With weather like we’ve had for the past couple of weeks it’s easy to understand why people like living here so much. Particularly when we’re seeing temperatures like 9° in New Wilmington, PA, 18° in Florence, KY, 12° in Downingtown, PA, and 12° in Kirtland, OH! It’s just about 1:30pm and a delightful 79° with a light wind with 65% humidity outside. I talked with two couples from Minnesota yesterday who said that when they got up to a continuing snow storm for the fourth day in a row, they bought tickets to Hawaii.

Many years ago (I’ve told this story before…) when we were living in Munich, Germany, the sky had been grey and cloudy for seemingly weeks, the temperatures were in the mid 20’s, with a cold, biting wind. One Saturday morning we got up to another day of this gloomy, depressing weather and decided to “drive to sunshine!” We loaded up the car and headed south into Austria. Same weather. Continued south on the autobahn past Innsbruck and up into the Alps. Same weather. Then we crested the summit and headed into northern Italy. The sun was shining, the temperatures were in the low 40’s, and everything just had an inviting look about it. We decided to find a pension and spend the night. While it took much of the day to get there, we ended up in Bolzano, Italy in a delightful little hotel. The hotel staff were quite delighted that we were there (particularly with so many kids). They put us up in two rooms for the same price as one room. We had a nice time and drove back late Sunday afternoon to the same dreary weather but with a far better attitude. We’ve made other “drives to sunshine” before and since then, but that one is the most memorable to me.

This morning I helped out with the first Ham Radio Technician Class licensing class here in Laie. One of the other senior missionaries, Elder Crookston from Arizona, is also an Amateur Extra Class license holder and has been recruiting people for the class. We’ll have a testing session in April and we hope to have the BYU-Hawaii club station back on the air and functional by then. I was very pleasantly surprised when about 35 people showed up for the class! Not all of them will persist through, but most will and it’ll be great to have an active ham radio community once again in Laie. About half the class were students at the University, the rest local residents who are interested in emergency communications.

The first Friday morning after transfers we’ve been holding a French toast breakfast for the sister missionaries as a way for them to get to know each other a bit better and to meet any newly arrived missionaries. These have been a lot of fun and more than meet their purpose. It turns out that President Warner, president of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission, also does a breakfast once a quarter for the zones who meet or exceed their goals. This time it was our turn so on Friday we all got together for a pancake breakfast and a zone picture. One of the elders is skilled at making neckties, so he and his companion made a necktie for each of the men in the zone as well as a little flower for the hair for all the sisters. The tie is now in my “tie rotation” of fourteen ties so once every couple of weeks I’ll wear it at the Visitors’ Center. It is a nice looking and well-made tie!

About once a week I write a letter back home to family and friends. This week I decided to also include these letters in my blog website. The link is at the top right, “Mission Letters”. They’re listed in order. They’re another look at our missionary experience in Hawaii … and who knows where else in the future!

It’s time to go over for our shift at the Visitors’ Center. We’ll enjoy this weather with the guests who’ll come from the Polynesian Cultural Center on the Laie Tram Tour as well as those who walk in.

Ta ta for now!