Week 10 Report

Week 10 was another wonderful week. The mission office was a steady hum of busy activity. Some days were smooth, a few others punctuated with moments of craziness. The highlight of any day is when the elders and/or sisters drop by. Work comes to a halt for a minute or two as we share handshakes and hugs. The gospel and love of the gospel is such a unifying force regardless of age.

I received notice of 5 new junior and 1 senior couple missionary coming to the mission one day, and the next day received notice that one junior we were expecting was not coming (visa problems). It is in constant change. I try to stay ahead of things (letters, etc.), so when it's time to mail them, I can just pull them out of my file and mail them. Thankfully the sister before me was really organized and left great instructions.

Devon is equally as busy with the apartments. Some of the apartments are so old and in such a mess. He's trying to close those and improve housing where he can. That means multiple trips to the dump and multiple trips moving furniture from one apartment to another. Fortunately the mission has a nice pick-up truck he can use and the junior missionaries are always available to help clean the apartments and move furniture.

Right next to our apartment building is a gym and in that gym is a little concession that sells amazing acai bowls. We usually walk home for lunch, but once in a while we treat ourselves to one of the acai bowls. The one on the left is my favorite.

Saturday was a busy preparation day. It started with stake choir practice. The stake choir does two musical presentations a year. The June performance is a "Pops" concert and December is, of course, Christmas. The music is fun and the director and accompanist are good, but oh how I miss our wonderful Highland 16th Ward choir!

In the afternoon we took a short drive to see Queen Emma's Summer Palace. Queen Emma (1836-1885) married King Kamehameha IV and they had one son, Prince Albert. In 1862, at four years of age, Albert took sick and died a short time later. A year later Kind Kamehameha died. Queen Emma never remarried. She was known as "the people's queen" and was very beloved by the people Among her accomplishments is the hospital she founded which has grown and is today a major teaching hospital in Honolulu. 

Emma and the King loved their summer home and spent a lot of time here. Today it is maintained by the Daughters of Hawaii and is a beautiful, peaceful place to visit. 

Prince Albert's cradle

Authentic Hawaiian applique quilts are hard to find and very expensive in Hawaii. Most of the quilts sold in shops are actually made in the Philippines and the quality is very

poor. This quilt is exquisite! Notice the beautiful, tiny, exact stitches in the close up below.

While we were there, two Hawaiian ladies were demonstrating feather art. The Hawaiian people didn't have jewels and so they used beautiful feathers to make leis and head wear. The feathers are gathered, dyed, trimmed and then sewn or tied together. It's tedious but beautiful work - also very expensive.

Feathers are tied individually to the thicker green strings of yarn with the tiny thread.

Feather leis

Examples of other feather art

On the way home we stopped to look at this Chinese cemetery. The photo is a good example of east meets west.

After a short nap, we decided to go for a bicycle ride. There is a dedicated bicycle lane on King Street. It goes for miles and is separated from the road by a concrete curb, so it feels very safe. We borrowed a couple of missionary bicycles and helmets and did a 2 mile ride. That's not very far, but it was all I could handle. Hopefully we'll get to go more and I'll build up my stamina.

Saturday night was stake conference. The theme was temples - striving to be a temple attending people.  Attendance was pretty good and the speakers were wonderful. Sunday morning stake conference was about missionary work - especially helping those who have lost interest for one reason or another. I especially liked Sister Warner's talk (our mission president's wife). She spoke plainly about each of us reaching out and holding on to others, especially our loved ones. Her talk touched my heart.

Sunday afternoon we had a wonderful FaceTime "date" with Elder and Sister Hill in Lima, Peru. Elder Hill and Devon worked together at Timberline Middle School. The Hills are working in record preservation and love it. We were together at the MTC in Provo for one week. It was so fun to "see" them and talk about the interesting things in each of our missions. Good times with great friends! We also had a FaceTime visit with Daryn and Clara - it's her 2nd birthday. Such a cute little girl!

After our FaceTiming we picked up Elder and Sister Reeder at the airport. He is the mission "car czar" and was in Kauai for the weekend on mission car business. Sister Reeder went along with him. They joined us for dinner and then we went to a BYU Hawaii choir fireside in Mililani. It was beautiful!

It's been a good week. We are surrounded by great people who love the Lord and love being in his service. I hope they can feel my testimony as much as I feel theirs.