This has definitely been an active weather season in the Pacific Ocean. The hurricanes are coming our way about once a week. Hurricane Kilo went west of us; hurricane Ignacio is currently passing parallel to the Hawaiian Islands about 150 miles offshore. Hurricane Jimenez is four days behind Ignacio but current forecast is that it, too, will pass well east of the islands. Meanwhile Tropical Depression 14E is forming down near the equator. It’s too soon to tell where that one is going. It’s quite unprecedented to have this many named storms in the Pacific in one year. So far, though, they’ve not been able to target the Hawaiian Islands.

As Nina and I sat at the Polynesian Cultural Center at the Island Buffet Exit this afternoon, we reviewed the past several days and how full our days (and evenings) have been! Between bedbugs (still ongoing), apartment appliance issues (mostly tripped circuit breakers), bicycle repairs (all flats, nothing major), missionary firesides, and shift assignment changes, we’ve not had much time to even sit down for very long. Tomorrow, though, looks like it may be a much less stressful day (and by saying that, I’ve probably jinxed it!).

Clearly school has started in the US as the number of families coming to the Visitors’ Center has dropped dramatically. It’s quite reminiscent of last March when we got here just before Spring Break brought the flood of college students and vacationing families over. There is a benefit, though. With fewer guests we can spend more quality one-on-one time with them rather than having to handle them in larger groups.

I had a fun experience last Saturday. I was outside in the courtyard when a lady walked up to the gate (which was open) and stopped to take a picture. I asked if she’d like to have her picture taken and she couldn’t understand what I was asking. It turned out she was from mainland China. I told her (slowly) that there was someone inside the Visitors’ Center that spoke Chinese. When she understood what I was trying to tell her, she got a huge smile, turned and ran, literally ran back to the parking lot to a large white van, opened the door, and brought all fifteen of the passengers with her back to the Visitors’ Center.

We didn’t have a Chinese-speaking sister missionary assigned to be in the Center at that particular time (they were on the tram busses over at the Polynesian Cultural Center), but hoped that one of the off-duty missionaries would “just happen” to be inside. My hopes were answered. One of the sisters from Hong Kong had just come in with her companion and walked to the front of the Center just as the Chinese visitors came in the front door. They had a great conversation and the whole group spent more than a half-hour touring the center and peppering the sister missionary with questions.

As they were leaving, three of the guests asked to take a Book of Mormon in Chinese with them. That was gladly provided along with info on how the contact the Church in China. I was thinking later that it would be interesting to know how many Books of Mormon have gone back to mainland China with guests who have visited the Center. It would be a couple hundred just in the five and a half months we’ve been here. I understand that each Chinese citizen can bring back one religious book with them when they travel internationally. When China finally opens up for missionary work, the missionaries will find a lot of Chinese people who know about the Church and the Book of Mormon because of their visit to a Visitors’ Center somewhere in the world.

Life is worth pondering today!