Week 9 Report

Busy, busy, busy, but also good, good, good! This week I sent letters to the stake presidents and bishops of the May departing missionaries, and letters and flight itineraries to the parents of the July departing missionaries. I created the A Hui Hou (farewell in Hawaiian). It's a couple of pages with photos of the departing missionaries and their favorite scripture or quote (just collecting all the quotes was a major task). I also did the May mission newsletter. I decided to make a few changes to the format, so it took a little longer. One of the big challenges is keeping track of all the comings and goings. Every Wednesday I do the Come and Go Report and distribute that to various people all over the islands. It seems to change almost as soon as I get it done. We will get the name of a missionary that's coming and then find out they are delayed for one reason or another - often visa delayed. I'm in charge of requesting return home travel for all the missionaries in Hawaii - junior and senior. That includes those at the PCC, Laie and Kona Temples, and BYUH. The biggest challenge is keeping track of what needs to be done and when.

Devon's housing responsibilities are just as busy. We work in different rooms in the mission office and don't see each other except to go to lunch. He is always busy finding new apartments for the missionaries - both senior and junior - and closing others. It's always changing. He also has to arrange furnishing them, so he spends a lot of time delivering beds, desks, chairs, etc. When they close an apartment it has to be cleaned so he organizes a cleaning crew of young missionaries and goes with them to get the job done. He also keeps track of the bicycles and cell phones.

Saturday is our preparation day. We try to do our shopping, laundry, and house cleaning in the evenings during the week so we have all of Saturday to do fun things - after all, we are in Hawaii. This week we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center again - we love it. We arranged to meet Cecily Johnson Nelson there. She attended high school with Devon and is now serving a mission at the PCC. What a lovely day we had together. Devon and Cecily hadn't seen each other since high school, so they had a great time catching up. I finally bought a ukulele. We get a 25% discount at the PCC, so it seemed like a good place to get one.

Photo with Cecily in the Ukulele Experience store at the PCC

Koki helped me pick out a beautiful tenor ukulele and gave me a ukulele lesson.

Interesting: the word ukulele comes from "uku" which means flea and "lele" which means to jump or fly. It describes the strumming motion of playing the ukulele.

This is the statue of Joseph Kekuku. He is the Hawaiian man who invented the Hawaiian steel guitar.

One area at the PCC is called The Settlement. It represents early life in Hawaii. This is a photo of the church in the settlement. It illustrates the history of the various groups of missionaries that taught christianity to the Hawaiian people.

Inside the church is this beautiful, old pump organ. Cecily works here and let me play the organ. It's pretty amazing!

They were having a quilting demonstration and a lei making competition.

Just a few of the various leis on display.

One of the things we love about going to the PCC is getting out of Honolulu and enjoying the beauty of rural Hawaii. The drive is along a narrow, two lane road between the coast and the beautiful, lush, green mountains. Today was cloudy and rainy, but still very lovely. We arrived home to find a letter from Brad's family, a package from Emily, and flowers from Daryn's family. I could get used to this!

Beautiful bouquet from Daryn's family and my new ukulele.

We got home in time to get ready to go to Shirley's baptism. She is the woman we have been teaching with the missionaries from our ward. After dinner Brother and Sister Yim, also from our ward, took everyone to dinner at the Golden Duck restaurant. 

L to R: Elder Gale, Shirley, Robert (her father), and Elder Stulce.

Mother's Day was wonderful. Devon bought me a beautiful, sweet smelling lei to wear to church. Our ward passed out this beautiful tree pendant and a quote from Elder Anderson to each woman. I had a great nap, and we had the other two office couples over for cards and popcorn. But the best part of the day was phone/FaceTime conversations with all our family. I am a blessed girl!!!