A Tongan who was a skipper of a sailing clipper accepted the booklet Where Are the Dead? On his return to Tonga he gave the booklet to a friend by the name of Charles Vete, a worker with the telecommunications department. This was in 1932. Charles read the booklet and was convinced that he had found the truth. Until that time he was a member of the Methodist Church, but from then on, though not having any association with Jehovah’s Witnesses, he withdrew from the church and declared the message of the Bible.

Charles wrote to the Society’s headquarters in Brooklyn, asking for more information. Back came sets of books. Moreover, the Society’s president at that time, J. F. Rutherford, asked Charles if he would translate the booklet Where Are the Dead? into Tongan. He accepted the assignment, and in due course a shipment of 1,000 booklets arrived. Charles was moved to send a contribution for them and then began to distribute them. Many civil servants with whom he worked heard the truth in this way. Thus in 1933 the first witnessing work began in the Kingdom of Tonga.

For about 25 years Charles Vete was on his own in declaring the good news in Tonga. His work took him north from the main island of Tongatapu with the capital of Nukualofa, to the islands of Vavau and Niuatoputapu. He distributed many booklets in these islands. Though a number of people showed interest, not much progress was made, as there was no congregation with which to associate. But the booklet Where Are the Dead? received wide distribution. Even today as a publisher goes from house to house, he meets people who remember this booklet and its distribution by Charles Vete. Through his preaching over the years, he became known as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, though he did not get baptized until 1964.

Another indication of the brothers’ desire to progress in the truth has been their efforts to provide translations of Watchtower study articles. Brother Charles Vete translated them into the Tongan language; copies were made by hand and then used by the group as their study material. The same thing was done with the book From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained.

Several days a week the brothers gathered at Brother Vete’s home to learn congregation organization. The visit was climaxed with the Memorial, attended by 53, and a circuit assembly, which helped to develop a stronger spirit of love and unity.