Rock'n and Roll'n in Tonga

(CNN) -- A tsunami warning was issued and then canceled Friday shortly after a major earthquake struck early Friday off the coast of Tonga.
The earthquake "generated a small tsunami," but there is "no evidence of destructive waves," said Stewart Weinstein, assistant director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.
Robert Cessaro, a geophysicist with the center, said: "There's a tsunami in the water, but it's not gonna do much."
On the largest island in the Tonga chain, Tongatapu, in the capital city of Nukualofa, a clerk at the International Dateline Hotel said the earthquake was felt but caused no damage.
At the Fafa Island Resort, off Nukualofa, Joseph Sanladerer told CNN that the earthquake woke up guests and shook wine glasses from racks, but caused no significant damage. iReport: Did you feel the quake?
The tsunami center issued the regional tsunami warning for parts of the Pacific near the quake's epicenter, about 213 kilometers (132 miles) south-southeast of Nuku'alofa, Tonga. The quake struck at 6:17 a.m. local time (6:17 p.m. GMT).
At a depth of just 6.2 miles (10 km), it is considered a shallow earthquake. Typically, the shallower the quake, the more destructive potential it carries. But that is not always the case.
The USGS recorded the quake as 7.9 magnitude; the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it was 7.7. There were no immediate reports of damage or death.
The earthquake struck a few hours after a volcano erupted off Tongatapu, Tonga, about 200 km away.
Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California, said: "The association with the volcanic activity seems to be an interesting added dimension to this. It's not clear at this point that there is a direct association, but it seems suggestive at this point."



Elder Tulane's thoughts on the events...
Hey mom
Yeah the earthquake was pretty cool. It happened around 8 o'clock on Friday morning if I remember right. I was just laying on my bed when it happened. It shook us really good but there was no damage done anywhere. It lasted for about a minute and was pretty fun haha. I didn’t find out about the tsunami until later, they were gunna have to move a few missionaries but then the warning got canceled so everything was ok. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure I would have been safe where I was.

Transfers were today and I’m staying in Holonga but I’m getting a new comp, he is on his way from Vava'u so it will take a day or two for him to get here. In the mean time I’m staying with my district leaders.

This week has been kinda tough, I've been sick and haven't been able to eat much; mostly head aches and stomach pains. The whole thing has made me pretty homesick (haha) but don’t worry its nothing serious and our nurse, Sister Garrett, is taking real good care of me.
Well it was great to hear from you. I miss you guys like crazy
Elder Tulane

tHe HaKA!!!

Here is Elder Tulane learning the HAKA in the MTC! He is already our "little" Tongan!!

E-mails March 2, 2009

Hey mom, thanks for the letters! I have good news but I already wrote about it to dad, so you will just have to ask him what happened cause I am not gonna write all that twice! Ha ha! Missionaries here all have their own houses, we live on the Stake President's property, but in seperate houses. Our house has one room with a sink and 2 beds (it is smaller than my bedroom at home), and a bathroom with another sink, toilet and shower. We have running water but it is cold, which really doesn't bother me. We have a scheduled fafanga (meal) every morning and night with different families in the ward. The houses here remind me of Charlie Bucket's house (from Willey Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). I have not been able to finish a full meal yet, ha ha! My companion is really good. The AP told me that Pres. McMurry was worried that my MTC experience wasn't great since I was a solo missionary, so he hooked me up with the best elder they had!!! I'm getting plenty of good pictures. Anything else you want to know, just ask and I'll be happy to fill you in! Oh yeah, I'm on Tongatapu, which is the main island, in a town called Holonga. But our area also covers the towns of Malapo and Pelehake. I love you all and miss you very much. Ofa lahi atu! (Much love to you!)

Elder Tulane



Hey dad, its good to hear from you. I’m more adjusted this week and I’m sure that I will continue to adjust with every week. I have some big news... I got my first baptism yesterday! (Sunday). The kids name was Nepote. He is about 18 years old and we only started teaching him less than 2 weeks ago, so it happened pretty fast. My companion let me do the honors, since I’ve never baptized anyone before. It was awesome. I said the whole prayer in Tongan and even got to wear the white tupenu. The fonts are outside here so that was really cool as well. I’ve been to Liahona a few times, mostly on P-days when I go with the other palangi, (white) elders, on the island to language study with President Shumway. How is everything going back home? I miss you guys very much. Send all my love to the family.

Elder Tulane


If any one has any questions you would like us to e-mail Stan and ask, just post up a comment!

Our first e-mail from Tonga!!!

Hey family,
Sorry it took so long to write, the e-mail was down last week. I had to make to new account because "ldsmail" is too slow here. I'm doing fine. My area is called Holonga. My comp is Elder Alatini, he is from here in Tonga. I haven't aquired a taste for the food yet, haha, and it's been a bigger culture shock than I thought it would be. It is very humid here and I am always wet and sticky. We have running water but it is cold. The members feed us all our meals, I'm not starving. The people live very humble lives here and sometimes we just eat crackers because thats all they have to offer us. The biggest thing that bugs me is the lack of hygene, but I'll get used to it. This is not what I pictured a mission being like. It's alot more laid back than most missions. I still haven't decided if thats a good thing or a bad thing. I'm not really enjoying myself yet and I've been upset more than a few times, but I am enduring. All of the people here are very nice. Tell everyone my new e-mail address. I love you all tons and miss you.
stantulane40@gmail.com
Elder Tulane


(Feel free to e-mail Elder Tulane, but don't expect a prompt response. He is only allowed to e-mail parents and siblings, and it takes a few weeks to get a letter back from him!)

MTC pictures

Here are some photos from the MTC.



Elder Tulane pointing out Tonga on the infamous MTC map!

Stan holding his "Em Tee Cee" awards. He won Kolipoki and Chunk King.

His buddies: Elder Wall, Elder Brunson, Stan, and Elder Sheppard

He and Elder Wall at the Temple.

His Fijian District

Stan even met up with one of his buddies from home, Tyler Hall.

Here they are, muscles in tow!

Finally... an update!

Elder Tulane assures us that his camera memory card is on it's way, but until then, he sent a couple of pictures to tide us over!!! Doesn't he look so good! We just found out that he got his flight plans to Tonga. He leaves next Tuesday, February 10 at 3 pm. He flies to L.A. where he has a 6 hour lay-over. Then flies all night long, straight to Tonga, leaving at 10:15pm. He should arrive in Tonga on the 12th at 8:30 am. He will never live in February 11, 2009! He flies over the international date line!!!

Here are a few little excerpts from some of his recent letters:

December 22
I just had an interesting experience in the Resource Center and I have to tell you it before I forget. The Resource Center is where I get on the phone and either call people to confirm that they received a book or video that they ordered or I receive calls from people who have questions. So this guy just called me and wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon, so I said "Of course". Then he started to tell me all these inconsistencies with it and accused me of not being Christian. He read a scripture from 2nd Corinthians talking about believing in a false Jesus Christ. I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon? He said yes. I asked if he had prayed to know that it is true? He said he didn't have to because God had not commanded him to. He said he wouldn't pray about something so ridiculous. So, I told him to pray to know that the Book of Mormon WAS ridiculous, and he still said he wouldn't. He asked me if I agreed with the scripture in 2nd Corinthians and I said, "Absolutely! And I'm glad that I belong to the very same church that Christ, himself, established during his mortal ministry". This guy even tried to say that the Book of Mormon was false because there was a guy named 'Moron' in it!(I guess he forgot about the man named 'Nimrod' in the Bible!!!) He said that "Lehi" translated means "jawbone" so obviously the Book of Mormon is wrong. He chastized me for believing that Jesus and Satan are brothers and called me a Satanist for thinking we have a Heavenly Mother. He even told me that I believe that God is a polygamist. I tried to bear my testimony and tell him that I know the Book of Mormon is true and I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, but every time I tried to defend my beliefs, he would just interrupt me and didn't care about anything I had to say. (How very Christian of him!) He even accused me of being childish because he heard me tell another missionary that we were "bible bashing". When our time was up to leave the Resource Center, I told him that I had to go. He asked me to consider what we had talked about, leave the "cult" and become a true christian. I in turn invited him to do the same and wished him a Merry Christmas.
I am really upset right now and now that I have had time to think and gather some thoughts, I wish I could talk to him again, even though it wouldn't do any good because he didn't call to have a discussion. His agenda was to shake my faith. What he doesn't realize is that he strengthened my faith! See, the past few days have been tough. I'm struggling with the lessons and have questioned myself about whether or not I knew enough to teach other people about the gospel. I have heard in talks and read in books here where it says that in order to invite people to know the things that I'm teaching are true, I need to know they are true first. I wondered if I was struggling with the lessons because I didn't know that what I was teaching was the truth. The past several nights in my prayers, I've asked my Heavenly Father to testify to me that the things that I'm teaching are true. So today when this man was trying to get me to turn my back on what I believed, I did not hesitate to bear witness to him that I know the things I believe are true. I realize now that God answered my prayers with that phone call.
I know now that I can teach these lessons because I know that I'm preaching the truth. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know it was translated by a prophet of God and I know that we are led by a prophet today. That prophet called me specifically to go and preach the things that I know to the people of Tonga. I know my Heavenly Father loves me.


December 25
It doesn't even feel like Christmas here but I have been doing some cool stuff. Last night elder Bednar spoke to us and we got to shake his hand after. It was sweet! Then this morning Elder Holland came, we didn't get to shake his hand which was a bummer because he is my favorite Apostle, but he gave a great talk. We have 2 more devotionals today so I am excited to see who we will get to hear from next! There are 2 elders from Tonga here and yesterday they came in my class and I got to sing some Tongan hymns with them. It was awesome!!! They have songs that we don't have here in America, and they are such good singers! One of them has a way high singing voice, if you heard his voice without seeing him you wouldn't believe it was coming from his mouth. The other has a way deep voice and he reminded me of The Rock.


December 28
I thought I would write and give you some stuff for the blog:
Elder Wall is my new companion. His companion had to go home for surgery. We have our own room and we have discovered that the top two floors in our dorm are empty, so we get private bathrooms too, haha! Wall is from Layton, by the way. Technically I'm in my own district, but I do activities with the Fijians. There are 5 of them. We are in a zone with 8 elders going to Haitian speaking missions in the U.S.


January 31
The Fijians are leaving today so my new district will be with the Samoans until I leave. I'm going to be just like Mike, and will be flying all by my lonesome. Last night, we had a zone "Awards Show" and I won the 'Chunk King' (will gain the most weight on my mission) and the 'Kolipoki' award (will be most loved by the people I serve). It was one of the funnest nights we've had.



You can see in this picture Elder Tulane's "studying face"!
"I have always said a little church goes a long way, so you can imagine how far church ALL day, EVERY day can stretch! haha! I love and miss you all!"

Elder Tulane