Their two-year assignment as the Laie Hawaii Temple Visitors’ Center Directors is now finished. We bid them farewell in the driveway a bit ago as they prepared to drive away. Sometime later this evening the new Director and his wife, Elder and Sister Swinton will arrive … no fanfare or special activities. They’ll move into the house that the Pridays just vacated, drive the car the Pridays left behind, and take over the reins. We are on duty at the Visitors’ Center tomorrow morning from 9am to 2:30pm and I expect that we’ll meet them sometime tomorrow morning and a new phase of our missionary assignment will begin.

Today was a very unusual day of rain. It was drizzling when I got up at 5:30am to go take a walk (and I got wet), raining when we went to have our car inspected, a downpour when we got to the Visitors’ Center for our shift at 9am, continued to rain throughout the morning, and was drizzling when we were at the Polynesian Cultural Center taking tickets this afternoon. It seems to have stopped, finally, as I sit here writing this post. The wet weather has brought with it massive waves offshore and also seriously hampered the search efforts for the crew of the two military helicopters that collided mid-air yesterday about ten miles north of us over the ocean. While debris has been located, bodies have not, unfortunately.

Today was Zone Conference for the Laie Zone of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission. We didn’t go as we were assigned to be at the Visitors’ Center. Elder and Sister Priday went to their last Zone Conference, as did Elder and Sister Jensen (they’ll complete their mission next Wednesday). At every Zone Conference, the mission-owned automobiles are inspected. The inspection starts about 7:45am so the cars can be inspected for cleanliness, maintenance, etc. before the conference begins at 8:30am. They check the lights, fluids, tire pressures, tire wear, documentation, cleanliness, etc. We got there at 7:45 to learn that they weren’t going to inspect the senior missionary cars so they could pay more attention to the cars being driven by the young missionaries. Our car was definitely ready for inspection, but I could have easily used the extra half-hour of sleep this morning had I known my car wasn’t going to be inspected….

We were assigned to take tickets at the Aloha Luau at the PCC this afternoon. Despite the weather, there were a lot of people at the PCC this afternoon. Fortunately, there is a lot of cover and shelter available … and the rain is not cold. We were able to visit with some people at the PCC waiting in line for dinner that we had met earlier in the day at the Visitors’ Center when they were there. That is always fun. One fellow at the Visitors’ Center this morning had come over to Hawaii on a very limited budget, rented the cheapest car he could rent, and was literally living in his car for the week, sleeping on the beach (or in the car) at night, eating breakfast and lunch from things bought at the grocery store, and the eating somewhere for dinner. He wanted to know about the PCC and the cost. We talked through the various options and when I told him the price for a luau, he chuckled, “That’s more than half of my food budget for the week!” We both laughed when he showed up in line for the luau. As he came out afterwards he said, “It was definitely worth it!”

So, the directorship at the Visitors’ Center is changing even as I write this sentence. Because it has been a well-run place, directed by priesthood authority and under priesthood leadership, little will change, we’ll just keep on getting better at greeting and inviting visitors when they come in. We’re having fun … life is quite pleasant.

Ta ta for now!