Good evening from Hawaii. We’ve had a busy and delightful Sunday. At the Visitors’ Center we’re trying to have two firesides each month on about the 2nd Sunday and the 4th Sunday. The fireside on the 2nd Sunday is planned to be some kind of a musical fireside and the one at the end of the month a spoken fireside.
This evening we had a very nice musical fireside presented by Dr. Darren Duerden on the marimba and his wife Jennifer on the piano. All I’ve known about marimbas before tonight was that they looked like a xylophone but were somehow different. What I’ve learned is that marimbas are made of wood and have a deeper, more mellow pitch and tone. The xylophone can be either wood or metal, but has a higher and brighter pitch and tone. The Duerden’s played several numbers, both solo on the marimba or piano, as well as marimba accompanied by the piano. We had a very full house for their presentation, which was very well received.
Dr. Duerden and his wife are members of the Laie 3rd Ward, the ward that we are assigned to attend. She plays the organ for Sacrament meeting and conducts the music for the Primary. She’s an outstanding organist and usually plays for all of the BYU-Hawaii Tuesday devotionals. He had been scheduled once before to perform at the Visitors’ Center, but due to a possible tsunami, the concert was cancelled (several years ago) and he was hoping that we’d sometime invite him back again. We’ll definitely be inviting both of them back in the future.
The sister missionaries all got through their mother’s day Skype calls! No significant issues at all. It is so fun watching them connect up with their mothers and the rest of their family. Skype now offers multiple connections at the same time, so that meant that some of the calls included grandparents and other family members away somewhere else. One thing that the sister missionaries like to do is to take their family on a tour of the Visitors’ Center and show people where they spend the majority of their day. Sister Smith and I really enjoy watching them. They’re limited by mission rule to a 45-minute Skype call. But, it’s easy to lose track of time and sometimes the family won’t let them go. I’m always lenient and don’t start reminding them until they’ve been on the call for an hour. I’m always pleased and pleasantly surprised by how many of the sister missionaries are conscientious about obeying the mission rules. We have some absolutely outstanding sister missionaries here at the Visitors’ Center.
And, I was just interrupted by the two coordinating sisters (they are kind of like the Zone Leaders for all the sister missionaries at the Visitors’ Center). They came over with a card signed by all the sister missionaries for Sister Smith and sang a cute little melody for her. Teared me up!
The results of the renewed emphasis on inviting the Polynesian Cultural Center guests to take the Laie Tram Tour and come to the Visitors’ Center sometime during their afternoon at the PCC are in. April’s tram visitors more than doubled the average of the last three months and came close to matching the average number of all guests during 2015. More than 6,100 people took the 35-minute tour in April. The best ever before was 3,800 people. The new initiatives include
- Sending a set of sister missionaries over to the PCC from 11:30am to 2:00pm to hand out invitation cards to the PCC guests as they arrive. These sisters are called “tram scouts!”
- Shifting the ending time for the luaus five minutes earlier so more guests have the opportunity of taking the 6:20pm tram tour.
- Having three tram drivers available so we can always have two trams available
- Arranging for a 25-seater bus to be available at 6:20pm and 6:40pm to take any overflow from the two 30-seat trams.
All of that is working and we’re seeing the fruits of that at the Visitors’ Center with a significant increase in the number of people referring themselves to have the missionaries follow up with them after they return home from their vacation.
As usual, we have a busy week coming up. The longer we’re here, the busier we become, it seems. That is so much more preferred than the opposite case! Thanks for the calls, texts, and Facebook messages. We love you and hope you too will have a great week!
<--Previous Entry | Next Entry -->