Not to suggest in any way that what we’re doing here in Hawaii can be construed as “work”, such as what my favorite brother does out in the deserts of Wyoming. His Fitbit steps count every day is rather remarkable. But, what I can report is that we’ve been at the Visitors’ Center every day since May 28th. Our next day off will be the day after tomorrow (June 13th). This fifteen-days-in-a-row was voluntary. One of the senior missionary couples here has family visiting from the mainland so we’ve worked a couple of shifts for them so they could spend more time with their family.
Sadly, however, we learned on Sunday morning that the senior missionaries we replaced had both contracted serious infections. Br. Rose’s infection turned septic and he passed away. They’d only been home a couple of months. Since almost all of the sister missionaries here had served with Elder and Sister Rose, his passing has been difficult for them. While we didn’t know the Rose’s at all (we had a couple of phone conversations with them and a twenty-minute face-to-face greeting when we arrived), we were also quite saddened with his death. Life can be very fleeting!
For our volunteer assignments at the Polynesian Cultural Center Nina and I wear matching clothes; my shirt and her muumuu. The picture above is of us at the Island Buffet exit on Monday, June 8th. All of the workers and volunteers wear similar shirts and muumuus which makes it easy for the guests to tell who is a worker and who isn’t. The Island Buffet is the largest dinner meal venue with seating for around 1,500 people. On that evening about 600 people were expected for dinner, so the area around where we were seated wasn’t needed.
Our job was to keep people from trying to sneak in from the exit (no one even looked remotely like they were trying to sneak in) and to guide people who might be lost (didn’t happen, either). Essentially, we had two hours to just sit and chat with each other. We are asked not to use our cell phones or smart devices while we’re on duty and we try hard to be obedient. We were in the shade, there was a slight breeze, and it was a very comfortable afternoon from 4:30 until 6:30pm. Afterwards we met up with the other senior missionary volunteers for dinner at Prime Dining, another of the food venues at the PCC.
Monday evenings are also the Senior Missionary Family Home Evenings. When we’re on our current schedule we work at the Center on Monday mornings and can attend FHE. On Sunday, June 28th, our schedules swap with Elder and Sister Jensen and they will be able to attend FHE while we’re at the Center. This week’s FHE program was by one of the senior missionary sisters who has compiled three books in a series titled “The Transfer”. These are stories about missionaries who were killed or seriously injured while on their mission. She talked about how in the early days of missionary work the main causes of death were sickness (flu and small pox being prevalent) and shipwrecks. With the advances in medicine and transportation, the leading cause of death today for missionaries are automobile accidents. The Church does a lot of training and retraining for missionaries with driving privileges to reduce as far as possible the number of automobile accidents. There was one a couple of weeks ago here in Hawaii that totaled a missionary car (both missionaries came out with just minor bruises) when a chicken ran out into the road and the driver tried (unsuccessfully) to miss the chicken, caught the edge of the road, and rolled the car over on its top.
Tomorrow we’ll be married for fifty-one years. Definitely doesn’t seem that long, but on the other hand, it feels like we’ve always been married to each other. I love my wife Nina and am blessed beyond belief to have her in my life.
Life is delightful today.