Happy Birthday to the King of Tonga...and America!

Happy Fourth of July! I'm sad I won't be there to see the fireworks..but it's the King's birthday here in Tonga so they're celebrating that here which is pretty cool. 

Anyways, we got our new mission president this week! We will meet him tomorrow at Mission Leadership Conference and I'm very excited. He's Tongan from New Zealand and is pretty young but has already been a Stake President. I've heard really good things about him so I'm looking forward to the things I'll learn from him and his wife! He's a convert to the church and just found out what a district meeting is haha so it's going to be interesting! But his wife served her mission in Tonga several years ago. 

This week was a bit of a struggle with the work but we worked hard so it was good. We had taught one family last week who seemed really open and excited to hear our message. We went back yesterday and she had just talked with her preacher about it. She shared with a some scriptures that talked about "palofita kaka" --false prophets. And with so many words told us that we were those false prophets and that we can leave her family alone and lead away others. This isn't the first time this has happened. So we listened respectfully. I asked her a few questions and she told us that she will never believe Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true. It broke my heart a little because she had no idea what she was denying. I told her we respect her belief and we're not going to force anything upon her, our responsibility as missionaries is to simply invite and then we respect others agency...but then we left her with our testimonies. I hope and pray she felt the Spirit while we testified cause I surely did. I pray her kids felt it. She was kind enough and let us leave them with a prayer. Her girls hugged us goodbye. It broke my heart but I pray they'll be open to the truth one day. 

The baby was blessed yesterday and they explained to us why they named him Thomas Lucas Reid. Thomas is after the prophet (Thomas S Monson) and Lucas/Reid were named after us (the two servants of the Lord). they're so cute!

We have one investigator that is really progressing towards baptism this week or next week. His name is Fe'ao. He's about 20 years old and moved in with one of our members a little while ago. I love this work and seeing how it changes people! 

Last night, we taught a man from Tahiti (Bishop found him) who is here and wants to start a business. He speaks Tahitian, French, and a little English so we taught him at Bishop's house and talked very slowing. In the middle of the lesson our Bishop started saying things in French to him and me and my companion look at each other SO confused. And then we looked at his wife like how is your husband speaking French?! I swear he got the Gift of Tongues or something. He didn't tell us until after the lesson that he lived in France for two years to play rugby. So funny. Then we went home and saw a lizard licking my ice cream cake that I left on the table. Gotta love living in Tonga. 

Hope you all have an awesome week! The Lord loves you. I love you. 

Sister Reid