Greetings from Hawaii. It’s been a very unusual day and a very interesting week. We’re enjoying delightful weather and welcomed trade winds.
My day today started about 2:30am with some pretty intense pain in the lower gut … which resulted in a trip to the emergency room and a diagnosis of a kidney stone. Once they got the pain under control, the rest of the day has been a very nice day. I think the stone has passed (at least, one stone has passed. There may be more).
We also had some good friends from Pocatello come by last Wednesday and we spent the afternoon with them at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The PCC is always a lot of fun and we’ve now been twice with family and/or friends.
We also got to see the double-hulled canoe Iosepa launched for it’s summer voyages teaching the BYU-Hawaii students the ancient navigation arts. Write up and pictures are on the blog: https://www.rnsmith.com . That looks like a lot of fun … and a whole lot of work! What a great experience for the students. In the mountain west we celebrate the Mormon pioneers who came across the plains in oxcarts, handcarts, and by foot. Here in Hawaii we celebrate the pioneers who came here in canoes across thousands of miles of ocean sailing and navigating by night. It’s kind of mind boggling for me to even think about it.
As usual, we had afternoon shifts at the Visitors’ Center on Monday and Tuesday, a Preparation Day on Wednesday (which we spent at the Polynesian Cultural Center), and morning shifts at the Visitors’ Center on Thursday through Saturday. We also collected tickets at the Island Buffet venue at the PCC on Friday afternoon and coordinated the Laie Tram Tour trams and busses on Thursday and Saturday evenings. Our schedule this next week is pretty much the same except that we’ll be at a different venue to collect tickets. We’re enjoying the large crowds that are coming to the Visitors’ Center and to the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Whenever we take someone or a group on a walk around the Visitors’ Center and/or the grounds, we almost always ask them for a referral (if they are members of the Church) or if they’d like some followup contact from the sister missionaries (if they are not members). That information is recorded on cards which are counted as “new investigators”. The sister missionaries do the requested followup and if there is continued interest, they’ll invite the investigators to have the local missionaries come over. If that is agreeable, that counts as a “referral sent”. The number of new investigators and referrals sent has been steadily climbing over the past four months where between 150 – 175 referrals are being sent each week to local missionaries for further followup. It is such an amazing feeling when I spend some time with someone and invite them to have the sister missionaries followup with them, and they not only agree, but really want to have the followup. Because my responsibilities are mainly in the support activities (show videos in the various rooms, meet and greet tour bus operators, manage the inventory of books and such (in 94 languages), handle and fix the electronics, coordinate the busses and trams coming from and going to the PCC, and such) and we try to have the sister missionaries do the visitor interactions, I don’t have many opportunities to make these actual invitations.
Three times this past week, however, I had visitors ask to have someone followup with them. That’s probably the real highlights of the week for me. The sister missionaries report back on the followup contact. Two of the three have agreed to have the local missionaries come. The third was today, so the followup hasn’t happened, yet. Missionary life is grand! Perhaps someday I can be the source of a referral for James and Steven! Whenever we have visitors from the Portland or the Fresno area, we always tell them about two fabulous missionaries serving over there.
So, ’til next week!
Love,
father/father-in-law/brother/brother-in-law/son/grandfather/uncle/cousin/friend/missionary
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