A Week of "Lasts" and the Start of Goodbyes: April 21 - 27, 2025

     This is our last week of serving at the PCC.  That's a little bizarre to think about.  We will miss a lot of things about our mission, but we have lots of fond memories of the people and places we have come to know and love.

     On Monday, the picture on the left is the sight that greeted me at the Food Warehouse.  This space was formerly full of shelving and stored all of the janitorial supplies that we order in for the PCC.  Over the last few weeks, the student workers have been moving the janitorial supplies over to the main warehouse and taking down the shelving.  On Saturday (my day off), they were able to do the finishing touches in this area to make it into a break room for the student workers. I'm sure they are going to enjoy spending their down time in this area instead of the actual warehouse.

          Tuesday, we had an Ask Me shift in the Hukilau Marketplace.  While we were there, Elder Merideth, the service missionary that helps in the motor pool on Wednesdays, came by with some friends.  He chatted with Elder Rappleye for a while, and then I made him pose for a picture with Elder Rappleye.  It's always fun when we see people we know while we are doing our Ask Me shift.

      Wednesday was our last time to do town run together.  We had to say goodbye to Adrian, our friend at Hawaiian Ice.  We got to know him pretty well.   Adrian helped us every time we had to pick up shaved ice syrup, which was quite frequently.

       Just a couple other views we had while making our pickups for the last time in Honolulu.  The top picture shows the view of Honolulu from out on Sand Island.  We have done pickups on Sand Island before, but this time we had to go to the far end of the island to do a pickup.  Thus, we got a great view of Honolulu.  The bottom picture is of Harbor Court, a business and condo building we drive by often on our town runs, but I've never been able to get a picture of the fountains.  Today we got stopped by a red light right in front of the building, so I was able to snap a picture.

      I really enjoyed doing the town runs every week for the last 5 months, even though we had to give up our Wednesdays off.  It gave us a chance to see a lot of different places around the island.  Elder Rappleye might not agree with me since he was doing the driving and had to deal with the traffic.

     Friday was our 47th wedding anniversary and our last day of officially serving at the PCC.  The motor pool group - Elder and Sister Bates and Bri treated us to one last breakfast at Tita's in the Hukilau Marketplace.

    I had been busy during the week making some going away gifts for our bosses - Lili, Regina, Anthony, and Kapu'u.  They each got a "pot of gold" with gold related items in it  like Hershey nuggets, 100 grand candy bars, gold pretzels, millionaire candies, payday candy bars, chocolate coins, gold "pot" holders, silver dish scubbers and several other items.  The sign on the pot says, "You are "Simply" the "Berry" best! I hit the jackpot having you for a boss." We gave them to our bosses at our farewell party Friday night.

     I also made some going away gifts for the student workers and our YSA Ward council members.  The pen tag says, "Thank you for being ink-credible!  You are appreciated more than you know.  Thank you for all that you do!"

    The pin says, "Five star colleague Would recommend" The tag with the pin has the quote, "The best things in life are the people you love, the places you've seen, and the memories you've made along the way. Thank you for being a part of my journey!"

   

       Friday night our departments, the motor pool and the food warehouse, threw us a going away party.  It was held in the main warehouse where they had decorated with gold and white balloons, tables and chairs with white cloth table coverings and centerpieces.  The bottom picture to the right shows a table full of all the gifts they gave us!  It was overwhelming and amazing that they would give us so much.  They were way too generous!

      Elder Rappleye's boss, Anthony Wong, said some nice things about Elder Rappleye's contribution to the motor pool and presented him with a carved Marquesas wooden knife.

    Elder and Sister Bates, the other missionary couple serving out in the motor pool, gave Elder Rappleye a candy lei with dimes taped to it, in reference to his story he told them about finding unexpectant dimes as a sign of his father watching out for us. (right top picture)  

      My boss, Lili Filipo said a few nice things about me and also presented us with a beautiful painting of the Laie temple by Kap, who is iconic at the Polynesian Cultural Center - think Samoa village master of ceremonies and coconut tree climber, along with all the other items on the display table (bottom left-hand picture).  The bottom right-hand picture shows the table decorations.

    Here's pictures of a few of the student workers I worked with in the food warehouse - clockwise from top left - Byron (from Tahiti) and his little boy, Ryan (from the Philippines), Satoru (from Japan), Leiana (from Tonga), Joanna (from the Philippines), and Kali (from Laie, Hawaii).

     Here's some random pictures.  The top left picture shows Joanna and Auriel, both workers in the food warehouse.  There is always tons of food at all the parties.  I think they like to make sure there is food leftover for the students to take home.

Here's a group photo of everyone that came to the party from the food warehouse.  Missing from the party was Kapu'u, Kylie, and Jazz.

        This was the first of many goodbyes to say during the next week or so.

Saturday, we headed down to the Aloha stadium for the last time to pick up some last-minute souvenirs.  The Swap Meet is due to move to a new location in August.

     On Sunday, we attended our last Ward Council meeting.  From the picture, you can see we have two new junior sister missionaries.  We didn't get a chance to have them over for dinner before we left since we only had one week left.  Bishop Erdenebat is taking the photo, front and center, and Joe F., the first counselor is sitting on the right side of the table, then Belle, one of the Relief Society presidents (we had two Relief Societies), Michael, the executive secretary, Lynne, the ward activities coordinator, Enko, counselor in the Relief Society, Jarom, Sunday school president, Damien, Elder's Quorum counselor, then us, the new junior missionaries, and Moheta, the other Relief Society president.  From the picture, you can see that we usually had treats to eat while we conducted ward business.  These are the students in the ward we got to know really well by serving with them on the ward council.  All of them are great young adults who have strong testimonies and a desire to serve God and build up his kingdom. There were a few others who we got to know on the ward council during the time we served that have moved on by graduating, marriage, or just moving Hales. They will go on to do great things. "Oh, Youth of the Noble Birthright, carry on, carry on, carry on!" (Hymn #255 Carry On)