August 9, 2015
Greetings from Laie, Hawaii! It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re home from Church. There are a couple of sister missionary errands still to run this evening and then we’ll be finished for the day. One companionship needs some brown sugar and another will be getting a foam pad to sleep on until they can get the bed bugs taken care of in their bedroom. Yup. Bedbugs. They’re rather difficult to get rid of and the way some of the girls live is a bit conducive to these bugs. They’re pretty common on the Island, so it’s easy to bring them home. But if the clothes are hung up or put in the hamper, the bugs don’t transfer to the bed. Some of the sisters are busy learning this fact!
We’re changing shift schedules this week at the Center. This is the week that the young missionaries do their transfers and the week that the senior missionaries swap our schedules. That means for the next week or so I’ll be continually confused about where I’m supposed to be the next day. We’ve been on the evening shift on Monday and Tuesday with Wednesday off, followed by the morning shift on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Starting now it’ll be the morning shift on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with Thursday off, followed by the afternoon shift on Friday and Saturday. It’s a good thing I carry a calendar around with me. The days seem to all run together.
It’s been pretty busy at the Visitors’ Center with more than 500 visitors per day each day of the week. We also seem to be in wedding season as there’s been multiple weddings at the Temple each day during the past week. That usually means a number of people hanging out in the (air conditioned) Visitors’ Center as they’re either not members or not eligible to go to the Temple. They’re waiting for the ceremony to be concluded so they can go greet the bride and groom. We’ve plenty of room and plenty of seats, so that’s never a problem.
Every six weeks your mother is responsible for conducting apartment inspections. We did that last Thursday. It means going into each of the seven apartments and filling out a checklist. Most of the apartments are in pristine condition when we do the inspections. We’re trying to emphasize keeping the apartment clean all the time and not just doing a massive cleanup the day before inspections. It looks like we’ll be instructed to conduct “surprise” inspections during the time between now and the next big inspections. That’s causing some consternation! It’ll definitely be interesting to see how this plays out.
We’ve been going through some very hot and humid weather. Hurricane Guillermo passed by east of here during the week and pushed lot of very humid and very warm air over Hawaii. Unfortunately, hurricane Hilda is now headed our direction. Good new is that it probably will be at best a tropical depression by the time it gets here. The weather is supposed to improve after that and none too soon! On very warm days the air conditioning at the Center has difficulty keeping the place uniformly cool. On the other hand, we’re very happy to have air conditioning! A lot of guests stay longer than they had originally planned, just because we have air conditioning. I think that’s just fine.
Usually when we’re on shift my primary task is to stay out of the way. On the evening shift, I count the number of people on each of the trams that come every twenty minutes between 3pm and 7pm. I count and text the count into your mother. I’ll spend time outside meeting folks as they come in and helping them with pictures. Occasionally we’re busy enough inside that I’m needed to help guests with tours through the Center. Quite a few people stop at the front desk to visit with your mother as well. It’s always fun when we meet people that are somehow connected. A couple days ago a family from Springfield, Missouri were here as their daughter was being married in the Laie Temple. They knew Jim and LeeAnn and also knew that we were serving here, so they wanted to make sure to see us. They didn’t have a lot of time available, but it worked out that we were on shift when they were here. It was fun to visit briefly with them!
We also had visitors who knew people we knew in Pocatello and in Colorado Springs. These are always fun conversations. We continue to get a lot of Asian visitors, particularly from mainland China. Two new sister missionaries will arrive next Wednesday from the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, and both are Chinese speakers. We’ll be very happy to have a couple of more people with Chinese ability. The Chinese people are very curious about religion and about Mormons. They ask a lot of questions and get into some pretty deep and animated discussions.
We had another opportunity to volunteer at the Polynesian Cultural Center. This time I was at the Ohana Luau exit helping direct people to the bathrooms and the smoking area and keeping people out who shouldn’t be there. Your mother did the count, which meant recording the number of people coming in every five minutes and tallying them on a clicker. We had about 400 people at the luau for dinner. The good part of this assignment is that we both get to watch the luau show. The show is a lot of fun and quite entertaining. The fire dancer this evening was a the-year-old boy who was just fabulous. He’s a very talented young fellow. Our next assignment at the PCC is on Monday afternoon.
Attached are three pictures.
IMG_3958 is a night shot of the fountains with the Visitors’ Center and the Christus through the windows. We’re very pleased to have the fountains working again!
IMG-3985 is the family from Springfield, Missouri. I interrupted the photographer to get this picture.
IMG-3996 is the baked pig just taken from the imu (fire pit) at the Ohana Luau on Saturday. The PCC prepares and bakes close to 700 pigs a year for the luaus.
We’re having fun and are approaching five months here in Hawaii. The time seems to be flying by. We sure appreciate hearing from you as well!
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