we might move. We'll see. She's way ready and very well educated about the religion. I hope she feels it's right. 6/27 It was the rainiest day so far. We couldn't do anything all day it was raining so bad. We came to a members house and did our wash and stuck around there basically all day. 6/28 we had district meeting again. It was just like usual. we tried doing a baptismal interview for the longolongo elders but it wasn't able both times we went. we went to havelu to have fafanga with the havelu elders. we went and the guy gave maka 20, uasila'a 20 and me and hyer 50 to split! That guy was loaded! So we got some pizza! We also did a comp exchange with the havelu elders. Maka stayed there with hyer and uasila'a came to kolomotu'a with me. I was way worried just cause he is tongan from here and didn't know if i'd understand him. well it actually went really well. I was able to understand alot of what he said and he's really funny and cool! 6/29 uasila'a and i visited a few houses. Uasila'a talked to both of them for a long time. One of the houses we went to i asked uasila'a to share a spiritual thought to this less active guy. he said okay. Wel they talked forever and i saw Uasila'a wasn't going to so it was silent for a sec and i asked if i could share. So i did. It went well, shared alma 37:37. Well after that Uasila'a and him talked alot longer haha. Man we were there way longer then i expected! Nothin else to exciting happened. We exchanged comps back that night. it was good. then today 6/30 We got the opportunity to again go to the temple. It went really well! Was able to understand more than last time which was good! It seemed almost like instead of it sounding like it talked faster than the speed of light it sounded slower to me. I hope that someone just didn't slow it down and iwas able to really just pick up more. I am still tryin! It's all i can do and it will come eventually! But then also today we interviewed someone for longolongo elders. Ofa Maile, She was one of my first investigators if you remember said she'd get baptized but not til her husband comes back. Well she is gettin interviewed on saturday! That's way awesome! Hopefully it helps her husband come back! Well that is about all i think! Thanks for all you all do for me! I'm very thankful! I am thankful to be here as well! it's an amazing experience. I love and miss you all! 
Love,
Elder Rose

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