February 7, 2016
Good evening. While I’m sure this won’t conjure up any sympathy, we’re going to have the coldest night of the year (and for us, the coldest night since we arrived 10 1/2 months ago) … it’s going to get all the way down to 54° tonight according to the weather forecasters. It’s currently 63° and I was happy to be wearing a suit jacket at the Break-the-Fast gathering earlier this evening.
As mentioned before, all of the senior missionaries get together for a potluck dinner on the first Sunday evening of each month. Our assignment this month was a salad or vegetables so Sister Smith whipped up her delicious potato salad. There are about 120 senior missionaries here assigned to BYU-Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center, or the Visitors’ Center. Almost all of them make it to the dinner which is held at the Polynesian Cultural Center (which is closed on Sundays) at the Kauai Luau location. I definitely had plenty to eat for dinner along with some very nice deserts (plural).
Our week has been much more of a “normal” week at the Visitors’ Center. We have much of the inventory completed along with most of the reorganization in the storage room finished. It looks like we’re pretty much at the average visitor count for this time of the year. This is the time of year when a lot of Chinese and Japanese school exchanges happen. These students from Japan or China are staying with host families and many of these host families bring the kids over to the Visitors’ Center because we have missionaries that speak their language. The exchanges are usually for about a week long and the average age seems to be about the 6th grade. The kids get a little phrase book with commonly used terms as a help for them to communicate with their host families, but having someone who can actually interpret is quite helpful.
Elder and Sister Andrus from Rexburg have settled into their position as our counterparts at the Visitors’ Center. When we work the morning shift, they have the afternoon shift, and vice versa. They have bought a car from some returning missionaries but don’t take possession for another couple of weeks. We’ve been sharing our car with them as when we’re at the Center they are not and can use our car. When they’re at the Center, they don’t need a car, so we use our car during those times. It can be a bit awkward sometimes and I’m sure they’ll be happy to finally take possession of their “new” automobile and not be dependent on us for transportation or having to walk to or from the Center.
The new Director, Elder Swinton and his wife have really taken hold of their new assignment. The past week or so they’ve been looking at all he statistics we capture and determining whether or not that is useful information. They’ve instituted a couple of small changes that have made our job a little easier. One change has to do with counting the number of guests that come on the Laie Tram Tour each afternoon. We would count the tram guests independently of the walk-in visitors. That was very difficult as it isn’t always clear whether or not someone is a tram guest or a walk-in. At the end of the day the tram drivers give us the count of the number of tram guests, so we don’t count them independently any more. We just count the number of guests that come through the door regardless of how they got there and use the data from the drivers to identify how many of the guests came from the PCC. That is much simpler and less likely to be counted incorrectly. There’ll likely be a couple more small changes that’ll make our job easier while gathering more accurate and useful information.
As we start the month of February, we’re coming up on only twelve months more on this mission. Time is moving by rather quickly and gathering speed! There are a lot of touristy things that we want to do and now we’ve got to get serious about getting them done! We haven’t even been swimming, yet!
Thanks for the phone/Skype calls, cards, and emails! They are GREATLY appreciated!! Please know that we think about all of you often and pray for you daily. Life is good for us here and we’re very grateful for that. We love you!!
Elder Smith, the Bronco’s won the super bowl … for what that’s worth!
<--Previous Entry | Next Entry -->