April 26, 2015
It’s another Sunday evening and your mother and I are both at our little table with laptops open writing emails, checking Facebook and Instagram, or whatever.
We’ve now been here five weeks. It seems like we just got here, though. Our days are pretty busy and they seem to run into one another. Sundays and Wednesdays are the days that are the most different. Sunday morning we’re at the Visitors’ Center from 9 am until 11:30 am and then in Church from noon until 3 pm. We go back over to the church building at 4:15 pm for choir practice. Most of the time the rest of Sunday evening as open. Once or twice a month there is a fireside at the Center that we need to attend. The next one is on May 17th.
Wednesdays are our Preparation Day for this rotation. Every six weeks the mission does transfers, meaning that the young sister missionaries and the elders may switch companions and/or locations. When transfers happen, our shift assignment swaps with the other couple serving here. The young missionaries will usually stay in one place for about six months and be with two companions during that time. Things are a little different for the sister missionaries at the Center because they don’t change locations in any significant way. They’ll change companions and may change apartments.
Most of the sister missionaries live in apartments close to where we live, four sister missionaries to an apartment. There are two other apartments about a half-mile from here with eight sister missionaries there as well. From time to time these sister missionaries will switch companions and occasionally move into a different apartment, but still work at the Visitors’ Center.
Right now we have twenty-two sister missionaries and they are delightful young ladies. We thoroughly enjoy working with them.
Both your mother and I write quite regularly in our blogs, so our day-to-day activities are noted there:
https://www.rnsmith.com/
https://seashellsandseaglass.wordpress.com/
We’re pretty well settled in and accustomed to our daily routine. Our home is the left half of a duplex. We have a living room with a recliner, a couch, a credenza, and a desk. The kitchen / dining area has a small table, workable for two people, a full-sized fridge, electric stove and oven, microwave, sink, and a tall cupboard. There’s almost enough room in the cupboards and the freezer …. almost.
Down the hallway the bathroom is at the end with a bathtub/shower, and all the other needed parts. On the left of the hallway is a small room with a washer, dryer, and hot water heater. The back door is in this room. On the right side is our bedroom with a full king-sized bed, a six-drawer dresser, and a nightstand.
There is a window air conditioner in the living room which works very well and another air conditioner in the window in the bedroom which cools OK, but is VERY NOISY. We ran it last night for the first time and it has to be fixed. Hot weather is coming!! Most of the time we have a nice breeze at night and it cools down to around 70°, but the humidity rarely goes below 70%. It rains almost every night. Today is the first day since we arrived where we’ve had any significant amount of rain during the day. When it rains, however, it rains in copious amounts.
We have Oceanic Time-Warner cable TV and Internet with basic TV channels (we almost never turn the TV on). The Internet connection is pretty good, but seems to go down occasionally for short periods of time. When we’re home (and not sleeping) we’re either eating (preparation, consuming, cleanup) or on our computers.
We’re at the Visitors’ Center six days a week. On the days that we’re on the morning shift (9 am to 2:30 pm) I get up at 6:30 am. Your mother is almost always up around 5 am and is usually out taking a walk when I get up. I shower and get dressed so that the bathroom is available to her when she gets back. Then I make my breakfast, clean up the dishes, and make a lunch to take to the Center. After checking email, Facebook, and Twitter I finish getting dressed. I wear a short-sleeved white shirt and tie, slacks, and comfortable shoes.
We drive over to the Center (about forty-five seconds away) to arrive at 8:45 am, switch off the alarm system, and open up the Center. Your mother has a set of things to do and I have a set of things to turn on and check. We have a short prayer meeting at 8:55 am with the sister missionaries assigned that day, and unlock the doors at 9 am.
We’re relieved at 2:30 pm and after turning things over we get back to the apartment at about 2:45 or so. We’ve found that waiting to have lunch until that late doesn’t work very well, so we bring a lunch with us and take a short lunch break around 12:30 or so. After we get home, the rest of the day is open (which often includes a short nap!).
On the days that we work the afternoon shift (2:30 pm until 8 pm) the early morning routine is pretty much the same. After breakfast we’ll do house cleaning things, do some shopping as needed, and other errands. On this rotation we are at the Center on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we’re on the morning shift.
While we’re at the Center your mother spends most of her time at the front desk coordinating everything that is going on. It is either completely dead or mobbed. We don’t seem to ever have an in-between. The sister missionaries do most of the interaction with the visitors, but most of the American / Canadian visitors will stop by the front desk to visit, particularly if they are members of the Church.
I spend much of my time out in the courtyard meeting and greeting people and offering to take their pictures. It is such a beautiful place, everyone (particularly the Asian visitors) wants multiple pictures taken. Lots of the pictures get to Facebook (kind of saying, “Ha ha … I’m here and you aren’t…”). I really enjoy talking with people and answering questions about the Temple and about the Church.
When we’re busy, we want the sister missionaries concentrating on the non-member visitors, so I’ll do the tours with members. There are a lot of very interesting tidbits about this area, the temple, the university, and the Polynesian Cultural Center, so I’ve plenty that I can talk about.
Over the years as your mother and I have talked about going on a mission, we had never considered or even thought about a Visitors’ Center assignment. We just kind of assumed we’d be doing a proselytizing or reactivation mission somewhere in Europe, Asia, or Africa. One of the big differences I see is that our mission assignment is very structured … six days a week we know exactly what we’ll be doing and where we’ll be doing it. That is working very well for us and we’re having a wonderful time. The only thing I’d change is that I’d like to hear more from all of you and what you’re doing. I’d invite each of you to take a few minutes each week to send a short email. We would really appreciate it!!
Meanwhile, this email has gotten quite long! Hopefully it is sufficiently interesting that you’ve managed to hang in all the way to the end.
We’re have a good time and know that what we’re doing is important and beneficial. We miss you and love you and send lots of hugs and kisses!!!!
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