Valentine's Day, District Activity, and a Celebrity Encounter: February 12 - 18, 2024

      We always start the week off with ukulele lessons on Monday night.  Right after ukulele lessons, in the same room in the HGB building, our ward has FHE activities.  This week was a Valentine's craft activity.  There was all kinds of colored paper, markers, and stickers to make as many Valentine cards you wanted.  They were encouraging everyone to make some to give to their ministering brothers and sisters, which in most cases were roommates.  Here's a part of the group busy at work on their Valentines.  The young man in the back by the cooler is the Bishop's son.

  Here's the other part of the group.  The young man on the end (I wish I could remember his name) had made a very cool heart card listing ways "I Love you because. . ."  Hopefully he was giving it to a very special lady in his life???  We made several heart shaped Valentines to put on our neighbor's downstairs door.  They are 3 young men away from home working construction at BYU-H, so we wanted to give them some love on Valentine's Day (picture coming up later in the blog).

      I came into work on Tuesday morning to see a Valentine treat left for me by Sister Jones.

   

   I passed out these small Valentine treats to everyone in the Food Warehouse on Tuesday at the prayer meeting we have every day.  Spreading the love all around.

      One of my former piano students, Abby, has been serving a mission in Rome Italy at the visitor's center.  I have been wanting to do a virtual tour with Sister Thurgood for quite a while.  We were hoping to arrange one for a District Activity, but with the 11-hour time difference and everyone in our district having different day's off because some of us are PCC missionaries and some are BYU-H missionaries, it just wasn't going to work out.  But Elder Rappleye and I decided we would just do one anyway.  We invited others to join us, but it didn't work for them either, so it was just us.  Tuesday night at 9pm our time and 8am Wednesday morning, Sister Thurgood's time, we finally got to do a tour.  She had to get special permission to do it at 8am because the Visitor's Center is not open until 9am.  Sister Thurgood (on the left) and her companion in the picture to the left with the temple in the background. 

  

  She showed us this amazing stained-glass mural and explained all the depictions of the different parables incorporated in the mural.  I loved it!

Of course, we saw the Christus and the 12 Apostle statues.  She explained the unique symbolism carved in each apostle's statue.

Here's a view looking out from the visitor's center towards the temple.  Having the virtual tour just made me wish to see it in person someday.  Maybe we can go with our son-in-law, Keith and daughter, Aimee someday.  Keith served his mission in Rome, Italy so I'm sure he would be willing to come with us.

 

    Our day off was on Valentine's Day.  We headed down to try to do the Likeke Falls hike that we didn't get to do because it was too muddy. As we got close to it, it began to pour down rain, so we knew it was going to be too muddy again.  Hopefully we will be able to hike it someday.  We headed back home but stopped at Kualoa Regional Park.  It is home to the icon view of Mokoli'i Island, commonly referred to as Chinaman's Hat.  The finish line of season 20 of the Amazing Race was filmed here in 2012.

    

We got out of our car just as a bus load of tourists unloaded and there were people everywhere.  The picture above was taken where all the tourists were.  Luckily, I could crop out most of the extra people.

Funny thing is none of them walked very far down the beach.  This picture was taken further down the beach where there was no one around.  it was overcast and cool here as well.  We had brought our swimsuits hoping to get in the water and spend some time soaking up the sun, but it wasn't meant to be.

We "heart attacked" our downstairs neighbors, putting the heart-shaped Valentines on their front door while they were at work.  I guess they liked it because they kept the hearts on their door for a week.  Next year we will "heart attack" our back upstairs neighbors.

   In the evening, Annalise, a young woman from our YSA ward invited us to go to the temple grounds to watch her open her mission call. Her mother contacted us, told us they were flying to Hawaii from Colorado to be there when she opened her mission call.  It was going to be a surprise.  Her mom wanted to know if we could pick up a cookie order at Foodland in Laie to take to the mission call opening ceremony because she knew the timing would be tight.

      Of course, we were more than happy to do that for her.  After we picked up the cookies, we headed over to the temple grounds.  We were a little bit early, so we explored the grounds and found this grove of banyan trees up behind the temple.  

      Annelise got called to serve in the Brazil Campinas mission and will learn Portuguese.  She will start her mission on June 3.

      

      To end our Valentine's Day activities, we walked down the hill from our pad to North Shore Tacos for dinner.  This was our second time eating here, and I'm still not a fan.  We have tried two different menu items and neither one was very impressive.  It's hard to compete with Cafe Rio and/or Costa Vida.

      Thursday morning when Elder Rappleye got to work at the motor pool, Elder and Sister Archibald were there with Elder Dahlin.  Sister Archibald was asking for a blessing because she had recovered from Shingles, so she thought, but it had come back worse than before.  They all went into the office, shut the door, and gave Sister Archibald a priesthood blessing.  Then Elder Archibald asked for a blessing as well.  The next day, Friday, Elder Rappleye received a text message from Elder Archibald stating that the Shingles were gone and thanking them for the blessings.

      We were asked to plan our monthly district activity for February.  We were a little nervous about doing that because we haven't been here long and didn't really know our district members very well and what they might like to do or have already done before.  I decided to get on the Just Serve website to see if there were any service opportunities we could do as a district.  I noticed the post for making ti leaf leis to be put on the graves of the fallen soldiers at the Punchbowl cemetery on Memorial Day.  Every Memorial Day all 38,000 graves of veterans have a ti leaf leis placed on their grave marker to honor and remember their sacrifice.  It sounded like a great service activity to do as a district.

 But it was an hour away at Wahiawa Botanical Garden.  I wasn't sure if everyone in the district would want to spend so much of their P-day doing this activity.  We decided to present it to the group and see if there was any interest.  To my surprise they all thought it sounded like a great idea.  So, I contacted John and arranged to have us come on Saturday morning and spend a couple of hours making leis.  Pictured above is John, explaining and demonstrating how to make the leis.

Here is our group ready to learn how to make the leis.  Everyone came except the Harrises.  Elder Harris has been having health issues and was still not well enough to come.

Elder Gammon chose to strip the tea leaves of the middle vein or stem part that is not used.  Everyone else got busy twisting and weaving the ti leaves together to make the leis.  It was not hard and as soon as we got the technique down it was smooth sailing.  Sister Gammon was the queen of making the leis.  She was very speedy and probably made twice as many leis as the rest of us.

Here are the finished products.  We made 53 ti leis while we were there.  They take the finished leis and store them in a freezer until Memorial Day.

After we were done, we all decided we might as well explore the botanical garden while we were there.

Look at those massive roots!

Headed down to the lower gardens with the Neeleys.

Here's our whole district minus the Harrises. L-R:  Elder and Sister Lee, Elder and Sister Neeley, Elder and Sister Rappleye, and Elder and Sister Gammon.

Then they all agreed to go to lunch.  We went to a cute small Mexican restaurant near the botanical gardens called Barrio Cafe.

The decor was so bright and fun.

As we were waiting for our food, in walked Steven Sharp Nelson of Piano Guys fame.  I snapped a selfie just to get a picture of him.  Sister Lee jumped up and went over and talked to him.  Finally, someone in our group yells over to him, "We are big fans" and he says back, "I'm a big fan of YOU guys." because of our missionary tags.  Then he comes over and starts talking to us telling us he has a son serving in Korea and what the next project the Piano Guys are working on.  I wish I had asked him if we could get a picture.  He was standing right next to me.  But the selfie is the best I got.

The district activity ended up being a great success.  All the couples talked about how much fun they had and what a great activity it was, and we even had an unplanned celebrity encounter.  Now I'm hoping they don't ask me to plan all the district activities.

On Sunday, we were invited to Brent and Jen Cowley's house for dinner.  His parents, Bob and Tammy Cowley were visiting from our home ward in South Jordan.  They live down the street from us and Tammy worked at Bingham High School with me.  Brent's little son, Cohen took this picture of the group.  We had a good long visit with them, so now they can report that we have been ministered to this month.

It was an unusually busy week.

A General Authority visit and a Graduation: February 5 - 11, 2024

         

       We started the week thinking it would be a quiet normal week without anything out of the ordinary.  Then we saw this sign on the Aloha Center doors announcing a special Friday night devotional with Elder Ronald A. Rasband as the main speaker.  Usually BYU-H has devotionals every Tuesday at 11AM.  We can't make it over to the Cannon Activities Center to attend it because of our assignments at the PCC.  Tuesday is one of my busier days, usually sending out 10 - 15 purchase orders that have to be sent out by noon to all the different vendors.  I don't get them done by 11AM, so I miss going to the devotionals.  We were excited to hear about the Friday night devotion with Elder Rasband because that is a time we can attend.  So, all week we had this special event to look forward to.

     

      On our Wednesday off, we finally went and changed the title of our car into our name. We had to go down to Kaneohe to the Satellite City Hall office in the Windward City Shopping Center about 40 minutes away.   

     

    It's in an open-air shopping center like a strip mall with several wings to it.  As we are walking to the city hall, we see this mother hen with her baby chicks.  There are chickens and roosters rooming free all over the neighborhoods in Hau'ula and Laie, but I was surprised to see the hen with her chicks in a busy shopping area.  The mama didn't seem to be worried at all about our being so close to her little chicks.  I counted 7 or 8 baby chicks.  Definitely something we wouldn't see in South Jordan.

      Before our appointment at city hall, we went to check out a hike in Kaneohe called the Friendship Garden.  We were hoping to take that hike and then go to get the title changed, but when we were almost there it started to pour down rain.  We knew after a rainstorm like that the trail would be too muddy and slippery to hike, so we ended up just finding where the trail head was for when we go some other time.

      We did have our usual Ukulele lessons on Monday night, temple night on Tuesday night, pickleball night on Wednesday night, and then on Thursday night I went to my first Book Club night.  The group had read the book, "Everybody Always" by Bob Goff.  In my former life (before missionary life) I never had too much time to read, but there are some days at my PCC job that are pretty slow, so I needed something to read.  When I heard that there was a book club I decided to give it a try.  I enjoyed the book.  It was an easy read and it helped me ponder on how to go about doing a better job of loving everyone I meet.  I know I certainly need to improve on that Christlike attribute.  I've made a few goals I hope to be able to work on.  I'll probably be working on those for the rest of my life.

     I received another Focused Recognition certificate this week.  This time from my boss, Lili.  This time I was recognized for "achieving results" and "cultivating trust", 2 of the 7 Cultural Beliefs that are a part of the vision and mission of the Polynesian Cultural Center and all employees are encouraged to strive to emulate.  

  On Friday, Elder Rappleye and Bry, from the motor pool were scheduled at 1PM to drive down to Kailua, about an hour away, to get an estimate on a damaged PCC van that they use for town runs.  Well, Bry didn't show up for work and by 11AM, Elder Rappleye was getting desperate to have someone to go with him.  No one else in the motor pool could leave, so he called me and told me he needed me to go with him.  Friday is one of my busier days and I wasn't sure I'd be able to go with him.  When I explained to my boss, she let me go, but I'm not sure she was very happy about it.  Pictured is Kapaa Auto Body Shop where we had to go to get the bid.  We hit a little bit of traffic going down, but were only about 5 minutes late.

     Friday night was the evening devotional with Elder Rasband.  We got there super early and got really good seats.  The front section was reserved for the choir that would be singing during the devotional.  We didn't want to sit on the chairs on the floor, so we chose a few rows up on the bleacher seats.

We were able to sit next to Brent and Jen Cowley, our friends from the mainland who are living in Laie now.  And behind us in the picture, is Sister Bodily (farthest left) who teaches the conducting class with me, and Sister and Elder Harris, who are in our district.

Here's a picture from the Church newsroom website.  I've circled where Elder Rappleye and Brent Cowley are sitting.

This picture is also from the Church newsroom website.  Haylie Chase (on the right in the picture above) spoke first.  She is on the Young Women General Advisory Council and Elder and Sister Rasband's granddaughter (doesn't she look a lot like her grandmother?).  Then Elder Mark A. Bragg, General Authority Seventy, spoke. Sister Rasband also spoke, followed by Elder Rasband.  He talked about "Integrity to the Cause of Christ."  His message was directed towards the students, but we all need integrity to the cause of Christ.  He asked, "Where is integrity in your list of personal priorities?" and spoke about how our integrity is central to fulfilling our mortal charge to become the best we can be and like our Savior, Jesus Christ. I liked this quote towards the end of Elder Rasband's talk, " The time to decide your epitaph is not at the end of your career (or life) but at the beginning. Right now. I recommend you simply ask yourself as you face decisions going forward, is this moral, ethical and honest? Is this who I want to be?"  He also quoted President Nelson, "Your precious identity deserves your precious integrity! Guard it as the priceless prize that it is." 

 

On Saturday, we made the birthday treats for all the February birthdays in our YSA Ward.

We also found another dime in the street in front of our apartment on Saturday.  See an earlier post about why finding a dime is significant to us.

We also went up to Sunset Beach on the North Shore to see if we could watch some pro surfers riding the waves.  You can see the sign that was up on the beach of the World Surf League, sponsored by Hurley.

      They were not doing the competition that day, but you can see all the surfers out in the ocean waiting for the "perfect" wave.

    

  Hopefully you can see a surfer catching a wave in the picture on the left.  Elder Rappleye has a friend from work that loves to surf, so we were trying to get a good picture to send to him.  We really didn't get a very good one.  I need a better camera.

      Sunday was the last day of the conducting class, so at the end we had a little "graduation" ceremony where they were presented their new keyboards.  They are now ready to start the keyboarding class.  If they master all the lessons in the keyboarding class, they will get to keep the keyboards.  6 of the 8 girls were there to graduate.  We were missing 2 girls who couldn't be there.  Hopefully they will be able to make up the class and still graduate.  In the picture to the right is Tailo.  She is my YSA ward.  I think she is from Tonga.

Here is Deepika.  She is from India.

This is Ammu.  Not a great picture, but she is the one standing with the white top on.  She is Deepika's sister.

This is Krystel.  She is from the Philippines.  She has the most beautiful way of conducting.  It's very smooth and flowing.  She has already received a call in her ward to be the sacrament meeting chorister.

This is Ylisha (pronounced Elisha).  She is from the Philippines as well, and her and Krystel are friends, so hopefully they will keep each other moving forward with learning keyboarding.

This is Zaya.  She is in the white shirt and hair in a bun.  You can't really see her face, but she is the cutest girl.  She is from Mongolia and has some music experience with piano lessons, but it was years ago.  She is hoping to relearn and get better at playing the piano.  The other student is an advanced keyboarding student and is presenting Zaya her keyboard.  Sister Jones, in the orange top, is the senior sister missionary in charge of the conducting and keyboarding classes.  She also works with me in the food warehouse.  Unfortunately, she is finished with her mission the end of March. Everyone will be sad when she leaves.

We have a one week break from keyboarding classes because student's have stake conference in the afternoon during the normal keyboarding class time next week.  It will resume on February 25th.

New District group picture taken at our District meeting, February 11th.  The Wilde's returned home and we have a new couple, the Gammons.  They are CES/Seminary and Institute missionaries at BYU-H.

More Family Activities: January 29 - February 4, 2024

       We started this week with Derek and Sharron still here visiting and hoping for a nice warm sunny beach day.  Monday morning was overcast and intermitted rain showers.  Still not good beach weather. Sigh!

  It was our Polynesian Cultural Center day, so we were hoping for nice weather while we were there as well.  It started out nice for our canoe ride through the villages on the lagoon. 

   

  This view of the main waterfall is always stunning.  But this time I noticed the fun fan shaped tree.

  

       We started in the island of Hawaii for the show there.  Then we headed to the island of Samoa, which is definitely a crowd favorite.  The picture on the right is in the Samoan village.  The speaker is giving us a welcome speech in Samoan.

  

    Kap, is in the picture on the left.  He is demonstrating how to open a coconut.  He has been doing shows in the Samoan village at the PCC for over 40 years.  He is quite the showman and has a very funny stand-up routine.

  

    He can climb the coconut tree, twirl the fire stick and even balance the fire stick on his bare feet.

      But his real talent is art.  He sells his paintings at the PCC.

      

      Here are some more pictures of the fire stick dancers.  This was the first time I have seen a female fire stick dancer.  Go girl power!

 

We also visited the Tongan village where they do a fun drum show where they call up people from the audience to play the drums.  That's always a fun show too.  I didn't get any pictures of the drum show this time, but I took the picture below at a previous show I saw back in December.

      Here's our group at the Ha, night show. You are not allowed to take pictures during the show, but this was taken before the show started. Sharron's parents were on babysitting duty.  We got them tickets for the show the next night.  It's a definite must see if you come to the PCC.

 

      Tuesday was their last day in Hawaii.  Unfortunately, it was still a cool (low 70's), overcast, rainy day.  Tuesday is one of my busier days at my assignment at the PCC, so I went to work in the morning because it was raining and our planned activity - the beach, was on hold.  While I was at work, they decided to go to the Laie temple visitor's center.

      Then later in the morning, after I had worked a couple of hours at the PCC, the rain stopped, and the sun started to come out.  We ventured over to Laie Point. 

      In the picture above, Peekay is "reading" all about the legend of Mo'o, the giant lizard.

Then we went back to the PCC to see some of the things we missed the day before.  All too soon it was time for Derek and Sharron and Parker to head down to Honolulu.  Their flight on Wednesday morning was super early, so they were spending the night in a hotel near the airport.  We were disappointed that the weather had not cooperated to give them lots of sunshine and beach time, but so glad to spend some time with them, even if it was way too short.

   As we were waiting for the Adams to come back from driving them to Honolulu (not enough room in the car for us), we exchanged their Ha show tickets for upgraded seats and enjoyed one of the best sunsets we've had since coming to Laie.  Since Laie is on the eastern side of the island, we don't usually get views of awesome sunsets, but if you are up early enough, you can enjoy awesome sunrises.

      It was hard to see family leave so soon and hard to get back into a missionary mind-set, but we are so glad to be allowed to have family come to visit while we are here.  Thank goodness the next day, Wednesday, was our day off to give us a day to help readjust back to missionary mode.  It was a gorgeous day.  We were definitely wishing Derek and Sharron could have stayed one more day - it would have been a great beach day!

     

   There is a path at the end of our road with this sign posted - No Trespassing Danger Keep Out.  We have not ventured past that sign, but we have seen other people walking up the path or coming down from the path.  Some people have told us that it's okay to go walking up the path, but we haven't dared to do it.  But on Wednesday afternoon, we decided to go ahead and check out the path that goes up the mountain, despite the sign that says otherwise.

     

     

       It's a fairly steep grade up, but it's a nice, paved road until you get to this water tank.  The peak you see behind the water tank in the picture is the peak we see from our kitchen window.

     

   

         As we walked around the water tank, we found this trail going into the forested hillside.  It looked like a fairly well traveled path, so we decided to take it to see if it would take us to the top of the mountain, hoping to get a great view of the ocean.

It was very quiet and peaceful as we walked along, getting deeper into the ravine between two mountain ridges.  The whole time we are walking, I'm feeling like any moment we are going to be surrounded by government agents with weapons drawn on us, telling us to put our hands up over our heads and that we were under arrest for trespassing.  Luckily that never happened.  In the above picture, you can see what happens to my hair when I let it go ala natural here in Hawaii's humid climate.

The trail never did go up, just deeper into the ravine.  This was the best view of the ocean we got between the trees as we hiked along.  We finally decided to turn around and head back home.

    

      On the way back down the paved part of the trail, we finally got a pretty good view of the ocean.

   

   Friday night, we were assigned to do the Ask Me shift at the Hale Aloha in the PCC.  We enjoy the Ask Me assignment more than the Luau assignment, because you have more of a chance to visit and answer questions from the guests. 

 

     We got up early Saturday morning, 6AM, so we could attend our grandson, Brinton's, baptism via zoom.  It is a wonderful blessing to have the technology available to us to be able to still witness and be a part of the milestones of our family members even while we are serving a mission thousands of miles away.

     I was even able to give the opening prayer.

 

Here's a screenshot of Brinton saying hello to us.  Isn't he so handsome?

I took this other screenshot right after Brinton's confirmation, after the priesthood brethren had stepped away from the circle and before Brinton stood up.

      After the baptism, we went over to the PCC and attended an island devotional in the Hawaii village.  Each island at the PCC will present a devotional throughout the year.  We attended the mission settlement devotional when we first arrived here.  This devotional was presented by staff that works in the Hawaii village. 

 Pictures of the program, front and back.

      The theme of the devotional was "A Song to Our Descendants" They talked about how a lot of their history is shared through song and dance, and the importance of sharing and teaching our values and testimony of the gospel to our current and future descendants.  So of course, they shared a lot of songs and dance throughout the program.  You can see on the back of the program, the hymn, "High On The Mountain Top" translated into Hawaiian.  That was the opening song.

      The Hula Kahiko - an ancient dance used to honor and entertain the chiefs who have travelled from different places.

      "Iesu Me Ke Kanaka Waiwai" (Jesus and the Rich Man) song.  It's based on the parable from Matthew 19:16 - 24 of the rich young man who asks Jesus, "what must I do to gain eternal life?".  It was composed in 1915.

      Hula 'Auana, a contemporary or less formal style hula that tells stories of everyday life through movements of the limbs and hips.  Notice they smile as they do the less formal style of hula.  They don't smile when they do the traditional hulas.

     Musical number, a song and dance called, "Kulaiwi" - an expression of a deep connection to homeland, ancestors, heritage, and culture.

   President Grace, the president of the PCC was the concluding speaker at the devotional.  It was a very enjoyable devotional where I learned a lot about the Hawaiian culture.

      Although we as senior missionaries are not supposed to be given a formal calling in our YSA ward, the Bishop asked us "as an assignment" to conduct the Teacher Council Meetings every week in the second hour of our church meetings.  I'm not sure if the bishop is following the guidelines right, but we told him we would do it.  We will miss interacting with the members during RS/Priesthood and getting to know them better.  Instead, we will get to know the teachers really well as we try to help them learn to teach like the Savior.  Sunday was our first week to teach.  We only had one of the Relief Society teachers join us in the class.

      With this assignment and my conducting class on Sunday afternoons, it makes Sunday my busiest day.