Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022 - Monroe‘s come

 Thursday evening the Monroe’s came to town. As per our other guests, it was mattress city.

Actually, We started a little differently though. The apt. downstairs had been occupied by a new senior couple the Young’s. Tanner had been their teacher in the MTC. But the office had told them they could probably only stay a month and would be moving to a smaller place to make room for two single senior sisters. The two sisters didn’t want to move until after Christmas, so that left the apartment vacant. So for the first few days we moved Brooke and Chad and Tanner downstairs in the two bedroom apartment. Then our housing coordinator told us that we couldn’t have them stay downstairs, so we moved them upstairs intoour apartment - that’s when we came mattress city. One queen in the middle of the living room, 2 twins under the windows behind the living room chairs, 1 queen in the dining area, and 1 folded foam piece plus chair cushions in the kitchen! (Bless you Devon for being willing to sleep there!)

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022- SNOW DAY !!!!

Every year the PCC (Polynesian Cultural Center ) puts on a fun day for the community kids!  They make snow for days and then has a SNOW DAY for everyone!

They section off part of the parking lot and dump all the snow. You can see on the left,  they build a stairway up to a sliding ramp. The kids all line up to slide down the ramp on a saucer.

Mostly, they just have fun throwing snowballs and playing in the snow!!!  Who says we never have a white Christmas??

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 - it is that time again!

 It was transfer day today.  Because they didn’t want to have the regular transfer during Christmas, they moved our six-week transfer schedule up to just a four week transfer. Next time we will have a 8 week transfer so we can get back on schedule.

So, that means it is sewing time for the muumuu’s ! 

This time things went really well because we had a lot of help!  In this pic you see left to right- Sr. Gwinn, sr. Cannon, Sr. Bushman, and Sr. Dallin. We had 18 muumuus to sew, and since we had so much help…we got them all done on Tuesday morning! Even though, Sr. Gwinn and Sr. Dahlin only got to be there for 2 hours, and Sr. Cannon was only there for 3 hrs…it went so fast!

Friday, Dec. 9, 2022 - Christmas Cards

 Without a lot of time, but wanting to stay in touch with friends and family, we decided to just send post cards of our beautiful Hawaiian temple this year!  Here is a shot of the front and back!

Thursday, Dec.8, 2022 - Christmas treats

 So, we decided to give all our missionaries a treat for Christmas before transfers next week! We baked sugar cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip (with a dab of chocolate frosting and sprinkles on top), and some brownies!  We made special plates for the ones going home.

It was a real labor of love, and so many thanked us and appreciated the time it took us! We have some great missionaries!

Monday, Dec. 5, 2022 - Sad day!

 So, I supposed you have seen in previous posts our decorations in the Visitor’s Center. My particular favorite was all the beautiful trees that framed the Christus Statue!

Well, the powers that be came and told us we could not have any adornments around the Christus statue. He needed to be the sole focus.

So, after close tonight, several senior missionaries came and helped us take it all down!

So, we are trying to put a smile on our face, and be obedient…but we are still sad!

Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022 - Christmas decor

 I think since it is so warm here, we grow to love any kind of holiday decorations and festivities all the more! We have to find some way to celebrate the season even in the heat! 

This is BYU Hawaii….all lit up and decorated for Mele Kalikimaka!  This is especially fun because our temple has no lights on the outside grounds at all!!!

It made us want to come home and decorate our little pad!  We had the previous residents leave us a tree..so we decorated it!

I will have to say, I love the tree in the VC so much that I borrowed the idea…I glued shells and starfish onto the ribbon we decorated with. Had to make it a little more Hawaiian!

Add a wreath from Costco, more lights, and a Hawaiian Monkeypod nativity and we are ready!

Quite a difference from a whole room full of decorations like we have at home! Ha!