A Good Week: January 20 - 26, 2025

 

      Monday was a holiday, Martin Luther King Day. Normally we work most holidays, but since they had me do all the purchase orders on Friday that I normally do on Mondays because they weren't sure which vendors were going to be open on Monday, I would have nothing to do on Monday, so they told me not to come in.  Elder Rappleye still had to work.  Since we started doing town runs on Wednesdays, I've had a hard time staying on top of things, so it was a day to catch up.  I still managed to escape to the beach for a short time.  The weather wasn't the greatest and the beach was busier than normal because of all the tourist, but it was still relaxing to sit on the beach.

   When I came to pick up Elder Rappleye at the end of his shift, Mark and Denise DeHart, were at the motor pool visiting.  Mark worked with Elder Rappleye in the motor pool for the first 5 months we were here. It brightened up Elder Rappleye's day to see his old co-worker again.

    There was no FHE on Monday night because of the holiday.  When the students don't have classes, a lot of them go to town or go off to play somewhere on the island.

    The PCC put a new sign out along the highway in front of the PCC, so on Tuesday during my lunch break I went out to take a picture of the sign.  I think it's a much better sign.  It's bigger and the design of the sign is much easier to read as you are driving by on the highway.  I'm sure they are hoping it will draw more people into the Marketplace and PCC.

   Tuesday evening, we had a shift at the Hale Ohana luau.  The picture on the right shows all the leis ready to be handed out to the luau guests.  While I was standing at the entrance during a slow time, I looked out on the lagoon, which is right by where I stand, at the canoe that was passing by, and Bob and Tammy Cowley were on the canoe.  I waved and yelled "Aloha" to the canoe.  They saw me and came over to visit a little bit after they got off the canoe.

     After we were done with our shift, we quickly ate at the Gateway Buffet like we always do after a shift.  Then we had to hurry home to change out of our "aloha wear" and into missionary attire and head over to the visitor's center to attend the monthly senior devotional.

     Three of the senior missionaries spoke, Elder Burke, Sister Larson, and Sister Jolley, along with President Workman, a counselor in the mission presidency.  Sister Hudnall (pictured left) sang a special musical number.  She sings so well we all thought she was a former member of the Tabernacle Choir, but she told us that it is a big time commitment that she wasn't able to make.

      On this week's town run, they had us picking up drills at the only Home Depot on the island that we hadn't been to yet.  Now we can say that we have been to every Home Depot on the island - the total is 4 if you were wondering.

     On the second stop of the day, we picked up 4, 50-pound bags of fish food for the fish in the lagoon.  It's a good thing we had them load it into the back of the van because the fish food was pretty smelly.  We had to smell it the rest of the day.  That's the first time we have picked up fish food and I'm hoping it's the only time.  

      On Friday as I was working in my office, Sister Sauve and I heard music playing.  At first, I thought it was just recorded music.  We hear that all the time.  But the more we listened to the music, the more we thought it was someone outside playing a ukulele or guitar.  I stood up and looked out the window, and I saw the gentleman in the picture to the left sitting in the cart playing his guitar.  I grabbed my phone and walked out of the office.  I told him thank you for serenading us and asked if I could take his picture.   They are employees from the Samoan village picking up supplies.  While they were waiting for their supplies to be loaded, he was playing his guitar.

     After work on Friday, we decided it was nice enough to go hike to Kahuku Point, the northern most point on the island.  The purple dots on the map shows where we started (left-hand dot) and where we ended up (right-hand dot).  It's only about a mile one way and a mostly level trail along the beach.

We started out on the trail along the beach in sunny weather.  As we hiked to the point, it started clouding over.  You can see the cloudiness in the top right picture of the view looking back toward the Turtle Bay resort.  About halfway to the point, we came to a "Ahu" marker (top left and bottom right picture).  The plague explains that an "Ahu" identifies places of importance and sacred spaces.  They are constructed using Hawaiian dry stack masonry practices.  Near the end of the trail, we went through a portion of a bird sanctuary where we saw a lot of ibis birds (bottom left-hand picture).

     To our delight, we came across a monk seal basking on the beach.  Elder Rappleye totally missed seeing the seal on the way out to the point.  It camouflages really well among the sand and rocks.  We were lucky the seal was still there on the way back.  Elder Rappleye almost walked right past it again on the way back.  I had to tell him to stop walking and that the seal was just to the right of him.  Hawaiian law states you are supposed to maintain a distance of 50 feet from monk seals.  We were probably unintendedly closer than that, but luckily, we didn't disturb the seal's slumber.

     We made it out to the point and stood on the northern most point of Oahu (top left picture).  We have now visited the northern most (Kahuku Point), southeastern most (Makapuu Lighthouse), western most (Kaena Point) and southern most (Diamond Head) places on the island.  The surf was quite large that day (bottom right picture).  The top right picture is a view of Kahuku point as we were walking on the trail.

     We organized a group missionary activity to do the train ride in Ewa Beach.  It's an historic 2-hour train ride on the west side of the island.  Since it's over an hour away we got permission to use the 12 passenger PCC van to carpool most of the group there.  Here's the happy crew as we started out from the PCC motor pool.

 

  When we arrived at the train station, we all had to purchase our tickets.  We had just enough time to take a couple pictures of a few trains they had on display before we had to board the train.  When it was time to board the train, the train whistle blew, the conductor yelled all aboard, everyone found the seats they wanted, and off we went.

    The pictures to the right are some of the views along the ride.  I had in my head that we would be riding along the coastline and thought we would have a view of the ocean the whole way - not so!  We actually only had views of the ocean on a small portion close to the end of the line before we headed back to the station.  The train goes right through the Ko' Olina resort (top left picture).  The middle picture on the right column shows the Aulani Disney resort hotel.  It's a very beautiful resort.  The makai (ocean side view) are the top and bottom pictures on the right column.  The makua (mountain side view) is the middle bottom picture.

     On the return trip, the train made an ice cream stop.  We were all allowed to get off the train for about 25 minutes.  There was a small shopping center close by with an ice cream store, Black Sheep Cream Co., that most of us went to and bought ice cream.  We opted for a root beer float.  Elder Rappleye is enjoying his root beef float on the train car we rode in (top right picture to the left).

    When we arrived back to the train station, we made a quick visit to the toy train museum they have there.  We were amazed at the size and variety of the model train layout they had with trains of all different scales.  Such a fun town layout with a county fair, drive-in movie, train yard, and river with a waterfall.  Elder Rappleye used to have a train board when he was growing up, but this was way more elaborate than anything he had made.  It was very interesting to him.

    The weather cooperated for us, and we had a nice sunny day but not too hot.  The top picture to the left shows the senior missionary couples that were there - us, Elder and Sister Tate, Elder and Sister Zollinger, and Elder and Sister Boyer.  We all rode on the same train car.  The single sisters that came all rode on a different train car.

     The bottom picture shows our whole group.  Everyone rode in the van except the Boyers, who met us at the train station.

Left to right:  Sister Cindy Summers, Sister Shelley Peterson, Sister Kim Manley, Elder Zollinger (back), Sister Sheri Sauve, Sister Sally Zollinger, Sister Sharla Behan, Elder Charlie Rappleye, Sister Cathy Rappleye, Elder Jerry Boyer, Sister Ethelynn Boyer, Sister LaRae Tate, and Elder Ross Tate.

     On Sunday, we had the pleasant surprise of having the president of BYU - Hawaii, Elder (President) John Kauwe III, attend our church meetings.  He spoke in sacrament meeting and during the second hour he did a Q & A in both Relief Society and Priesthood meeting.  I snapped a picture of him answering questions in the Relief Society meeting (right-hand picture) and after the meetings, he was nice enough to let us take a picture with him (left-hand picture).  We were very impressed by his answers to the student's questions.

     We hosted Elder Mike and Sister Cindy Bates for Sunday dinner.  Elder Rappleye works with the Bates in the motor pool.  They are from West Jordan, Utah and live only a few miles from us, but we didn't know them before they came to Hawaii.  We've been wanting to have them over for dinner for quite a while but have never been able to schedule it until now.  It was enjoyable to eat and visit.  Cindy helped me do the dishes after we ate, so they are welcome any time!  We also played a new card game we got for Christmas from my brother - Taco vs Burrito.

Lots of Visitors - Some Unexpectant: January 13 - 19, 2025

      For Christmas we received new family photos from all but one of our children's families.  I decided to tape them on the wall above the TV in our living area so we can see their beautiful smiling faces every day, and it makes us feel loved to have our family with us even if it's only in pictures.

    We got a surprise visit from Dave Conrad on Monday evening.  He is our son, Derek's boss and was in our stake presidency several years ago, but has since moved to Mapleton, UT.  Dave just called Elder Rappleye out of the blue on Monday afternoon telling us he was at the Polynesian Cultural Center and wondered if we could meet up and visit for a few minutes. We went at 6pm to visit him after the luau was done.  Another great experience to see friends from back home.

         After visiting with Dave Conrad and his wife, Jill and their friends who were with them, we headed over to campus for FHE.  It was missionary night.  The junior missionaries talked about how they both decided to serve missions.  They are both converts to the church.  Then a sister in the ward, Mary, who just got her mission call to Uruguay, talked about how she decided to go on a mission.  After that, we played a game.  We were paired up and you face each other with a cup in-between you on the floor (picture on the right).  Then it's like Simeon Says only all the motions are head, shoulders, knees or toes until the person shouting out the commands says cup and whoever grabs the cup first wins.  In each round half the people are eliminated until you get down to two people.  The final round was the only picture I took.  After the game, Elder Rappleye and I each gave a short spiritual thought.  It was very interesting hearing Sister Mansaloon, Sister Pabalate, and Mary's journeys to get to where they are today. 

    Tuesday night we went to the temple to do sealings.  We had names of 3 brothers in one family and 2 brothers in another family to seal to their parents.  We invited male students from our Ward to join us at the temple to participate in the sealing.  We were hoping to get enough males in the sealing group so the brothers could be all sealed at the same time.  But we only got Elijah Ebert to join us.  Elijah was in the Ward last school year and then went to Belgium for an internship.  Last Sunday we were so excited to see him back from his internship and back in our Ward.  Although we didn't get enough males to do the sealings of brothers at the same time, it was great to have Elijah there to do all of our male family names.  We are hoping to invite students with us every time we do sealings to help encourage them to attend the temple.  Next time - females!

    

  Wednesday's town run was a long tiring, but interesting day.  We had 14 stops - that's a LOT!  We have seen the mural in the top picture to the right from a distance, but our route took us right past it this week, so I'm glad I was able to get a picture of it.  The murals in the bottom picture were on a narrow one-way street we stopped at to pick up luggage, shoulder bags, etc. for the retail stores in Hukilau Marketplace.

    While we were stopped waiting for them to bring out the merchandise and load it in the van, we had a mother hen, and her chicks pay us a visit.  We were standing so close to them and neither the chicks nor the mother hen seemed to be worried about us being right next to them.

     One of the stops was a print shop.  We picked up these posters shown on the right and also some bigger posters for the Polynesian Hall of Fame that is located at the PCC.   There was going to be an induction ceremony on Saturday for the 2025 Hall of Famers.  More on that later in the post.  The package in the photo contained multiple football player's posters.  We wanted to look at all of them, but it was heat sealed, and we couldn't open it without ripping it, so we thought better of it.

   Our last stop was in a new area of town we had never been.  We ended up at a garage in a condo complex.  We were picking up a box full of painted and lacquered wooden chopsticks.  While we were waiting for the owner to package them up, I browsed all the paintings he had hanging all over the garage and stacked on the floor.  They were very colorful and looked pretty good.

   By the end of the day, the cargo van was fully loaded.  We had to play Tetris and move the load around several times to get everything in.  I wasn't sure we could get all the items in, but the employee at the luggage vendor was expert at Tetris and moved and packed the van so we could get everything in.  The left-hand picture shows the view from the back of the van - those are all the luggage boxes.  The right-hand picture shows the view looking back from the passenger seat.  Except for when we had the cargo van packed with AC units, this was the most packed we have had the van.  We didn't get home until after 4:30pm.  By the time we had dinner (we had no time for a lunch break, so we were starved) and got it cleaned up it was too late to go to pickleball, so no pickleball this week.😞😦😩😫

     We had a couple of uneventful days on Thursday and Friday, but on Saturday morning the PCC was going to host the induction of 3 football players into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame.

     When we were here for last year's induction, we were told attendance was by invitation only, so we didn't get to go.  On Friday, our district leader sent out a text message telling us that if we wanted to go to the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony, we could get in with our PCC badges.  Although we had plans for later in the morning, we thought we would go attend for the first hour and then leave.  In the top left-hand picture you can see us with the Lees, our district leaders sitting on the front row because we were the first ones there.  Yes, we were a little bit excited to see BYU coach, Kalani Sitake, in person.  

     Then our bubble was burst.  We were told we had to buy a ticket if we wanted to attend.  Since we could only stay for a little bit, we opted to not buy $30 tickets for each of us and left, but the picture on the left shows what we missed.  Notice the reserved sign on the chair in the front row.  That sign was not on the chair when I was sitting in it before we left.  We were really hoping to get our picture taken with Coach Sitake, but it didn't happen.😒😞

     Instead, we headed down to Honolulu to meet up with the Cowleys and went to the Bishop's Museum.  Bob and Tammy Cowley, our friends from home, were visiting their son, Brent's family.  With our PCC badges, we were able to get Bob and Tammy in to see the museum for free!  We have been to the museum before by ourselves, but we were not able to see everything.  It's quite a large museum.

  

    During this visit we were able to see the planetarium show with the Cowleys.  It showed how the Polynesian people used the stars to navigate across the ocean from island to island.  They even showed us how to find certain constellations in the Hawaii night sky.

    We were able to also explore the Pacific Hall exhibits more.  We only were able to walk though it very quickly last time we were there.  These tiki statues are actually in the Hawaiian hall displays.

    We found some more statues all around the museum.  Although we explored more of the museum this visit, we still did not have time to go explore the science center building.  We'll have to see if we can make one more visit before we go home.

      We had to leave early in order to get back to the PCC for an Ask Me assignment.  Pictured to the right is the Ask Me crew for the night.  Somehow, we all showed up in blue aloha wear.  In the picture on the left side of the table is Elder Rainsdon (front), Elder Rappleye, Elder Greiner, and Sister Greiner.  On the right side of the table is Sister Rainsdon (front), Sister Rappleye, Sister Bates, and Elder Bates.

     Where we usually sit to eat dinner before our Ask Me shift there was a wedding dinner/party going on.  They had a live band, so we were able to enjoy the music of the band while we ate.  We ended up eating on the other side of the terrace.

   

     Our Ask Me post was at the entrance of the Gateway Buffet.  It's fairly close to the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame display, so we took turns going to see the displays of the new inductees.  The top right-hand picture shows the display where the poster we picked up on town run, (shown in a previous picture), is now displayed.  The red arrow is pointing to it.

     One of the top exciting things while on my mission happened on Sunday afternoon.  A friend from junior high/high school was visiting the island for just the day and came to Laie and I was able to meet up with her on the temple grounds. According to Debbi, we haven't seen each other since 1973.  My sister and I invited her to play church ball with us when we were 14 years old.  That was her first contact with the church.  She also would go to church youth dances with us.  She met the missionaries and took the lessons and wanted to get baptized, but her parents wouldn't allow her to be baptized.  My poor senior brain has a hard time remembering all this, but she told me the story when I saw her.  Her parents finally allowed her to be baptized after she had moved away. I either don't remember or didn't realize that she had gotten baptized, until a few years ago when we reconnected on social media, and I found out/relearned that she had joined the church.  She attended BYU-Idaho (Ricks College back then), met her husband, got married in the temple, raised 3 boys, and has gone on a senior mission with her husband, serving in one of the temples in Mexico.  She told me that my sister and I had encouraged her to read the Book of Mormon (I wish I could remember that!).  What is amazing to me is how after she was baptized her parents wouldn't take her to church (the church was about 10 miles from her home), and she got no help from her Ward members to help her get to church, but she was able to get to Ricks college where she could nourish her testimony and help it grow. Here's a quote from her, "I'm so thankful for your example to me as a 14-year-old! It really changed the course of my entire life.  It's a perfect example of "planting seeds". I am forever grateful."  I didn't think I had done anything extraordinary when I had invited her to play church ball. It was just something you do when you are friends. But what a miracle that has happened because of it.  God is a God of miracles!  Planting seeds, with time, good ground and nourishment, "will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life." (Alma 33:23).  We haven't had any opportunities to teach investigators here while on this mission, but this mission has given me an opportunity to see the fruit of my labor from many years ago. This was a totally unexpected mission blessing.

      Later that evening, we went over to the Cowley's house in Laie to visit with them and see their new little one, Kai.  I got to be a temporary grandma and hold Kai, who was only two-weeks old.  It was fun to visit with Bob and Tammy some more and hear about happenings from home.  The bonus was they had room in their suitcase to take a few things back to our house for us so we will have less stuff to pack up when we go home in May.

Tender Mercies: January 6 - 12, 2025

 

     Monday marked our 4 months until we are released day.  Since we have ukulele class on Monday evenings, we took our "4" picture there.

      We had our first FHE of the new semester on Monday night after ukulele class.  We played a game they called squid FHE edition.  It's hard to explain, but the link below is a video Kimmy made showing everyone playing the game.  It even shows the refreshments we had after the activity.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEhDsxtxpiQ/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

      We were paired up with a partner.  My partner, Airyn, and me in the left-hand photo, and Elder Rappleye and his partner in the red shirt.  Elder Rappleye didn't find out his partner's name.😒😏😞😦😲

  

 I posted the left-hand picture back in October.  I took a current picture of the same flower bed on Tuesday (right-hand picture), so you can see the progress of the plants.  It's looking pretty good.  I'll have to post another update right before we go home.

      All week was hard with our thoughts and prayers on Derek and Sharron, but trusting that God would provide peace, healing, strength, and comfort to carry them through the days, weeks, and possibly months of mourning.  We sent them this arrangement of flowers pictured right as a way to express our support and love for them.

      Friday morning my son's family had a little memorial for Elysium, their baby that passed.  It was held at Pony Express Memorial Cemetery in Eagle Mountain.  A few of his siblings attended along with Sharron's family members who were in town.

      We were able to get away from our assignments for an hour to view it on zoom (so, so thankful for modern technology!).  We locked ourselves in Elder Rappleye's motor pool office (top left picture).  Derek dedicated the grave with his two brothers, Devin and Neal, and his father-in-law, James Adams standing next to the grave with him (bottom right picture).  There were tears shed as we watched and listened to the short, sweet service. Then reluctantly we went back to work.

I had only been back to work after the memorial for a little while when I needed to go meet my nephew, Gab Terry, and his beautiful family.  They were on the island staying in Laie and had asked us to get them some discount tickets to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I was able to meet them out in the Hukilau Marketplace, visit for just a few minutes and get them their tickets.  It's a definite perk serving here at the PCC - you get to see lots of friends and family!

   Friday night we were able to go to the temple for an endowment session with the Timothy's and the Lee's from our district.  The Timothy's were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and invited our district to join them in celebrating at the temple.  It was especially good to be in the temple after the memorial service earlier in the day.  It helped us focus on the promises made by God when we keep our covenants and to "think celestial".

   

  Saturday morning, we headed down to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens in Kaneohe.  We went there last March when my dad and Javann were here visiting, but we didn't see that much of the gardens.  It covers 400 acres and is surrounded by the Koolau mountains.  We did a short hike from the overlook of the lake down to the lake and partially around the lake and back up to our car.

 

    The Koolau Mountain Range is so green, lush and very stunning.  The gardens are in the middle of Kaneohe, but when you are in the gardens it feels like you are miles away from civilization.

      After visiting the gardens, we headed to town for a Costco gas run and groceries.  While we were at Costco, one of the students in our YSA Ward saw us and came over to us to say hello.  She was not one of the students we would have recognized, but she recognized us.  I was grateful that she was comfortable enough to come say hello.  So many of the students are shy and don't put themselves out there in social settings.  It warmed our heavy hearts.

      We drive by this mural that is on a building at Farrington High School on King Street in Honolulu a lot.  I finally was able to get a fairly good photo of it.

    We made it home in time to spend a little time at Hukilau Beach.  On Saturdays the beaches are always busy but not crowded.  We watched several people board sailing.  See if you can spot all 4 board sailors in the picture on the left.

        We were invited to go out to dinner on Saturday night with the Zollingers, a missionary couple from our stake back home.  We just went to the Hukilau marketplace where there are lots of choices from all the different food trucks.  We saw one of the new missionary couples at the marketplace while we were trying to decide where to eat, Elder David and Sister Nancy Haupt. We invited them to join us as well. Elder Haupt is the new electrician for the PCC and Sister Haupt is serving in the sewing room as a seamstress.  After we ate, we got our picture taken at the Shaka statue just like the tourists do - Elder Haupt, Sister Haupt, Elder Zollinger, Sister Zollinger, and us.

     We ended the week with Sister Mansaloon and Sister Pabalate over for Sunday dinner.  With another transfer coming up next week for them, it was time to have them over for dinner again before one of them might be transferred to a different area.

     We are so grateful for the small tender mercies that we received this week as we continue to serve here in paradise.  We know that God is aware of us and will succor, lift, and bless us as needed.