October 25, 2015
Greetings everyone from this little corner of paradise. It’s a Sunday evening and the day is coming to a close. I thought I might write a bit about what our Sunday’s are like here at the Visitors’ Center.
Since the Center is open Sunday through Saturday every day of the year except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Sunday schedule is set up to provide everyone the opportunity to go to Church. That works most Sundays of the year except when one of the two family Stakes have Stake Conference.
Sister Smith and I are assigned to attend the Laie 3rd Ward in the Laie Stake. That Ward meets from noon until 3pm. Elder and Sister Jensen are assigned to the Laie 2nd Ward in the Laie Stake. That Ward meets from 11am to 1pm. Elder and Sister Priday are assigned to the Laie 4th Ward in the Laie North Stake. That Ward meets from 8am to 11am.
With those Ward assignments, Sister Smith and I are at the Center from when it opens at 9am until 11:30am. Elder and Sister Priday finish their Ward meetings at 11, hustle home for a quick bite and for Sister Priday to change in to her muumuu and they relieve us at the Center at 11:30am. We hustle home, grab a bite to eat, Sister Smith changes out of her muumuu and we hurry over to the Ward building for meetings starting at noon. Meanwhile, Elder and Sister Priday stay at the Center until 4pm when Elder and Sister Jensen relieve them and Elder and Sister Jensen close the Center at 8pm. The morning is a bit of a tight schedule, but most Sundays it works out quite well.
This morning was the Laie North Stake Conference, meaning that Elder and Sister Priday’s Sunday meetings were from 10am until noon, the time we need to be at our meetings, and the time that Elder and Sister Jensen are in the middle of their Church meeting block. To get around that, Elder and Sister Priday leave the Stake Conference a half-hour early and we stay at the Center fifteen minutes later than normal. That makes for a very tight schedule, but we made it work. We got into our Sacrament Meeting just as they finished singing the opening song.
After Church meetings, what we do depends on which Sunday of the month it is. On the first Sunday (Fast Sunday) all of the senior missionaries get together at the Polynesian Cultural Center for a potluck dinner at 6pm. Quite often on the second or fourth Sundays there is a fireside for us to attend. I also have a couple of ham radio opportunities on Sunday evening as well. The ham radio takes last priority, of course, but when I can get on the radio to check into the Emergency Communications networks or the Hawaii – Mainland AllStar Net, I enjoy doing that. We also occasionally have sister missionaries over for dinner on a Sunday evening.
Today after Church meetings I went home teaching to a single sister in our Ward who is also the librarian for the local public library. She is always very interesting to visit with. She spent her childhood in China and immigrated to Hawaii with her parents when she was 9 years old. She’s now in her 60’s and can’t speak very much Chinese any more and has nearly flawless English.
Then, of course, before going to bed I write my weekly letter. That pretty much ends the day.
The past week has been pretty normal, for sure. We had one of the 150th anniversary firesides last Sunday evening which was delightful. Monday was our seven-month anniversary of being here in Laie on our mission. We had our normal training meeting from 7:30am to 9am. The day also included fixing a bicycle chain, having a pair of sister missionaries over for lunch, and spending the afternoon at the Center. Last week we had 2,662 visitors at the Center making a year-to-date total of 111,424.
Tuesday we did house cleaning and laundry in the morning and were at the Center for the afternoon. Wednesday was our Preparation Day. Sister Smith had a hair appointment in the morning and i had a doctor’s appointment at the VA Clinic in Honolulu at 1pm. After that we did some shopping at Costco and Walmart, stopped by the Mission Office in downtown Honolulu to pick up some French Books of Mormon and other French literature, and made it back home just about sunset.
Thursday morning we were at the Visitors’ Center from 9am until 2:30pm. We spent the afternoon here at the house where I ironed all of my shirts. Friday was another morning at the Center followed by replacing a toilet seat in one of the sister missionary apartments, and then taking tickets at the Aloha Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center. After the ticket-taking assignment we meet with the other senior missionary volunteers for a free meal at the Prime Dining Buffet. The menu is exactly the same every day, which Sister Smith wishes there was more variety but with which I’m completely comfortable. No decision making required….
Saturday morning we were at the Center until 2:30pm. In the afternoon Sister Smith made dinner for a set of sister missionaries while I finally had a couple of hours to read my book. Then I did the dinner dishes after the sister missionaries left.
So that’s been our exciting week! We had a number of visitors from Germany and a fairly large group from France. The Germans like to look around but generally aren’t interested in any religious related conversation. The French, however, cleaned us out of French Books of Mormon and other related material. We don’t get very many visitors from France, we don’t have any French-speaking missionaries, but it all worked out just fine.
The paradox for us is that it seems like we’ve been here forever but at the same time it seems like we just arrived. Time passes in such interesting ways. I’m pretty sure our life here is quite boring to most folks, but we’re really enjoying this time together as missionaries for the Church. We meet and talk with so many very interesting people and everyone has a story that they’re interested in telling. The weather continues to be unseasonably warm and quite rainy. The surf is very high, much earlier than usual as well. The surfers, particularly the professional guys, are getting in a lot of practice before the tournaments start in November and December. We’re hoping to be able to see a couple of these competitions!
Elder Steven Smith: best wishes for your missionary week! Be bold! Invite! Testify!!
And, with the rain we often get nice rainbows. We love you all and pray the Lord’s choicest blessings to continue with you!
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