August 2, 2015
Greetings All from this little garden spot in the middle of the ocean … where a hurricane is on its way!
Hurricane Guillermo is on track to pass just to the east of us sometime on Wednesday, but by that time it should have weakened to a tropical storm. But even that kind of a storm can have winds up to 70 mph, so it can still do some damage. I’ve recently put up an antenna for my ham radio system which is set up so I can lower it down in the high winds and still have communications capability. Consequently, I can prophecy that this will be a complete non-event.
This coming week is the last week of this transfer, meaning it is the last week of this current shift schedule. The last week of a transfer is always quite busy as the missionaries are busy getting things ready to move apartments (most will not move, but some will) since your mother will be doing apartment inspections on Thursday with followup inspections as needed on the following Monday or Tuesday. One of the missionary cars was involved in an accident so its in the repair shop. That means that your mother has the opportunity to take four of the missionaries out to do their grocery shopping. Since they get the monthly allowance on the 1st of the month, their first preparation day after the 1st of the month is always a big shopping day for them.
We continue in our normal routine, which means no two days are alike. However, we do have operating fountains in front of the Visitors’ Center! The font was filled last Thursday and fully operational on Friday. Despite the noise, it really enhances to look and feel of the whole area. That’s also one of the features that can be seen from the highway which draws people to see the Temple and the whole area around it. The contractor says that Salt Lake has signed off on the flag pole (which still isn’t straight), but that hasn’t been communicated back to us so no flags are flying. We may hear more next week.
Because this is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Laie by the Church, this fall will see a number of big-time events at the Center. Starting in September we’ll be hosting two firesides a month in September, October, and November featuring descendants of the early Polynesian saints to tell the story of their pioneering ancestor. I’m really looking forward to these firesides and learning some of these stories. This is all new information for me. I’d not thought before about pioneers in this part of the world. One big event will be the installation of a new President for BYU-Hawaii which will bring over several General Authorities and there’ll be a couple of big-time events in addition to the actual investment ceremony (I’ve heard we’ll have a cultural celebration, kind of like what they do for Temple dedications). So, life will continue to be quite interesting over here.
The first Sunday of the month is Fast Sunday, which many of you know. We have a special event on Fast Sundays here in Laie. Because there are around 70 senior missionaries here (around 14 single senior sisters and around 23 or so senior missionary couples) we all get together at one of the luau venues over at the Polynesian Cultural Center and have a pot luck dinner called “Break the Fast”. It’s a lot of fun with some outstanding food (particularly some very delicious deserts). We’re all divided up into three groups. Each month one group brings main dishes, another group brings salads or veggies, and the third group brings deserts. The assignment rotates each month. I’m singularly unsurprised at how popular the desert table is! This month our assignment was to bring salad or veggies and your mother made up a nice fruit salad (that could easily has passed as a desert). If there are any families visiting their missionaries, they’re also invited to the meal and we get to meet them as well. Visiting families are very popular since all of the missionaries know how fun it is to share a bit of our experiences with family from back home.
We seem to be right at the height of the tourist season as well as the humidity season. As a result, the Center is very popular. I’m going to do a blog post on all the various roles the the Center fills over here. It’s been a fun learning experience. We’re also getting to know more of the “regulars” who stop by quite frequently. For instance, we get a lot of young mothers in the mornings out walking their babies and children who stop by to cool off, rest, let the kiddies cool off, take care of bathroom stuff, and then just visit with each other.
Recently we’ve had a number of visitors from France. Since the whole country of France goes on vacation for the entire month of August, it seems, I expect we’ll see a significant number of people from France and the rest of Europe as well. The Euro / Dollar exchange rate is fairly favorable to the Europeans (and is very favorable for the Japanese Yen), so coming to Hawaii isn’t as expensive as it has been. Tourism is Hawaii’s biggest income producer, followed by the US military, then sugar cane, followed by pineapples.
I finally have all of my electronic devices in pristine working order once again. My iPad needed a new glass screen (this was the second replacement) and my iPhone needed a new camera lens. I finally took them both down to Waikiki where they were both repaired and returned to service. It is nice to have the iPhone camera working once again. Now I just have to stop dropping them.
BYU-Hawaii starts their next term tomorrow morning, August 3rd. All the other schools started their year last Monday on August 29th. With the new BYU-H term, we’ve had a lot of families coming over to drop their student off at school and taking the opportunity to do a little family vacation at the same time. We’ve also had a number of weddings, both beach weddings and Temple weddings (we had 5 Temple weddings last Saturday, for instance) which has brought a lot of people over. We’ll continue to be very busy at the Center for the next couple of weeks when things will quickly start dying down.
Mother had her 91st birthday last Saturday. My favorite brother Perry video’d the “pie” cutting ceremony and associated blowing out of the candles. Mother seemed to be having a good time (she loves parties and really loves opening presents). Many thanks to Perry for the video! He broadcast it live on Periscope where I was able to watch it live, and then posted it on his FaceBook timeline. I’ve also shared it, so you might be able to find if if you’re interested.
Life is great. We’re doing well and getting by quite nicely (the air conditioning really helps!). We love you all and pray for you daily.
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