August 16, 2015
Greetings from Laie, Hawaii. We crossed the five-month mark this past week — five months since we arrived at the MTC in Provo, Utah. In a couple of days we’ll pass the five-month mark in Hawaii. While it seems like we just got here, it also seems like we’ve been here forever. The days seem to blend together right nicely. So much so that we completely missed a (voluntary) activity at the Visitors’ Center on Friday morning.
During the summer months the Center hosts a story time at 10:30 am for children between the ages of two and five. The sister missionaries do most of the activities which includes songs and stories. It’s very well attended and a lot of fun. As a result, there are a LOT of people in the Center during story time. Unless we’re on shift (which was the case the previous six weeks), we’ve no requirement to be there. However, since there are so many people, it is very helpful for us to be there to help with crowd control (that is, rounding up stray kids and encouraging them to sit with their care givers) and visiting with any other guests that come in during story time.
However, with the shift change and the change in Preparation Day, both of us completely spaced story time. It wasn’t until we got there for our normal shift at 2:30 pm when Sister Smith (your mother / daughter-in-law / grandmother / special person … with so many people getting this email, one of those categories probably fits) figured it out. We were a bit embarrassed.
So, what were we doing instead? I was working on bicycles. With the transfer, different sister missionaries need bicycles. Some who had a car are now on bicycles or walking, and others that were walking or on bicycles have a car. Because of an accident a couple of weeks ago, we now only have five cars for the sister missionaries instead of six cars. That means all of the bicycles need to be working … and I received two new bicycles to be put into action (the two sisters who got the new bikes are very happy with them!). I fixed a couple of flat tires, fixed a chain, and installed new baskets and lights on the new bikes. So, it was good stuff, just no story time stuff!
This week we did our periodic trip into Honolulu for Costco and Walmart shopping. I also needed to go to the VA Outpatient Clinic to get a picture taken for a new ID card. I wrote about it on my blog: https://www.rnsmith.com/?p=3429. In a nutshell, we spent almost an hour and a half driving through the parking lots looking for a parking space for what turned out to be a five minute visit to the photo-taking-person. The real irony is that when we came out of the Clinic, four parking spaces were available right in front of the building. With the shopping done, we are now well supplied for another few weeks. In a few weeks the weather will cool off significantly and we’ll do some sight-seeing in Honolulu. Right now it’s just too hot and humid and we can easily wait until the summer weather is finished.
The second hurricane of the season passed us by to the south and was a complete non-event for the Island of Oahu. The Big Island got some wind and a lot of rain, but none of that made it this far north. We’re just over half way through the hurricane season, so plenty of time yet for a real storm to come through. On Tuesday I’m going down island to get some SkyWarn training to be a certified weather spotter for the Honolulu County Department of Emergency Management (all of the Island of Oahu is in the Honolulu County. Each of the islands are a their own county in the State of Hawaii.).
The number of guests at the Visitors’ Center is holding steady at around 500 per day. That’ll drop off in a week or so as school starts up again on the mainland. I’ve talked to quite a few families last week who scheduled their trip to arrive home the day before school starts.
About a third of the visitors stop because they see the Temple from the roadway and take the opportunity to stop. About a third come as part of their time spent at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The rest have planned the visit as part of their vacation, or as part of a day trip from somewhere else on the island. Most of the last group are members of the Church while most of the first two groups are not members. All of the visitors are very courteous and pleased with their visit. Occasionally someone will stop by to argue. There’s a Christian Seminary in Honolulu that turns out future ministers and pastors and occasionally someone from there will come up to call us to repentance (we smile and help them find the exit). We do get a lot of questions, though. This past week I’ve been asked a couple of times about the Church’s position on gay marriage and on the boy scouts. In every case, they are in agreement with the Church’s position. I talked with one lady who is Methodist and so far the synod her church is associated with has not endorsed gay marriage and doesn’t have any gay pastors, but she’s afraid that will change. I suggested that she look up the missionaries when that happens. She said she would … but was happy to wait until then.
Another favorite activity is to attend the Temple for a session. We did that yesterday (Saturday) morning this past week. The Laie Temple is a small temple and very pretty inside. It is so very nice to have a temple literally in our back yard!
Well, that’s just about it for this week, at least as much as I can remember. We are still very much enjoying this missionary assignment and know that the Lord’s blessings are with you while we’re over here. Until next week!
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