Culture Night 2, Fond Farewells, and Stake Conference: March 10 - 16, 2025

     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. 
 

Time For Culture Night!: March 3 - 9, 2025

 Monday was going to be the last day to spend with Neal, Jasmin, and Esther before the Jorgensens arrived and Neal and Jasmin would be busy with their VIP tour of BYU-H and the PCC that they had been invited to attend.  We opted to go to Waimea Valley and Falls.  When we arrived, we were escorted into the park by this gorgeous peacock that walked along beside us from the parking lot to the entrance.  Look how close we were able to get to the peacock.  I was a little disappointed that the peacock never opened up his tail feathers.  Obviously, he is a very tame peacock, and he really had no interest in us.

   I knew after having a very hectic week or two leading up to their trip, Neal and Jasmin would enjoy the peaceful calming feel of the Waimea Valley.  We were there in July with Scott's family and there was a lot more people on the day we went.  This visit was more relaxing, not as crowded, and there were a lot more flowers in bloom throughout the walk up to the waterfall.  I think I enjoyed this visit more than the first time.

     Besides all the colors of flowering plants, there is also a Kauhale living site to explore on the way up to the falls.  Kauhale is Hawaiian for groups of houses or small community.  There were re-creations of different kinds of buildings the native Hawaiians would have in a small community or shared living space such as men's eating house, women's eating house, the canoe house (top left picture), medicine house aka hospital.  We spent a little bit of time exploring the Kauhale before continuing up to the waterfall.

    Waimea Falls was less crowded, but it also was not as flowing as when we went in July - not as much water was cascading down off the mountain, so it wasn't as impressive.  I have heard the waterfall can completely dry up if it's been a dry year.  None of us got in the water because we planned on going to a beach on the way back to Hau'ula.

    When we got down to the entrance there was a nice, covered area where we ate a picnic lunch that we had brought.  Esther had so much fun chasing the birds that were around the picnic area.

     Neal and Jasmin have been staying at our cramped little place, but BYU - H had reserved them a hotel room at the Marriott Courtyard right by the Polynesian Cultural Center for 3 nights starting on Monday night.  They decided to go back to our place, pack up and move over to the Courtyard and go enjoy the hotel pool.  We loved that plan because they were able to list us as guests as well, so we could join them at the pool.  It's the first time we have been to the Courtyard pool.  It was perfect for little Esther because they have an area that is only one foot deep where she could play in the water.  It would have been nice to stay longer, but we had to go home and get ready for our ward FHE at 6pm 

   It was another fun FHE at the HUB, the student game room.  Elder Rappleye got to try the golf simulator this time (bottom right picture).  He did much better than me because I had to play right-handed because they didn't have any left-handed clubs.  Elder Rappleye got invited to play a game of foosball (top right picture) and he and his partner won.  Elder Rappleye didn't fare so well in ping pong.  I think age is catching up with him and his reflexes.  The bottom left picture is Neal playing ping pong.

  

    Here's some pictures of the students enjoying the different game options from bowling to pool.  The junior sister missionaries tried their hand at pool.  They said they had never played pool before, but they won their game against two other students.  They are so petite which made the pool sticks seem extra-large for them.

    I told my boss that I could come into work Tuesday morning before we had to go to the airport.  She insisted I stay home to give the student learning how to do purchase orders a chance to do the job. (I found out when I came back the next week, he had lots of questions I could have answered for him if I had been there.)  I dropped Elder Rappleye off at work and I headed to Pounder's beach for an hour or so.  It wasn't the best beach weather, so I had the beach all to myself.

     Neal, Jasmin, and Esther were spending the morning taking a VIP tour of the BYU-H campus with the other influencers that had come for this event.  I met up with them at the Cannon Activities Center right before the devotional.  Esther loved going up and down the stairs while we waited to go into the CAC.  They had given her a lei to wear.  Jasmin had students stopping to talk to her as they entered the CAC and as we walked in to get our seats.  I captured a picture of Jasmin talking to Anisha, a student that was in our YSA ward the first two semesters we were here.  After the devotional Anisha came back and asked to get her picture taken with Jasmin.  The devotional speaker was Morgan Jones Pearson, the host of the All-In podcast.  I normally don't get to attend the devotional because I'm working at my assignment.  I usually just tune into the live stream, so it was a real treat to be able to attend in person.

      After the devotional, Neal, Jasmin, and Esther went off with their group for more VIP treatment.  I went over to the motor pool to pick up Elder Rappleye so we could pick up the passenger van to go to the airport to pick up the Jorgensens.  Our little car would not be big enough to transport all of us and their luggage back to Hau'ula.  On our way to the airport, we stopped at Leonard's Bakery food truck in Kaneohe to buy some malasadas for everyone since it was Malasada Day, aka Fat Tuesday, in Hawaii.  We knew after a long day of flying, the Jorgensens would be arriving hungry, and it would be a perfect way to start their Hawaii adventure with tasting malasadas from Leonard's.  We made a quick stop at Costco for groceries and dinner, then made the hour drive to Hau'ula.

       Since both the Jorgensens and Neal and Jasmin were visiting at the same time, we did not have enough room for all of them to stay with us, so we rented a VRBO close by in Hau'ula for them to stay in.  They stayed in the upper level of the house in the top left-hand picture.  It was so close to the beach, less than a one-minute walk.  The bottom right-hand picture shows the view from the deck.  The ocean breeze kept the place nice and cool.  Since Nea and Jasmin had the room at the Courtyard until Thursday morning, the Jorgensens had the whole place to themselves for a couple of days.

    Although we had family in town, we were not able to take Wednesday off because there is no one else to do town runs.  We figured the Jorgensens would like a nice relaxing day to adjust to the difference in time zones and enjoy the beach and settle into their place while we worked.  We did leave them our car and a list of things to do close by if they got adventuresome.

     Luckily the list of stops was not too long, so we were hoping to get back around 3pm.

      We hit a new place this week called Mid-City restaurant supply (pictured to the left).  They had a nice demo showroom and a big display of glassware that they sell.  It is located close to a few other places we have been before, so it was easy to find.

     

     We also drove by the Palama Settlement building.  It's a non-profit community based, social service agency that was first established in 1896 and moved to its current location in 1924.  It provides community, recreational, academic, sports, cultural, behavioral, and senior programs for the surrounding low-income housing projects and neighborhoods in the area of Palama Settlement.  When FestPAC was happening last June, they hosted performances of the different countries at this location just like the PCC did.  It's a pretty impressive building.  It's like a YMCA/Boy's and Girl's Club/Senior Citizen/Community Center all-in-one building.  It also has an outdoor pool, and large gymnasium along with other facilities.

       We got back from town run in time to get in line for the first night of Culture Night at the Cannon Activities Center.  Neal and Jasmin were having dinner with the President's Council, so we were babysitting Esther.  She really took a liking to her Uncle Lance.  You can tell because she is letting him hold her in the picture.  Despite getting in line very early to try and get a good seat, we ended up on the side on benches that had no back support, but down close to the floor, which we found out after the show started that those were not very good seats because the dancers would line up on the side and block our view of the performance.  Before the show started, we watched as all the missionaries that were standing in line with us got to move over to the lower front section.  I asked the usher 3 times if we could move over and pointed out all the missionaries that were sitting over there, but she insisted that we were not allowed over there, that only those who had disabilities were allowed to sit over there.  I know a lot of the missionaries seating over in that section did not have disabilities.  I just wanted my daughter's family to have good seats for the Culture Night show.  Neal and Jasmin finally found us and got Esther.  Since they had VIP status, they got to sit in the lower front section, but they couldn't get permission for us to sit with them.  The stars just were lined up against us that night and you probably can tell I'll still a little bitter about it.  Got to work on forgiving the usher who would not let us move over.  I'm sure she just thought she was doing her job right.

      

   

   We still enjoyed the experience despite the seating situation.  The first club to perform was the Hawaiian Club.

Hong Kong Club was the next to perform.  They did a sword dance and a dragon dance.

Kiribati is located in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania.  It consists of 33 islands, but only 20 are inhabited.  The islands spread across all four hemispheres and is the only country in the world to occupy all four hemispheres.  Pictures to the right are the Kiribati Club.

Myanmar Club was one of the smaller clubs to perform.

      

   Papua New Guinea Club was next with a very warrior-based performance with their bow and arrows and war paint.

Vietnam Club

The picture collage to the left is the women's dance.

This picture is of Frank.  He works in the Food Warehouse with me.  He danced in the men's Vietnam Club dance.

Frank is also in this picture.  He's the dancer, front and center.

The India Club was a lot bigger than last year.  Their performance was one of my favorites this year.

My piano student, Thanush performed with the India Club. He is in the top left-hand picture to the right, the one with his hand on his knee.  Karen, who is in our YSA Ward is also in the picture.  She is on the front row with the blue skirt, right on the edge of the picture.

The Mongolian Club was another one of my favorites.

The Samoan Club is always one of the biggest clubs at Culture Night.  They are a joyful, spirited group of dancers.  It is always delightful to watch their performance at Culture Night.

The Japanese Club was next.  We knew two students performing with the Japanese Club.  Satoru, who works in the Food Warehouse, is the one circled in the upper right-hand picture.  Shine, who is in our YSA Ward, is circled in the middle right-hand picture.  Since I was an exchange student to Japan years ago, I'm definitely partial to the Japanese Club.

      The Fiji Club was another fun performance.  The men dance with very strong movements, but the women dance with very graceful movements.

China Club

Aotearoa Club was the last club performance for the first night of Culture Night.  Aotearoa Club is another popular club and has a lot of participates. The whole night was enjoyable despite not having the best seats in the house.  The students put in a lot of time and effort, and it pays off because it's so well done.  You can feel their enthusiasm and energy.  You end up smiling the whole night as you watch all the students put their hearts and souls into every performance.

    The first night's performance lasted 2 hours with 13 clubs performing.

     Thursday was our Polynesian Cultural Center Day with the Jorgensens.  Even thought Neal, Jasmin, and Esther went to the PCC on Tuesday, they joined us too because there is so much to do and see there that you can't do it all in one afternoon.

      Of course, you always want to start your PCC experience by watching the Huki show on the Lagoon.  It never disappoints and it sets the stage for the rest of the day.

      Everyone wanted to have a ukulele lesson at the Mission Settlement.  Even little Esther had her own ukulele and strummed along while everyone else learned how to play the song, "You Are My Sunshine".

      I guess we have been to the PCC too many times now because I didn't take very many pictures.  We were able to visit the village of Hawaii, Tonga, and Samoa.

      The canoe ride with bonus shaved ice to enjoy during the ride (top picture).

        This view of the waterfall during the canoe ride is one I never tire of.  Every time it looks so magical (bottom picture).

      Everybody wanted to just go back to the Airbnb to eat dinner there.  Then the Jorgensens and us went back to the PCC to do a little shopping and go to the night show.  Neal, Jasmin and Esther saw the night show on Tuesday night, so they had a night to just relax at the Airbnb.  They probably had some work-related things to catch up on as well.

      While we were in shopping in Goo's Plantation store, a guy came up to us and asked us if we wanted to use his four HA show tickets.  They were too tired to stay for the show and wanted to go back to their hotel instead.  At first, we turned them down because we already had tickets, but then I thought that he might have better seats than we had.  The PCC was crowded that day, and we hadn't been able to get very good seats when we went to upgrade our seats.  So, I chased the guy down outside and told him we would take the tickets.  We found out that his seats were on the front row!  The only problem was we had 5 people but only 4 tickets.  We let the Jorgensens sit in the front row seats while we sat up in the upper level.  It was fun to see that the student performing as Mana in the show was the second counselor in our YSA ward bishopric, Ondrai Wihongi.  We knew he was cast as Mana, but they have 3 lead actors, and they rotate nights.  We have never attended on a night that Ondrai was performing as Mana until this time.  After the show they let the guests go down on stage and take pictures with the performers.  We hurried down to the stage to meet the Jorgensens and insisted on getting pictures with Ondrai.  Of course, since he was the lead role, everyone wanted pictures with him and the performer that portrayed Lani, so we ended up having to wait awhile before we could get our picture taken.  The front row seats at the Ha show are much better seats than front row seats at Culture Night.

     Friday was our beach day, but before heading to the beach we stopped at the PCC motor pool to let everyone see where Elder Rappleye spends his days.  He also was able to give them a ride on one of the club cars around the villages before it opened to the public.  Esther enjoyed sitting in the driver's seat pretending to honk the horn (there is no horn on the club cars). 

     They were also able to go into the Hale Aloha luau venue and look around while it was empty.  Here's where we took our two-month left photo with the luau waterfall backdrop; except the waterfall was turned off, so you'll have to imagine the waterfall.

     Another stop was Laie Point to enjoy the views.

     Our main destination was Shark's Cove.  We had a great time enjoying the snorkeling, sand, sun, and water.

      The tide was pretty low which made the cove very shallow, but the surf would occasionally come up and over the rocky barrier and water would spill over into the cove (top left-hand picture).  I was snorkeling and all of a sudden, I watched all the fish dart towards the shore.  I didn't know why.  Seconds later the wave hit me and pushed me back, then I figured out why. 

    

      The sand is always a fun attraction at the beach for the little ones (top left-hand picture) and not so little ones (bottom right-hand picture).  We spent several hours enjoying Shark's Cove before everyone was ready to call it a day.

      Some would say a stop at Seven Brothers to eat makes your trip to the North Shore complete.  I won't go that far, but it doesn't ruin your North Shore experience if you stop to eat at Seven Brothers in Kahuku at the historic Kahuku Sugar Mill location either.

Everyone was hungry because we ate a lot of food there.

Esther entertained us during dinner by singing some children songs that she knew.  Then she found some fun chairs to sit in on the store front porch.  She loved hanging with her cousin, Noelle, and of course, chatting it up with her dad.

It was a full day of ideal island fun.

Saturday morning, we headed to the Swap Meet and did some souvenir shopping.  Then we headed over to Pearl Harbor.  Angela was a little girl about 9 years old the first time she went to Pearl Harbor, so it's been over 35 years ago since she was there.  She said she remembered it a little bit.  Neal was a baby and back then they didn't allow babies to go out on the memorial so it was the first time for him to visit.  As a former history major, he enjoyed learning more about the tragic event.

As you can see, they now allow little kids to go out to the memorial.  The two bottom pictures to the left show Neal, Esther, and Elder Rappleye looking down into the water where the sunken USS Arizona lies, and you can see part of the ship.

By the time we were done visiting the memorial, viewing the film and looking at the displays, everyone was ready to call it a day.  We headed back to Hau'ula and the Airbnb.  Several of us watched the BYU men's basketball team on TV beat the U of U.  

Sunday, we attended church in the morning.  Later in the afternoon, Neal and Jasmin did a wonderful presentation for our district at the Visitor's Center about Six Events that had to happen before Joseph Smith could translate the Book of Mormon. 

After our district meeting, we headed to the CAC on the BYU-Hawaii campus for a devotional with Elder Gerritt W. Gong and his wife as speakers.  By the time we got there it was packed.  We had to sit in the upper level on the side.  Getting good seats this week was just not in the cards for us.

     When Elder Gong came into the building, we all stood.  After we had sat back down, Elder Gong preceded to walk across the floor headed to the bleachers and shook our district leaders hands (bottom right-hand picture, photo credit Church News), then continued up the stairs shaking hands with people (bottom left-hand picture).  He got up to the walkway between the lower and upper seating, then turned away from where we were sitting and walked toward the other side of the building stopping and shaking a lot of people's hands.  He went all the way around to the other side of the auditorium shaking hands and visiting before heading back down to the floor (top picture) before sitting on the stand.  He spent about 15 minutes greeting people and shaking hands with people all around the building except for the area where we were sitting.

Then after the meeting, they announced that Elder Gong had time before he had to leave to catch his flight to stay and shake hands with those who wanted to stay.  Since we were way up at the top, by the time we got down to the floor the lines were way long.  Esther was tired and ready to go to bed, so we opted to leave and not stay.  If Elder Rappleye and I had been there by ourselves, we would have probably stayed to shake his hand. 

 The top picture shows the line beginning to form while we were still up on the top where we were sitting.  The bottom left-hand picture shows my former piano student, Tapu, shaking Elder Gong's hand (photo credit BYU-H), The bottom right-hand picture shows Elder Gong during his speech (photo credit BYU-H).

Elder Gong shared 3 messages with the students and all those in attendance.

"First, this year we are studying the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Come Follow Me. Please know each of you is a needed part of the continuing Restoration.

Second, especially our wonderful BYU–Hawaii students and those who serve at the PCC and elsewhere, you come from many nations, kindreds, and tongues. You have a unique opportunity to learn and exemplify gospel culture—to foster peace and understanding among people of all backgrounds; to be examples of family and community in a world seeking gospel faith, integrity, competence, and goodwill.

Third, this is a wonderful time of hope, promise, and opportunity for you. Your future is bright. All things can work together for your good as you look to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, keep your covenants, and live with joy."

And of course, he gave the students some dating advice to go along with his other 3 messages.

He reminded us that "this blessed community is the only place in the whole world where we find [together] a holy house of the Lord, a Brigham Young University campus, a Polynesian Cultural Center, a Hawaii Laie Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stakes of Zion, and a gospel community of Saints in the household of faith all in one place."  

It is indeed a special and sacred place.