Greetings one and all from a now quiet Sunday evening. We just returned from the Honolulu Airport after delivering Sister Smith’s sister Pamela to Delta Airlines for her flight back to the mainland. She’s been here for the past eight days and we’ve had a delightful time. She certainly had a great time! One highlight was a forty-minute helicopter ride around the Island of Oahu that we took on Saturday afternoon. The ride for Sister Smith and me was a Christmas gift that we finally (!) redeemed. Sister Smith and her sister Aunt Pam were both very nervous about doing this flight. After we landed they were both ready to go again … and go in the front seat! Perhaps even with the doors off!! Attached are some pictures from that event.

The other senior missionary couples at the Visitors’ Center were very gracious in making arrangements for us to spend a bit more time with Pamela doing touristy kinds of things. She’ll never be able to come back to Hawaii, so we appreciated being able to make maximum use of her limited time. Besides some time in the ocean, shopping at the Swap Meet, riding the Dole Plantation train, flying on the helicopter, visiting the Byodo-In Temple, spending an afternoon and evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and hiking up a mountain to a lighthouse, we also spent some time at the Bishop Museum in downtown Honolulu. I thoroughly enjoyed that time learning about the early Polynesian culture and beliefs. One of the videos we show at the Visitors’ Center is a five-minute history of the Church in Hawaii, the Temple, the University, and the Polynesian Cultural Center. That video makes a brief mention of how the Church’s teachings about our pre-mortal life, about family units and eternal ties, and about God resonated with the Polynesians. I learned at the museum that there were many parallels … except for the part about human sacrifice, that is.

We now are returning to normal missionary life. The visitor counts have dropped, as expected, with school starting across the country and summer coming to an end. The number of tram guests and Chinese guests continues to increase, offsetting the decline in walk-in visitors to a large extent. The Chinese tour drivers are telling us that the demand for their tours is increasing dramatically (the Chinese economy is doing pretty well, it seems) and we’re seeing the results of that.

We are pretty close to settled into our new pad. I can now pretty much find things and know where to put them back. I’ve got one of my antennas up and hope to get two more up tomorrow. The weather has been consistently hot and humid, but with slight improvement in the coming couple of weeks. None too soon! One side effect of having four box fans in the windows helping the air circulation is the amount of dust they bring into the house! Tomorrow will be house cleaning day, for sure!

Thank you all so much for your love and support. We’re enjoying our missionary assignment and love the hard work associated with it. We’re doing the right thing and are in the right place. We love you all!

Love,
father/father-in-law/brother/brother-in-law/son/uncle/grandfather/missionary/friend….

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