Last Sunday we attended our first meeting of the newly created Sunset Beach Branch.  It will be fun to be a part of something historical.  We meet in the 'Little Theater' in the McKay Building.  This week we only held Sacrament meeting as Elder Nelson was here to dedicate the new Heber J. Grant building.  He also did a CES Broadcast in the afternoon and his wife did a Tri-Stake Relief Society Fireside in the evening.  They were busy and the people here were grateful to have an apostle in their midst.


Dennis in front of classroom building

Monday was Dennis' first day of class and things went well.  He only met with the students for twenty minutes or so just to hand out the course syllabus and go over some things. I met with Michael Aldrich, the Head Librarian here on campus.  We discussed a few things I might be able to help with and then he gave me a tour of the library.



School of Education located in our backyard

On Thursday I met with Brent Chowen, head of School of Ed. and discussed some things I could do in this area as well.  I think they are not quite sure what to do with me, but hopefully, both of these assignments will evolve into something meaningful, for them as well as myself.

We also attended a session at the newly renovated Hawaiian temple.  It was completely gutted and rebuilt.  It is beautiful and peaceful.  There is a Visitor's Center on the grounds and we met the missionaries assigned to work there.  Across from that is the Distribution Center and the Family History Library.  I went there on Friday afternoon and met Brother Lee, who runs the center.  He is Chinese and joined the Church in 1970.  He showed me his pedigree line on his father's side.  He was very proud of the fact that he could go back 13 generations and I was fascinated to see all the Chinese characters come up on his family.  The interesting thing is he only has the father names.  No mothers names were recorded in the genealogy book he found. 

I joined the BUY-H faculty wives club and Thursday we met, had lunch and listened to a speaker.  She was the former state and national "Mother of the Year."  She did a good job and was very interesting to listen to.  She said she would have been labeled an 'at-risk' child back in the day.  She suggested that kids should be labeled 'at-promise' instead.  She told some things that had made the difference in her life.  Thursday night we had dinner at President and Sister Wheelright's home. (President of the University)  We were eating outside on the lanai when a small gecko dropped onto the table and darted down the table.

Friday was rainy and cloudy and so we cleaned our apartment.  You may be thinking, "How long could that take?! - 20 minutes, maybe?" but actually, we scrubbed everything and cleaned out all cupboards and closets.  Now I know what is here and all dirt will now be ours.  Thankfully, I haven't seen any bugs in our apartment.  You know how that would go over.

kitchen in the apartment

Friday night we went to see "Austenland" which was pretty cheesy, but hey, there's one theater in Laie and it was either that or spend another evening watching the Food Channel.  IT is switching the TV stations from analog to digital so we only get a few stations for the duration, no major networks.
We spent Saturday morning at Hukilau beach and drove over to Haleiewa in the afternoon.  Ah, the life of a Senior Missionary couple!

 Foodland, our only grocery store