Not the New Kids on the Block Anymore: April 8 - 14, 2024

   

   The week started for both Elder Rappleye and I relinquishing our status as the new kids on the block in each of our departments and meeting our new co-workers in our area of assignments.  Elder Rappleye's new senior missionary helpers are Elder and Sister Bates.  Elder Bates is a true mechanic, that was his profession.  He owned a business and his wife helped in the business.  So, Sister Bates will be taking over the office duties for the motor pool.  Elder Rappleye will help train her in what he has been doing on the computer programs that he has been using.  Plus, she will probably have to be trained on the programs that Elder Rappleye never did get trained on but needs to be done.  Elder Rappleye is excited to not be doing the office duties anymore, but it's good for him to know it just in case the Bates are gone for sickness, family visits, etc.  Sister Bates twisted her ankle when they did their tour of the Polynesian Cultural Center, so she has had to start off a little slowly because she wasn't able to put in a full day until the pain level came down.  Elder Bates will be focusing on repairs and maintenance of the big equipment such as forklifts, log splitters, riding lawn mowers, etc. and all the small engine machines.  That will leave Elder Rappleye, along with Bry and Elder Tam, doing all the servicing of the carts and other miscellaneous tasks at the motor pool. The Bates are from South Jordan, Utah close to where we live.  They even know Joyce Tanner, our backyard kiddy corner neighbor who used to be in our Ward until it was split.  Elder Bates's brother and his wife are also serving here at the PCC, so now we have two Elder and Sister Bates.  Sister Bates's first name is Cindy, the same name as my twin sister, so I'll easily remember her name.

      Sister Tingey is the new single sister taking over Sister Jones's position in the Food Warehouse.  She will be learning to do all the receiving and department transfers. It's been a very frustrating week for Sister Tingey because they have not been able to get her account on the computer up and running.  That makes it harder for her to learn the system.  I remember how hard it was to figure things out on how to use the LS system for purchase orders and I imagine it's the same for learning how to do the receiving.  In fact, after five months, I still don't know everything and I'm still finding out things I'm doing wrong.  The learning curve is steep and having computer issues makes it even more frustrating.  Sister Tingey is from Missouri by way of Houston, Texas area.  Her first name is also Cathy, spelled the same way as me.  How amazing is that?  So, we have both lived in Texas and have the same name.  She was a social worker for her career.  I hope she can survive the initial challenge of learning the system and that it won't take her as long as it did me to feel somewhat comfortable doing her assignment.  Prayers for her and the Bates as they learn how to fulfill their assignments.

  

    Monday was also Asian Pacific Career Conference Day for the students at BYU-Hawaii.  This is when a lot of businesses/vendor representatives come in to visit the warehouse and meet the students.  It's a way to help the students make connections with potential employers when they graduate.  Four of the workers in the warehouse were assigned to show the visitors around the warehouse and explain the processes, procedures and goals of the warehouse team.  The picture on the left shows their bios that the vendors received about each of the students, "Blanky", Zach, Jared, and David.  Blanky, Zach, and Jared are from the Philippines and David is from the United States.  The three main goals of the food warehouse are to ensure supply chains are always running efficiently, make sure the product delivered is fresh and safe from start to end, and eliminate waste.

      Here are some interesting facts they presented to each of the tours they conducted.

*  The yearly spending in 2023 was almost 8 million dollars.

*  The largest single cost item is the leis presented to the guests at the luaus.

*  They cooked 781 pigs for the luaus in 2023.

*  The item the PCC used the most, by quantity is pineapples.

*  Donated to Aloha Harvest (food bank) in 2023 was 49,190 pounds.

*  Total inventory value in the food warehouse at the end of March 2024 was $269,741.

*  Monthly waste or slop (all the excess food left on the guest's plates are gathered together in bins and donated to the local pig farms) 6,190 bins 

    The field trip the Food Warehouse team went on this week was to KYD in Honolulu.  I have been putting in orders to KYD for months and finally know what the KYD stands for - K. Yamada Distributors.  This was probably the most boring field trip I have gone on so far.  It was just a huge warehouse full of boxes of their different inventory stock.

     Here's a view of just one row in the warehouse.  In the background is Kalo in a black shirt, Kapu'u in the red shirt, and Lili in the striped shirt.  The warehouse had at least a dozen rows like this one.  This is only one of their several warehouses.

Here's several views of the stacks of boxes in the warehouse.  The bottom right picture is a stack of Charmin toilet paper.  Remember when there was a shortage of toilet paper during the covid pandemic?  Apparently, it was all stuck in KYD's warehouse.

Although it was extremely boring to me, both my boss, Lili and Kapu'u  gained valuable information on possible items to purchase from KYD that would be much cheaper than from the vendors we are purchasing them from right now.  Part of their job is to try and keep the cost of supplies as low as possible, so it was a good fact-finding mission for them.  They have also assigned me to do cost analysis on different items we order to find which vendors have the lowest costs, when I have time between doing the purchase orders.

   Thursday's town run was the fewest stops we have had - just 4.  But it was the biggest load we have had to pick up.  Here is Elder Rappleye in the driver's seat after our last stop.

This is not the best picture of our full load, but this is looking from the front seat towards the back of the van.  It was loaded front to back and top to bottom with mostly air conditioning units - 13 in all.  We were told to pick up as many as we could.  We didn't think we would be able to fit all 13 units in one trip, but the guys that helped us load the van were very good at packing the boxes in.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the loading crew.  Excellent customer service to say the least - a 5-star review in my book.

Occasionally they have high school groups that are on the island touring for their spring break perform at the PCC.  A couple of weeks ago they had Herriman High School from Utah performing but we were not able to see their performance. We were able to catch the show by Cupertino High School from Cupertino, California on Friday evening.  The group was very good, and they had a lot of good choreography along with their singing.

In the picture to the right, they have a few of the students playing special instruments - the tambourine, the bongo drum, and a cabasa.

  

     They performed for about a half an hour.  The only thing I feel they could have done better with to smile while they performed.

Saturday morning we did our usual housekeeping chores around our pad.  Then I baked about 80 chocolate chip cookies (4 batches).  I had baked about that many cookies last weekend and put them in the freezer.  It's finals week starting on Monday which means a cookie drop off to all the students in our YSA Ward.  It's a great way to meet some of the students we haven't met yet, encourage them to keep pushing through for their finals, show them a little love and let them know we believe in them.

After getting the cookies all baked, we were able to hit the beach because we finally had a super nice warm sunny day.  The weather hasn't cooperated, and our schedule has been too busy, so it's been several weeks since we have had some beach time.

When we hit the beach we usually only stay for about an hour.  It was so nice on Saturday that we stayed for an hour and a half, a little longer than we normally do.  We went to my favorite beach, Hukilau beach, to get a nice walk in.  We stopped to talk to some people who own one of the houses facing the beach.  They are from California and were super nice.  They have owned the house for over 20 years and even mentioned what a special place Laie is.  It's the Aloha spirit that is here, and all the people radiating the light of Christ in their lives.  The only problem with staying that long was we got our first sunburn.  I thought we were acclimated to the environment, but the sun was extra strong that day and not a cloud in the sky.  Thankfully it was not too bad a burn and I don't think we are going to peel.  Picture above - my view from where I was sitting on the beach.

After two Sundays off of piano lessons for Easter and Conference, and three weeks since the last time we had piano lessons, I taught a piano lesson again to Tapu.  It was the day before finals, and I was so proud that Tapu made the time to come to lessons.  She is doing very well and progressing quickly.  Just a little more work on note recognition to help her read the notes quicker.  It will help her as she learns more advanced songs.