Aunt LaRella passed away Monday, July 11th after being in a skilled nursing facility for several years with severe dementia. She was Nathan LeRoy and Mary Burton Smith’s only daughter and my father’s only sister. She was born in the old farmhouse in Cleveland, Idaho (a place that no longer exists) on September 18, 1929. My grandfather (her father) was the midwife. Aunt LaRella said of her birth, that it was in the upstairs master bedroom in the middle of the night and somewhat earlier than expected. When grandfather delivered the baby before the umbilical cord was cut, grandmother saw it was a girl, “We’ve got a girl, Roy!” she exclaimed. “Don’t let her die! Don’t let her die!” She lived to be 86. When she was old enough to go to school, grandmother moved into town so Aunt LaRella could attend school in town. The town? Preston, Idaho, population 1,500 at that time.

Her funeral will be this coming Monday in Preston and she’ll be buried next to her husband, my uncle Ted Larsen, who passed away a couple of years ago.

My favorite memory of Aunt LaRella was about twenty years ago when we were all at the Cleveland Cemetery for a burial. I don’t remember who. But after the grave dedication, Aunt LaRella took several of us, including some of my teenaged children on a tour of the back side of the cemetery where the previous generation of Smith’s are buried and regaled us with stories about our ancestors. I don’t remember most of those stories now, but that was kind of the awakening of thinking about family and our family heritage. Rest in Peace, Aunt LaRella. You’re now in a much better place!

Today is our Preparation day. We’re taking it a bit easy this afternoon and evening after making a trip into Honolulu this morning to the Hawaii Honolulu Mission Office to pick up several cases of Simplified Chinese Books of Mormon and doing a little shopping at Walmart. We’re both quite tired! We’ve had a very busy week with very little downtime, and that downtime is going to be less in the near term!

All three of the luau’s at the Polynesian Cultural Center are sold out for weeks in advance. In an effort to provide more guests the opportunity to participate in a luau, they’ve added a fourth luau starting yesterday and continuing through the end of August. The Hale Ohana luau is now a double luau … one at 4pm and a second at 6pm. Ticket takers need to be at the Ohana Luau at 3:20pm and will be finished about 6:30pm to be able to get dinner at Prime Dining. That’s an hour longer than before. We’re scheduled on Friday to be at the Ohana Luau taking tickets. It’s one of our favorite assignments at the PCC, so it’ll be good to be there … just long!

One of our Japanese sister missionaries from Sapporo, Japan completed her mission this morning and left to return home. This was her original completion date, but because of the change in schedules at the MTC’s increasing from 2 weeks to 3 weeks, this transfer is seven weeks long instead of the normal six weeks. Missionaries generally go home and new missionaries arrive on the transfer day to minimize companionship disruptions. However the new Sapporo Temple will be dedicated this coming Sunday and the sister really wanted to be able to attend the dedication with her family. She’s been an outstanding missionary. She came right after we arrived on our mission and grew up with us as missionaries. We shall miss her as a missionary, but not for long. She’s coming back in September to BYU-Hawaii … and a dinner appointment with us.

So, this is the last week of this transfer. We’ll start our opposite schedule next Monday and will have a Thursday Preparation Day instead of a Wednesday Preparation day. Two more sister missionaries go home next Wednesday and three new missionaries arrive, leaving us with the same number of missionaries but with a different mix of languages.

So, ’til next time … ta ta for now!