Tonga!! DONT FORGET TO GO TO PICTURES!!!
This is Bobs experience on Tonga. We had a great time. First a little about the job. The Church has what is called a Service Center. In Tonga the Church has a campus where there is a Church school (Liahona High), Mission Presidents home, senior missionaries houses, other buildings and shops for CES, Physical Facilities, Translation, Materiels Management, etc. All the temporal facility and departments for the Church in Tonga. Many of the managers have never had any training along the lines of recruiting, performance management, discipline, etc. So I put together 2 days worth of seminars to teach some basic principles and skills. For some it is a review and for others it is new stuff that they really need. We arrived on Monday and had the seminar on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I met with managers and dealt with seperate HR issues. Thursday afternoon was the Christmas party for the Center. Friday morning I wrapped up with a HR file audit. Finally, Miriam and I played Friday afternoon and Saturday. We enjoyed Sunday and flew home on Monday. The senior missionaries took us under their wing and included us in all of their activities. We went out to eat with them, had a nice fireside with them, even went snorkeling with them. Yes, senior missionaries can snorkle in Tonga. We met a family of wood carvers. He has 12 children, four of them boys. He has taught all the boys how to carve and all of his son-in-laws how to carve. They all do very cool carvings. Some pictures are on the Tonga album for you to see. Tonga is still a Kingdom with a King. Church members number somewhere between 35-45% of the population. Like Samoa, they place chapels in every village. The chapels are very nice. We had a great time. Miriam was on her own while I worked but she managed to have great experiences. She will add her own Tonga story. The Church has a 99 year lease on all the property they have chapels on. The story goes that just recently the King liked some of the buildings and told the Church he wanted them. The Church initially said no because they were chapels but the King insisted. The Church conceded. Then he did it again and wanted another building. He insisted because he was the King and it was his property. The Church mowed down the chapel and turned over the land to the King. That made the King mad. Then some of the Kings family died in an accident in the USA. The funeral was a huge deal where all the local churches try to do something special. The LDS Church provided all the beef for the events (they last about a week). Then the church did a big presentation where thousands of members sang. The King was so moved that he signed the lease agreement for another 99 years. This just happened a couple of years ago. About a year ago their was a revolution of sorts down here where there were a bunch of riots and 85% of the businesses were burned. Its all settled down now and new businesses are moving in. The King is in power and when he dies his brother will be King.
This is Bobs experience on Tonga. We had a great time. First a little about the job. The Church has what is called a Service Center. In Tonga the Church has a campus where there is a Church school (Liahona High), Mission Presidents home, senior missionaries houses, other buildings and shops for CES, Physical Facilities, Translation, Materiels Management, etc. All the temporal facility and departments for the Church in Tonga. Many of the managers have never had any training along the lines of recruiting, performance management, discipline, etc. So I put together 2 days worth of seminars to teach some basic principles and skills. For some it is a review and for others it is new stuff that they really need. We arrived on Monday and had the seminar on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I met with managers and dealt with seperate HR issues. Thursday afternoon was the Christmas party for the Center. Friday morning I wrapped up with a HR file audit. Finally, Miriam and I played Friday afternoon and Saturday. We enjoyed Sunday and flew home on Monday. The senior missionaries took us under their wing and included us in all of their activities. We went out to eat with them, had a nice fireside with them, even went snorkeling with them. Yes, senior missionaries can snorkle in Tonga. We met a family of wood carvers. He has 12 children, four of them boys. He has taught all the boys how to carve and all of his son-in-laws how to carve. They all do very cool carvings. Some pictures are on the Tonga album for you to see. Tonga is still a Kingdom with a King. Church members number somewhere between 35-45% of the population. Like Samoa, they place chapels in every village. The chapels are very nice. We had a great time. Miriam was on her own while I worked but she managed to have great experiences. She will add her own Tonga story. The Church has a 99 year lease on all the property they have chapels on. The story goes that just recently the King liked some of the buildings and told the Church he wanted them. The Church initially said no because they were chapels but the King insisted. The Church conceded. Then he did it again and wanted another building. He insisted because he was the King and it was his property. The Church mowed down the chapel and turned over the land to the King. That made the King mad. Then some of the Kings family died in an accident in the USA. The funeral was a huge deal where all the local churches try to do something special. The LDS Church provided all the beef for the events (they last about a week). Then the church did a big presentation where thousands of members sang. The King was so moved that he signed the lease agreement for another 99 years. This just happened a couple of years ago. About a year ago their was a revolution of sorts down here where there were a bunch of riots and 85% of the businesses were burned. Its all settled down now and new businesses are moving in. The King is in power and when he dies his brother will be King.
1 comment:
Were you able to recover your Samoa pictures? Or were those just the end of the trip. You should start putting more photos on the blog. The one of Bob in his lava lava is hilarious.
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