We’ve now become another missionary accident statistic. On Tuesday Nina had to make a quick trip to the grocery store to get an ingredient for tacos that we were having for lunch with a couple of sister missionaries. Oncoming traffic caused her to have to stop on the highway to wait to make a left turn onto our road. She’d been stopped for several seconds when BAM! a Saturn minivan plowed into the back of our car. The other driver figured out too late that Nina was stopped and couldn’t get her minivan stopped before hitting Nina. Nina was alone in our car; a mother and daughter were in the other car. Fortunately, no one was injured and both cars were still drivable.

I was in the shower and didn’t hear the phone (and couldn’t have done much, anyway, as I had no transportation). Nina then called Elder Swinton, the Visitors’ Center Director who drove over and helped take charge of the situation. He’s a lawyer and knew everything to do. The other driver is well insured with Geico.

So, yesterday (Wednesday) was our Preparation Day and we didn’t have anything in particular planned. That all changed with the accident. We drove down to Kaneohe (about 45 minutes south of Laie, see map on the right) to an autobody shop to get an estimate to repair the automobile. The estimate came back at about $3,700 for the repair. Of course we’ll require a rental car while the repair takes place. I’m thinking the total bill will be around $4,500.

Since we were already two-thirds of the way there, we decided to continue on into Honolulu, go to the mission office to pick up needed Books of Mormon, pick up a few things at Walmart (a couple of blocks away from the Mission Office), and then go to Costco for a few more things. That put us in rush hour traffic coming home.

The weather here has been cloudy with frequent rain showers and high trade winds the past couple of days. The route from Kaneohe to Honolulu goes up the mountain chain the bisects the island and through a long tunnel to come out on the Honolulu side. Quite often (and yesterday was no exception) the weather on the Honolulu side is quite different than the weather on the Kaneohe side. We drove from clouds and rain showers into mostly sunny skies and ten degrees warmer weather! We’re both pretty sure that Honolulu has more sunny days than we have here in Laie.

Driving home we ran into another coincidence. I’m convinced that there are really no coincidences, actually. I read somewhere that “a coincidence is an appointment made by God and kept by man.” That definition seems quite appropriate. Driving back home, Nina decided as we came into Laie to get an ice cream cone at McDonalds. She was driving, so we swung into the drive-through and bought one ice cream cone. The McDonalds ice cream cones are very good and are a bit lower in calories than other comparable cones. Then she decided to drive past the Visitors’ Center on the way back to the house.

So, we came out of McDonalds and made a left turn off the main highway onto Naniloa Loop, which goes past BYU-Hawaii, the Visitors’ Center, across Lanihuli Street (where we live) and then curves back around to the main highway. Hopefully that is clear in the map to the left. As we came past the Visitors’ Center we saw two sister missionaries running down the sidewalk calling to us. We pulled over to learn that they were on their way to the Polynesian Cultural Center but the tram they were going to take had left early and they were now stuck. Then, at that moment, we drove by! They recognized the car from the dinged up back end and hailed us. Of course we drove them over to the PCC so they could fulfill their assignment over there. It was the sudden decision to stop for an ice cream cone that put is in front of the Visitors’ Center at the right time. As Spock would say, “fascinating!”

That’s all for today. Ta ta for now!