Week 37 Report

Monday we were given permission to take the day off and spend it with our family at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We drove up together in the big van Daryn rented. Our first stop was at the Laie Temple to see the Visitor’s Center and walk around the beautiful grounds.

Next stop was BYUH where we had snacks and looked around the bookstore. It brought back lots of memories for Emily. She was a student there for a year about 10 years ago. 

Next stop was the PCC. We met our good friends Kitsy and Terry Robinson, and their daughter, Kate, and her husband, Jason, and their cute kids. What a great day! We spent part of it together, part by ourselves, and then reunited for the luau and night show. It was a long, fun, and exhausting day.

Tuesday morning we got up early to take Emily to the airport – so sad! The bad thing about having family visit is having them leave. It is hard. We spent a full day at the office catching up on all we missed on Monday – and believe me it took all day to get it done. Daryn, Catie, and Clara came over in the evening and we had a nice evening visiting and watching cute little Clara.

Wednesday we went to work in the morning, worked through our lunch, and came home about 3:30 to spend the rest of the day with Daryn, Catie, and Clara. They checked out of their hotel and were staying at our apartment until time to catch their flight home at 11:30 pm. We enjoyed visiting and went to dinner. Faster than we liked, it was time for them to leave for the airport. Bitter sweet were the good byes, but we’re so grateful for their visit.

Thursday was a busy day. President Bekker was in the office all day, spending most of his day with the AP’s working on next week’s transfers. The missionary department has recommended all missions have zone conferences and interviews every transfer instead of every other transfer like we were doing. That is huge for our mission. It means a zone conference every week for 5 weeks. Our mission is spread out over all the islands so you can’t get them all together for one or two meetigs. It’s too expensive to fly the missionaries to a central zone meeting, so President Bekker has to fly to them. We divide the island of Oahu into two meetings – one with 4 zones the other with 3. The Big Island and Maui each have 2 zones.  Kauai only has 1 zone. The 6^th week of the transfer President Bekker and the APs work on transfers for the next week, and then zone conference schedule starts all over again. How does that affect me? Well, the stake relief society presidents are in charge of providing the lunches for the zone conferences, and I’ve been given the responsibility to coordinate it with all the relief society presidents. It’s been very challenging in many ways. Part of the challenge is that I wasn’t at all involved with it under the Warners, so I don’t have a clue about how it has been run. Also, I don’t see President Bekker very often so it's hard to get questions answered. But I think everything is finally coming together. Thankfully, the sisters are patient and very loving.

Devon has had his own housing challenges and today President said he was closing two apartments at next week’s transfer. He found out about a sectional couch and credenza that someone was giving away. They are in pretty good shape, so he took the mission truck and trailer to go pick them up today. We thought we would have to buy a couch for the new senior missionary couple apartment, but things have a way of turning up when we need them.

Thursday evening we went to dinner at Haleiwa Joe’s Seafood Grill In Kaneohe.

It is without a doubt the best restaurant we’ve been to. We had a delicious prime rib dinner. Our prime rib entre was big enough for the two of us to share. I've never seen a slice of prime rib a full 2 inches thick! It was delicious! And, the setting was absolutely beautiful.

Garden our table over looked.

We’ll definitely be going back there again. I wish I had known about it while our kids were here – they would have loved it! Better come back!!

Friday was business as usual, which meant putting the final touches on transfers that will happen next week. We are adopting a new schedule, so it should be interesting. But, I think I’m ready. After work we ran errands – ordered the pizza for Monday’s dinner for the incoming missionaries, and picked up a prescription at Walmart.

Saturday, our P-day, was spent running mission errands. First we did apartment check for 3 apartments. They were actually pretty good. Then we drove to Costco to pick up more food for Monday dinner with the new missionaries. Devon needed to buy 2 queen bed sets for senior couples in Laie, but the first Costco we went to didn’t’ have any. So we drove home and dropped off the food and then headed to another Costco where we knew they had them. We bought them and, thankfully, had help from Costco employees loading them in the back of the mission truck. As luck would have it, it was rainy all day. So we attempted to cover the beds with a big blue tarp. Our first attempt got us a little way down the road before we needed to stop and adjust some of the straps. After another few minutes we made another stop, for another adjustment. That one seemed to be the trick. We made it, slowly, to Laie without anymore problems.

We stopped to drop off a smoke/CO2 detector at a senior’s apartment, took some Ensigns to the Visitor’s Center, and then took the beds to two very grateful senior missionary couples. They had been sleeping in double size beds. One elder has rolled out of bed twice. Sure hope this was an improvement for them. After that we stopped at Pounders for dinner and then headed back to Honolulu. We stopped at Safeway for a few groceries and finally arrived at our apartment about 8:30 pm. Boy were we glad to finally get home – a little wet from the rain all day, but grateful we got everything on our “to do” list done.

Sunday was Stake Conference, and it was wonderful. We had great talks from our stake president, the temple president and his wife, our mission president and his wife, and our visiting authority, Elder Kevin K. Miskin (of the Seventy) and his wife. I was very touched by Elder Miskin’s talk. He told a story about a time in his life when he was hiking with his two young sons (age 6 and 8 years). They had problems coming home – actually got lost. He prayed several times for help, but none seemed to come. Finally he got an answer that they were on the wrong trail, but to continue on that trail. He listened. A little way down the trail he ran into 3 little girls who had wandered away from their family and were also lost. It was dark and getting very cold. Elder Miskin wondered what he was now going to do with 5 children – all very cold and scared. They continued together and soon they came to a road. A little way down the road there was a group of people with flashlights. They were looking for the little girls. What joy there was in their reunion. Elder Miskin and his boys continued until they finally came to their car. Later Elder Miskin was questioning why his prayers were not answered, when he realized there were others who were praying also, and the Lord used him to answer their prayers while also helping them to get home.

The Lord knows what is best for each of us. This story reminded me that I rarely know the whole picture and can get rather selfish in what I am asking for. How much better it is to put my faith and trust in the Lord and let His will work in my life. I truly believe the outcome will be much better than anything I could have prayed for. He knows my heart. He knows my needs. He loves me…and I love Him!