7/7/25
Kia Ora Sister Wihongi,
Monday June 30th, I felt better in the afternoon to go out for Tyrells Birthday. We shouted to Tyrell, ‘Sukiya’. We ordered 5 Sushi rolls, and they were yummier than the buffet. The buffet’s meat was a bit dry, probably cause people eat the sushi and raw fish stuff mainly. We got full though and drank some yummy mango and coconut milk drinks. It was very expensive, $200 for 5 people. But Alisa ended up paying for herself and Erana, which she wasn’t supposed to. So now we owe them a dinner again lol
Friday for the 4th of July, we slept in and then went to the West Jordan Parade. We found a spot usually where we sit. It was hot and sunny with a nice breeze, we had an umbrella. The Parade was fun and it seemed short. We celebrated at Uncle Scotts house, in the afternoon. We had BBQ and I made ‘baked beans’ and ‘potato salad’. Shaun and Tania’s families did not attend. Girls went swimming in the Hot tub. And we did fireworks in the cul-de-sac. Oh yeah and Talia and Nate eloped in Las Vegas this past week. They were at Uncle’s and we congratulated them! Also your Uncle Tyrone Midgley and his wife Sarah were there. They had visited back in January but are planning to move here from Australia. He is a younger brother to your Uncle Sheldon.
Love you Mum and Dad xxx
Hello Sister Wihongi,
Sorry we haven't written to you in a while. These past couple weeks was my birthday and the 4th of July celebration. For my birthday Alisa bought me two new pairs of shoes. She also prepared a surprise party for me before my birthday and all my friends were in the backyard waiting for me to come out. We ate burgers, talked a lot and played blood on the clocktower. Then on my actual birthday, we went to sukiya for dinner with mom, dad, and erana. Then another day, Her parents took me to a place called Thai delight Cafe for dinner. They had one of the best phos I've ever had. For the 4th of July Alisa and I went to the bakery in Chinatown, then we went to Aunty and Uncles for dinner. There was a lot of yummy food. And a lot of cousins showed up including louisa with her new baby. Alisa and I made pasta salad and strawberry sago. We also brought the coolest fireworks. On Sunday we had a hot dog picnic at grandma's grave, and then we went home and watched old family home videos. Anyways, that's about all. We're glad to see you doing okay.
We love you! Tyrell and Alisa
Talofa Sis Wihongi,
A lot has happened. Molenis had their family camp at bear lake. Tane and I went after work on a Thursday and stayed the weekend. We ate at Zips which was a popular spot at bear lake and it was sooo yummy. They had yummy crispy tater tots and a delicious cheesy burger with a jalapeño raspberry jam on it. We went to zips twice. Of course we swam at the lake, played clocktower, and also played some pickleball. Then we came home on Saturday in time for a surprise birthday party for Tyrell. It was in alisas backyard. I took louisas and Josh's photos with new baby kiera. Then it was 4th of July and celebrated that at aunty Heathers. In the morning, we bought some nz meat pies and sausage rolls from my stake's party. I am doing a lot better and things feel back to normal.
Alofa atu, Mina and Tane-Toa
7/14/25
Hi Sister Wihongi,
The big event last week was Maddie and Nephi’s official wedding and reception Friday evening. It was at a wedding place called Siempre in Draper on the south end foothills which had an awesome view of the Salt Lake Valley. It started at 4:30pm but we were a little late. We picked up Suresa because Nephi is a relative. They had the wedding vows outside then the reception inside. It wasn’t too crowded. It was about 200 people. We were on table 21 at the front near the food and they let our table go first. It was pulled pork, rice, cheese breads, salad, and salmon. It was ok. After we went up a level to a dance floor area where they had a DJ. They did the usual speeches, toasts, cake cutting, parents dances, then Maddie did the money dance. She did well and there were heaps of money on the floor. Then Uncle Jared did a wero, mum did the karanga and we did kamate. Uncle Shaun did his best maori warrior impression with the patu off to the side when all that was going on. Uncle Jared explained it all before we started it. Nephi and his brothers joined in the haka as they had practised. They took off their shirts but I didn’t do that because they might have been ashamed of their NFL football bodies if they saw that a 53 year old’s body was more muscular. They had cake and ice cream and then sliders and fries later. We danced to the DJ music and Erana had fun dancing. We left about 9:30pm to take Suresa home. Jaxon saw someone he thought was pretty but he didn’t make any moves. It went to about 10pm.
Sunday only Tyrell and Alisa came for dinner. Mina had a photoshoot. We had cut up pork chops and zuchinnis from the garden and some grilled cheese bread with meats on top. They watched Flushed Away after in the basement, Erana’s choice.
Keep doing your best in your service to the Lord. We love you so much.
Mum and Dad
7/22/2025
Hi Sis Wihongi,
In response to your email, Tane-Toa supported me by doing what I say and listening. He can do better at “see a need, fill a need” instead of me needing to tell him how to care for me. I already told him that so hopefully he does better next time if I'm being honest😅 But I have a habit of hiding my “rough” moments because I dont want people to see me as weak or I'm afraid of how theyll react. but I do let it slip in front of Tane-Toa sometimes and he gives me hugs and kisses. But he is an example to me because he is a positive sunshine boy. Always making me laugh and smile when i dont want to. I'm always thinking the worst and stress myself out but he reminds me to have joy, I'm blessed to have his cheerfulness. Sometimes he is oblivious to my feelings though lol. I just read the recent hunger games book called Sunrise on the Reaping. Its about Haymitch's games, hes the drunk guy that mentors katniss and peeta. His back story is really really sad. It was a really good book though. Had bookclub on Friday about it and I had a trivia for it. Louisa won the trivia and she won a swig gift card. Ariana came and brought her kids and they just hung out with Tane-Toa the whole time on the kitchen table hahah they loved him. Tane-Toa is the toddler/baby whisperer. I went to a content shoot with chrystelle at the Sahara desert (sand dunes) and it went pretty nice. I was sick last week too with a cold. When i started to lose my purpose, I just remember my “why”. I wanted to serve a mission because I wanted others to know the peace, love, forgiveness that I've felt because of our Savior’s Atonement. He saved me and I had received firm confirmation that He lives and loves me. Because of that, I was pretty driven throughout my mission so didnt really lose my sight of purpose. But just think about those souls who are yearning for peace and love that only Jesus can bring and you only have 18 months to find as many as you can! Even if that soul ends up being yourself or just a companion or 1 person, it counts! Anyways thats all the time I have right now. You having trouble with that? What are your current struggles?
Alofa atu, Mina
Talofa Sister Wihongi,
Monday July 14th, went to carve at Uncles. Been cleaning and organizing and supposed to be dejunking the house. But seems like there’s nothing to get rid of. Erana had Tausala practice and it was at our chapel. I got the girls ice-cream pops, popsicles and watermelon. Brought back happy memories of when we would practice there all the time. It’s nice having Aunty Fina back teaching.
Wednesday 16th, did carving at Uncles, Aunty Jenni Atkinson came too carve her taonga. A huge wooden necklace for her relative in NZ. We had combined Young Women Mutual at Murray Park. We took Uncle Scotts badminton and corn throw games. We ate yummy treats/snacks that Sis. Jamie Skinner brought. The girls played twister, and our games we brought. It rained on us sometimes.
Thursday July 17th, I went carving at Uncles. I also have those gourds that I bought you last year. Tyrell drew a maori design on one of them and Uncle was carving it and accidentally put a small hole in it. Uncle also gave me two huge gourds, one of them I’ll make into a drum for you.
Erana had Tausala again, they have a show on Friday at the Samoan Heritage Festival.
Friday July 18th. I didn’t go to Uncles’ cause Jay, Erana and I did Temple baptisms at the Taylorsville Temple. Sister Ballard was the lady that gave us our clothing. Dad went first and then baptized Baby and I. We went to Samoan Heritage Festival around 530pm, it seemed busier than last year. We got Otai, and food it was expensive. I got lamb curry, and a Samoan meat plate and panikoko. We got at spot right up front in the middle of the stage area. The show went well, except for the girls got their costumes there and for some reason they didn’t get their Hawaiian costumes. Also I think the seamstress lady gave baby the wrong Puletasi top, she had to squeeze into it. The dances were awesome and we had a nice time, it started to sprinkle near the end of our show. And so we didn’t stay to watch anything else.
Saturday July 19th. Ashley Morgan got engaged and it was her bridal shower today. Jaslyn Masina had her baby shower last Saturday (Tonja’s youngest bro.wife is having twins for her, because she can’t have babies). This coming saturday is Alyssa Skinners wedding, next Saturday is AnnaLee Morgans wedding.
Well that was last week, Dad and I will be camping for 2 days at Pineview, Yippee! lol There’s so much stuff we had to pack in the car. You’ll hear about it next letter. Thank you for you cute email you sent for our Whanau. We love you very much, Mum and Dad xxx
7/28/25
Hi Sister Leila Pearl Wihongi,
Last week’s highlight was camping Wednesday and Thursday and coming home Friday. Just Mum and I. Erana went to FSY and had a good time. Hopefully she can tell you about it. She came home Saturday morning. We first stopped at Magpie camp, the place we camped at last year but the spot we used was taken so we put a paper on another site then went down the road to see if better open spots were available. We found a nice camp site right next to a river in the South Fork camp place. We’ve been there before when you were little. So we reserved it and went back to the first one and took our paper off the sign. There was a little hidden spot by the river where we just sunbathed for both days. We didn’t bother going to the lake. Mum would go up to her neck in the river but it was so cold I could only go up to my thighs, lol. We used a nice new big tent that we got last year. We also bought a new full size air bed where we could both fit on. We made our meals and had a camp fire. We had hot dogs, stew, baked beans and other food. When it was dark we laid by the fire on a blanket and looked at the stars. I did think about the times we did these things with our kids and started to miss you all. You’ve all grown up so fast. We went in the tent and watched a movie on our laptop both nights that I copied on a usb disk. The Thunderbolts the 1st night and Predator: Killer of Killers the next night, an animated movie. We didn’t finish them before we got sleepy and watched the rest in the morning. The nights got pretty cool, in the high 50’s but we had enough warm stuff. We went to the park in town Thursday to catch up on messages and email, etc because there was no data signal at camp. We got more firewood, ice and a shake each. Friday morning we got up, packed everything back up and headed out about 11:30am and got another shake. Mum got a bunch of clothes in bags from Auntie Christine and went through them all to see if she wanted to keep anything. It’s all going to the Moleni families. She also went through more of Grandma’s stuff that Scott and Heather have finally all boxed up ready to throw out. Uncle Jared will take most of it to store at his house. Saturday we went and got Uncle Scott’s old couches from the basement. They got new ones as well as new carpet. Mum cleaned them up and put more padding in some of the seat pillows and they look nicer now. And to answer your questions, my garden is doing good. I’m growing cucumbers, which we made the first ones into pickles which were yum, Golden melon which I think grew too late in the season to get ripe in time, zucchinis, the small tomatoes we had last year and potatoes. I can’t remember any new stuff I have learned this year. Love you heaps, we’re so proud of you. Dad and Mum.
Talofa Sister Wihongi,
Tuesday 29th, went to the movies and watched ‘Fantastic Four’. It was a good movie. But I felt guilty missing the Stake Youth Pool Party at Centennial Pool. But Erana said she’d prefer going to the movies. We also ate out at ‘Rollz’, had yummy pho, sandwich and spring rolls.
Wednesday, was dentist and ortho appointments for Dad and Erana.
In the mornings I wake up at 7am and get ready to go to Uncle Richard Poulsens house to do my wood carving. I’m carving a taiaha for Tane and Tyrell, which I started last summer. Uncle gave me some gourds to make a drum for you and to carve. I’m also going to carve a ‘patu’ for you and Erana.
Love Mum and Dad xxx
