Our First Family Visitors: January 22 - 28, 2024

 

      The beginning of this week started slow, not much happening out of the ordinary.  The picture to the right was captured by Elder Rappleye, a couple of weeks ago.  I forgot to share it in the last post.  Every once in a while, we are treated to some great views in the sky, like amazing sunrises or sunsets, and rainbows after rainstorms.  This picture was taken outside the motor pool at the PCC.  Elder Rappleye happened to step out of his office and had a great view of the full rainbow.  I'm glad he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of it.  On Wednesday morning this week, I got to view a gorgeous pink sunrise while I was in the pool doing my water aerobics workout - sorry no picture of that since I don't take my phone in the pool.

    

    On Wednesday last week, we finally stopped and snapped this picture.  It's on the side of the 7-11 store in Hau'ula.  We drive by this on our way home from town, but we are always in a hurry to get home and put away our groceries, so we never stop.  This trip we had no groceries, so we took the time to stop and get a picture.

      I'm so excited to have this bike to ride now.  Elder Duncan, who works in the motor pool with Elder Rappleye, offered to let us have his wife's bike because she doesn't use it.  They will be going home in April, and they are not shipping their bikes home.  I happened to mention that we would love to have bikes here, and that's when he offered us theirs.  He will give us the other bike when they leave.  He uses his bike to get to work every morning.  It's a very stripped-down version - no gears and coaster brakes.  We don't have room to store it at our pad, so we keep it locked up at the motor pool.  It's great to have a chance to take a little bike ride after work when it's nice enough.  I've been on a couple rides after work while I am waiting for Elder Rappleye to finish up his duties before we go home for the day.  When the time comes for us to go home, we'll find another missionary couple who would like to have them and pass the bikes along to them.

      BYU-H had club rush week on campus.  I found this picture posted on Facebook of the Elder's Quorum president in our student ward.  Rory Pilkington is the one on the left in the picture to the left.  He is from Australia and served a mission to New Zealand.  He works as a tour guide at the PCC.

      We were excited to have our youngest son, Derek, and his wife, Sharron, and their 10-month-old son, Parker come visit us for 6 days.  They are the first family visitors we have had since we arrived in Hawaii in November.  Their plane got in about two hours late on Thursday night, so by the time they arrived in Laie they were ready to hit the sack.  They stayed with Sharron's parents in an Airbnb in Laie on Iosepha Street, so it was close to us in Hau'ula.  Sharron's dad served his mission in Hawaii 30 years ago, so he is always looking for an opportunity to come visit Hawaii to see old friends.  He bankrolled the Airbnb, which made it possible for Derek and Sharron to be able to afford to come.

      On the list of things Derek wanted to do in Hawaii, a visit to Pearl Harbor was on the top of the list.  Friday, we drove into Honolulu and went to Pearl Harbor.  We have been wanting to visit Pearl Harbor as well, but we knew when visitors came, they would probably want to go to Pearl Harbor, so we were waiting to go when we could go with family. Thanks, Derek, for coming to visit!  I'm sure we will visit Pearl Harbor a few more times before we go home.

 

   It was a great day to go - not too crowded and slightly overcast so it wasn't too hot.  In the picture on the left, we are waiting to get on the boat to go out to the USS Arizona Memorial.  See how happy Derek is to be at Pearl Harbor?

     Picture to the right - On the shuttle boat to go to the USS Arizona Memorial.  Sharron's dad didn't get to go out to the memorial.  He had to take care of an issue with their rent car.  The car alarm had gone off when they were unlocking the car to put bags in it and the alarm wouldn't turn off.  He ended up having to wait for the rent car company to come tow the car and go back to the airport to get a new rent car.   He missed the whole Pearl Harbor experience, but we were glad we were stranded there with things to occupy our time and not on the side of the freeway somewhere.

 

The wall of remembrance in the background.  Neither Elder Rappleye or I had any direct relatives on the USS Arizona, but it's very sobering to remember the 1,177 men who were causalities that awful day in history. Grateful to those who sacrificed their lives so that we can enjoy our freedom today.

The opening on the memorial is where you can look down into the water and see part of the sunken battleship. The last time I was at Pearl Harbor was 51 years ago when I was only 15 years old.  I 'm pretty sure I didn't understand the significance of the event and sacredness of the place at that age. This visit impacted me more this time than my first visit did.

 

After the rental car situation got taken care of, we headed back towards Laie.  We decided to stop to eat dinner at one of Sharron's dad's favorite places to eat - Haleiwa Joe's in Kaneohe.

We thought we were getting there fairly early and there wouldn't be a long wait time, but no such luck - 1 1/2 hour wait.  We decided to wait it out.  There was a beautiful garden area to enjoy while we waited.

      The pictures don't do it justice.  This is a view of the restaurant.   We walked down a pathway to the left of the picture through the trees to the pond pictured.  There were koi and turtles in the pond.

     Here's our whole group on the walkway out to the gazebo that was out on the pond.  Parker, our grandson, was a champ waiting it out for our table.  It helped that he had both sets of grandparents there to entertain him.

   

   There were paths to wander around on, but it had been raining so they were a little muddy.  Elder Rappleye is looking back on one of the paths.  Right there it wasn't too muddy, but just beyond the bridge it was quite muddy, so we had to turn back.  The picture on the left is looking across the pond from the restaurant side towards the mountains.  The restaurant was right behind us on the hill.

    

  The food did not disappoint.  It was worth the wait.  Elder Rappleye and I shared the top sirloin and mashed potatoes.  I didn't take a picture of my salad.  If you didn't notice - like father, like son.  Derek got the top sirloin like his dad.

      

Saturday morning, we drove back down to Honolulu to the swap meet at Aloha Stadium.  We got out of our car, took this picture while we were waiting for the Adam's car to arrive, then it started to rain, and we ran back to our car.  We sat in our car for about 1/2 hour until it stopped raining.  

      The swap meet is all outdoors.  Vendors set up booths all around the outside of the stadium.  We walked all the way around looking and shopping.  We got us zippered hoodies (for these cooler days in winter) and flower clips for my hair.  All the women around here wear them in their hair.  If you put it on the right side, it means you are available.  If you put it on the left side, it means you are taken, so I'll be wearing it in my hair on the left side.

     Here's a picture of the inside of the stadium.  Elder Rappleye says they don't use the stadium anymore because it's condemned.

      Of course, we had to try some of the food choices.  I had gone to the restroom and when I came back, the food Jim bought was almost gone, so I didn't get a picture of it.  It was a Filipino dish, one kind had chicken and another kind had bananas in it. They only saved me a piece of the banana dish, so the chicken must have been good since it was all gone.  I liked the banana dish; it was like a pastry of some sort.

      After shopping we headed to Kaneohe.  We were meeting up with the Gutheries.  Sharron's dad, Jim, baptized Rachelle when he served his mission 30 years ago and now, she is married and has a family. They are still active members of the church in Kaneohe.  Jim had arranged to have us all go boating with them out to the Kaneohe sandbar and play in the ocean for the afternoon.  We were so excited to do this activity because it would probably be the only time we would get a chance to go out to the sandbar since we don't know anyone who owns a boat.

      We were going to be getting on the boat at the Kaneohe Yacht Club.  The pictures above are views of the docks at the yacht club.  You can see the dark clouds in the sky.  When we arrived, we were told that the ocean was too rough right now and we would have to wait and see if the waves calm down, then we could go out.  The water in the bay looks calm, but out of the bay it was very rough.

 

      The yacht club just happened to be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the yacht club, so there were a lot of people hanging out at the club.  Above is a picture of Derek's cute little family waiting and hoping that we would be able to go out on the boat.

Here we are relaxing at the club with our dry pina colada with raspberry syrup.  It was delicious.  I never thought we would be hob knobbing with the yacht club community while we are missionaries here in Hawaii.

An interesting thing they did while we were waiting is that they asked us all to gather in a big circle in the lawn area and hold hands.  Then a Hawaiian clergyman gave a speech and pronounced a blessing on the yacht club.  He spoke about Christian values and in the blessing, he recognized the need of Jesus Christ in our lives.  I guess we fit in more than I thought we did with the yacht club crowd. 

It didn't look like we were going to get out on the boat, so I finally went and sat by the edge of the pool and dangled my feet in the pool.  There was a lady about my age floating around in the deep end where I was sitting.  I thought I would try to engage her in a conversation, so I started asking her questions to find out about her.  Well, she just started talking to me like I was an old friend.  I found out all about her family, how she ended up living in Hawaii (she used to live in Utah, but now she lives on Maui, but her daughter lives in Kaneohe).  By the end of the conversation, she had invited me to come back to the yacht club tomorrow for her son-in-law's boat christening event.  She said it was going to be fun and there would be a catered meal.  I had no plans to attend, but it was nice of her to invite someone who she had just met to this private party.  That's the spirit of Aloha.

On Sunday, Derek Sharron, and Parker came to our YSA ward for sacrament meeting, then took Parker home for a nap.  Peekay had not gotten too many naps since arriving in Hawaii and needed to get caught up on sleep.  In the afternoon, after I had taught my conducting class, we headed back down to Kaneohe to have dinner with the Gutheries.  Another example of the Aloha spirit.  While there we met another senior missionary couple who serve in Kaneohe as MLS missionaries.  It was fun to hear how their MLS mission is like.

Here's a picture of Sharron's parents, Jim and Melissa (on the left) and the Gutheries (on the right)

Who thought a senior mission could be like a vacation? I'm grateful that the Church allows family members to visit and experience the places senior missionaries are serving.