Kenny & Becky Kapp: Sunrise Over Tonga

Sunrise onWednesday May 23, 2018 looking East from just
outside of our back door. The colors were so vivid!
(darn power lines)

Each week seems to bring something new. I have posted many photos of sunsets especially from our favorite location at the Houma Blow Holes. This week however, we had some unique sunrises (maybe I'm just not up and out early enough) so when I saw this one I had to capture it. This view is from just outside our back door as we were getting into the car to pickup missionaries and get them to their appointments. All I could hear in my mind was "red sky in morning, sailor take warning" ... it tried out to be a beautiful day however.

Looking out over a field as we drove.
(near Tokomololo)

The very next morning we ran into a thick eerie fog that just kind of hung over everything as we drove to town. We have seen some fog from time to time but nothing this thick or extensive before. We also must have been at the dew point as the windows fogged up immediately and we had to keep the windshield wipers going along with the defroster even though it didn't seem cool at all. That seems to happen in both the Spring and Fall as we move through the season changes into Summer and Winter.

Looking through our windshield as the morning Sun shone through the fog.

Hospital health clinic.

We have an Elder who broke his wrist playing volleyball (he tripped over a young child). As he tried to avoid hurting the child he caught himself with his wrist taking his weight. It took us several days to get him to the main island from Ha'apai for an X-ray and treatment. We arrived about 25 minutes before the clinic was scheduled to open hoping to be seen quickly so we could get on with our day only to find that it was already packed with patients. We ended up waiting about 2 hours to be seen only to be turned away and told to come back tomorrow for the cast as the doctor was only seeing patient in the clinic today and did not have time to put on a cast.

Elder Barrus with PA Lynne Aho.

Lynne Aho is an American Physicians Assistant who Lepeka loves to work with. She is always willing to go the extra mile and has helped us out on many occasions. Lynne said she was happy to help and both Elder Barrus and Lynne seemed pretty happy with the results. He finally got his cast after about 10 days of being in a brace. At least the swelling had gone down so it should be comfortable (at least as comfortable as a cast can be). Elder Barrus gave his permission for us to use the photo so his mom can see he's alright.

Cruise ship in Tongatapu

On Friday there was another cruise ship in port. We caught them around 5:30 p.m. just before they were scheduled to leave. We think we saw a few people scurrying back to catch the ship. We had to throw this photo in for all of our cruising buddies ... especially Angela and David (hint hint). We keep wondering why the haven't started using the new cruise terminal that seems to be completed except for some landscaping and parking lot pavement. It seemed to be complete before the cyclone but they dug up the asphalt after the storm and obviously had to redo the landscaping.

Senior P-day lunch at the Scenic Hotel

Miniature Golf

Saturday was P-day for the senior missionaries and we played miniature golf and had a lunch at the Scenic Hotel over by the airport. We had never been here but the Hotel is very nice and we had a very tasty lunch. They also have a nice pool for their guests to utilize. They told us that we were welcomed to use it as well. A couple of senior couples took them up on their offer. The rest of us left to take a well deserved nap after a grueling round of miniature golf. The miniature golf course has probably seen better days but we had fun playing all 17 holes (hole 3 was closed .... well it is Tonga).

We'll end with some more photos from around the island.

Missionary P-day earlier in the week. When we drove up they were playing
extremely hard and they stopped as we drove in. I wanted to get an action
photo so you could see the special footwear (flip-flops and boots)

This mama dog was a newborn puppy when we first arrived in Tonga.
Now she has a young pup of her own. We only saw the one (in Veitongo).

Nice fixer-upper in Popua ... small down-payment, take over liability.

Molokau in Vava'u. Photo taken by Phil Hudson dentist at large. Phil says
that it was 6 inches long but it is on 12 inch floor tiles ... you be the judge.