Kenny & Becky Kapp: 12 Puaka (pig) Next?

"12 Steak" Restaurant

The owner of 12 Seafood told us about another restaurant her husband just opened up about a quarter mile from her restaurant that serves New Zealand beef. They named it .... you guessed it "12 Steak' restaurant". It's 12 item menu was mostly based on beef, however, there was Fish and Chips and a Chicken item listed on the menu.

Since we have really enjoyed the "12 Seafood" restaurant we had to go try "12 Steak" and decided that night was as good as any so we headed over at 6:30 p.m. We were the first guests to arrive for dinner (they opened at 6:00 p.m.) and placed our order. I ordered the bourbon steak, medium rare, with all the fixin's. As per my usual, I had my bottle of Heinz 57 steak sauce. Elder Hudson had the sirloin steak also medium rare. The ladies had the beef stew.

In the end the steak was a little bit undercooked which made it somewhat chewy but at least it wasn't gristly. It was pretty good but it definitely won't surpass the Seaview Cafe as my favorite. We may go try a few of their lunch items as they seemed a little more reasonably priced.

We did have some live entertainment that we enjoyed while we ate. I have posted a short video clip along with the photo of the band. One was in a wheelchair and the keyboard player was blind.

The band did a good job and we
enjoyed the music with our dinner.

I wondered what the saying on the T-shirt was as I didn't want to post something inappropriate so we asked one of our missionaries to translate for us and got something like; "If you stab (or pierce) the truth, you'll know you should". This got us pretty close but since it didn't make a lot of sense to us we asked Elder Va'enuku and he said it means; "If you have a strong testimony you'll recognize the truth". We'll go with that one but give kudos to our young missionaries who actually got us pretty close.

Now we're just waiting for the "12 Chicken" and/or "12 Pig" restaurant to open and complete the set.

Chinese Hospital Ship

A Chinese Hospital Ship arrived in Tonga on Monday. The Ark Peace (as it's called) is here to provide free medical services in Tonga for eight days. This is the second time the ship has visited Tonga as it was here three years ago. "They are providing free medical services to the locals as a sign of good will in exchange for cultural entertainment to help develop a better understanding and deepen the traditional relationship between the two countries that currently exists." Click here to read more about this in the news.

At the Ice-cream Store

2 young girls oogling the desserts

Ice-cream all around here.

We did have time to stop at the ice-cream shop and have banana chocolate chip ice-cream cones that were really good. There were a few others there enjoying the sweets too. The price on the P-Nut butter cake on the left ... $120. (TOP)

Today is Saturday and the rest of the senior missionaries went whale watching. We changed our date so we can go when John Perry is visiting. It will be fun to go with him and experience the raging sea. I'm sure we'll hear all about the senior outing that we missed but we ended up seeing many missionaries today anyway so it would have made today a very long day. We may add a few of their photos to the end of the blog if we can get them before we post it.

Our Big Mote

Timote (Kau) sent us a few photos of the work he's been doing. He's been working in his community to help clean-up all the fallen coconut trees so they can be milled in the portable saw mill. The logs are very heavy but Big Mote is up to the challenge. After hauling these around all day he heads to the gym for a workout ... or just finds ways to workout at home.

He wants to find a job but says right now the community needs him more as he donates his time and efforts as directed by his Bishop. They used a few of the logs to build this stand (on the right) to help in the milling process.

Field of logs gathered and ready for the portable saw mill.

Elder Taufeulangaki

Elder Taufeulungaki (good luck with that one) and Elder Clifton enjoying a refreshing sip of coconut juice right from the coconut at the end of their nguae 'ofa (work of love or service project). I love the photos of Elders and Sisters that just dig right in to some pretty "dirty" work. If you click on the photos you can see soot on their faces.

Elder Clifton

An older couple's home burned down a few days ago (non-members) and these two decided to help in the clean-up of all the old burned wood. The couple didn't want us to post a photo of their burned home (which we totally understand) but we did want to post these happy elders photos. They worked so hard to help this family in need. We still had a little bit of money left that had been donated before and we had been looking for the right place so we gave it to them (the homeowners). They were very grateful for the donation and all the hard work to help them in their time of need. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of them.