We inherited this little Christmas tree when we moved into our pad in Hau'ula. We found it on the top shelf on our hall closet. There was only the tree. We bought a few gold ornaments and a mini battery powered string of light to decorate the tree. The little flowers that are on the tree, are really clip earrings that I got from our work Christmas party. They used them as part of the table decorations and were going to throw them out, so I grabbed a few to help liven up our tree. Then I made a couple of extra fan angels to add to the tree decorations. This picture was taken on Christmas Eve.
We kept Christmas very simple this year. In some ways we enjoyed the stress-free aspect of the Christmas season, but we definitely missed being around all of our family and friends and the joy that comes from being with those we love.
Here we are on Christmas morning.
We had a few gifts make it over to Hawaii to open Christmas day. Elder Rappleye loves this book his brother, Lloyd sent him with family history stories written by his brother. There was one story that Lloyd included that Elder Rappleye wrote about soap box derby racing.
I received this lovely necklace from my daughter, Noelle, with the state of Utah engraved in one circle, the state of Hawaii engraved on another circle and a little small circle with a heart engraved on it between the two other circles. A perfect necklace to wear while serving here.
We got a few other things - a clock with a picture of Jesus on the face of it from my brother, David; a photo book from Neal and Jasmin of their family events for the year; a cool picture called "Star of Bethlehem" made from reclaimed wood. It's an original work of art given to us by our daughter, Sara, that her friend Brooke designed and made.
I was totally surprised by the pink insulated bag and 2 quarts of gelato that one of the vendors gave to me for Christmas. I was so excited to get the cute pink bag. We have been taking our lunch to work in just a Ziplock bag. The insulated bag is perfect for carrying our lunch to work. The gelato is delicious as well. That was an unexpected perk of working in the Food Warehouse.
On Christmas day, we had another mission wide lunch. It was a nice traditional Christmas dinner of ham, funeral potatoes (I was asked to make some), and all the fixings, plus a lot of dessert to choose from. We sat with the Harrises, from our district.
You can get an idea of how many people were there from these pictures, although it doesn't show everybody.
After eating, everybody who had ukuleles got them out and they played, and everyone sang Christmas songs.
In the picture on the right, Elder Curtis is leading the ukulele players. He is our ukulele instructor on Monday nights for all the beginner missionaries.
One of the junior sister missionaries entertained us with a hula dance.
Christmas day was the nicest day we have had in a long time, so we had to get some beach time. We headed up to Sunset Beach. The waves were still too big for swimming, but we walked the whole length of the beach and watched the surfers for a while. I love the feel of the warm sand around my feet.
I caught Elder Rappleye actually wading in the water! Maybe he is starting to be a little Hawaiian?
This is the iconic palm tree that you will see in a lot of people's posts on social media. If you see this palm tree in the background, you will know it was taken at Sunset Beach on the north shore of Oahu. The sign on the tree (right by the edge of the picture) says not to climb on the tree.
It was definitely not feeling like a traditional Christmas with cold and snow, and family, but it will definitely be one we will remember.
Before I move on from the Christmas season, I'm going to post some more pictures that show the Christmas decorations around the PCC, Visitor's Center, and BYU-H.
Every time we would go into the Visitor's Center at the temple, I would say, "We need to get a picture in front of the Christus." But we would be in our PCC work clothes, or all the sister missionaries would be busy talking to tourist so they couldn't take our picture, or we would be in a hurry to pick up our mail. But we finally got a day when we went into the Visitor's Center and it was quiet and empty. So, we were able to get one of the sister missionaries to take our picture in front of the Christus.
It was back to work the day after Christmas. Because the PCC was closed on Christmas they were not closed on Wednesday. We would have to do a 4-day straight work week. Even the paid employees were not liking it much.
On Wednesday, December 27th, we got several text messages, pictures, and videos of the news of the birth of our 25th grandchild.
Weston Eugene Smith II, was born at 11:12 AM, weighing 8 lbs. 1 oz., and 21 inches long. Parents are Weston and Sara Smith and big sister is Susanna.
This is the hardest sacrifice I have had to make so far on this mission experience. The holidays have been hard to not be around family, but to miss holding this precious little baby fresh from heaven and not being able to help take care of Susanna for Sara and Weston has been super difficult. A big thank you and shout out to our daughter, Noelle, for stepping in and taking my place to help Sara and Weston. We may not be able to meet Eugene until we get back. We will miss so many firsts and so many bonding opportunities. I hope we can make up time when we get home.
We did our first shift of "Ask Me" on Wednesday night. We were actually filling in for another couple who couldn't do their shift. We were stationed out in the Hukilua Marketplace. We wear big "Ask Me" badges and stand by the "Ask Me" flag. We are there to help answer any of the tourist's questions they need answers to - "where's the restroom?", "where is the Pacific Theater where the night show is? "where can I get . . .?"
We even helped a woman who had hurt her leg and was bleeding. I had to run and get her a wheelchair and help them get her to the first aid station.
And what a coincidence! As we were standing watching the tourist walk by, Elder Rappleye noticed someone we knew. He shouted out, "Kirk" and he actually heard and turned to see us. It was Kirk Magleby, the man who got our son, Neal, his job at Book of Mormon Central (now Scripture Central). He and his family were on vacation in Hawaii. We had to snap a picture and send it to Neal to show him who we ran into.
On Friday after we finished our work at the PCC, we drove down to the Pali Lookout. I remember visiting this spot the last time we were in Hawaii 35 years ago. It's got a great view of the island and usually very windy on the lookout. But it must have been a very calm day because it wasn't very windy at all. The views were awesome!
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Then we drove down to Ko'olau Golf Course, which we could see from the Pali lookout. The trailhead to Likeke Falls is at the far end of the parking lot. At the beginning of the trail, it was a little muddy. I had read reviews saying that the trail can be pretty slippery when it is muddy, so I was a little concerned.
We got as far as this water tank, then the trail veers to the left and it got super muddy. We only went a few feet and decided it was too muddy to go any further. Our shoes were getting quite muddy, and it was slick. We just turned around and went back to our car.
We had parked our car down on the road and hiked up to the golf course parking lot because there had been a sign saying no parking allowed for hikers that day due to a special event at the golf course. When we arrived at the entrance to the golf course, we found the gate closed and locked. The rock wall going out from the fence was pretty high and the rocks were covered with moss, so it was going to be a little difficult to climb over the wall. Luckily, we found at the end of one side of the wall a small, narrow opening that we could squeeze through then proceeded down the road to our car.
On Saturday night we were able to go to a special screening for PCC employees of the movie "Shaka: A Story of Aloha". It is a documentary on the origin, meaning, and uses of the Shaka gesture. Those who watched it were asked to take an exit survey on how they liked the documentary. The producer was wanting feedback before they made the final cuts. The producer was there and told us how the movie came to be. Many of the people interviewed were there as well. We learned a lot about the Shaka and the Hawaiian culture. Maybe it will one day show up at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.
For the last day of the year, December 31st, we decided to view the last sunset of the year up along the North Shore. We haven't been able to view a sunset yet because we are on the eastern side of the island, so we get the sunrises, but the sunsets are blocked by the mountains.
We drove up to Kawala Bay and just barely got to the beach in time to catch the sun going down. It wasn't as spectacular as I was hoping for because there were no clouds in the sky to light up. But it was a nice peaceful way to say goodbye to 2023.
We were warned that the Hawaiians love to celebrate New Year's with lots of fireworks, and that it would be a long and loud night. I thought it couldn't be as big as the 4th of July back home. When we attended our church meeting we asked the students what they would be doing to celebrate the new year. They all told us that they would be going to the temple grounds to view the fireworks at midnight. Nobody had told us about that event. We weren't sure we were wanting to stay up that late, but around 7pm the fireworks started going off in our neighborhood. And it was a lot! We had a pretty good view from our deck to see them. We thought, "This is pretty good, we don't need to go to the temple to see the fireworks. We have a pretty good show right here." But then Brent Cowley sent us a text and told us that people were gathering at the temple and that there was a band playing. So around 10pm, we decided to head to the temple to check it out because we knew it was going to be too noisy in our neighborhood to try to sleep.
It is only about a 10-minute drive to the temple from where we live. By the time we got there we could see there were a lot of people out and about. There were lots of fireworks already going off. We parked a few blocks away from the temple and walked down towards the temple. We could hear music playing.
Across the street from the temple was this band playing. They were pretty good. There were lots of people sitting around listening to the band and waiting for midnight. There is a roundabout in front of the temple where lots of people were sitting, plus people on the sidewalk and lawn in front of the temple.
Different people would take turns playing music. There were even a few people that performed dances. It was a very festive atmosphere. The whole time leading up to midnight you could see fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhood.
The band would keep announcing the minutes until midnight. Then they started a countdown from 10, 9, 8, etc. At midnight everyone yelled and screamed, and then, boy did the fireworks go off. We thought there had been a good show before midnight, but now it was amazing. The pictures above show the crowd all videoing the firework show. Hopefully it can give you an idea on how big the crowd was.
I never got a very good picture of the firework show. It lasted a good 15 - 20 minutes of non-stop fireworks in multiple places. This picture shows the fireworks going on as we looked toward the ocean. There were also fireworks going on behind us to the north of the temple.
It was the craziest New Year's Eve celebration we have ever been a part of. The number of fireworks exploding all at once and back-to-back was crazy. The people of Laie definitely love to celebrate New Year's. It's probably the closest we'll get to how it feels to be at Times Square in New York City on New Year's Eve.
Someone launched some floating lanterns. I didn't get a clear shot of them until they were quite high in the sky. All you can see are the little specks of lights in the dark sky. They almost look like bright stars, but they are the floating lanterns.
We didn't stick around too long after midnight. There were still a lot of people just milling around celebrating when we left. We were told to expect fireworks going off until about 2 or 3 in the morning. By the time we got back to Hau'ula around 12:45AM, our neighborhood was pretty quiet. Thank goodness because we were ready for sleep.
Wishing everyone a bright, joyous, wonderful New Year!
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