Independence Day!!!

The Fourth of July was, I think, the best day I've had on my mission. Our mission president told us that the best way to spend the Fourth of July was to be with the members. Unfortunately our tongan ward had an activity outside our mission bounderies so we couldn't go. We were really bummed out, we wanted to spent time with them and eat some of their wonderful food. Since that didn't work out, we decided to go to a breakfast that some elders invited us to. We went there and we ate and got to know more people from our stake. After that we went to our english ward's breakfast get-together to spend some time with them. Before we left, we saw some tongan brothers settign up a grill. We asked them if they were ganna have a party and they said, "No we're ganna have a tongan feast." My companion and I decided that this was something that we HAD to attend to. So we went home to study for a while, and we called the same elders from the morning to invite them also. So we went to the "feast" at around 2pm. We got there and some other elders were already there. Then eventually the Sister Missionaries got there. We chilled, we talked, we ate wonderfull tongan food and had a blast. We had a crazy experience happen to us while we were there. Some guys were popping some fireworks in the church's parking lot. We saw them playing around and having fun but something had to go wrong. So they were playing with illegal fireworks and some tipped over as they lit them so when they went off they hit some trees that were near. Those poor trees didn't have a chance. They went up on fire like matches. The flames were like 15ft high. We called the fire department and they actually got there pretty quick. The good thing for those guys was that they didn't run away, they took to the consequense. It wasn't too bad but we had a huge scare. After that the sister missionaries and the elders went to see the fireworks in Down Town Portland. We went to the Willamitte River were we could see them. That day was a real fun one and I dont think Ill ever forget it.

ELDER ARCIA
(stripplingarcia@myldsmail.net)