It is the end of a Sabbath day.  We just returned from dinner with one of my colleagues at BYUH.  They are a young family, Dan and Carrie Shar, reminded us of our own kids.  A great family with nice kids and a great roast beef dinner with real mashed potatoes an gravy.  It was a nice Sunday dinner and fun visit. 

We received a new branch assignment today.  We are now the branch mission prep discussion leaders.  This will be enjoyable because we have a number of YSA who are engaged and others who are planning for missions.  I will have to dust off my old temple prep lessons, but things have not really changed that much in this area. 
One of my branch assignments is to mentor the kids on probation.  We are having success and that is gratifying.  Now that we have the ward lists from SLC we will be doing more visits to less actives and maybe more mentoring.  It has taken awhile but our branch is now up and running. 

This is a photo of our temple...I will tell you some things about it. The temple is on the highest spot in the area, only a few hundred feet above sea level.  It is a small temple.  The rooms hold only 30 or so.  It has recently been remodeled because the outside cement had eroded and was looking gray.  It is now again sparkling white.  It is build just below an old LDS pioneer cemetery that is fun to walk through.  The cemetery is part of the temple grounds.  There is a distribution center, family history center and visitors center on the grounds.  If you look at the photo the distribution and FH centers are to the left of the temple and the visitors center is to the right.  Nothing is very large, just adequate.  Each hour or so a tram from the PCC drives to the front on the temple and people who want can walk around the grounds and go to the visitor center.  They generate more missionary referrals at this visitor's center than any other in the Church.  Behind the temple is Hawaiian jungle that runs up the mountain you can see in the photo.  To the left is BYUH and to the right a nice subdivision.  We go on Wednesday nights which is always interesting because that is when new folks and those who require more time because of their handicaps attend.  Hence we are often the witness couple. 

This week we spent two evenings at the PCC taking tickets.  There are four luau's so we have worked at two of them so far.  This week we were at the Hawaiian and the Samoan luaus.  One is large and the other a smaller one.  Both have shows that we can watch.  We take tickets, chat people up, keep a running count for the kitchen and answer questions about the PCC, us and where the restrooms are.  Here is a photo of us in our new PCC costumes.

 They are handmade and not as bad as we thought they might be.  The shirt is fine, the dress...well judge for yourself.  I don't think it is as bad as mom imagines.  The custom is that husbands and wives have to match and there are several choices of cloth and patterns for the dresses.  Men can wear the Polynesian kilts if they want...mom wants me to...but...

This week is midterm exams so I will be busy correcting papers.  The students think I am a pretty tough instructor.  They say that the BYU professors are much harder than the seminary and institute teachers who are missionaries here.  Whatever, I say, knowing that harder is better when it comes to encouraging students to study and learn. 

We had no real adventures this week.  Oh, I went boogie boarding at castle beach.  It has bigger waves and I took my fins.  I caught one wave (about four feet) and was on top fearing that it would roll me, but I rode it out and had fun.  More work that it looks like, but fun.  Mom just floated on her board and watched.  I think she still remembers being driven into the sand on Maui's Big Beach.  

We are enjoying our service and are grateful for cooler weather, good health and the opportunity to be involved in so many interesting and challenging activities.  Thanks for your letters and facebooking.