May 21 - 27

Monday we spent the day driving around the island.  First we met John and Lydia Aki for lunch in Kaneohe.  The First restaurant, Haleiwa Joe's,  we were going to meet at was closed until 4 pm.  We were looking for lunch at 11 am.  We then met them at Windward City Shopping Mall where we went to a Sushi Japanese restaurant.  It was great.  I love the tempura vegetables and shrimp.  It was wonderful visiting with the Akis again.  They are doing well.  Keeping very busy with their family.  President Aki is a sealer at the Laie Temple so we see him every Saturday morning.

Thee are called "Monkey Pod" trees and I just love them.  They are like a canopy.

At Waimei Falls at the entrance.  Another Monkey Pod tree

From there we did our usual shopping at Walmart and Costco and got gas.  For FHE Elder Hopkinson spoke about his experiences in business and the many people who had influenced his life and career and how that brought him to Laie to be CFO of the Polynesian Center for eight years and then to Moscow Russia to work for the Church and now back in Hawaii as PCC missionaries.  They come to the temple every Thursday on our 4 pm session.  Peggy is doing some of my family names and she is also the lei teacher where I have learned to make several leis.  Great people. 

We went early to FHE to have our first ukulele lesson.  Paul has really taken to it.  On the way home we stopped at the Hughes to see if they had a ukulele we could borrow for a time until we decide if we are really going to do this and buy our own.   He has been practicing.  We also sang Alohe Oe to the Dees who are going home early because an illness he has been fighting.  We are doing "Just Serve" with them.  They were in charge of all the BYU Hawaii missionaries.  They will be missed and hopefully he recovers.  Parasites are in his intestines. 

Elder & Sister Dee

It was a good week at the temple.  We got to help with a wedding in the middle of the week and Saturday I helped with two living endowments and a sealing to deceased parents.  Always wonderful to work with our Presidency and local workers.  They are wonderful dedicated people.

Good day at Church today.  Elder & Sister Woods spoke.  They have similar lives to us.  He is a convert but joined at BYU Provo but battled unresponsive family.  This is their second time here in Hawaii PCC as missionaries and they are going home in July and coming back as volunteers.  She is in the sewing center at the Mission Home (PCC) and he is with facilities and building.

Saturday after the temple we walked around the PCC and checked out the PCC Mission Home and their fabrics.  We also stayed to watch the "Hawaiian movie."

fabric at the PCC Mission Home

aprons I want to make

Our lesson in RS today was on ministering and will be our topic for the next six months on the 4th Sunday.  We began by finishing our discussion on the Sabbath day.  Some great ideas I gleaned today.  One family listens to one conference talk each Sunday and then discusses it.  Everyone has to share something they learned.  Great idea.  Someone else always holds a family council to plan out the weeks activities, others stay in their Sunday clothes to remind them of the day and others have helped their children do indexing and their own life histories.  

Wrote to Connie this morning so am including the body since it gives an overview of what we are doing here.

The volcano is on the big Island Hawaii and is at the end of the chain of islands so so far it has not bothered us at all.  It is quite a spectical however.  We watch it on the news.  It is only affecting about 5% of the island and the gases are going out over the ocean for the most part.  Sad for those who lived so close and lost homes.  Makes you wonder what people are thinking when they build in certain places.  I can say that because I'm not one of them.  We use to say that about the people who continued to build down the canyons to the ocean in CA when every few year fire would rage down them. 

It has been pretty overcast and rainy since we have been here.  We are in the temple most of the time so doesn't bother us much.  It is very beautiful and green.  We have no bugs because Paul ordered Orkin the first day we arrived.  The previous missionaries told us about the small ants.  Now we heard about the cockroaches.  One of the couples took the University van to the airport to drop someone off and were eating sunflower seeds.  They left the van and when they came back the cup of empty sunflower seeds was swarming with cockroaches.  

We are the only couple here.  The other couple went home sick just before we arrived with pancreatic cancer.  So very sad.  So we are working every day from 10:30 - 6.  Tues. we go in at 6 am for prayer meeting, then stay for the 7 session, come home until 10:15 and then go back and officiate and follow the 11 session.  We then fill in wherever they need us until 3:30 when we prepare for the mobility impaired session at 4.  When that is finished we can go home.  Home is right across the field about 420 steps so that doesn't take long. 

It's a lovely temple, wonderful Presidency and great workers.  Still difficulty to say these names and can't seem to keep in my head the names of the towns around here.  It was the 5th temple built after the SL.  Next year is the 100 anniversary.  I've read the Joseph  F. Smith and George Q. Cannon biographies and learned a lot.  We attend the Laie 1st Ward just across the street and on Fast Sundays we have started to visit some of the other wards.  Our first one was the Tonga Ward.  

The sister missionaries and Visitor Center Director live on our street.  They all serve at the Visitor Center and they bring a tram from the Polynesian Cultural Center PCC over to the VC every half hour.  Brother Gay, 7 Presidents of the Seventy, was here and told us the story of how a prophet called, maybe it was his dad, and said find a way to start teaching the gospel at the PCC.  He said we can't do that, it is a public place, etc.  then he said he looked out over the area and said, lets build a road from the PCC to the Temple and take people over to see the beautiful white building on the hill.  That started the tram rides between the PCC and VC.  These sisters also do skyp teaching every day and evening and have many referrals and baptisms.  In fact Elder Allen said they generate the majority of the baptisms in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission.  We have many Chinese, Japanese and Korean sisters here. (tourists from those countries).  Some sisters stand at the entrance and invite tourists to come for a 30 min tour of the Temple area.  Pretty neat. 

We have been around the island every couple of week to get to Costco and Walmart.  We get gas at Costco $3.05 but $3.65 at local stations.  We are  also participating in Just Serve by picking up food from a local ranch (where they filmed Juristic Park) and take it to a Pastor who distributes it to the homeless.We do that twice a month on Sunday.  Mondays all the missionaries PCC and BYUH meet for FHE.  I took some baby receiving blankets to sew.  Sister Lunnen left her machine for me.  It's computerized so is taking some getting use to.