It is Sunday 29 September.  Here I am at my desk working on our blog for the week.  I'm sure I will appreciate this at some point in my life, but right now it is my trial.  Fortunately, Dennis is very patient with me.  Maybe it is because he has nowhere to run! This is my little study area and you can just see the corner of dad's desk.  His area is much, much nicer.  haha.  We are separated by a lovely pole lamp and across the room is a fan by the window.  We have five fans in the apartment, all on 24/7. We clean the apt. every Saturday morning and do our laundry at the TVA laundromat.  It doesn't take too long.  Yesterday was a big day for us as we changed the roach traps.  So far I have only seen one roach in the apt. and it was dead.  Maybe word has spread throughout the roach community to avoid those people in apt. A200. I did see one little gecko dart across the kitchen counter.  It startled me but I'm not afraid of them.  Dennis said they are a good thing because they eat bugs.  I tried to go watch the Relief Society broadcast yesterday in 'real time.' The other sister missionaries and I ran around and checked out the three stake centers in our area but it wasn't being broadcast at any of them, so we came home and watched it on our own TV on BYU - TV.

Here is a picture of a few of the boys in our Sunset Beach branch.  I would tell you their names but I'm not sure yet who everybody is and I probably wouldn't be able to spell them anyway.  The kids are all very nice to us.  There seems to be a core group that attend all the Sunday meetings and our Family Home Evenings.  Others come and go.  Some are students, some have graduated, and most are working.  Most live in a small town up the road from Laie called Kahuku.  It would be nice if we could meet up there as it would be closer for most of them, but maybe there isn't room in any of the buildings.  We meet in the 'Little Theater' on campus with Sunday School and Relief Society held in classrooms in the McKay classroom building. Next Saturday, the Branch Presidency wants everyone to watch the Saturday morning of General Conference in 'real time' and so they are having a breakfast and watching it . . .at 5:30 am!


On Friday we went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation.  Here is a photo of two of the stages of growing pineapples.  As we were driving here, we passed many fields of red dirt which is very good for growing pineapples.  Workers were out planting some. They look like this.  In the second picture you can see a very small pineapple just beginning to grow.  I think they are fascinating to see because they look just like fully matured ones.  We learned that most of the pineapples in the world are now grown in South America, although Hawaii still grows a lot.  The Dole Plantation has become a huge tourist trap.  When we first came it was a small venture and we even toured the Dole plant and watched them cutting and canning pineapple.  Now it all about selling T-shirts.  They do make a tasty treat here called a Dole Whip.  It is pineapple sherbert.  I would have had one but the line was way too long.

The trade winds are blowing.  That is HUGE.  It means that the temperature in our apartment has dropped from over 80 to now mid 70s.  It is so nice and even a little chilly when I walk in the morning. Mom is working hard in the library to sort out and update the children's collections.  

Mom in the Library

She enjoys her service, especially since there are no hours and she can come and go as she pleases.  Here is a photo at the front of the library.

Mom at the Library entrance

At the education building they are have a crisis of sorts.  They have been storing all kinds of things in their building and do not know what they have.  So Mom is sorting out, throwing out, and upsetting the pack-rat teachers.  They all see a need but teachers are such hoarders.  She may also be working with students from the Marshall Islands who are in teacher training but struggling with English.  That will be interesting.

I lost my full time secretary which has been hard to get used to. I also lost an operations budget and all the perks associated.  But I do have student teaching aids.  Here are Samantha and Aubrey.  Samantha is a local island girl and Aubrey is from Dallas.  Both are students at BYUH.  Aubrey is in graphic design and looked up Leah's webpage and was very impressed.  Leah is her new career role model.  She has a serious guy but Samantha is still looking.

Elder Wright with Aubrey and Samantha

This is my office.  I share it with a Bishop

We are still in training for our PCC assignment.  They take this very serious and even to take tickets at the luau you have to have hours of training.  It's okay, we are still waiting for our costumes so we have some time to wait.  That will be an interesting assignment.  I guess ticket people handle complaints and catch people sneaking in...
Here is the new missionary badge they issued.  We can now wear the black one or this one.

New Missionary badge

We had dinner with Bro. and Sister Cardno from Langley.  They are missionaries in the PCC.  Bro. Cardno is an AC specialist and sister Cardno works in costume sewing.  They have been here for a year and go home just before us.  It was fun to make a connection.  Lucky also because our car AC was not working so well so Bro Cardno charged it up and it works fine.  Another little help.

Finally we are getting forwarded mail.  It takes weeks to get from Springville to Laie.  They have a very inefficient system in which mail comes to a central office and then it takes a week to even get out of that office.  Any more aloha spirit and nothing would get done.  But they do smile a lot.

Our branch is coming together.  We have our second FHE this coming week so we will see who comes.  YSA are so unpredictable.  They now have an EQ Presidency and other callings are coming.  The Branch Presidency are very young and learning as they go.  It is fun to watch with little real responsibility other than to encourage and get to know the kids.  We don't have any membership lists so we don't know what is out there in surfer land for us to contact.  They say there are hundreds.  I am guessing maybe one hundred.  If you have seen the living conditions of the surfer crowd, it will be interesting to go knock on their doors.

So work is going great.  The branch is coming along.  Soon we will be at the PCC.  The only thing left is the temple.  We go every week but have not signed up for a worker shift until we see how this branch assignment turns out.  We don't know how many evenings it will take.  The challenge of a temple assignment is that they require six hours and that requires a free block of time.

I watched the BYU game and was just plain frustrated.  Our boys did not even show up.  Where was our QB and where did we get that O line?  However it would have been nice to be in a suite and have the cougar tails.

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

First a review of our recent pre-mission and mission experiences to bring our reader up to date.  Our Stake President, Alan Harker set us apart for our mission to the Hawaii Honolulu Mission on Sunday evening September 1.  Our MTC experience began on Monday with classes related to the use of Preach My Gospel principles and strategies in teaching the gospel to others.  Following that training, instructors from Seminaries and Institutes provided instruction on basic teaching principles and practices in religious education.

Our experience was complicated by health issues that have been very uncommon in our lives.  Kaye developed a serious case of Shingles which left her with nerve damage in her leg that made walking difficult.  Dennis had a back molar go bad making an extraction and implant necessary.  This combined with a bout of the flu left us spinning with this unexpected challenge.    

Kaye and Dennis at the Airport

The next few weeks flew by as we prepared the house for our departure.  Clearing out kitchen space, bedrooms, bathrooms and the like.  There was much more to do than we imagined.  In fact, we have learned that leaving on a mission for a senior couple has its challenges as there are items related to one's home, financial commitments, renter preparations, and a dozen other areas.  We did not anticipate the numerous lists of things to do that we would need to complete.  But finally we were ready and on Tuesday August 27 we flew to Hawaii.

Temple View Apartments, BYU Hawaii  

Kaye in our BYUH apartment.

After a few days at a Marriott resort, just catching out breath, we drove to Laie to check into our apartment and meet the other missionaries.  Our apartment (A-200) is on the top floor at the left of the photo.

Today we met with our assigned YSA branch, the Sunset Beach Branch of 57 known members and many more unknowns scattered among the surfers and Woodstock type people who inhabit the North Shore.  The Church has 10 acres across from the world famous Sunset Beach and would like to build a chapel there if the branch can grow to justify its construction.  It will happen and we will be able to say when we visit the chapel in the future that we were there when it all began.

During this last week we have participated in the 50th anniversary of the Polynesian Culture Center.  One event was noteworthy, the Hukilau, a traditional fish gathering activity that was the first Laie tourist attraction that eventually led to the PCC.  The saints would stage the Hukilau, have a luau which they charged for, and put on a show of sorts.  That was before WWII.  The rest is history.

Another event was a parade put on by the PCC and the community. Much like a local Utah county parade. They decorated golf carts, construction machinery, etc and joined the high school marching band, the military band, and the PCC brass band for 2.5 miles of candy throwing.  Great fun.

A 2013 PCC 50th Anniversary Parade Float

It is interesting how "tender mercies" are extended to missionaries.  One is related to our "new" car that we purchased from another missionary couple.  It is an old 100,000 mile, Dodge Neon so we knew we were getting basic transportation.  Off we go on the 30 mile (60 minute) trip to transfer the title and register it.  1.5 miles from the town (Kaneohe) steam pours out, the radiator was gone.  Mom was driving, I was in the rental car.  (our plan was to register the Neon and drive it to airport to drop off our rental car)  So we drove into town and stopped at a parts store to buy radiator stop leak.  Before leaving I felt to ask where a radiator shop was (I had planned on taking it to Sears auto center down the street)  The clerk said that a radiator shop was just down the alley, the best one in town.  So I walked down and met old Hawaiian guys who had a shop.  They told me NOT to put in the stop leak and to leave the cap loose, fill it with water and bring it to them.  End of story, they replaced the radiator for a discounted price and soon we were off to return the rental car.  Could not have turned out better!  No damage to engine, fair price, etc.  The car has been well cared for and is in pretty good shape, radiators just happen to old cars.  We expect it to be just fine for our limited needs.  So think of my Audi that Elise is driving when you see the Neon.

No wax job necessary, paint mostly worn off :)))

Tomorrow school starts and Mom begins her service...so stayed tuned for our real mission adventures to come.