A Plethora of Activities: October 7 - 13, 2024

 

     I'll start this week's post with a shout out to my daughter, Noelle, and two of her children, Will and Sophia.  They were performing in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with the Four Seasons Theater group all week in Logan, UT.  Noelle was cast as Joseph's mother, Rachel.  Will and Sophia were in the children's choir.  They had so much fun and we really, really wish we could have been there to see it.  This is the full cast photo.  The yellow arrows are pointing to our favorite actor/actresses in the play.

  

 We got up very early on Wednesday morning to drive almost an hour down to Lanikai and hike the Lanikai pillbox trail.  We made it down there in time to see the sunrise as we walked from the place we parked to the trailhead (bottom picture, right).  The top picture was taken as we hiked up the trail.

   The trail started out very steep.  We are getting used to steep trails here in Hawaii.  Thankfully the trail was not muddy at all, so we were able to make it up without too much difficulty.  The pictures to the left are views we saw as we hiked up the trail.  It is not a very long hike, but it is a very popular hike even on a Wednesday morning.

 

 The top picture to the right is us at the pillbox with the view of the ocean behind us.  

   The bottom picture to the right was taken on the way up to the pillbox.  The two small islets in the background are Moku Nui and Moku Iki.  Both islets are off limits for people, because they are bird sanctuaries for seabirds and also because they want to protect the coral around the islets.  They used to let kayakers go out to the bigger islets, but not anymore.

     There are actually two different pillboxes up on the summit.  The pillbox Elder Rappleye is standing next to is the one we came to first.  We have no idea how those people sitting on top of the pillbox got up there.  As older people, we were not going to do anything risky that might get us injured, so we opted not to try to climb that pillbox.  The pillbox in the bottom picture was the second one farther up the trail.  We actually found a way up onto the top of the lower part of the pillbox. I'm not sure you can see the lower part of the pillbox - it's where the lower ledge is sticking out.  The close-up picture of us above was taken when we were standing on top of that pillbox.  We only had to take minimum risk to climb up on to that pillbox. 

   

   Here's a few views from the top pillbox looking down on the first pillbox (circled in red in the pictures on the right side).

      With the steepness of the trail, I thought going down was going to be tricky, but we have learned to just take it slow and steady.  It actually ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be.  When we arrived at the bottom we walked straight out (a couple of blocks) to Lanikai Beach.  It's the beach we could see right below us from the pillboxes.

     It was a beautiful beach with fine white sand and calm waters (at least on that day).  We had not planned to swim, just wanted to check it out.  The downside is there are no restrooms or showers at this beach and very little shade.  I would love to go back to that beach, just wouldn't want to stay all day there.  The bottom left picture is looking back up on the mountain to the pillboxes.  The top right picture is of the Moku islets, the ones we saw from the pillboxes.  Since going to Lanikai beach, I read that Lanikai Beach is rated the #1 beach in the U.S. and #14 in the world.  Definitely will have to go back and enjoy time on Lanikai beach.

     After our hiking adventure, we returned home to have a nice visit over Zoom with our financial advisor.  Then it was time to clean house and prepare dinner for our dinner guests, the Neeleys.  They were our mentors when we first arrived in the mission.  They have also been in our district.  They are going home on October 22nd, so we wanted to host a dinner for them and "talk story" about their mission experiences.  They served at BYU-H in the Aloha Center, which is the campus life building with a bookstore, post office, cafe, sewing room, and game room along with a lounge area where students can hang out.  They mostly helped out with the information desk and the game room.  Our apartment is still quite hot by evening, but not as bad as it's been all summer.  Despite the warmness of the apartment, we enjoyed visiting with the Neeleys.  They stayed to eat and visit for 3 hours.  They are going home to Providence, Utah, near Logan, so hopefully when we go up to Logan to visit the Rowe's (our daughter's family), we can occasionally catch up with the Neeleys.

      Out at the motor pool, they did a small beautification project by the office.  There was a small corner of dirt that had nothing in it, so the lady in charge of the PCC nursery decided to spruce it up with some plants and flowers.  The picture to the right is the end result.  It looks pretty nice, right?  As the plants grow, hopefully they will cover up the pipes and rusted corner of the building.

      A shout out to our grandson, Will, who turned 12 on Thursday, October 10th.  He was performing in the play that night.  Before the performance the whole cast sang 'Happy Birthday" to him.  It was the best rendition of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard (Noelle sent us a video - so grateful for technology).  They have some amazing singers in the cast.  On the left is a picture of Will with his family and "Joseph" on his birthday.

     Thursday night was book club night.  We finally remembered to get a picture of the group after we discussed the book, "The Red Bandanna" by Tom Rinaldi, a book about Wells Crowther, who died in the 9/11 attack at the Twin Towers in NYC while helping to save others.  It was a very sobering, but also inspirational book.  Pictured to the right - back row L -R - Sister Suzanne Ratelle, Sister Julie Larsen, Sister Joan Harker; middle row L - R - Sister Kerry Rainsdon and Sister Cathy Tingey; front row L - R - me and Sister Sherilyn Sauve.

     Friday morning Elder Rappleye and I were sent into Honolulu to pick up two orders for the Food Warehouse.  Since there were only 3 cases of chicken left in the freezer because someone (me) forgot to include the chicken on the purchase order from Sysco, I was elected to go pick it up in town.  That was the first time I have messed up big time and it's been my greatest fear, I was happy to atone for my mistake and be the one to go pick up the chicken order.  Since I was going into town, Lili also had me pick up 5-gallon pails of mayo from Y Hata as well.  I was thankful Elder Rappleye was able to come with me to be the driver.  The picture above left shows Elder Rappleye relaxing while waiting for them to bring out the 49 cases of chicken.  We also noticed another group of people relaxing in the back of the pickup truck across the parking lot from us.

       It reminded us of our town run days.  This was a quick trip of only two pickups, and they were not too far apart from each other.  The picture on the far right shows our load as we started back to the PCC.  The stack of boxes of chicken ended up sliding off the pallet even though it was wrapped, and we ended up with quite a mess of boxes in the back of the cargo van by the time we arrived at the Food Warehouse.

      We got back to the PCC just in time for a lunch of hot dogs, chips, and soda.  It was the 61st birthday of the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Free lunch for all the employees and PCC missionaries.

 

     In the evening, we had an Ask Me assignment.  I finally thought to take a picture of the group of missionaries doing all the Ask Me assignments for the night (top picture to the right), Elder Mike Bates by Elder Rappleye, Elder Larry Seawright, Sister Sherilyn Sauve, Sister Lanae Condie, Sister Kristie Seawright, Sister Cindy Bates, and me.  The Happy Birthday banner hanging on the fence in the bottom picture is at the employee entrance to the PCC.  The building in the background is where the Food Warehouse is located at.

      Since I sit all morning long, I eat a quick lunch and then go for a walk as often as I can.  I usually walk on the service road that goes around the perimeter of the PCC.  There is a section that has beautiful flowers (pictured at left) when blooming.  This week, they looked so amazing I had to snap a picture.

      Saturday morning, we had another island devotional.  This one was put on by the island of Fiji.  The theme of the devotional was based on the Book of Mormon scripture, Helaman 5:12 - building your foundation on Jesus Christ, the rock and sure foundation.

   Here is the opening hymn, "We Thank Thee, O God for a Prophet, and the closing hymn, "Did you Think to Pray? in Fijian.  Of course, all the missionaries sang it in English, but all the Fiji students sang it in Fijian.

  

      There were four student speakers.  The first speaker was a girl so short you could hardly see her behind the podium (top right picture).  The other female speaker, Fane (bottom left picture), is in our YSA ward.  Her talk was really good about hope and forgiving yourself and how the Savior makes us good enough.  I could tell she was speaking from her heart.

They had a great Fiji student choir sing to us.  The words were in Fijian, so I'm not sure what the song was about, but it was very beautiful. 

After the program, they did a flag raising ceremony.  The Priest (bottom right picture) calls out a chant in front of the "Bure Kalou" or Fijian temple.  The Priest hands the flag to a warrior (top right picture) and the warrior solemnly walks over to the flagpole.  The students gathered around the flagpole while the flag was raised (bottom left picture). Then sang the national anthem (top left picture).

Then they performed a traditional Meke. Meke means a Fijian dance accompanied by singing.

They always serve us food after a devotional.  We got to taste Fiji curry.  It's a chicken sauce poured over rice.  It was pretty good.  The bottom right picture is the group of missionaries in one of the Fiji village buildings enjoying our Fiji curry and each other's company.

That same day, later in the morning, we got our back door neighbors, Lara and Paulino, discount tickets to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Lara and Paulino have been here in Hawaii for over a year, and they have wanted to go to the PCC but it's quite expensive for them.  They were so excited when we told them we could get them discount tickets.  We met up with them in front of the Gateway buffet building after they had spent the afternoon in the villages and eaten at the buffet.  We are able to upgrade their night show tickets after 6pm for the best available seats, so that's what we had just done when we met up with them.  We then headed to our Saturday night Stake Conference meeting at the HGB on the BYU-Hawaii campus.  It's the first time I have been to a Saturday night Stake Conference meeting where they served a full dinner after the meeting.  I can't eat a meal that late at night.  I won't be able to sleep.  The nice thing is there were take home containers and plenty of food, so we ended up bringing food home with us for Sunday lunch the next day.

Sunday was Stake Conference in the Cannon Activities Center.  It was very poignant when they had the former counselor in the stake presidency talk about his experience with a brain aneurysm earlier in the year.  He was in a coma for three weeks and they weren't sure he was going to live.  The stake president had asked us all to pray for him and his family.  When he woke up from his coma, he asked his wife if people had been praying for him.  His wife told him that there were people all over the world praying for him.  His son who is serving a mission in Idaho had all of the missionaries in his mission praying for his dad.  His name had been put on the temple prayer roll in temples all over the world.  He told his wife that he could feel everyone's prayers, but he could especially feel the prayers of the missionaries and the children because he said they were so sincere.  What he told us about prayer was so powerful.  Never doubt the power of prayer or think that your prayers don't matter.

  I took the picture above after the meeting was over.  Looks like we got a photo bomber behind us.