It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas? November 27 - December 3, 2023

       This whole week was extremely rainy even for Hawaii.  The drainage on the roads here in Hawaii are not particularly good.  At the bottom of the hill where we live when it rains as much as it did this week, a puddle forms across the whole street where we stop before we get on the Kamehameha Highway to go to the PCC.   It wasn't good weather to be outside, even though it was warm, but humid.  Several afternoons after we were done at the PCC, I came home and baked chocolate chip cookies to deliver to the students on Sunday.  My freezer was full of cookies by the end of the week.

      We had ukelele lessons again on Monday evening.  We learn a few new chords each week.  The songs are very simple with few chord changes, but we still play the song pretty slowing because the teacher waits for everyone to get the chord right before going on.     

      Tuesday was a little different than our normal schedule.  We had missionary training in the morning.  Normally we would get this training the day after we arrive, but since there were two groups of missionaries coming in during the month of November, they waited until the second group arrived so both groups could be trained together.  The training was done in the church building where the mission office is located by the temple.  They fed us breakfast and discussed the unique aspects of our mission and mission procedures. 

      After the training, we went to the Christmas devotional at BYU-H.  It was a musical devotional with all the musical groups from the college performing.

      

They even had hula dancers and ukelele players.  Even though we have only been to our new ward twice, I did notice a few of the students from our ward participating in the different groups. 

      

     In the singing group picture on the right, the second girl in from the left on the first row is in our ward.  I don't know any names yet.

   

 We recognized another student from our ward in the ukelele group.  She is the first one on the left on the front row.  The whole group were all very good ukelele players.  Not sure we'll ever get that good.

      Don't you love the attire of the orchestra players?  The bright yellow, light blue, and pink suits were fun to see compared to the usual black and white formal wear most orchestras perform in.  Maybe you can even notice the flutist in the middle wearing her hula dancing costume because she didn't have time to change before she had to perform in the orchestra.

      The picture on the right is the shaka steel drum band performing, the same group we heard perform the first week we were here.

    

The combined choirs and orchestra performed during the sing along portion of the program.

      Here we are singing Christmas songs.  We are sitting with Brent and Jen Cowley.  Brent grew up in the same ward in South Jordan with us and his family lives down the street.  I even taught him piano lessons for a time.  He is teaching at BYU-H this year.  He and Jen have been very welcoming and helpful to us as we figure things out here on Oahu.  They have the Aloha spirit already even though they have only been here a few more months than we have.

      After going home for some lunch and Elder Rappleye changing his clothes, we went to work at the PCC for a few hours.  We still had our work to do there, just did it a little late.

    

  Tuesday evening was the lighting ceremony for turning on the Christmas lights at BYU-H.  They had a short program with talks, singing by the Filipino club, and group Christmas caroling.  When the time came to flip the switch, they even had a countdown.  After the lights came on, we all cheered, then walked around enjoying the light display.

    

  In the middle of the flag circle is a very nice Nativity scene.  I know it doesn't even compare to the light display at temple square in Salt Lake City, but it does lend a nice atmosphere for the Christmas season here, minus the snow. 

        Although it is hard for us to feel like it's Christmas because we are so used to it being cold and snowy at Christmas time, I could possibly get use to the idea of palm trees and warm ocean breezes at Christmas if my family were here as well.  Spending time with family is such a big part of our Christmas traditions.  But we will focus on the "Christ" part of Christmas this year, as shown in the Nativity scene.  The above picture of the Nativity shows the whole scene during the day.

                                                                                             Wednesday is our day off, but in the evening instead of playing pickleball, we attended BYU-H performing arts Christmas concert.  It had some of the same groups performing that performed at the devotional on Tuesday, but it was a whole different program.  It was titled, "O Come, Emmanuel".  The students performing are very proficient and have a lot of talent.  Enjoying Christmas music is one of our favorite ways to get in the Christmas spirit.

     

      These are all of the senior students who are graduating at the end of the semester.  The last male in from the left standing next to the girls, with the curly hair, is Jimboy, the student in our ward that we met on Thanksgiving.

This number was led by a student conductor.  He was very entertaining to watch.  It was a very upbeat number and he really got into it.  The crowd all loved him.

On this number, they had the three girls dancing.  The choreography and dresses reminded me of the old USO shows that you see in WWII movies.

   

      On Thursday night we had another mission training at the mission office building.   This time with the new younger missionaries that had just arrived that day.  All 4 of them were sister missionaries.   Of course, everyone got to introduce themselves again and tell why we decided to service a mission.  Many of the senior couples said it was something they had planned to do since they were first married (ditto for us).  The main reasons we all wanted to serve are love for God and Jesus Christ, to bring others to Christ and his gospel, to share the blessings of the gospel with others, and to lift and serve others wherever we are asked to go.

 

           
  

      

      At the end of the meal and training, we went over to the Visitor's Center and watched a film about the history of the church in Laie.  It was very inspiring.  The Visitor's Center is decorated for Christmas with lots of different Christmas trees that the stakes in Laie and surrounding areas decorate.  Elder Rappleye is standing by the tree the Laie YSA 2nd stake decorated.  That's the stake we are assigned to.

      In the Visitor's Center is a 3D model of the Laie Temple.  Visitors can view the inside of the different temple rooms.  It has identical miniature furniture that is in the temple for all the rooms.  It's pretty cool.

      On this tree it has this saying as part of the decorations of the tree.

                 Light the World with Aloha

A Akahai, meaning kindness, to be expressed             with tenderness.

L  Lokahi, meaning unity, to be expressed with            harmony.

O  Olu'olu, meaning agreeable, to be expressed             with pleasantness.

H  Ha'aha'a, meaning humility, to be expressed             with modesty.

A  Ahouni, meaning patience, to be expressed with tolerance.    Written by Aunty Pilahi Paki

       Another perk we enjoy serving here in Laie, is the availability of the temple.  Here is a view from the front doors of the temple showing the temple grounds and looking towards the ocean, which you might be able to see in the background.  We have gone twice to the temple since arriving. The times it is open is a little limited, especially when you are used to Utah temples The first time was the first week we were here before they had us start working at the PCC and the second time was Friday night, December 1st.  It had been pouring down rain for most of the day, but for this picture it cleared up just in time to take this beautiful photo.

  

       

       On Saturday morning, we attended a mission devotional at the Mission Settlement in the PCC.  The group of missionaries that work at the Mission Settlement presented the devotional. It was held in the schoolhouse in the mission settlement area of the PCC.  In the picture to the right, the group playing the ukeleles and singing are the mission settlement missionaries.  The reason most of them know how to play the ukelele is that they are the ones that teach ukelele lessons to the tourists that come to the PCC.

     

 Saturday evening, we finally were able to get together with my Uncle Jay, Aunt Faith, and cousin Julie.  We have been so busy and our schedules just kept us from being able to get together.  We went out to dinner at the Turtle Bay Resort.

    

      It was a gorgeous evening.  We ate out on the patio looking out to the golf course.  The food was the best I have had since coming to Hawaii.  My Uncle Jay is 90 years old now.  I haven't seen him or my Aunt Faith in many years, probably 10 - 15 years.  It was so fun visiting and catching up with each other and our families.  They were so kind to pay for our dinner. Thank you, Uncle Jay and Aunt Faith.  Plus, we got to see a beautiful sunset. 

Early Sunday morning, 6:45AM, to be exact.  The whole mission, all the junior and senior missionaries gathered at the Laie temple grounds to get a group picture.  We were all supposed to wear Sunday dress, but at the last minute Sunday morning I looked on the mission Facebook page and saw the group picture posted there and everyone was wearing Aloha wear, so it confused us and we thought maybe we were supposed to wear our Aloha wear.  We quickly changed out of our Sunday clothes and into our Aloha wear and drove over to the temple.  When we got there, we could see everyone in their Sunday dress and realized we were not dressed in the right clothes.  We didn't have enough time to go back to our pad and change and get back in time.  They had emphasized "to be on time".  Boy did we feel like idiots!  It takes quite an effort to get such a big group organized and standing where everyone's face is not hidden, and by the time the photographer got everyone arranged the way he wanted us to, it had begun to rain.  We were all wanting to take cover, but just at that moment a rainbow appeared right over the temple.  The photographer immediately told us not to move and took a few more photos.

 Here's the results.  A stunning photo of a rainbow over the temple!  The rainbow is not photoshopped in, it actually appeared as shown in the picture.  We are on the back row, the only ones NOT in Sunday dress, but in Green Aloha wear Hawaiian dress and shirt.  Haha!  At least you should be able to pick us out easily.

      

      By the time we got to take this selfie, the rainbow had faded quite a bit.

       After that embarrassing event, we quickly went back home, changed back into our Sunday clothes, and headed to church with all the chocolate chip cookies to pass out to all the students after church.  

     The "Hales" or dorms we found out are locked access, so we were not able to get into the different dorm room doors without someone who lived there letting us in.  Plus, it was against the rules for males to go pass the locked front gate of the women's dorms and females to go pass the locked front gate of the men's dorms.    

      So, I passed out cookies to all the girls and Elder Rappleye passed out cookies to all the boys.  It kind of wrecked our goal of meeting all the students together, but everyone was excited to get cookies.  No one turned us away.  Elder Rappleye told all the boys that we baked the answers to their finals into the cookies and all they had to do was eat the cookie and they would do great on their finals.  I'm not so sure that was a good idea, it kind of encouraged them not to study, but I'm sure none of them believed it, but they all liked the idea.

      We ended the week with the senior missionary Munch and Mingle.  Every first Sunday, at 5:30pm, we all meet at the Gateway Terrace and have a big potluck meal to break our fast.  Each district is assigned a certain kind or portion of the meal.  Our district had side, salad, or appetizer.  I'm not loving cooking in my apartment's kitchen because it's so small and it gets pretty warm in our pad in the afternoons and evenings, so I don't like to turn on the oven.  I opted to do an appetizer.  It's a great end to the Sabbath day and since we don't mingle during the week, meaning PCC missionaries don't get to see BYU-H or Visitor's Center missionaries during the week and vice-a-versa, it allows everyone to get to know each other and how they are doing.  Being far from family and familiar surroundings, it really helps to have the fellowship.