Lots of Excitement - Expectant and Unexpectant: August 12 - 18, 2024

    

     We are excited that this is the last week the Polynesian Cultural Center is on their summer schedule..  After this week it goes back to the normal schedule, which means they are closed on Wednesdays.  Even the regular employees are excited about it.

     It started out not so good, but it provided some excitement at the food warehouse that even involved Elder Rappleye.  One of our forklifts died in the middle of the dock while working on putting away a delivery.  Satoru was driving it and stopped and went to do something else really quick and when he came back and turned it on, it wouldn't start and showed an "error" light on the dashboard.  That's when we had to call Elder Rappleye over from the motor pool to come check it out.  Elder Bates and Elder Rappleye came over, looked at things, and determined they needed to call the manufacturer to find out what was wrong.  The manufacturer determined it was the battery - it was shot - we would have to get a new one at the cost of $10,000.

  We couldn't leave it in the middle of the loading dock because it was in the way for receiving deliveries.  So, the next thing we needed to figure out was how we were going to get the forklift moved out of the way.  They determined that the forklift was too heavy, so the battery needed to be taken out of the forklift.  The battery weighed over a ton.  The picture to the left, near side, show Saturo, Blankey, and Ralph pushing and finally sliding the battery far enough out to get it mostly on a pallet. The picture on the far left shows Lili using the other forklift to haul the battery into the warehouse.  Because it wasn't completely on the pallet, the boys had to hop on the pallet to counterweight the pallet so the battery wouldn't fall off.

     The next problem was to get the forklift out of the way.  With the battery out, the plan was to lift the forklift onto the other forklift and move it to the side of the loading dock.  The problem was with all the posts located in the loading dock it was difficult to get the working forklift in the right position to lift the dead forklift.  It took quite a while, but with Lili's excellent maneuvering skills, she finally got the dead forklift lifted onto the forks of the working forklift and very slowly and carefully moved it to the side of the loading dock.  What seemed like an impossible task somehow got accomplished with teamwork.  Luckily it was a slower day for deliveries, and we were not having to deal with receiving deliveries at the same time.

     Monday evening, we were scheduled again to do an Ask Me Shift in the exact same location as last week - Gateway.  It was not very busy.  It appears that mid-August is a good time to come to the PCC.  With school already started in some places (like Hawaii) or starting next week in a lot of other places, travel is down.  If you like less crowds, you now know when a good time to come visit the PCC.

   Another pig carcass encounter in the kitchen on Tuesday at lunch time.  If I have too many more of these, I may have to give up eating pig.

    Wednesday night was our senior devotional.  We usually have it on the third Tuesday night of the month, but this month we had a visiting General Authority come and we had it on Wednesday night.  Elder Peter M. Johnson and his wife spoke to us at the visitor's center.  We had an Ask Me shift right before the devotional.  We had to go straight over to the Visitor's Center, run into the bathroom and change from our Aloha outfits to our missionary attire, so we ended up sitting towards the back of the auditorium.  After the meeting, we did get to walk right by them and shake their hands and thank them for coming and speaking to us.  It's the first General Authority to come speak to the missionaries in our mission since we have arrived.  We have had General Authorities come and speak at BYU-H at the student devotionals, but they haven't spoken specifically to the missionaries.  When they speak at BYU-H, their comments are directed to what the students need to hear.  Elder Johnson's comments were directed to what we as missionaries need to hear.  He mentioned the need is great for more senior missionaries.  Only 43% of the requests for senior missionaries are being filled.  He said that when you are serving a full-time mission you are keeping your covenants by living the law of consecration.  He also spoke about ways we can come unto Christ.  Being engaged in living the gospel of Christ - faith, daily repentance, baptism and keeping our covenants, and listening to the spirit is coming unto Christ.  Living the gospel of Christ produces spiritual monument.  The other way to come unto Christ that he mentioned was to minister to the one just like the Savior does.

Here's our group picture taken in the Visitor's Center with all the senior missionaries, Elder Peter Johnson and his wife, and the mission presidency and their wives.

   Thursday morning at work, when a delivery truck was backing into the loading dock, the truck clipped one of the sprinkler heads on the ceiling and set off the fire alarm and water started gushing down all over the truck and loading dock.  He had cleared the first sprinkler head, and I guess he thought he was okay with the other one or maybe he didn't see that one.

 Everyone came out of the office and warehouse to see what was going on. Even the people upstairs in uniforms came down because the alarm was going off and they didn't know if there was an actual fire or not.  After about 5 minutes, Roland (lower right picture) came and unlocked the valve and turned off the water.  Then Jared got out the big water vac and started cleaning up the mess.  That made for two exciting events in one week at the food warehouse. I'm not sure that will ever be topped the rest of the time we are here.  Thank goodness it was an easy fix to put a new sprinkler head on and they had it fixed before I left for the day.  An actual fire could have been devastating.

   We went to the temple that night to do sealings.  We couldn't get any one to tag along with us, but when we got there, Elder and Sister Goates, and Elder and Sister Jacobson were there, and we ended up doing the sealing session with them.

 Saturday morning, I had a training meeting for the food warehouse team.  I have not been attending the once-a-month training meetings, but Sister Sauve was asked to conduct the meeting, so I went to support her.  

     I caught a picture of the daily pineapple delivery on the dock before the meeting.  92 cases of pineapples are delivered everyday - 7 pineapples to a case.  

      They give out monthly awards for the outstanding student workers at the training meeting.  The picture to the right is Blankey (left), Ralph (upper right), and Jared (bottom right).  All 3 received awards for their hard work during the month.  The training was on one of the 7 cultural beliefs of the PCC - Take Charge - See it, Own it, Solve it.  In other words - S.O.S. - Help.

     After the training meeting, we headed to town to do our grocery shopping.

    We had to say goodby to Elijah Ebert.  He has been in our YSA Ward since we got here last November.  He has been a membership clerk and the Ward Clerk.  He has been very helpful in getting me a list of birthdays (a new one at the start of every semester) of the students in our ward so I can pass out birthday treats. He is going to Belgium to work for the church in an academic internship.  We will miss him in our ward.  He also has been a tour guide at the PCC, so we will miss seeing him around at the PCC.  The best of luck to Elijah in his new endeavors.  He says he'll return to BYU-H after his internship, but we will probably be back home by then.