The big news is that the hot and humid days have past!  Rain is here to cool things off.  The bad news is that the rain will be here until May.  But we will be back in the snow before then (December) with a whole other weather system to complain about.  But boy, was it hot.  90 degrees was the record in our cinderblock apartment, with no trade winds to cool us off.  We had big fans and they saved the day. 

Our week has been rather typical in most ways, but interesting a a few others.  My students were interviewing returned missionaries for their survey assignment.  Next week they will be practicing contacting complete strangers and starting up a conversation.  Some are nervous but soon develop skills in this area.  My D&C students just finished sections 88 and 93, the hardest to understand in the revelations.  Now they are on to the Missouri revelations that relate to the period of persecution. 

Kaye and Viti

We were hosts at the Ohana Luau this week.  One of the dancers is a member of our Branch.  Her name is Viti and she is a student at BYUH.  I know it is hard to tell which one is the Hawaiian dancer and which the hostess.  Poor Mom has that problem all the time now that she has a stylish mu mu.

Kaye and Hana

On Friday we drove to Aiea (suburb of Honolulu) to see Hana Akina, a member of our branch, who is a school librarian.  She just finished her master's degree in library science and wanted librarian Kaye to see her room.  This is her first year of being a librarian.  We arrived in the morning during a Scholastic Bookfair.  Mom remembers running hundreds of these, so was right at home.  There were kids everywhere buying their books and other treasures.  Here is a photo of Hana with Mom in the school library. 

Friday night we went to the women's volleyball game which was exciting.  They beat University of Hawaii (Hilo) in three straight games.  I have two students on the team so it was fun to talk with them.  One of them lives next door to us in TVA.  She is a newlywed, a bit nervous about living next door to her professor. 

Saturday we had an adventure with our Indonesian students.  The faculty advisor (Sister Mills) is married to the fellow in charge of the local scout camp.  She arranged for the group to go to the scout camp for a day of adventure.  They used the rifle and archery range and then had a great time in the camp pool.  They had a wonderful time.  The rifle range was fun because guns are illegal in their country.  They had never fired a gun before in their lives.

Indonesian Student Group at Gun Range

They had all these images from movies and so the range officer had to carefully instruct them so that they would not be foolish.  Here are some photos of them on the gun range.

Indonesian students on the firing line

While most of them had problems hitting the targets, they did improve with a few dozen shots.  Of course they were impressed when I hit the small target 8/10 times.  Even the range officer was impressed until he learned that I had grown up with a .22 hunting rabbits in the sagebrush and pheasants in the fields.  But it was fun to be amazing at something. 
The scout camp was located in a highland jungle on the North Shore.  It had parts that were developed with mess halls and cabins and sections for primitive camping.  The day we were there it was full of cub scouts from all over Oahu. In order to get to the gun and archery range we had to walk a trail through the jungle - a real jungle. The trail would excite any scout. I could only imagine if I had the 11- year old scouts here on a hike.


Saturday closed with Mom and her missionary friend, Peggy watching the women's session of conference on TV.  Students are encouraged to watch it at the Aloha center on campus while the boys are watching a re-broadcast of the priesthood session.  This happens Sunday evening and includes a soup and desert meal afterwards for all.  While we watch it live, we will be at those events also this weekend