Thursday, June the ONE - Misty’s birthday

 We called Misty this morning and sang her Happy Birthday accompanied by our ukuleles. We are getting better each birthday…it is still slow, but it is coming along!

Then Roger had to go over to the TC to help install these lockers.  So, Salt Lake just had these sent. We didn’t order them and really didn’t want them…but we got them and then had to get them off the sidewalk/driveway. They only sent one man to do all the installation, so, Roger helped so that it would go faster. Whenever they do anything in the TC we have to close it down so thAt no sisters are in there.

Then, when we went to work we met Jeff Hurst and his wife. As we were talking with them he said, “Wait… Mahaffey?  Are you any relation to Chad Mahaffey???  And as I began to tell him about Chad, he just started to tear up! It kind of scared me so I said, “why? Is he okay?”  Then he explained that he didn’t know why he was so emotional, but that he really liked Chad and had been his instructor at BYU. Now Jeff is an Athletic Trainer for BYU and said he had just followed Chad’s career and thought a lot of him.

After we took the picture, and I texted it to CJ, he said he really thought a lot of Jeff too! That he had been a good friend while his wife was going through cancer treatments. ..Just such a small world!! 

Wed.May 31, 2023 - A VC staff dinner together

 We keep trying to get together as a VC staff, but when we are always working it is hard. Tonight, our nurse and her hubby- The Duncans, took over at the VC so we could all eat dinner together. We went to Ted’s Bakery. It was really good.

Left to right around the table…Grant & Shari Cannon, Diane & Terry Bushman, Dennis & Kim Singletons, Pres. & Sr. Bassett and Diedra & Roger Mahaffey.

The President had told us earlier that when the Bushmans leave in October, the Singletons will be taking their spot. Right now they. Work at the PCC warehouse, but they are disbanding their job.they have been working at the VC on Sundays and one other day every other week. But now they will slowly transition away from the PCC and into the VC.

Then we went over to Pipeline beach and enjoyed talking and watching the sunset!

Terry & Diane Bushman, Pres.& Sr. Bassett, Diedra & Roger Mahaffey, Shari & Grant Cannon, and Kim and Dennis Singleton.

This is the beach where we find the Penny Shells. They are tiny little shells, rounded on top and flat on the bottom. Guess they are so named because they are so small compared with a sand dollar???

Monday May 15-23, 2023 - A week of many comings….

Monday, the 15th the Browns came to see us. Matt had been texting Roger all month about coming to see us!  It was so fun to see them, and give them the tour of our VC.

Later that day, Elder Mahaffey had a family come in from Tahiti and so he got to teach the. All about the VC in French!  We only get to use our French sparingly here, so this was a treat!

On Wed. We got a visit from a newly called couple to our mission - The Curtis’. They work at the PCC. But, it turns out that while on our last mission helping to orient and train seniors for serving in the mission office, they were on the MLS team doing the same thing.  We had met and spoken to them before!!!

At the end of the week we got a visit from Steve and Judy Austin. We served with them in France and they live in Lindon, so we see them from time to time. We went to dinner at Pounders, did a temple sealing session and came back to our apartment for dessert.

We ended the week with a funny video of Kaden eating a H-U-G-E sandwich. It is a little fuzzy because I had to take a screen shot from the video.

And then on Sunday we got a cute handout about ministering….

The last big coming was Elder Zach Krey coming home. All the family sent posters to put up on their garage door!  He had to come home early after injuring his ACL and PCL ligaments in his right knee.  Now he will have to have surgery and then a long re-hab!  He needs a good knee to haul around that huge Arizona belt buckle!

A fun week!

Sunday, May 14, 2023 - Mother’s Day

 Instead of his usual gift of giving me cut flowers in a vase, today he gave me a flower lei for Mother’s Day!!!!

Later that day when we went to work, we had the wonderful surprise of the family of Jaycee Urrutia Hill came to the VC. So fun to see her after so many years. She is the same age as CJ.

Friday, May 12 - A different kind of Temple

 Today for our Pday we went to see a different kind of temple? It is a place called the Valley of the Temples.

It was established in 1968 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Japanese coming to Hawaii.

It is a lovely, quiet place. It is only used as a shrine.

As you enter, you ring the huge bell to signify to their God, Buddha,  you are entering the temple.

You pull on a big piece of telephone pole and let it go which rings the huge bell.

As you go in, there are multiple shrines to Buddha.

Then, the Bushmans had told us we should go see the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so we did! In the Windward Mall n Kaneohe, there is a nice Regal theater. It has wonderful, reclining seats ! Since it was around lunchtime, we opted to share a medium popcorn and a medium drink.  2 tickets, 1 med. popcorn and 1 medium drink = $45.00 !!!! Wow!

Friday, May 12, 2023 - a fun reunion.

 Today we got a call from Tanner at the MTC. In his district he had the Bendios. We served with the Bendios when we served our Canadian Mission. We got to talk with them a little and they will be serving a service mission from their home in Orem. It was fun to see them again!

We got to talking about favorite pictures in the MTC. I told them my favorite was this one taken in New Guinea, I think. There are people in the water being baptized. And people on the shore with spears and machetes at the ready! Yikes! Now there is faith!

His favorite was this one because it is such a happy picture, despite the poverty.

I also liked this one where they had to cut a whole in the 2 foot thick ice to baptize someone.

Wednesday, May 10-11, 2023 - Carpet cleaning

 So, it was time to clean the carpets at the Visitor’s Center. What a big job. We all went over after closing tonight to prepare to do the cleaning in 2 stages. We fist moved all the furniture from the back, including all the separate rooms, to the front. Then they cleaned the carpet in the back and left several huge fans around to dry it overnight. U fortunately, the fans kicked off the breaker sometime in the night, so the carpets were not totally dry in the morning. So, we do move some of the furniture back, but we had to have all the sisters and guests wear booties.

Sisters Nishijima, Ueno, Smith and Skidmore

Sisters Garcia, Hong, Beeson, Adamson, Sessions, Whitehead, Streadbeck, Panalo,  Thornock & Kim 

The next evening, we prepared for stage 2 by moving all the furniture from the front into the back so they could do the carpets in the front. Having learned from the night before, they put fewer fans out overnight, but, alas….when we arrived the next morning the carpets were still. VERY wet. So, we had to leave all the furniture in the back, and close off the front Christus room. We moved a table outside and allowed visitors to go into the VC by the back door of the Asian theater to watch the video- Welcome to Laie only. They could also access the restrooms, but that is all because all the other rooms in back were full of furniture!

Moving furniture into back.

Sisters Mihara and Huang

Back Sisters- Chuang and Boyle

Front, Sister Gordon and Sr. Mahaffey

By that evening the front carpets were dry and we could move all the furniture back in and abandon those cute booties. Never a dull moment.