Lots of Changes!

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week has been absolutely crazy and I'm super happy I'm able to net. I'll write it out a little different. It's just my journal entries summarized and everything is out of whack. It's about 12 at night. We slept most of the day and I'll explain why the emails so late at night. I have permission.

Monday:
It was P-day, didn't find out till really late I was transferring. I had no idea who my companion would be, just that I was training and that I was moving to Houma 3rd ward.

Tuesday:
Mahe and I stayed up till 2 am packing because we had a super busy day and we had to get his bag down to 50 pounds so he could fly to Vava'u.

Wednesday:
I was picked up at about 9:30 and was in a meeting till around 4. Then things started getting crazy. My new companion is 21 and straight from Tonga. I met him before his mission and jokingly said maybe I'll get to train you! Anyway, didn't think I'd be training this early in my mission. We got driven to our MQ and then realized we had no phone or key. The zones brought our key and let us in but we still had no phone. No one has lived in the MQ for a while and it was pretty obvious. Spiders, cockroaches and mosquitos everywhere. There are barely any windows, no fan, and it's super hot. Oh and no water. That one really got me. I didn't realize that meant to going to the bathroom until my companion made the sad mistake. We shut the door and haven't opened it since.

Thursday:
It's been so nice being the senior companion. I have made sure to do exactly what I'm supposed to and I think my companion really likes me. He's awesome. Despite our difficult living circumstances it's been a blast already being companions. Thursday we met ten new people and there is a lot of work to do over here.

Friday:
Met a guy named Limihai. He was a drug lord on California and lost his leg. He was deported for robbing $285,000 from a safe. He is 70 with some crazy stories.

Saturday:
We got a fan this morning. A really nice one. Then It all went wrong. Our house caved in on us the rain and storm was so bad. Our house was basically a swimming pool. We called and president told us we had 5 minutes to pack and be ready for pick up. This was at 11 PM. He picked us up soon after. We stayed the night at the nicest place ever with A/C and couches and even a washer.

Sunday:
After the nights mishaps we slept in for the first time we were so tired. I was awoken at 7:00 to the sound of the phone ringing and the adrenaline realizing it was president and that I was probably in trouble for sleeping in. He told me to pack my bags and get them under 50 pounds because me and my new comp are going to be emergency transfered to Vava'u and to be ready to go back to church in Houma in an hour. We got ready and went to church. We told the ward we were leaving and spoke for the first and last time at that ward. They were amazing. After we went to the blowholes in our area. We were taking final pictures in a little cove when a huge wave from no where hit me and my companion. We were thrown back up the coast by it and got soaking wet. It was the first bath we've had in a week. (We are allowed in the water to bathe because of lack of water as long as we don't dive and don't go more than 20 feet from the coast) We went back to eat and to our nice house. We took our nice fan from the house and tried to fit it in my bag. We'll see how that goes. We leave in a couple hours and got permission to net because of the transfer. We are on a 8 seat plane I think and will be working in Tu'anuku Vava'u. We have a lake in out area and mountains. I'll try to get pictures and stuff but this may be the last time I net for a couple months. I'll try to email later today if we are able to.

Personal:
Can't even tell you how much better things are. I'm a little nervous to train and stuff but I think it'll be okay and my Tongan is progressing a lot faster. I don't know anyone who's trained a Tongan after only being in Tonga for 4.5 months so I hope I can do a good job.

Companionship:
He's awesome. He only has one eye and is super excited to be out on a mission. I asked why he came out and he said he was scared if he did something wrong in his other eye would get taken away! He loves to workout with me. He jokes around a lot but will work as hard as I can make myself move. It's definitely hard training and we have a lot of awkward moments with me learning a language and a brand new missionary.

Area: (outdated and about Houma)
Area is very different. It's one of the poorest towns in Tonga. My bishop is awesome and always puts the missionaries first. He's very humble and loving. He's been the bishop of this ward for the full 3 years it's been a ward. We don't have many stores, no restaurants and the area is very small compared to Longolongo. I sold my bike to one of the senior couples, kinda sad to see it go but we don't really need it. I buy mainly water which costs around 10 pa'anga a day. ($5 US) Which will start to add up but it seems to be a need at the current moment. Oh, almost forgot, we have the Tongan Blowholes in our area. They're pretty cool and sometimes shoot fish and crabs up on the reef where we can catch them.

That's all for now,
Love, Elder Sikoki

Remind me to tell you about Limihai and my comp and to send pictures. Love you

Transfers

Still here in Longolongo and still have Elder Mahe as a companion. 6 more weeks and maybe that'll change but for now just trying to do my best.

Language:
Things are picking up a lot faster. Words are coming a lot quicker and instead of focusing on about 20 vocabulary words a day I'm up to about 50. I can teach the lessons now and communicate well enough, but it's still obvious I'm from over seas. I really didn't expect language to be so hard. I thought I'd have it when I finished at the MTC, but I thought wrong and actually really do like the Tongan language. There's a lot more body language and faces, (like your eyebrows change what words mean) but it makes it fun.

The Heat:
IT IS HOT. Like I didn't think it could get this hot. There's a rash called prickly heat when you get to hot and me and my companion couldn't sleep last night till about 3 AM we had it so bad!! We both took cold showers and it helped a bit! I think that either our humidity scale is broken or something but it's been at about 80-90% for a while.

Food:
The food was better this week. We got some good meals and a lot of fruit from our neighbors.

Personal:
Just trying to look at the brightside of everything and take it bit by bit. This definitely isn't America.

Love you all,
Elder Sikoki

Tonga Week 18

Personal:
This week was pretty rough. I was sick with chikungunya all week. I think I've had it for two weeks though it just didn't get very bad till about Tuesday. The Doctor made us stay home all week other than about 3 times when we went out to do some Baptismal Interviews. However, plenty of good stuff still happened. The zones came over and one of the Elders that went home left his ukulele in their car. The elder gave it to the zones and the zones gave it to me. By the way we have new zones now and they're pretty cool. I've played it all week and being a much more simple instrument than the violin I have picked it up pretty fast and can play a few Tongan hymns.
Companionship:
One of the Elders out in Sopu forgot to tell us that his interview wasn't going to go through so we rode out there and then we just rode back . Luckily we met one of out investigators on the way out there and we were able to update her phone number. We also got in a pillow fight this last week which I totally won. Apart from that I think he's really liked this week.  I'll admit, I'd do about anything to be companions with Matt.
Tonga:
We didn't get any food for a while because we ran out of credit on our phone and weren't allowed to leave the house. For about three days we survived on crackers and then we got canned beef and Lu on Sunday. It didn't quite go over well and decided to come right back up. The Noble heard I was sick and brought me a big bag of apples and oranges later that night because he knew I liked fruit. It's been super hot this week and I can't wait for this so called Winter that is supposed to come.
Language:
Well, this week actually did have a bit of improvement. My companion decided to sing in English so I decided to sing my best in Tongan, and as you all know I can't sing.  Other than that I memorized a lot of words and also learned I had been swearing on accident every time I taught lesson 4 because teh is a bad word and tē is a good word.

Anyway, love you all and hope you're all safe and sound. Hanz, Izi, Emma and Leif I hope you're all watching out for each other and saving up to come out and see me at the end! Look out for Lyssa!

Ofa Lahi Atu!
-Elder Sikoki

PS: Thanks a lot Martins for the card!! It was fun getting another letter!

Tonga Week 17

I'm pretty excited today is P day. A couple big things happened this week. My violin decided to get in a fight with the humidity, and well, it lost. It came unglued and decided to detach itself from this life. Anyway, I found some superglue and glued it back together, but I can't get the soundpost back in. I think I need a soundpost tool. It sounds pretty awful without it. Kinda an Asian ring to it. I might have to send it out to Matt in Hong Kong if I can't get it fixed!

Next thing that happened was on Thursday we were supposed to go out and stay the night at this little island called Atata. We were going to do service but then the zones decided because me and my comp are from America we probably couldn't work and would get tired and so they found two Tongan elders the day of. 

On Friday we got hit by cyclone Victor. While the APs were driving, a huge wave hit their car and threw them over a cliff. Their car dangled somehow. Anyway, the car was totalled and one Elder broke his ankle and had to go home, the other is just bruised badly. 

Anyway bad news first so now the good news:

-We made brownies yesterday with some investigators,  they turned out delicious even though we had to substitute lots of ingredients.

-One of the sisters got to big for her Tauvala and gave it to me because I was the only one she could find that would fit it. It's really nice and is triple knitted. (The mat that goes around the waste)

-I think we're finally done with our spider infestation,  I was getting pretty sick of jumping every time I turned a corner!

-Got lots of studying in, started reading true to the faith and a lot more of the Tongan bible.

Personal:
I was pretty unhappy this week and felt pretty down. I started writing 5 things I'm thankful for every morning and it was amazing how much better my day went. I found some spring rolls from a falekai (restaurant). They are pretty healthy and I really like them.

Companionship:
I'm not quite sure where we're at. We had a boxing tournament with some really soft gloves our less active family gave us while the hurricane hit. It was pretty fun and I won every match. I know Dad, boxing probably wasn't the best of ideas, but it got us a lot closer to this family and they let us come over a lot more now.

Everything else:
I'm still happy to be out here. The language is picking up really fast now. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to serve the Lord and have definitely had many life changing experiences. I love you all tons!

Ofa Atu,
Elder Sikoki

Tonga Week 16

Had quite the week. It started off with the normal slow down and then things started really getting weird.

Personal:

I'm pretty good. I've had a cough for going on 6 weeks though and I'm not sure what from. I have been able to work out everyday and get all my studying in which has been good. I found out mosquito coils are bad for your health so now I just tough out the bites. I think my immune system is getting adjusted because now they usually go away in a couple hours. I have started to adjust a little better to the food and the language is coming. Kapou oku mou poto e lea fakatonga te u tohi 'i lea fakatonga, ka oku ou pehe 'e ikai te ke mahino. I under stand most of what people said, and can get my point across, but some words like year (ta'u) I can't ever seem to remember because I mix it up with ta'i (hit) or ta'e (swear word) and then everyone laughs at me. I wish the work would move a little faster but everyone seems very content not to talk to us.

Companionship:
Seems like a solid we work together.  We are doing okay though and I think one of us will transfer at the next one on February 7th.
Parents:

Mom, Dad, there are several things that you both taught me that I have realized are not quite normal for the other Elders. For Example:
-if you get something out put it away
-stick to your task till it sticks to you
-time is money, in this case not money but I got the point
-how to have fun and still work (i think I taught myself this one but I thank Dad for the job that made me figure it out)
-how to keep things clean and properly wash a house
-how to stay up beat and cheerful when nothing goes the way you want and everything breaks (i thank the big house for that)
.
And many others...anyway, thank you very much.

Tonga:
Silosi turns out has been seeing another women, who's another soldiers wife, which is against the law, so we were teaching sini and the cops showed up and so we left. Sini is doing well though but still hasn't made it to church. She isn't smoking though.

Penitani and his wife split up because of some abuse. I think it was for the best.

We are teaching a new lady named Mafile'o. She's very old but is starting to progress.

Vaiola agreed to be baptized.

We were out finding on Saturday and we started teaching a Pentecost Preacher. After that we passed a house and a guy yelled out for us to come back. He sang the whole Hallelujah Chorus to us and it was so funny we tried so hard not to laugh (he was drunk, and his friend was sleeping standing up) and then he brought it in like to hug us and kissed me. I was so weirded out I shoved him away and then he tried to do it to my companion so we ran to our bikes and rode away. Somehow we still managed a return appointment.

I told my 7 year old boy neighbor that I was hungry so he went and killed a chicken for me.

Me and my comp are currently out of money so we have come up with interesting ways to do laundry and make toilet paper.

We tried to make brownies yesterday. We went to the church to use the oven and my companion opened the oven door to find a huge poisonous lizard. I guess we could go to the hospital if it bites so we turned the oven on and cooked it and then fed it to the dogs.

I helped unload a couple cords of wood on Saturday.

Spiritually:
I've been reading a lot about the other missionaries in the scriptures. It's amazing how easily people reject the Book of Mormon as not true when they have never read it for themselves. If you read it you will know it is true. That's the promise the Lord makes.

Love you all tons and talk to you soon! 81 weeks to go! Wouldn't exactly say it's flying by but I am liking it!

Tonga Week 15

Personal:
Week went good! The zones let slip that I might be training next transfer as well as staying in my area but I still don't know if it's true. I'll just wait and see. I have been able to eat a bit more food lately and ate raw shark yesterday. I finished the Book of Mormon again this week and am now working on the Tongan one. I found cinnamon toast crunch this week and it tasted delicious. I didn't like it much back home but out here it tastes wonderful and reminded me a lot of emma! Also got a haircut this week and I think it's my best one yet out here.

Companionship:
Things are going good. Yesterday he couldn't stop laughing for some reason for like 30 minutes over some funny jokes in Tongan our members told us. Our lessons are definitely getting better and better.

Area/Work:
Sione Mohenoa, our Marijuana addict, well his wife got baptized last week and it was quite the miracle. She was so happy and we were too! We are now teaching a 70 year old widow of a minister and her grand kid Sione and Mafile'o. I'll keep you updated.

Tonga:
Hot, slow, and humid. Nothing new here.

Love you all,
Elder Sikoki

Tonga Week 14

Well the highlight of this week was the Hurricane, sounds like most of you know about it already. Since we don't get the news we found out about it when we tried to call the missionaries out in Vava'u and their phones were dead. Later that night it was so windy that the rain was coming in our windows and hitting the wall on the other side. It lasted about 3 days.

Personally I'm doing great. I have some mosquito bites that itch pretty bad on my foot again - can't figure out why they like me so much. I enjoyed this last week and was pretty excited for 2016. I finally found somewhere to buy coconuts. It's this boy in my neighborhood. We got on a regular schedule and he brings me 15 husked coconuts on Thursday nights. I pay him $10 TOP, or the equivalent of $5 US. He gets super excited about it. I did really good on my studying this week and it was nice to feel accomplished. Hope to do even better next week.
Some small things that happened this week:
-Found a leach about 6 inches long attached to my shower last night.
-We don't have a stove so I figured out how to make tortillas and we found cheese so I made quesadilas with the iron.
-After doing laundry for a couple of hours in my sink and bucket I hung my whites outside just to have the hurricane come through with a dirty rain and get all my stuff spotted
-The kids around here walked in our house and stole our mop and then broke it.
-I've been saving my Annies mac and cheese, but the humidity wrecked the noodles and made them all stuck together and squishy.

Companionship:
Companionship is going fine. One of us will most likely get moved on February 9th when the next transfer is. On new years we stayed up till 12 and played Uno, one of Mahe's traditions. I won more matches but he won the last game before 12 so somehow he's convinced he's the uno champion. We had a feast on New Years eve, we both ate to much. I had fresh seaweed bulb. On Saturday our Fafanga just brought us shells of muscles. We are supposed to eat them raw. Took me about 30 minutes to learn how to open them and then decided they weren't worth the time because they taste extremely fishy. We also had sea urchin which took the place of grossest thing I've had here so far.

Tonga:
Nothing really new here other than the hurricane which was pretty cool. Two puppies now live outside our house. Achilles and Alpha. They remind me of izi and hanz and are usually fighting our playing, and then peanut will come over like emma, he's a little bigger now, and tackle them both and they'll run away. I've smashed so many giant spiders I now feel comfortable smashing them with my hand or my bare feet. My comp said that means I'm adjusting well.

Love you all, I know this church is true and hope you all have taken my challenge to read the book of mormon.

Love, Elder Sikoki