On Monday night, we had the Aloha Ohana assignment. Actually, we had been assigned Tuesday night, but we had our district activity planned for that night, so we traded nights with the Fischers. It was Elder Rappleye's turn to man the entrance while I guarded the exit. Sometimes, out of the blue, we see a guest at the PCC that we know, but had no idea they were coming. This night happened to be one of those times. While I was at the exit, a lady came towards me and I thought she was needing to know where the restrooms were, that being the most common question we get. But instead, she came up to me and asked, "Do you remember me? I'm Nikki Dockstader, I was in your ward when I was growing up!" When she told me her name, I totally remembered who she was. What a blast from the past! We chatted for a long time. Since she was a guest, I was totally legitimate talking to her for as long as she wanted to. 😁😁😁 She introduced me to her husband and oldest son, who is leaving on a mission to Brazil in September.
I also got a good picture of the boys bringing the pig from the imu to the carving table.
After our shift, we went over to the HGB on campus for our ward's Family Home Evening activity. Since it was the first one of spring semester, they played some getting to know you games. The pictures on the right are showing the group playing Love Your Neighbor. One person is asked if they love their neighbor, meaning the people sitting on either side of them. If the person says yes, then he/she and the two on either side have to get up and change seats really quick before the person asking the question grabs their seat. Whoever doesn't get a seat, has to pick a person and ask them if they love their neighbor. If the person says no, they have to say who they do love, i.e. everyone wearing black, or everyone with glasses, or all the boys/girls, etc. Then everyone who it applies to jumps up and finds a new seat. They all seemed to enjoy the game.
Tuesday night was our District activity. We all went to the temple together to do sealings. In the picture to the right is the Gammons (far left), then the Lees, Neeleys, and us.
Then we went to Pounder's restaurant for dinner. We met the new couple in our district, Brent and Jacque Lee. They arrived in the mission after we had planned the sealing activity. They were scheduled to work at the PCC until 5:30pm and our appointment at the temple was at 4:30pm. We were glad they could meet up with us for dinner. We sat next to the new Lees during dinner and got to know them. They lived in Burley, Idaho for 40 years, but moved to St. George 5 years ago. They were mission leaders in the Jacksonville, FL mission. They finished serving right before covid hit. They both are working in the mission settlement at the PCC. Sister Lee is helping teach ukulele lessons to the guests, and Brother Lee helps in the schoolhouse and chapel buildings answering the guests questions and telling them about the early days in Laie. The new Lees are dressed in their Aloha wear from work in the group picture at Pounders. Elder Neeley noted that we are the district of "les". Everyone's name ends in "le" except Gammons - Two Lees, Neeleys, and Rappleyes.
On Wednesday morning the mission needed senior missionaries to drive the junior missionaries' cars down to New City Nissan in Honolulu for a software update. Elder Rappleye and I got asked to help with that. There were 18 of us driving cars down. They had us stagger our departure time so that when we arrived at the dealership the wait time would not be too long. The first missionaries left at 5:30AM. We were scheduled to leave at 6:50AM. It takes about an hour to drive down to Honolulu from Laie and an hour back, with hopefully less than an hour wait at the dealership. The car I drove got done fairly quickly, so we expected Elder Rappleye's car to be done next. But the cars of the missionaries that arrived after us were getting finished before Elder Rappleye's. After all the other missionaries were gone, and we had waited at least a half hour since my car had been done, Elder Rappleye finally asked someone about his car. It had somehow got lost and overlooked in the rotation of cars. They apologized and got his car updated so we could get on the road. We were the last ones back to the mission office about 45 minutes later than scheduled.
We knew it was going to be a rainy weekend, so we went to the movies in Kailua. We were so excited to find a theater here on Oahu that was showing the movie, "Escape from Germany". It is based on true accounts of how 79 American missionaries of the church miraculously escaped from Germany just 9 hours before the breakout of WWII. I highly recommend seeing this movie. It was giving me goosebumps throughout the movie. The movie helps one see that God is in the details of our lives. If you go see it, be sure to remain in your seat after it is over and watch the part that tells of the real-life characters in the movie and what happens to them after their escape.
For Mother's Day in Hawaii the tradition is to give mother's a lei to wear on Mother's Day. I decided that I wanted to send all my daughters and daughters-in-laws a real orchid lei for Mother's Day. I can buy leis from the food warehouse fairly cheap, but to package it right so it arrives fresh, and take it down to the Honolulu airport to ship that day was not logistically possible. After searching the internet for options, I bought the leis online and let them, the experts, handle the packing and shipping of the leis to them.
Here's a group picture. The kids in the picture are the Bishop and First Counselor's kids. The bishop's wife is in the back row by Evan, who has the kids climbing all over him. This is the best participation we have had at a Family Home Evening. It might be because the semester has just started, and they aren't overwhelmed with schoolwork yet. Most of them were new ward members, so maybe they just wanted to meet and get to know the other students in the ward. Whatever reason, it was nice to see so many. The activities committee puts in a lot of effort and work into FHE night. It's good to see students coming out.
After spending most of the morning helping with the mission cars, we headed to Hukilau beach for some R & R. The weather forecast was predicting rain for the rest of the week and into the next week, so it was going to be the last nice day in a while to get some beach time.
Wednesday night was the second week of fire knife competition. This time it was the women's and men's divisions. Here are the women's division winners. First and third place winners are from Laie, HI. The second place winner is from Olympia, WA.
Here are the three finalists for the men's division. These three finalists would complete on Thursday night at the Ha show to see who the winner would be. The guest who had tickets for the Ha show on Thursday night got an extra bonus watching these three compete for the championship.
Sure enough, the next day for our town run adventures we had rain. This picture of road construction is Dillingham Blvd in Honolulu. It has been under construction since we started doing the town runs. Almost every week we end up having to go pick up something down in the area of Dillingham Blvd. I finally decided I should take a picture of the road construction mess we deal with every week. 
At one stop we had a pretty good view of the "Pink Hospital" aka Tripler Army Medical Center. It's situated on a hill so it's visible from all over Honolulu. We pass by it every week when we are in town, sometimes we pass by it multiple times! It is the largest military medical treatment facility in the entire Pacific Basin.
We also got stuck in a backup. There was a multiple car accident on highway H3, so our GPS sent us on an alternate route, which ended up also having a backup. Supposedly it was the fastest route to our destination. If that was the fastest route, I would hate to have been stuck on highway H3. The back up we were in was bad enough. We ended up driving back to the PCC the north shore route because it was the fastest way because of all the traffic messes on the freeways. Despite the delays we ended up back at the PCC at a reasonable time.
It's a good thing we weren't too late, because it was book club night, and I was in charge of it. We had read the book, Thursday Murder Club. It's a light, somewhat comical read that my daughter, Noelle, recommended. Joyce, one of the characters in the book is always baking, so I baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for the refreshments. We had a small group, but 3 new sister missionaries came, and we were able to not only discuss the book, but get to know Sister Rainsdon, Tingey, and Larson.
The picture above shows the winner of the Thursday night finals.
Second Place - Fumiya Matsushima from Fukushima, Japan
Third Place - Jacktai Laban from Apia, Samoa
Friday morning, I got news from my dad that his older brother and my uncle, Jay had passed away. He lived here in Laie, Hawaii for over 50 years, had taught at BYU- Hawaii, raised his family, and retired here. He died two days before his 91st birthday. I'm grateful that I got to visit with him a couple of times since we have been here on our mission. I'm especially grateful that my dad and Javan came to visit us in early March, and he was able to spend some time with his brother and his wife, Faith. It was only a few weeks later that my Uncle Jay suffered a stroke and then another major stroke a week later that brought on his death a few weeks after that.
This news came only 5 days after the news of Elder Young's death.
Saturday morning while we were doing our housecleaning, we had a huge downpour. It has been raining almost constantly since Thursday, but not like the downpour we had Saturday morning. The picture to the left is the view out of our kitchen window. It really doesn't show how heavy the rain was coming down.
We had the whole theater to ourselves when I took this picture, then Elder and Sister Dahlin from our mission came in and sat in the seats across the row from us.
After the movie, we headed to Honolulu to do a Costco trip. We needed gas and groceries. When we arrived at Costco, it was pouring down rain again! So many shoppers were lined up under the covered entrance waiting for the rain to stop so they could go to their cars. It was hard to make our way through to the entrance. Thankfully by the time we were done shopping, the rain had let up a little and we were able to get to our car and drive back home safely.
On our way home, the Elders in our mission were doing a car wash. The rain had stopped momentarily, so Elder Rappleye pulled into the church parking lot in Hau'ula and let them wash our car. The above picture shows the Elders that were there doing the car wash, minus the two that were out by the highway waving signs to draw people in. That is the extent of the young Elders in the whole mission here. They are actually in the Honolulu mission, and they rotate Elders into our missions transferring them about every 3 months, so we have some young priesthood holding missionaries serving in the area. We have mostly senior missionaries and young sister missionaries in this mission. By the time we got home, 10 minutes later, it was raining again. So much for a clean car!
Three of them sent me pictures of them with their leis on - daughters Aimee and Noelle, and daughter-in-law, Jasmin. Look how gorgeous they are with their leis. Our daughter, Sara was going to be out of town, so she'll have to get one at the later date that won't be disclosed here.
Of course, Elder Rappleye was able to take advantage of buying my lei at the food warehouse for a little more than cost. Plus, it was a very simple process for him because he comes over to the food warehouse every day to get me and we have lunch together.
The picture on the right is me in my Mother's Day new skirt and lei. I'm in the room where we have sacrament meeting in the Heber J. Grant building on BYU-H campus. I was the only actual mother in the whole congregation. The students were all so kind to wish me a happy Mother's Day. One young woman told me that "we", the students in the ward, were my Hawaii children wishing me happy Mother's Day. That melted my heart. There were several of the girls that gave me hugs, so I didn't have to go without hugs on Mother's Day.
I did miss being with my family. Another holiday that was hard to be away from family, but I got several calls and video chats from my children. The Saturday before Mother's Day I got a card in the mail from my oldest daughter, Angela, with recent photos of her three children. That card will probably stay taped on our wall in our pad our whole mission, unless I get an updated one.
Although we've had several events that have been hard to deal with, we are grateful for God's plan of salvation for all of His children and the knowledge that we will see loved ones again and can be together forever because of Jesus Christ and His atonement.
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