You might imagine my surprise when I opened the door for four visitors at the Laie Temple Visitors’ Center this morning … and realized that the group included my cousin Perry Gillette and his wife Linda! I think they were as stunned as I was!! Perry was the quickest on the draw; I was standing there with jaw dropped. Of course we had to take some pictures around the Christus!

Perry is retired military and he and his wife recently served a “military relations” mission out in Washington D.C. I think they’ve been back about a year from that mission. They apparently come to Hawaii fairly often because they can stay very inexpensively in military guest quarters. They had just finished a session at the Laie Temple and came into the Center to change clothes prior to doing some sight-seeing. What a delightful coincidence that they came at a time when we were on duty at the center. Fortunately, they’ll be back next Sunday afternoon for a special fireside at the Center about the Hawaiian leper colony on Kalaupapa. It’ll be fun to visit some more with them!

Transfers came off today with nary a hitch. All of the sister missionaries are having a great evening visiting with the sisters who have returned from their 3-month assignment in the regular Honolulu Hawaiian Mission and getting to know the new sister missionary who just arrived from New Zealand. It’ll be fun getting to know these missionaries.

Today we also met our Mission President and his wife for the first time. We had our first interview with them as they were here meeting all of the new missionaries that have arrived in the past couple of months. President Warner and his wife were delightful and we were glad to have finally met them. I’m sure we’ll see them here from time to time.

I’ve been told a couple of times recently that I’ve gotten quite tan. It’s hard for me to tell. I just know that I put on liberal amounts of sunscreen before going to work at the Center because I spend most of my time outside walking around and talking with people. The sun gets pretty hot, but so far I’ve avoided getting a sunburn. So, I took another selfie today and put side-by-side a picture of me taken on March 21st (two days after we got here) and one from this morning (click on the picture to see a larger version). I can see that I’m not as lily white as I was, but the tan probably needs some more work. On our preparation day on Friday I want to look for a “dignified hat” that I can wear. It’s probably a good idea to be a little less out in the sunsnine!

Life is full of Delightful Coincidences today!