Heather and Ty stopped in Hawaii for a couple of days on their way back to Mumbai, India after their annual home leave. Top of their list of things to do was a session at the Laie Hawaii Temple which we took care of the very next morning. After the session we walked through the meditation garden at the back of the temple. Two beautiful banyan trees grace the garden and the relative size is shown in this picture with Heather standing underneath the tree. A lot of students come up to this garden during the school year to get a bit of peace and quiet and to enjoy the sweet spirit on the temple grounds. The gardeners (all four of them) do a world-class job of maintaining the grounds, the flora, and the fauna.

Heather’s time on home leave was more than hectic. So much to do in so little time, including doing the initial planning for Danielle’s Temple Wedding in December. That meant that Heather and Ty were quite content to just sit around for a while and just plain “talk story” (a Hawaiian idiom used very often, meaning to sit around and “chew the fat”). We also did all of the important tourist things as well, including spending Wednesday afternoon at the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. The Pearl Harbor stop was number two on Ty’s list. His grandfather Hal Hardy had served during WWII in Honolulu and throughout the Pacific on a Navy LST (landing ship transport).

We took the opportunity to ride the Laie Tram Tour from the Polynesian Cultural Center over to the Temple and back. That gave Heather and Ty a brief overview of the history of Laie as well as a chance to meet and visit with some of the sister missionaries we work with. After we got back from the tram ride, we walked through the Polynesian Cultural Center. All of the islands were closed, which made for a very nice, peaceful walk. No crowds, no noise! Along the way we met up with some folks working on a biology project … catching fish from the PCC canal to use in a hydroponic project (the “fish poop” feeds the plants in the hydroponds). They were being very successful with their fishing using Taro Rolls for bait.

on Saturday, September 3rd, Nina’s sister Pamela arrived for an eight-day visit with us. She’s been working and saving for this trip for the past couple of years and was really psyched up to finally get here and experience Hawaii with us.

On our way back from the airport to the North Shore, we stopped at the Pali Overlook on the Pali Highway going from Honolulu to Kaneohe. This is a Very Popular Tourist Spot … which by itself is an understatement. This highway started out as a very treacherous footpath that was upgraded and expanded over the years to what became a nice 4-lane highway in 1957. Since that time two more highways have been punched through the Kualoa Mountains which bisect Oahu.

We joined the dozens of tourists (it was well after 6pm in the evening) to take pictures on the overlook. The city of Kaneohe is on the background left, the city of Kailua in the background right, and the Marine Corps Base Honolulu directly in the background. There’s a humorous (unless your a victim) sign as one walks up to the overlook warning visitors to beware of bees in the high winds.

About five mornings a week I walk up the hill at the end of the road by our house to the water tank and back (about a half mile) and then continue down the hill and around a cul-de-sac and back home. The whole thing takes just over a half hour and is right at a mile. The climb is very strenuous and takes the most time. Already, though, it’s getting a bit faster each day. However, after all I ate this evening at the monthly Break-the-Fast, I’ve probably regressed significantly. The sun is just peaking over the horizon on the right side of this picture.

Every few weeks we get to witness a marriage proposal at the feet of the Christus in the Visitors’ Center. Today was another of those opportunities made even more interesting because Nina’s sister Pamela was there to see it happen. The young man had arranged for a friend to come to “take some pictures”. He took a couple of pictures, then told the fellow that his shirt wasn’t tucked in correctly, using that as a way to slip the fellow a box with the engagement ring inside.

With the ring in hand, the fellow dropped to a knee and proposed marriage! The girl was stunned, surprised, and although I’m sure she knew the proposal was coming some time, was delightfully dumbfounded by the sudden proposal. He actually had to repeat his proposal so she could be sure she had heard him correctly!

The proposal was accepted, followed by a Very Big Kiss. Lots of applause from people in the know as well as all the other visitors at the Visitors’ Center. They fellow and his now-fiancé took many more pictures, while she hung onto him quite tightly; clearly she wasn’t going to let him get away!

Marriage proposals happen fairly often at the Visitors’ Center, but usually around the end of a term at school. The fall term is only a few weeks underway and this is the first proposal of this school term. The other event that occurs fairly regularly is students opening their mission calls.

Last year Hawaii managed to stay out of the way of five hurricanes. This year we’ve dodged the first one, Hurricane Madeline, which made its way yesterday just south of Hawaii’s Big Island and was downgraded to a Tropical Storm as it passed. Another hurricane named Lester is on it’s way here by Sunday, unless it also changes course and goes south of us. Sometimes hurricanes this close to each other merge and make themselves into huge weather patterns. In any case, we’re probably going to have heavy surf and lots of rain for the next several days.

Nina’s sister Pamela is flying into Honolulu on Saturday, staying through the 11th. She should get here just ahead of Lester’s arrival and may well experience her first hurricane! The probability is fairly low, though.

Today I took down the four ham radio antennas I had up at our previous house. Tomorrow I’ll look at the possibilities of getting a couple of them back up in the air. I’d really like to be able to do some ham radio play in the remaining five months we’ll be here. With the antennas down, we’re now completely moved out of the house on Lanihuli Street. The workmen are making good progress and are saying they’ll be completed mid-November! That would be wonderful if it really happened. The latest report from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake City is that we’ll need housing for at least 31 sister missionaries by late November. Depending on visa processing, it could be a couple more. Unfortunately, visa processing right now by the US Government is incredibly slow and more capricious than it has ever been.

Our new location is near the end of the road and right up against the Kualoa Mountains which bisect the Island of Oahu. Another road continues after the end of our road, but it is blocked off to vehicular traffic. About a half-mile up (and I really mean UP) is a huge fresh water tank. I walked up there and back yesterday for a very nice workout. Today is our Preparation Day, and Nina walked with me this morning. It’s a very nice walk on a paved, well-maintained road with plenty of trees for shelter from any heavy rains.

Up near the top of the road is a nice look out at the Pacific Ocean. This walk will be my morning jaunt most every morning from now on, weather permitting. While ‘buns of steel’ aren’t in my future, weak calves are currently making their presence felt….

This week started a new transfer and two new sister missionaries arrived today from the MTC. None of our sister missionaries completed their mission this transfer. One of our Chinese-speaking missionaries came back from her full field proselyting experience and two have gone out for that experience leaving us with a net zero gain/loss at the Visitors’ Center. The additional sisters later this year will be very welcome as they’ll help balance out the workload. They bring another interesting issue, though. Each of the new sisters needs a seasoned sister missionary as a trainer!

Tomorrow morning we’ll be back at the Visitors’ Center. Our schedules shifted last Monday so we’re now Monday and Tuesday afternoon at the Center, Wednesday as our Preparation Day, and then Thursday through Saturday mornings at the Center. Life is good … so, ta ta for now!

We have almost everything moved over to the new house, which is 3.3 miles south of the old place where we used to live. The old house itself is empty. My ham radio antennas, four of them, are still over there and I’ll take them down in the morning for the move over here. How to put any or all of them up is a bit of a problem to be solved. More on that on some future date.

Our living area includes half of the car port and the front part of the house. Another family is living in the back half of the house. I haven’t been into the back area, so I’ve no idea what it all looks like. The house is a three-bedroom two-bath arrangement, but what would be considered to be the master bedroom / bath is “closed off” for us. That was the landlord’s concession to reduce the rent from $2,300 to $1,850 a month. We’re here on a five and a half month lease. The Mission is hoping in the meantime to find a place in Laie itself at a better price while the landlord is hoping to find a new tenant that will pay the full price.

The front area is a great room arrangement with the kitchen on one side. No dividers, just a huge space with a tiled floor. Down the hallway are three closets, a bathroom on the right, two bedrooms on the left, and the master bedroom at the end of the hall. We’ve put our bed in the second bedroom and will use the first bedroom as a kind of a study and I’ll put my ham radio setup in that room. The house has a shared hot water heater, washer and dryer, mailbox, and wifi. The budget for utilities is $500 a month and if they go over that amount, the difference is split between the two tenants. I’ve no idea how that’s going to work.

So far we’ve got about 80% of the stuff put away in it’s likely permanent location. The other bedroom still has a number of boxes to be unloaded. I have to make a decision about whether to use the existing wifi or to have a new internet drop put in place. Bishop Goo is the Oceanic Time Warner guy so I need to talk with him to see what my options are. I’ll put in a change of address tomorrow. As I said, its a shared mailbox with the family living behind us. Our old address still works as no one is living there.

So, Nina has set up a desk in the front room with her stuff. I’ve set my computer and such on a table in the front room. We definitely have plenty of space in this area. However, there’s no air conditioning! We have three box fans in the windows, an overhead fan, and a rotating pedestal fan plus another window and pedestal fan in the bedroom. The past two nights were very sticky, tonight is much nicer. The weather will be cooling off over the next month or so with the humidity going down significantly. That’ll make a difference for sure. A little over five months. We can do this.

Ta ta for now!

I had expected that we’d be in the same apartment our entire 23-month mission and would have three moves: into the MTC, to Hawaii, back home. Well, we’re adding a fourth … a move to Hau’ula (pronouced ‘how”ooh-lah’. The contract hasn’t been signed, yet, at least as far as we’ve been informed. However, we’re setting up to move on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning next week. We’ll be working the morning shift on Thursday and the afternoon shift on Friday, so that should give us enough time to be moved. The housing coordinator from the Mission is bringing up the Mission’s pickup truck to help with the move.

We’ve been watching a little bit of the Olympics on TV and I’ve noticed some ads from Enterprise Car Rental that they also now rent trucks. I’m going to give them a call to see if we can get a truck larger than a pickup for next week to make the move much faster … perhaps even down to one trip with both vehicles.

Renovation work has started in earnest. Today they started the asbestos abatement in both our garage and the other senior couple’s garage. I’m already missing having a garage to store things. We don’t have a staging area for this move!

We’re stacking boxes in and around the couch. Since the apartment is unfurnished, almost all of the furniture here is going over there. The benefit is that we won’t have to unload and box up drawers. But, there’s still more than plenty of stuff that needs to get into boxes.

BUT! We’ll have a short reprieve from all this move hullabaloo. Heather and Ty are flying in on Monday afternoon on their way back to Mumbai!! They’ll be here a couple of days and leave late morning on Thursday. They’re making a bit of a travel sacrifice for this trip … flying Korean Air from Hawaii to South Korea and then from there to Mumbai. They’ll be in Business Class, so I’m pretty sure they won’t be surrounded by all the Korean tourists bringing all their loot back home. I’ve heard that Business Class is pretty much OK, but Economy can be quite an adventure. It’ll be so very much fun to have them here with us for a couple of days.

So, with that ’til next time. Ta ta for now.

Two days ago I got a call from a lady who had an apartment for rent in Hau’ula, the town just south of Laie. I had called her about the place a week ago and she’d just rented it. That fell through so she called to see if we were still interested. It’s a three-bedroom two-bath unfurnished apartment on the ground floor with a carport. No air conditioning, but it certainly would be sufficient for the next 5 1/2 months. She wanted more that the Church was willing to pay, however, so it looked like it wasn’t going anywhere.

This morning she called back and agreed to rent at the price the Church was willing to pay for 5 1/2 months given that she could close off one bedroom and store some stuff in there and, for some reason, close off one bathroom. There is another bathroom in the master bedroom, that just means anyone coming to the house would have to use the bathroom in our bedroom (but it also means one less bathroom to clean). We also can’t have anyone else stay in the other bedroom unless we pay vacation rental for that time. It’ll make a nice study / office. 

So, the final contract is being drawn up now and we should be able to move in next week. 

Today we finished getting everything out of our garage so they can start the work in there. The first job is asbestos abatement. Personally I’d rather be out of the apartment when they start disturbing the asbestos insulation in the ceiling of the garage, but that’ll not happen. 

This is good news today. The new address is 54-174 Kawaipuna St., Hau’ula, Hawaii. Ta ta for now!

We were notified today that we have to vacate our garage on Wednesday so they can start working on the garage conversion on Thursday. There is a Lot Of Stuff in our garage. This has been the place for tools and machinery for many years. I’ve no idea where it will all go. Meanwhile, we also have some stuff in the garage that needs to be put somewhere until we find a place to move. Further, the first set of work is asbestos abatement. This is not fun. Two weeks later they want us out of our apartment so they can proceed with the conversion.

We looked at a place a couple of miles south of Laie this afternoon. It would be acceptable. It’s a three-bedroom two-bath apartment with a carport, pretty much unfurnished. The owner want $2,350 a month which includes all the utilities. The Church wants to pay no more than $1,850 a month … I’m pretty sure they won’t come to an agreement. There isn’t anything else available within a twenty-minute drive. Did I say this is not fun?

We’re both recovering from colds. Nina is doing quite a bit better today and I feel like I’ve turned the corner. A good night’s sleep tonight would be a big help!

End of rant! ‘Til next time!

Seventeen months ago today Nina and I were dropped off at the Provo Missionary Training Center by our grandson-in-law Randy Strader. Our official release date is February 9, 2017, six months from now. While it seems like we just got here, I’m certain this six months will fly by just as quickly.

This afternoon we were assigned to “guard” the exit at the Aloha Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center. What that entails is sitting by the back exit and guiding people to the restrooms. Occasionally someone will come in that way thinking it’s one of the entrances. In that case we direct them around to the front. This is a pleasant assignment as there’s no stress and little to do other than watch the people and the luau program.

Tonight’s luau was pretty full and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The luau program consists of short presentations from a few of the Polynesian islands, recognition of birthdays and anniversaries, some audience participation, and a youngster performing a fire-knife routine. The program lasts just about an hour and fifteen minutes. The first picture is of a traditional, ancient hula form practiced in Hawaii when hula was reserved for the priests and was part of their religious rites. The second picture is of a group having dinner at the luau. The food is served buffet style and is definitely all-you-care-to-eat. The luau starts serving about 4:45pm and the buffet remains open until 7pm or until the last guest leaves, whichever is earlier.

Late last week we were informed that our apartment is going to be converted from a one-bedroom with a garage to a two-bedroom no garage and that we will have to move somewhere else. One possibility is in the neighboring town of Hau’ula, about 4.7 miles south of Laie Temple Visitors’ Center. This is the upper floor of a fairly large house. We’ve only seen the outside. Tomorrow after our shift ends at 2:30pm we’re hoping to be able to see it. I’m pretty sure the Church is going to put it under contract, so either we will have to or the other senior missionary couple will have to move there. We have first refusal as we’re the most senior. Problem is, there isn’t much available and this may well be the best that can be found. It’s a difficult situation and one that we had hoped to avoid. However, the Church has budgeted this year to convert the remaining two apartments in the complex where we’re living into two-bedroom apartments. We really need to additional bedrooms for sister missionaries, so we’ll probably just have to suck it up. There’s only six months left. That’s not very long in the whole scheme of things!

Ta ta for now!

Nina has come down with a cold. It’s in the beginning stages which means she’ll be feeling lousy for the next week or so and it’ll probably degenerate into laryngitis. And, of course, I’ll be next in line. However, there isn’t really time to take time off to be sick, so we just plug through it, taking advantage of every second at home to rest and sleep.

The statistics are in for the month of July. We had 22,389 guests during the month. That’s 10,000 more than the same month last year. Part of that increase has to do with the Laie Tram Tours from the Polynesian Cultural Center during the afternoons. In July we had 8,893 tram guests, compared to 2,510 in July a year ago. Both numbers show a pretty dramatic increase. It’s clear to us that the Lord is hastening his work and we’re running hard to keep up. We’ve just been notified that we’ll be receiving 4 additional sister missionaries at the end of August and that’ll start taking some of the load off the sister missionaries.

So, what do we do with all of these tram tour and other guests? As the two pictures indicate, our sister missionaries spend a lot of time in the afternoons outside in the courtyard greeting guests, answering questions, taking pictures, and inviting them to come into the Visitors’ Center for more information. Many do that. Some prefer to stay outside and enjoy the beautiful setting and the peaceful, calm atmosphere. It’s quite a contrast to the noise, hustle, and bustle at the Polynesian Cultural Center!

Monday is usually our least busy day, probably because the Temple is closed on Mondays. An additional factor may be that people on vacation are flying in or back home on Mondays. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days. We’ll get around 500 guests on a Monday and around 1,000 on Saturday and Sunday, literally twice as many. As a result, all of the Preparation Days for the sister missionaries are spread across Monday – Wednesday. The two senior couples (Elder and Sister Andrus along with Nina and me) have our Preparation Days either on Wednesday or Thursday. That means we can have the most missionaries available to meet and greet guests on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

‘Til next time. Ta ta for now!