Tuesday, Sept. 20- Senior Devotional

 On the third Tuesdays of each month we have devotional for the senior couples. It acts as a sort of zone conference for the senior missionaries. Here is a picture as we began to gather. It ended up being almost entirely full!

Our Elders ( all 8 that we have here) sang Oh Lord My Redeemer, accompanied by the ukulele.

Then some of our sisters sang The Cause of Christ, also accompanied by the ukulele.

Then both Sister Bassett and our Mission President Sidney Bassett spoke on Pres. Nelson’s talk in the April 2022 general conference - The Power of Spiritual Momentum.

I love those 5 points he emphasized:  1-Get on the Covenant Path and Stay there,  2-Expect and Believe in Miracles, 3-Daily Repentance,  4-Resolve conflict in your life,  5- Learn about the True Nature of God.

Then, of course, some yummy goodies, and lots of visiting!

Sat. Sept. 17, 2022- North Shore Tacos

 We have been hearing a lot about North Shore Tacos and how good they are, so today we decided to try some. The place is close, only about 5 min. Down the road.

They have a cool, open-air establishment and all the chairs have the Hawaiian islands carved into the backs.

But the charm stopped there!  The tacos were good, but so expensive!  We got 2 small shrimp tacos and chips for $20.00!!!! 

Guess we should have had a clue from this guy as we walked in…..???

Friday, Sept.16- The end of an era

 On Sept. 8, 2022 Queen Elizabeth II died. She had been the monarch for 70 years - the longest of anyone who ever reigned in the world! Cover of time Magazine 5 years ago.

To honor her, President Biden ordered all US flags be flown at half-mast for the 10 days of mourning until her funeral on Monday,Sept. 19.  So, our flags at the VC were at half- mast.

Thursday, Sept. 15- Some hard, some easy….

 Harder shifts started this week! Because we have had one senior couple go home, and one leaving in 3 weeks, we have had to change our shifts at the VC.  Now there are only 3 senior couples to serve, and we each have to have a Pday,  So, we take Wed, Thurs, and Fridays for our Pdays. On the non-Pdays, the two couples have to serve 5 hours each! Man, that is so hard to be on my feet for 5 hours straight!  We have to bring something to eat on those days, so that gives us a little break. Here we are with our BYUH lunch bag!

The easy part of serving is when we see people we know who come into the VC on their vacation.  Today a wonderful young man and his sweet family came in. Hayden Hansen served with us in Lyon France. And now he is married with 2 children! Wow! Made me feel old! Ha!

Wed. Sept. 14- Fun pics for lonesome grandparents!

 So, for some reason, this mission has found us being more lonesome for our kids and grandkids than we were on other missions.  It is so much fun to receive their emails and regular mail and pictures!!!  

These are all cousins in the MTC! 

 LtoR- Tanner Monroe - teacher, his mission was in Ogden, UT   Madeline Ashton- cousin, missionary- going to Colorado - Kaden Monroe - teacher, his mission was in Syracuse NY, and Trevor Monroe - missionary going to Rome Italy.

Then we also received great pics of Chad, Michelle ,and the Mahaffey family ( Landon, Sydney, bottom row is Keely and Annalese)

Plus, we receive a card from Misty every week! They are so much fun! We really look forward to actual mail!!! They always have a really bad DAD joke in them that always makes us smile! So, we decided to save them all….

We love all the zoom calls and weekly emails from Layne and all our missionaries!  Thank you to our wonderful family!!!!

Monday, Sept. 12, 2022 - Beautiful !

Today two beautiful things happened. The first one is that our stake president, Kingsley Ahu, brought in a beautiful flower arrangement that had been on the floor in front of the podium for our stake conference. He didn’t want its beauty to go to waste after having only used it one day during the conference.

The next beautiful thing that happened was that a blind man came in to the Visitor’s Center . The sisters were giving him a tour of the outside grounds and the inside and describing everything to him. They even let him go up and touch the feet of the Christus statue so he could get an idea of what it might look like. When our boss, the shift coordinator and fellow missionary Elder Bushman saw this he quickly left and went to the BYU H student store to purchase a small Christus statue so that the sisters could give it to him and he could feel it and know what it was like. He was so moved!  All of us were! We take so many things for granted in our lives! Now we all see that Christus statue with new eyes!

Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022- Stake Conference

 Today we had our first Stake Conference for the Laie First Stake. They held it in the George Q Cannon activity center.  (This is probably where they used to hold the volleyball and basketball games when there were actual sport teams at BYUH.). Things here are a little different….they held a session at 9 am AND at 1 pm! 

This young man was from a small country in Southern Africa.He gave a great talk on 3 Nephi 17- where the Savior is speaking to the people and then tells them to go home and think about what he said. But the people loved him so much they didn’t want to leave. So, he asked for them to bring all their blind, deaf, halt, maimed etc, people to him and he healed all of them. He likened it to us…aren’t we all blind sometimes to the things we should do? Aren’t we all deaf sometimes to the words of our prophets when he tells us to do something? Etc.  but if we come to Christ, repenting and changing daily, he will heal us.  

Then 3 of the young students sang “Don’t Let Go “ by Gentri.  If you haven’t heard it…go to YouTube and search it…it is a beautiful song.  These young men had gorgeous voices! It was powerful!

Pres. Ahu (pronounced Awww-you ) spoke in both sessions and was wonderful! He told about how whenever he sees a 7-11 - he thinks of Alma 7:11 - and that makes him remember the Atonement that Christ performed for each of us!  He also said that when he sees CTR he thinks of Current Temple Recommend !

After going to both sessions we took a picture of the statue outside. It has a wonderful history.

This statue is dedicated to George Q. Cannon who was on a mission here and also the prophet who dedicated the temple here in Laie. The other man is Jonatana Napela. They both translated the Book of Mormon into the Hawaiian language… Ka Buke a Moramona.

Bro.Napela had an amazing story.

He was one of the earliest converts to the church in Hawaii. He was trained as a lawyer and was serving as a judge in Waikiki when he met George Q. Cannon who was a missionary and he converted to the church. after he converted the government forced him to resign from his position because they regarded the church with suspicion. When he was translating the Book of Mormon with Elder Cannon, Elder Cannon would translate and then ask Napela to explain the meaning of the translation to us ensure he got the meaning correct. Later his wife was diagnosed with leprosy. The laws at that time required that these people had to be quarantined and they were relocated to a settlement on the island of Molokai. There was no treatment or cure then. Later antibiotics would be used until 1960 when a cure was developed. So, Napela went with his wife. The government told him he would have to leave his wifebecause they had strict laws against segregating lepers and non-lepers. But he was not willing to leave his wife. He stayed with her on the island of Molokai until he contracted leprosy as well and died. She died two years later. What a love story!!!

 

Sat. Sept. 10, 2022- worldwide service day

 Our church designated today as a day of service, so wards and branches all over the world were doing a day of service. Half of our stake was assigned to help clean up a Catholic Church in our area. We went to the Saint Roch church in Kahuku.

We met athe church at 7:30am and some were assigned weeding and landscaping, some were assigned to clean up and repair a grotto area, and we were assigned to 2 large shipping containers. I wish I had taken a before and after picture, but alas! These 2 containers were stuffed full. We had to unload everything out of the containers, go through the contents to see what needed to be thrown away, then re-load it all into the containers in an organized way.

We had about 50 show up in our area . It was hard for students because they didn’t have any transportation out to Kahuku. Another senior couple and us went to a spot on campus to pick up any wanting to go, but they only got 2 and we only got 1 !!! But all worked really hard and so it only took about 1 and 1/2 hours.

They had a gathering at a nearby beach, afterward, with games and food, but we didn’t go because we had a shift at the VC.  Nice time tho!  Some other projects people were asked to help with were: beach clean-up, re-rocking a trail, building a hurricane shelter, etc.  

Wed. Sept. 7, 2022- dinner at our house

 The smaller group of people who worked with the Calls wanted to have a special dinner for them before they leave. So, we had it at our house, down on the fist floor patio area.  We bought some of those deck lights on a string and put up because the one little motion light wasn’t enough.  Roger had spent two days power washing the patio to remove all the mold and rust areas (everything here in Hawaii molds and rusts!). And…Everyone brought such yummy food!

Left to right:David and Teri Call, Roger and I, Tom and Michelle Kendall (mission nurse),

Terry and Diane Bushman, Steve and Gail Olsen (Office), Pres. Sidney and Stephanie Bassett, Scott and Darla Tarbet (office & our downstairs neighbors), and Grant and Sheri Cannon.

Sunday, Sept. 3, 2022- Break the fast

 Today was our regular dinner with the seniors on the first Sunday of the month. After fasting from food and drink for 24 hours, and donating the cost of the food we would have eaten to the church, we get together for a huge potluck! We also say goodbye to any seniors leaving that month in our own Aloha Oe.

Terri and David Call, who work in the office, ( we bought our car from them ) were part of the going home group.

The Ukulele class played the Aloha Oe song.  

It is such a great chance to visit with so many other seniors and enjoy a huge meal as well!!!

Monday, Sept. 5, 2022 - Ukulele lessons

 Today we decided to go take Ukulele  lessons. ( pronounced oo-koo-lay-lay) we had ordered some cheap ukuleles on Amazon because they give lessons here every Monday night. Apparently there are many sizes of Ukes! Who knew?

We did not know, so we just ordered the smallest ones. Turns out, we maybe should have had the Concert size, but it is fine.  We went for a beginning lesson at the Ukulele house at the PCC. Our wonderful Sister Bleak works there and told us to come get a lesson before we started the class.  So we did!  Here she showed us the difference in Ukes.

She taught us 4 basic chords and how to strum. Then she taught us a very simple version of You are my sunshine!  Very simple, yeah…….right!

We practice, but man, it is hard for us!  The class has a lot of people who are pretty advanced, so we haven’t been to a. Monday night class yet.  Plus, our schedule at the VC often conflicts. So, we’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022- New Heights!!

 Today was our Pday and so we decided to do something new!  Roger was all for it, Diedra was not so sure!  We went to see the Makapu’u Point lighthouse.  Sounds so easy, yet it is a little over a mile hike up there with a rise of about 500 feet.  The Whole path is paved, and it is only a little over a mile, so it is an easy to medium hike.  But, my asthma always makes me a little hesitant to start.

But, we came prepared with water, and sunscreen and hats and took it fairly slowly. Also, there are wonderful little bump-outs along the way with markers of information and beautiful vistas…allowing me to catch my breath. Believe me, we stopped at every one!

The story is that a passenger liner called Manchuria ran aground here. No lives were lost, but it probably spurred on the construction of the lighthouse. It was built in 1909. They used a lens called a hyper radiant lens. It is 9 feet across and @2 feet high! It was shown as a brand new discovery at the Chicago World’s Fair and is still in use today. The lighthouse was originally manned by men and their families, but it was all automated in 1974.

One of the several bump-out areas along the way up has a sign that tells about how this is a great place for watching humpback whales that are moving from Alaska to here to breed. This usually happens from October to March - so we didn’t see any.  But you can see a large crater and even Diamond Head way into distance between the two mountains.

And it is sooooo windy up there!

 But it truly is gorgeous up there!  You can see it from the side like in the above picture and you can see it from the top when you make it to the top of the path.

Then we decided to sit in some shade and have a little snack overlooking the water! On the way down we spotted an old pillbox and went to explore.

So, I was pleased that I made The WHOLE 2+ mile hike and didn’t have to take my asthma medicine once! And, since we started early it was pretty cool throughout, and such a lovely view!