Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - Transfer News

 Starting this month our transfer days have been moved from Monday and Tuesday to Thursday and Friday.  That means that we hold the transfer news meeting on Wednesday night. This particular transfer is quite a bit different. We have five sisters going home. But, we also are sending eight more sisters to the Honolulu Mission. Previously, our sisters got the opportunity to leave our mission and do a “Outbound mission”. . This meant that they left our mission and went to the Honolulu mission for about three transfers, or four months,  then they came back to finish their mission in our mission. As of this month they have decided to do away with the outbound program. But, the Honolulu mission needed more sisters, so 8 of our sisters are being transferred there permanently .  That means we have 13 sisters leaving and 2 Elders.

Sisters Lahache, Crummett,  Adamson, President and Sister Bassett, Beeson, and Wood

Back Elder Kunz, Sisters Ueno, Ko, Archibald, Lahache, Pres. And Sister Bassett, Beeson, Wood, Padilla, Horton, and Elder Shen.   Front - Sisters Crummett, Bankhead, Adamson, Murakami, and Chuang.

This is one of our favorites, Sister Beeson, from Az. She and Sister Thornock were our Visitor Center Training sister, so we saw her a lot!

Sunday, June 11, 2023- Bishop’s house

Today we were invited to our YSA 12th Ward Bishop’s house for dinner.  The other senior couple in our ward, The Phillips from Orem, UT, are going home the first week of July and so Bihop Spring and his wife invited us and the Phillips over for dinner. They also had some family visiting, so there were 12 people there!!! We enjoyed the dinner and we brought dessert.  Awhile back, Roger got really hungry for homemade ice cream. So, he went on Amazon and found this nifty ice cream maker.

It is a little different, though. It doesn’t use any rock salt or ice to freeze the ice cream. There is a metal canister inside that you have to put into the freezer for at least 24 hours before you make the ice cream then you put together the  ingredients for the ice cream and put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. When you get ready to make the ice cream, you pour the ingredients into the frozen metal canister and put it inside the ice cream maker and the Dasher goes down inside the liquid. Then you plug it in and it turns for about 20 to 25 minutes and ….Voila! Ice cream! It is somewhat softer than the regular ice cream you usually make…but we are usually making it ahead of time, so we just keep it in an airtight container in the freezer until we are ready and then it is harder. everyone seemed to enjoy it!

Sisters Phillips. Mahaffey, Spring

Elder and Sister Phillips, Elder and Sister Mahaffey, Bishop and Sister Spring

Friday, June 9, 2023 - a lot of various happenings….

 Today is my brother, Ron Odom’s, 80th birthday!  I had sent him a card and an email, and so we woke up to an email back from him. He is doing well, but feeling his age he said. Then we worked the 9 30-1:30 shift. I was so tired, I came home to take a nap, because I knew we still had a big day ahead. We worked the Ask Me station at the PCC, which means we go at 4:15 and we get to eat dinner at the buffet. Then we work at one of the 4 stations from 5:30-7.

Then we went over to BYUH to join our district in watching their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. They did such a great job!

Then when we got home I had a text from Betty Wadell saying that her daughter Lisa had put together a photo book for her and it included this picture. So, she had to send it to me!!!

It is the Wadell’s family and ours…(minus Layne)

Back-  Kevin Wadell, Marc Wadell, Chad Mahaffey, and Bryce Wadell.

2nd row- Lisa Waddell, Brooke Mahaffey and Misty Mahaffey,

Lindsay Mahaffey is laying down in front.  I would guess this to be about 1990 or 1991???

Fun throwback to days gone by.    It was a long day, but so enjoyable!

Thursday, June 8, 2023 x Trek comes to the temple grounds.

 Tonight we had almost 500 people come to the temple grounds!  There were 2 Stakes of kids doing TREK this week (and yes, they had handcarts…even here in Hawaii! ) they came into the grounds and we were terrified all 500 would want to use the restrooms and just be in the Air-conditioned room. But, we opened the outside bathrooms, and many went there. We did get about 100 inside. Ut then they went right back out.  They lined up on both side of the walkway up to the temple. They had tiny lights and we heard they were going to sing Teach Me to Walk in the Light while shining them outside of the temple.

These pictures were taken while we were waiting for all of this to occur. Sadly, by the time we had to lock up and go home at 8:15 it still had. It happened. Rats! We were so excited to see all those lights.I ing the pathway up to the temple! 

Wednesday, June 7, 2023 - A visit to the Coral Kingdom

 Today was Pday and as we drive the southern way into town we always pass this place called the Coral Kingdom. It is very recognizable because they have a huge outdoor BBQ by the street where you can see the smoke from them BBQ-ing chicken. We usually say, “Some day we need to stop there!” Well, today was the day! On our way home we thought we would stop for lunch.

They serve complete plates of BBQ chicken, beef, shrimp, etc. ( a complete plate is the meat, macaroni salad, and a big scoop of rice) . We both wanted the BBQ’d chicken and so we asked if one order was enough for us to split. The man said no, I think it is only enough for one! Sheesh!  We we got to food and opened it up at our table….it was a HALF OF A CHICKEN!!!! We could have easily split it!  Oh well, live and learn.  The place also sells a lot of  knick knacks, jewelry, Tshirts..etc. We just ate and left, but now we know what the Coral Kingdom is all about!

Monday, June 5, 2023 - We’ve got the POWER!

 Today we had an early morning meeting with our two Sister trainers for the TC and Kelsey Johansen at the Provo MTC. We have this meeting every month, but this time, we will be saying goodbye to Sister Padilla-Galvis and Kelsey is leaving for Maternity leave for 4  months. Lots of change.

Then, since we didn’t go to work until 4- we did some cleaning. We power washed our upstairs deck and stairs. Everything here molds so quickly and so we need to be diligent about getting it off. Since we didn’t finish it all, Roger will do more later. Plus, we didn’t get to the downstairs patio at all yet.  Still, it was a nice day, a slight breeze so we didn’t fry…and no rain forecasted so it can dry completely.

Don’t let the pictures fool you…Roger did all the work, I just got to try it once. It is kind of fun!

Friday, June 2, 2023 - Another sad day….

 We just got word today that our mission and the Honolulu Mission are doing away with the Outbound program. This is where 4-6 of our sisters leave our mission and go outbound to the Honolulu mission to be proselytizing missionaries for 3-4 months, then they return. So, since the program is being discontinued used, and the Honolulu mission doesn’t really have enough missionaries, the 5 sisters that are currently outbound won’t be coming back, and they will also send another 8 sisters to Honolulu who won’t come back either!!!! Transfers will be on the 15th, so they only have a couple of weeks to get ready! So, we have just been taking a few pictures of the ones going, so I could put it into their Bye-Bye books. Here are a few I didn’t already have pics of….   Sister Murakami…

Sister Ko

Sister Bankhead

And Sister Archibald - in the bottom picture she is pointing to her locket necklace. Awhile back when she wore it I had asked if she had any pictures inside. She said no. So I told her she needed to get some pics of her parents and put in there. I also gave her a quote from Jane Austen. Every time she wore it I would ask if she had put the pictures in and she would say no.  Finally (probably because she was tired of me asking) she came one day to show me that she had indeed put the pictures in. She is so wonderful! I am really going to miss her!

The other sisters leaving us are: Sisters Horton, Ueno, Chuang, and our wonderful TC sister trainer- Sister Padilla -Galvis.

The 5 that are going home this transfer are: Sisters Adamson, Crummett, Beeson, Lahache and Wood.

It is hard to lose 13 at once!!!!