My last post was a long one, but I forgot to mention the second night of Culture Night on Friday, March 7th. Nobody wanted to go wait in line again to go in person. It started a little later at 9pm. That's too late for us "old folks" and even for the younger family visitors after our fun day at Shark's Cove. But Elder Rappleye and I did live stream it on YouTube until we got too tired. We saw the Latin America Club, Indonesia Club, Rotuma Club, Afro World Club, Thailand Club, Golden Mecca Club, Cambodia Club, and Tahiti Club perform. We missed the Taiwan, Tonga, Malaysia, and Filipino Clubs perform. The picture of a poster, left, about Culture Night shows our Elder's Quorum President, James (top left).
I also wanted to include this picture of Daniel (far left in the picture), who we know well from our Ward. He performed in the Cambodia Club. He is Cambodian. A lot of the students perform in Clubs that are not their country of origin. It's a good opportunity to learn about other cultures and make new friends.
Kimmy (forefront), also in our YSA Ward, danced with the Thailand Club. She served her mission in Thailand, but I think she is Cambodian.
The two pictures to the left are of Kahealani (she's the one that is underlined in red). She is also in our YSA Ward. She danced in three Clubs, but I only have pictures of her dancing for Tahiti.
Also, Jodie, who is in our YSA Ward, shown in her Samoan costume and her Hawaii costume.
One last photo of Clement, also in our YSA Ward. He danced the first night in the Papua New Guinea Club.
There were many more of the students we know who participated in Culture Night, I just don't have pictures of them. The majority of the students at BYU-Hawaii perform in Culture Night with at least one club.
Enough of Culture Night. Elder Rappleye got another recognition. In the Employee Newsletter, they put a short article about him and how he is "Wowing Customers". It states, "Charles wows customers by making sure they always have the transportation they need. He enjoys the people he works with as well as the variety of jobs he tackles." In the weekly newsletter, they spotlight several employees and/or missionaries who work at the PCC.
Neal, Jasmin, and Esther had to leave for the airport very early Monday morning, so we said our goodbyes the night before. Since we got to spend some time with Esther, we are hoping that Esther won't feel like we are strangers to her when we go home in a couple of months. We drove the Jorgensens to the airport Monday morning around 8am to catch their flight home as well. As always it was hard to say goodbye to family, but so glad we could spend time with them. After dropping the Jorgensens off at the airport, we headed back to the PCC to work.
Monday night we participated in our Ward's FHE. It was game night. They had us divide into two teams and we played an interesting version of the game rock, paper, scissors.
They had taped pieces of paper on the floor in a serpentine path. I didn't take a picture, but sort of like this picture I found on the internet, only blank pieces of paper. Then one team lined up on one end of the path and the other team lined up on the opposite end of the path. On the signal GO, the first person on both teams would run along the path stepping in between the pieces of paper. When they met, they would stop and play rock, paper, scissors until one person won. The loser would have to go back to their team's line while the winner continued running along the path. The losing team would immediately send the next person running along the path to meet the winner and again play rock, paper, scissors. When one person would make it all the way to the end of the path, new players would reset at the beginning of the path and go again. The object of the game was to get all your team to the other side of the path. We played this game for quite a while. Our team was able to get one person all the way through the path, the other team had no one all the way through. Sometimes you would have to face-off 3 or 4 times and win in order to complete the path. It was tough to win that many times in a row. But it was fast paced and a fun game to play. I'm wishing I had remembered to take pictures but I was too involved in the game. They served cookies and ice cream afterwards for refreshments.
On our Wednesday town run, we had a stop at West Marine, the featured store for this week. It has everything one would need for boating, sailing, fishing, kayaking, snorkeling and diving. We have been here several times, and we are usually picking up some kind of sealant or hardener in big 5-gallon buckets. Here's a picture of our food warehouse crew, the Thursday afternoon shift. Ralph Martinez, the third from the left, is leaving our Food Warehouse team. He got a job at BYU-H as a research assistant in his field of study, Finance. I hate to see Ralph leave. He was a great worker, very smart and always smiling, but it's good for him to be doing something in his field of study. Best wishes in his new endeavors.
From left to right in top picture: Lili Filipo, Frank, Ralph, Ryan, Aurel, and Kyli.
From left to right in bottom picture: Lili Filipo, Frank, Ralph, Ryan Aurel, and me. Elder Rappleye is asked quite frequently to help with other senior missionary's car problems. Sometimes they want to pay him, but as a missionary he is not allowed to take payment. He does it all as service. Every once in a while, the missionary will bring Elder Rappleye treats to say thanks for helping them with their cars. He can take treats, but it's not something he expects or really wants. Here is Elder Rappleye holding the gourmet brownies Elder Hudnell brought over to express his thanks for Elder Rappleye helping put the heat shield back on his car that had fallen off. They were delicious! Thursday night we did a luau shift at Hale Ohana. I was guarding the back entrance to help keep people from entering the wrong way or coming to the wrong place. An advantage of being stationed at the back is you get to see some of the comings and goings of the performers. The pictures to the left are the young performers running to go on stage to perform the Hukilau dance. Saturday morning we went to Hukilau beach to do a beach walk and get my beach fix. The beach was pretty crowded because there are a lot of spring break visitors right now. As we walked the beach, we came across a stick teepee (bottom left) that someone had built and left standing. It was such a gorgeous day to be at the beach. On Saturday evening we stopped by the Tate's pad to give Elder Tate his birthday gift. He later sent me a picture of him wearing his Hawaii socks and telling me how much he liked the socks and the treats we gave him, but I can't find the picture anymore.
It was our stake conference weekend, and we had Elder Hans T. Boom as a visiting general authority and his wife, Marjan. After the Saturday night adult session, we had an opportunity to talk to both Elder Boom and his wife. They are such down to earth people to talk to. Since they are both from the Netherlands, Elder Rappleye told them about his family line that came from the Netherlands and settled in New Amsterdam, modern day Manhattan. Sister Boom seemed quite interested in his ancestor's story and the book that was written about him, "The Island at the Center of the World." We finally had the idea to log into family search and use the "Relatives Around Me" feature to see if they were related. Lo and behold, Elder Rappleye and Sister Boom are 13th direct cousins! That was a fun revelation!
I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the cousins together, so I have to settle for this photo of Sister Boom that I took while she was speaking during the Sunday session of stake conference. They were both fun speakers to listen to, and Elder Boom really connected with the students and had them laughing when he shared the story of how he and his wife met and fell in love and got married.
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