Every six weeks or so the three senior missionary couples at the Visitors’ Center get together for lunch. Since one of us is on duty, we enlist the help of another senior missionary couple serving over at BYU-Hawaii or at the Polynesian Cultural Center who have previously served a mission in a visitors’ center somewhere. Fortunately, there are currently two couples that fit the bill and one of them was available yesterday (Friday) to substitute for Nina and me for a couple of hours. That made it possible for Elder and Sister Priday (the Center Director), Elder and Sister Jensen (the other senior missionary couple), and Nina and I to get together for lunch for the last time. Elder and Sister Priday complete their missionary service next Friday, January 15th. Elder and Sister Jensen complete their service five days later on January 20th.

We had lunch at the Turtle Bay Resort Lei Leis snack bar. They have a limited, but very tasty and well-prepared menu and everyone can find something suitable for lunch (and, they have complimentary fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies). Friday was one of those incredible “chamber of commerce” days. A bluebird sky, upper 70° temperatures, and no wind. We were seated on the patio looking out over the putting green and the mountains to the west. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with both the Pridays and the Jensens. They have been model missionaries and have taught Nina and I more than they can ever imagine. I’m sure both couples are right ready to go home and play with the grandkids, but they will certainly be missed here.

So, how does the turnover work? The new directors, Elder and Sister Swinton, will spend a couple of days in Salt Lake being oriented to this new assignment. They’ve been Mission President before and he has served as an Area Seventy, so there’s not much to tell them before they get here, I guess. They’ll arrive mid-afternoon on Friday from Salt Lake City and will be picked up at the airport by the Hawaii Honolulu Mission President, who will bring them here to Laie. They should arrive here sometime around 6:30pm. Just over 90 minutes later, Elder and Sister Priday depart. The incoming and outgoing directors will spend about an hour and a half together. From there it’ll be up to the Jensens and Nina and me to fill in the gaps. When Elder and Sister Jensen leave, the turnover will be even shorter … at most 20 minutes … and possibly no overlap at all.

So, a big topic at lunch was, what did Nina and I need to know about the Center? I have no idea what we don’t know. Donald Rumsfield, former Secretary of Defense, famously said this:

The message is that there are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

I’m actually worse off than Mr. Rumsfield! There were unkowns that he knew he didn’t know. I don’t even have that luxury. The saving grace is that no lives are at risk, no careers are at stake, and the Church will neither falter nor fail based on what happens in the next few weeks as we all muddle through.

As part of the going-away activities, the sister missionaries are putting together a small remembrance book with a page for each of the missionaries. We attach a picture and a few words and they bind the whole thing together to give to Elder and Sister Priday (and will do something similar for Elder and Sister Jensen next week). So, we had a few pictures taken at the Visitors’ Center and printed them at Longs Drugstore. I liked this one well enough that I’ve put it on the blog header (see above). It was time to update the blog header a little bit, anyway. Next is to get a better beach picture. So, here we are, in our missionary attire (Nina in her muu-muu and me in my shirt and tie. I don’t get fancy duds…). We’re not quite ready to say goodbye (is anyone, ever?). Things will definitely be different next week!

Ta ta for now!