By Monday, I was starting to feel a little better, both my back and my cold. We had already arranged with our bosses that we would not be in to work on Monday so we could take my dad and Javan to Pearl Harbor. We were not able to get a reservation for the USS Arizona. We just had to go and hope for the best.
When we arrived, there was a super long waiting line for standby. I thought we were going to be waiting for a long time. We didn't make it on the first boat out, but we actually made it on the second boat to go out to the USS Arizona, so we ended up only having to wait for about a half hour. The picture on the right is my dad and Javan on the boat out to the memorial.
Even though we had to wait in the standby line, it was less crowded out on the USS Arizona memorial than when we went with Derek and Sharron and had reservations. Picture on the left is Elder Rappleye, Javan and my dad standing by the spot where you can look down into the water and see the sunken ship.
This time I noticed the leis and wreathes laying by the wall of remembrance. Maybe the leis and wreathes were there last time and I just didn't see them because of the crowds.
After spending a couple hours at Pearl Harbor, we headed to the beach. My dad and Javan wanted to get to the beach at least once while they were in Hawaii. The weather and rough ocean on the Laie side of the island was not a good combination for them, so we took them to Ala Moana beach park in Honolulu. It's right next to Waikiki, but less crowded. The ocean on the western side of the island right now is a lot calmer. Monday still wasn't a great day for the beach, but it was warm and slightly overcast and the most important aspect - it wasn't raining. This picture shows the view from the beach looking south towards Waikiki beach. You can see the beach is not crowded. Diamond Head is in the far distance.
My dad and Javan enjoying the ocean.
Here we are at the beach. I'm the only one who ventured far enough into the water to get my swimsuit wet, but I didn't want to get my hair wet because we were stopping at other places on the way home. There was a sandbar not too far from the shore. If I had known, I would have brought the boogie board, and could have paddled out to it. I wasn't going to swim out to it, I would have ended up getting my hair wet.
We stopped at the Halona blowhole. It was very windy there and the ocean was quite rough, so the blowhole was pretty impressive.
Our last stop was at Makapu'u lookout. My dad and Javan were pretty worn out by then, but it's too good of a view to miss.
Tuesday was the last day of my dad and Javan's visit. We had to go into work that day, but my dad and Javan went with my Aunt Faith to the "farm", it's a community garden owned by the church that allows families to grow fruits and vegetables for their family and friends. They are not allowed to sell the produce, but they can give it away. The rest of the day was relaxing and packing to leave the next day. We did play a card game called "golf" in the evening. Javan was claimed the winner with the lowest score. We couldn't believe how lucky she was, always turning over the best cards!
I found out that my piano student, Tapu, was pictured on the BYU-Hawaii Facebook page showing her getting a hug from this week's devotional speaker, Amy A. Wright, first counselor in the Primary General Presidency.
Very early Wednesday morning, we drove down to Honolulu to drop my dad and Javan off at the airport for their flight home. Then came home with just enough time to get ready for a field trip I was taking with my food warehouse co-workers and others from the PCC to the Dole pineapple farm. The picture to the right is the place tourist go for the tour of Dole, but we had a behind the scenes tour of the cannery across the highway from there.
It was pouring down rain when we got there. The picture to the left is Kapu'u, Sister Jones, David, and me waiting for the rain to stop so we can go out to the fields. The rain never did quit, so we ended up not being able to go out to the pineapple fields.
The first thing they showed us was how they wash the pineapples when they come from the fields. They wash the pineapples three different times. This is the first washing. If you look at the collage to the right and follow the pictures from the upper left-hand picture and go counterclockwise it shows a big load of pineapples being loaded into the washing area, then being lowered down into the big container of water that pushes the pineapples through the sprayers.
Most of the pineapples will float, but a few pineapples will sink and are separated from the others. Pineapples that sink are heavy with juice, and they use those to make the pineapple juices.
They are pushed to the end of the water bath and up the conveyor belt into the warehouse.
Between the first wash and this picture to the left, the pineapples are washed two more times, and the last wash includes a coat of wax to help keep the pineapples fresh. The workers in the picture to the left are arranging the pineapples in two rows with the crowns of the pineapple facing into the middle towards each other.
Here is our guide showing us how they pack the pineapples. They are sorted by size and numbered by how many fit in a case. The higher the number the smaller the pineapple because the smaller the pineapples the more that can fit in a case.
This worker is putting the Dole labels on all the pineapples as they go by.
Here is a box of size 7 pineapples, the size the PCC uses.
So many cases of pineapples! They had a digital sign that showed how many cases had come through that day and it was over 1,000 and it was only around 11 am.
Here's our whole group. They gave everyone a fresh pineapple in a box to take home. We are all holding our pineapple boxes.
Then they provided us bentos - that's what they call a boxed lunch.
As we headed home it was still pouring down rain, and we had been there for 3 hours.
Wednesday night was THE event of the year here at BYU-Hawaii - Culture Night!The student clubs practice all year for this night of song and dance. It featured 25 different clubs representing different countries. It spans two nights, Wednesday and Friday. Sister Jones, who I work with in the food warehouse, told me "You do not want to miss this event." She attended last year. She told me to take a nap because it goes late and come early to get in line, or you won't get a seat.
We thought we were getting there early, but the line was already around to the back of the building when we arrived. We thought it was strange that we only saw students in this line and no other senior missionaries. When we got to the entrance, the sign said, "Student Entrance" and we realized we had waited in the wrong line. We didn't get the memo there was designated entrances. Thankfully they let us in anyway. But we ended up getting seats way up high and almost behind the backdrop. We knew the view was not going to be good. We were just about to decide to just go home and watch it on the live stream instead, but the Barkers, another senior missionary couple, saw us way up there and called us on the phone and told us there were two seats down by them we could come sit in. So grateful they saw us because the seats were down low in front, so much better than where we were seating. I would have been so disappointed to not watch it in person.
Get ready for LOTS of photos. It was just so good and hard to decide to just include one photo for each club presentation.
Photos to the left is the Hawaiian Islands club.
These are also the Hawaiian Islands club. Several clubs did more than one dance.
The three collages above are the Indonesian Club.
The three collage groups above are the Taiwan Club
The two collages above are the Kiribati Club.
The three collages above are the Cook Islands Club.
The three collages above are the Korean Club, one of my favorites. They did some hip hop dances, but I'm not including photos of those dances.
The four collages above are the always popular Aotearoa, or New Zealand Club. You can see how huge the participation is in some of the clubs.
The three collages above are the Rotuma Club. Rotuma is a self-governing island that is part of the Fiji islands.
The two collages above are the Cambodia Club.
The three collages above are the Tongan Club, one of the largest and enthusiastic clubs.
The four collages above are the Samoa Club. The only club larger and just as loud as the Tongan Club.These are only the clubs that participated in Wednesday night's Culture Night, 13 clubs performed on the first night. It lasted 3 hours. We got home after 11 pm. We had to get up early the next morning to go to work at the PCC.
We have a new assignment on Thursdays. We are now doing the "town run" every Thursday. Elder Rappleye drives the cargo van and I am the navigator. We get a list of places in and around Honolulu that the different departments at the PCC have ordered supplies from and we go pick them up. The senior couple who has been doing the town run on Tuesdays and Thursdays are going home early because the Elder got diagnosed with cancer. (I'll write more about that in another post.) We got assigned to do Thursday because my job at the Food Warehouse is pretty slow on Thursdays and Elder Rappleye is one of several missionaries working in the motor pool so they can get along without him one day a week. This picture was taken at the end of the day when we arrived back at the PCC warehouse with all the supplies we had picked up in the cargo van. Luckily the first week was only 8 stops and we arrived back at the PCC around 2pm. It was a nice way to ease into the assignment. I think we are going to like doing this once a week. It gets me out of the office, gives my eyes a rest from staring at a computer screen for 5 hours or more, and we get to work together for the day. We will definitely learn how to get around Honolulu/Pearl City/Kaneohe/Waipahu/Aiea and wherever else they send us.
Friday night was the second night of Culture Night. It didn't start until 9pm. They had to wait until the PCC closed to start because so many of the students performing also work at the PCC. The PCC is closed on Wednesdays, so they could start earlier the first night. We opted to stay home on Friday night and just watch the live stream instead of attending in person. That way we could watch until we wanted to go to bed and finish watching it the next day on Saturday.
The first club to perform was the Latin America Club. The collage on the right and the two collages below show a part of their performance.
Next we watched the Malaysia Club. The two collages below are the Malaysia Club.
The Malaysia Club dances had a lot of martial arts moves.
The three collages above are the Hong Kong Club. It's the Year of the Dragon for the Chinese, hence the glowing dragon. That was super cool.
The three collages above are the Japanese Club.
The three collages above are the Golden Mecca Club. This club represents all the countries in the Middle East/Arabian Peninsula.
The two collages above are the Papua New Guinea Club. The three collages above are the Mongolian Club.
The Chinese Club in the three collages above
The two collages above are the India Club.
The six collages above are the Tahitian Club.
I love their costumes, and they bring their own band.
The five collages above are the Fiji Club.
The six collages above are the Filipino Club.
These are all the clubs that performed on Friday night, 12 different clubs, 25 total clubs in two nights. We did end up going to bed halfway through and finished watching the second night of Culture night on Saturday. It was a cultural feast. I agree it is the best event of the year! The students all work so hard and many are in more than one club.
I do want to highlight some of the students who performed that we know either from our YSA ward or works in the Food Warehouse, but because you are probably suffering from photo overload if you have made it this far in my blog, I will highlight them in next week's blog.
Just one more picture to end this week's blog. On Sunday, all the senior sister missionaries met together in the Laie Visitor's Center to view the Relief Society Devotional and have a short testimony meeting. Afterward we all posed for a picture in front of the Christus that is in the visitor's center. I love these wonderful sisters who are all doing their best to serve God and build up His kingdom through serving the students here at BYU-H from all over the world.
It was a good week to be a missionary, a sister in Zion, and a daughter of God.
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