My mom once again, has coaxed me
into writing another blog post, this time about my Tonga trip, as many, if not
all of you helped me in some way make it to Tonga. This trip was the most life
changing experience of my life, a great testimony builder, and a huge eye
opener as to the comforts I take for granted every day. I would first like to
thank all of you for all that you have done for me, whether through donations,
prayers, fasting, or some good advice, thank you so much, it was greatly
appreciated. Preparing for this trip was by no means a cake walk. For some
reason, I thought it to be a good idea last November, while signing up for this
trip, that having to earn close to $3,000 wasn’t enough stress, and added an
eagle project on top of that. For my project, I chose to provision a Tongan
rugby team with much needed rugby equipment. The process of preparing and
completing my eagle project was an absolute nightmare from start to finish, but
seeing the gratitude on the humble faces of the local village rugby teams made
every single headache and dollar worth it. There is no doubt in my mind
Heavenly Father was with me from the very beginning, as after every single
detail went a-rye, when all of my options where exhausted, everything would
miraculously fall back into place. From the beginning I knew my project was
going to work out, so every problem that popped up was just going to make it a
better story. Throughout all of my struggles, I always heard President Monson’s
voice echoing in my head “Since when did anything worthwhile come easy?”
I will not lay out all of the
problems I faced while in the process of this project, but just the biggest
ones, as they make the best story anyways. HEFY told all of the participants
that the airline we were to take to Tonga allowed each passenger 2- 50lb
luggage bags, but one could only use one bag for personal belongings. The other
bag was only to be used if the aspiring eagle scout asked you to take a bag of
supplies, rugby equipment in my case, to Tonga so the scout will not have
outrageous baggage fees. I had gathered over 300lbs of equipment, so I asked 6
participants to do this for me. I then mailed out all of the equipment to
various parts of the country, so the participants could bring it to LAX and
then to Tonga for no extra charge. Well, less than 2 weeks before we departed,
HEFY sent me an email, telling me the baggage allowances on the website were
wrong. Each passenger is only allowed 1 bag of 50 lbs, and for every kilo over
(or 2.2 pounds), the passenger would be charged $7. I did the math and quickly
found out that I would have close to a thousand dollars in baggage fees. I
earned a little over $400 doing a pancake breakfast a few months before hand.
That didn’t quite cover the cost. I found out a few days later that I would be
charged this excess baggage fee not once, but twice, once in LAX and once in
Nadi, Fiji, as we had a three day layover there. With all of my savings and the
pancake breakfast, I still had less than $1500, I called everyone I knew, the airline, HEFY, my scout
leader, asking if there was any way they could help, anything they could do, as
this problem came last second, with no time and no chance for me to do another
fundraiser (BSA takes over a week to review your fundraising request and you may
not start working on it at all until they have approved it). HEFY responded
with some smart aleck, “This is your project, so either find a way to get the
fees waived, or BE PREPAIRED to pay the fees”.
I didn’t know what to do. I
physically couldn’t take the equipment over with the present situation. The
other scout doing the eagle project on this trip dropped out after hearing
about these outrageous baggage fees. My mom, using a great analogy, told me, if
this project really was something Heavenly Father would want me to do, it would
work out. So I pressed forward, as Nephi, not knowing before hand what I should
do. The day before I left for LAX, I received some last second and much needed
donations from unexpected people, and the airline gave me a 20% discount on my
excess fees. That cut the cost down to $1500, and now I had about $1600 in my
savings. It was doable, and I was ready to go.
In LAX, I gathered all of my bags,
and went up to the check in counter to pay for them all. The lady at the
counter said my record shows no sign of this 20% discount, so I was going to
have to pay the full amount. I was about to rip my hair out. Luckily, I spotted
my “mom” for the trip, called her over, told her what was going on (she had
heard nothing of my discount either), she called HEFY, HEFY called their travel
agents, who called the airline, long story short, 45 minutes later, it was
cleared up, and I had my discount. After tallying up the cost, the lady asked
me to pay her, not the $700 I was expecting, but $380. I tried to keep a
straight face as I gave her my card and she rang it up. I did not question it, I just said thank you and
walked away.
We then spent 3 days in Fiji, and
had a blast. At the Fiji airport, I once again gathered all my bags and took
them to the counter. The lady once again had never heard of my discount. The
trip leader tried calling HEFY, but because of the time change, it was 1 am in
Utah, so no one picked up. Levi, my adult leader, came over to try and help. He
told her what was in all of the boxes and why I was taking them. She was very
nice, and took off well over 30 kilos, more weight than the 20% discount
would’ve done, and charged me $700 Fiji, which is between $400-500 American.
So, instead of costing the estimated $1500, the cost of transporting all of the
equipment for LA to Tonga was under $800. But it was not over. Once in Tonga, I
had to put my boxes through a special scanner (some of the cleats were used, so
they had dirt/minerals on them), where the Tongan customs people ripped open
one of my boxes, saw what was inside (about 15 new pairs of cleats, balls,
t-shirts, shorts), and told me, in his broken English, because of the
commercial value of what I was bringing to Tonga, I was going to have to pay a
tariff. By this time it was 11 pm, I was exhausted, and really not in the mood
to go through all of this for the 3rd time in 24 hours. Levi once
again tried to explain I was donating the equipment, not selling it, but the
language barrier was too much. Finally, one of the ladies that came to pick up
the HEFY group came in and translated for us, telling him what it was all for.
He was then very nice, and told me next time I would not be allowed. I left him
a pair of cleats, and went on my way.
Actually giving the team the
equipment was a blast. We bussed to one of their practices, played 2 hand
touch, and then wrap up rugby with them, gave them the equipment, took a few
pictures, and went home.
That was fun, but considering all of the equipment I
brought, we still had a ton of cleats, balls, and socks to give to someone. Every guy, from birth until he
physically couldn’t, played rugby, whether on a school or village team, and
every open field, from sunup to sun down was always being used by a team for
practice. So our plan was to drive up to some team, roll down the window, and
ask them if they wanted some new cleats, like in a movie or something! While
that didn’t happen, it was pretty close. One night, after eating some more
mediocre food, all the guys were starving, so we walked down town and found a
place called Yum-Yum Burgers. Let me tell you, the name is fitting. It was
delicious, and the two guys that owned it were super nice hosts. While talking
with them we discovered they were on a rugby team, and coached a teenage team.
We told them we would be back in a few days for some more burgers. The morning
we were leaving Tonga, we came in with 40+ pairs of cleats, 20+ pairs of socks,
and 5 or 6 new rugby balls, and said, “Hey, we have something for you!” They
were in shock. If a village team did have cleats, they were very old and beaten
up. With the cleats we gave them, 2 full teams could have brand new cleats.
They fed us some free burgers, took some pictures, and had a great time.
As we
were leaving, they said thank you one last time, and I said something like “if
you’re nice to palangis (the Tongan word for white people) you never know
what’ll happen!” It was a great way to end the trip. The teams that benefited
from the project will never know of the hard work and continual headaches I
went through to get them the equipment. But, as President Monson said ‘When was
anything worthwhile ever easy?” If giving them the rugby equipment was easy, I
wouldn’t have been able to see His hand in everything that I did, from the
beginning of the project, all the way until the end. And, I never thought I
would say this, I thank Him for all of the problems he sent me along the way.
Well there’s the eagle project part of my Tonga trip, stay tuned for Part 2,
everything else!
