June 20, 2014

Kamehameha Holiday was Wednesday, June 11,  2014.  We got the day off from our Mission work and we went to the Bishop's Museum with the Coopers.  The Bishop's Museum is about the history of the Hawaiian Islands from the beginning when the natives from the Polynesian Islands migrated to Hawaii in their sailing canoes to the present time.  These families sailed thousands of miles without any navigational tools except for the stars and the moon and soon populated the islands.  They traveled from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand and many other islands.  They must have had the urge to travel and very good reasons for leaving their homes.

The Museum is a complex of several buildings with different activities.  The main building housed the history showing various tools, weapons, canoes, etc.  It told the story of King Kamehameha and his winning battles with other tribes and organizing the people under one leadership, making himself as King.  He was a very large man and won many battles.  He was a successful king and the islands accepted Christianity.  The white people came and settled in.  They also brought disease which nearly wiped out the Polynesian population.

During the middle 1800's the first Mormon missionaries came to the Islands.  They settled in Laie and built up a thriving community.  The Temple, BYUH and PCC followed.

After the Museum tour we went to the Ward Mall and ate at a new restaurant.  Can't remember the name but it was very good.  We will need to remember for future use.  Of course a day wouldn't be complete without a visit to Ross Department Store.  Sister Tremea and Sister Cooper shopped while the Elder's sat on a bench and waited patiently.  We got home around 8 pm and got ready for another day of Missionary work at the PCC.

On Friday we went to Haleiwa Joe's which is a restaurant in Kaneohoe.  We went with five other missionary couples to celebrate anniversary's and birthdays.  They sat us at one long table and we enjoyed the meal and the scenery.  The Missionary couples were Elder & Sister Cooper, Pollock, Painter, Johnson, Tremea and the Bailey's and the son D-Bob.  We have been blessed to become acquainted with theses wonderful people, we have made new friendships that will certainly go forward and provide us places to visit and be together.  This is the wonderful part about missionary service here at the PCC.

Elder and Sister Lund, Sister Clark from St George

Single Sisters with Elder Pollock and Elder and Sister Lund

On Saturday we made a Costco run.  George wanted us to get supplies for his house.  In addition we went to K-Mart to find curtains for the master bedroom.  I think we will have to take them back, George is after something different.  Oh Well, K-Mart is not the greatest place to find curtains.  We spent nearly $300 on stuff for his house, we will deduct it from the cost when Becky and Mark and family come at the end of June.

Fathers Day Sunday was a good day.  At church one of the families in Laie sang.  They sang a medley of Father's Day Primary Songs.  The group was brothers, sisters, aunties, daughters and moms.  They were all from Sena's family.  It was a nice tribute to Fathers Day and her Father.  Our Bishopric lost a counselor today.  Brother Shade is returning to the mainland to teach at BYU Provo.  We will miss him he could always take over a class when someone went missing.

Aimee and family had sent a complete dinner from Omaha Steak Company.  What a treat.  We went to George's House on the deck and BBQ the steaks.  Coopers came with us.  We had whole dinner planned and cooked.  We just sat down to eat when it started to rain….we just moved into the bottom unit and ate inside.  Funny weather, it had been blue skies and sunny all day, then just when the steaks were done here came the little grey rain cloud.  Turned out fine, and we will remember the fast move of all the good food from outside to the rain less cover.  Rain stopped just as we finished eating.

Monday we were back to work early.  Sister Cooper and I were asked to cover for our boss Kathy this week.  She was in Washington DC for a dance workshop.  We had 8 students coming in to work with us at 8:00 am.  So, we were up and early getting to work.  The students were good kids and wanted to help. We put them all to work, then went to Tita's and bought 3 loaves of homemade bread with butter, and 5 cartons of chocolate rice pudding.  The kids were so hungry they ate everything.   The Costume Department for the first time looked like a clean workplace.  

There was one problem however.  Because of the rats….bait was put out to kill them in the ceiling. Unfortunately, the rats ate the bait, died in the ceiling and we had dead rat smell followed with maggots.  Sister Cooper and I had had it.  We marched to the bosses boss and up the line.  We had pretty quick action.  The following day the ceiling was cleaned.  We are waiting for the next episode of the rat patrol.   I for one, hope we don't have one.

Now for the swivel chair accident.  Don't ever stand on a swivel chair.  I knew that one, but I didn't realize while sitting on a swivel chair,  I couldn't lean down to pick up a dropped bobbin on the floor. I reached down to pick it up and the chair scooted backward leaving me seat less and I dropped to the floor.  My head hit the corner of the fridge, my neck caught the iron garbage can and my feet went to the ceiling.   What a sight.  Sister Cooper told me after, good thing my underwear was clean.  What a friend.  Anyway, I had a headache, arm and shoulder pain and both wrists were sore.  It's all part of the day.  I was stiff and sore for couple days.

By Wednesday of this week we were ready for a change.  Elder and Sister Fuller went with us to Haleiwa for dinner.  After dinner they wanted to go see the turtles.  We had never seen turtles on this beach.  We have been to the beach with Aimee and family and Mike and family and still no turtles. So we were in for a big surprise.  We saw 9 turtles on the beach.  It was awesome.

Three of the 9 turtles at sunset

Ivy is a student from China that sews with me in the afternoons.  She is an only child.  Her father joined the church with her, but her mother is not a member.   She has only been here since January. She asked me about the hike called The Stairway to Heaven last week and said some of her friends were going.  She wanted to go with them.  The hike has been closed to the public and a guard has been placed at the gate.  It's a dangerous hike, and many hikers have fallen or been hurt on the trail. Kids and Polynesians have found a backdoor entrance now to sneak in.  They leave at midnight and make the hike up.  She wanted my opinion.  Well, I told her she shouldn't go.  The kids were breaking the law, she wasn't a US citizen, and I didn't know what would happen to her if she was caught.  She might be sent home.  She still wanted to go and for the next two days she would hardly speak to me. Then Monday, she came running up to me and said she didn't go.  She was smiling.  I knew she was happy.  I hugged her and told her she had made the right decision.  She said she felt good about her decision, in fact she talked the other students to not participate also.  When we make the right choices, we are happy.

We worked again last night at the PCC.  The crowds are coming back.  It's summer and we have had over 2,000 people at the PCC each day this past week.  I'm still not sure how we feed that many people every night.  It's a miracle.  After we work, eat and meet in the parking lot it's almost 7:30 pm. Elder Petty has it timed for us to see the volcano erupt on the back of the Ha Show at exactly 7:32 pm.  This is a picture of the back stage event in the parking lot at 7:32 pm every night.

We love and miss you.  Have a good week.  Be good and do good.
Nona and Papa


 

June 10, 2014

Hawaii is still here, with blue skies, little rain clouds and beautiful beaches!  The past week has flown by.  We have been busy working and doing extra activities with the students and mission.

Saturday morning Fatai, my boss in seamstress invited us to their family baptism.  Her niece from the mainland, Sela Linley Tu'ulilo'ivailahi Feinga, was going to be baptized on the beach behind where we are living.  It was a beautiful morning.  It had just stopped raining and everything was bright, wet and clean.  They had a big tent set up in the yard and the meeting was under the tent.  Sela's Auntie and Grandmother spoke.  Her parents sang the Baptism song.  Bishop Fehi Niutupuvaha  conducted the meeting and Sela's Father baptised her.

Sela and her brothers and sister, little Fatai

Fatai with nephew Jonah

Mother and Father singing 

Grandmother Feinga telling her Testimony

After the baptism and confirmation, there was a breakfast and party for the kids.  Sela received beautiful lei's made by Grandmothers, Aunties and friends.  Fatai has never married and she loves her nieces and nephews as her own.  The five children are staying with Fatai and her Mother for the summer.  Actually it's a tradition as soon as the kids are out of school on the mainland they arrive at Grandma's home for the summer.  The beautiful spirit of testimonies, love of family, and the blessings the gospel brings was abundant today.  The Church is true, baptism is the first step along with receiving the Holy Ghost.  We are blessed to have the keys on earth to be baptized by immersion be blessed with the Holy Ghost to be our companion through out our life if we keep his commandments.

Sela's Auntie giving her a flowered leis

Fatai with her nieces

We were working at the PCC last week and I took some pictures when we were doing our "Walk About".  This is the Queen's Summer House.  I had not peeked inside until now.  The mats on the floor and hangings on the wall is hand painted.  It's beautiful.

Queen's Summer House

Inside the Queens House

Inside the Queens House

Just a few other pictures taken at the PCC in the evening.

Canoe Ride

White Hibiscus

Sister Cooper had a sty in her eye last week.  It was red, swollen and hurting.  Fatu took a coconut stick and broke it in small piece, pounded it flat on the table and then said some voodoo words while tapping her eye three times.  I couldn't believe Sister Cooper let her do it….talk about unclean stick, hands and the voodoo!  Well, Fatu said she had to do it another three times before we left that day. Next day she did it six times.  Amazingly it looked better over the weekend.  Monday we went to work and Fatu had a sty in her eye.  She said she had to finish Sister Cooper one more time with her treatment or the sty would stay in her eye.  Go figure that one, so Sister Cooper let her do it again. She is all better but we don't know how Fatu is.  She left last week for Samoa and won't be back for three weeks.  I hope she is doing OK.

Fatu and Sister Cooper

I made Fatu's niece a dress.  She was thrilled.  Baby is three months and weights 15 lbs.

We had a fun surprise last week.  The Houston Family came to the PCC.  We were so excited to see them.  They spent the afternoon at the Village and we saw them just before they went to the Ha Show.

We drove to the beach the other night to see the sunset on the North Shore.  It was a beautiful calm night.  The ocean is so calm now it's like we never saw how the big waves had crashed the shore in the last few months.  We watched the sun go down as the boy was fishing.

Sister Cooper and Sister Tremea

Below is our YSA 5th Ward Elders Quorum Presidency.  They are Chistian Lee, Secretary, Freddi Iki, President, Jesse Watson 1st Councilor, Jason Meha, 2nd Councilor and the big guy on the end is Elder Tremea.  These guys are all Polynesians and really enjoy being nice especially to me.  I love them all.

At our FHE on Monday night (6/9/2014) our Hawaiian Mission President talked to the Senior Missionaries serving at the PCC, BYUH and the Temple Visitors center.  He has a very busy job, probably a 24/7 type job.  It will be a year for him and his wife, Sister Warner on July 1st as our Mission President.  We saw him last year and you can tell he has aged, this job is taking its toll.  He told us some of the stories about his young missionaries and some of the things they do, like running over their companion in their car, over eating and getting sick, missing their mothers and wanting to go home.  He sees it all.  His goal he said is to provide an enjoyable experience for his missionaries and for them to build a solid foundation of the Gospel.   He said if they will but be obedient to the Mission rules they will have a great mission.

Elder and Sister Essley have served her for 18 months and are going home to Arizona.  He painted this picture of the Hawaii Temple and presented it to President Warner at our Family Home Evening. They are going to hang it at the Mission Office in Honolulu.

Have a good week, we love and miss you so much.  It's good to be busy because we don't have time to think so much about family and home.  We do love you and want you to be happy.

Love, Nona and Papa

PS...  Would be nice to hear from whoever is reading this.

May 27, 2014

We have had a holiday this week and  a weekend without being so busy.  It has been a good feeling to go for the day.  Our P-days are always so packed full, we seldom get anything but personal and home cleaning.  We had a three day weekend and it was good.

We may have mentioned before D-Bob to you before.  He is here on a mission with his parents for one year.  He is Downs Syndrome.  His birthday was two weeks ago and his mom told him she thought it would be good to just have a family party and keep it low key for his birthday this year.   They live in a small apartment.  D-Bob didn't think that was too cool.  He talked to his Ward Elders President and found a student who helped him with invitations.  He made 250 invitations and asked the Elders Quorum buddies if he could have party at their pad.  It was a big party.  His mom got hold of the 250 invitations and cut it down to about 100.   The Elders had the party on the Point at their bachelor's pad.  Six students live in this typical boys apartment overlooking the ocean with big deck. Perfect for parties.  D-Bob's parents bought about 30 pizza's, drinks and doughnuts for everyone.  D-Bob was in heaven.

Happy Birthday D-Bob

Six LDS Students live here.  

Time for Celebration!  We have another 16 year old on the road driving.  Madeline got a car to drive… I'm told it's a family car, but whatever.  Pretty happy teenager.  Be careful Madeline!

Be careful on the road Maddie!

It has been working as usual everyday.  We haven't seen too many big crowds yet at the PCC.  They are always busy on Friday and Saturday, and for some reason Wednesday seems to be a busy day. That is always our walkabout work night and we always have two luau's.  Katie came to see Elder Tremea at work today.  She and Kevin are doing well.  Today I heard Keke is pregnant.  I hope she doesn't lose her volleyball scholarship.  I hope to talk to her soon.


We went to Waimia Falls last weekend.  It had been raining but the flowers were beautiful.  The trees were all in their flower blooming too.  The path was dressed with flowers from the rain.  It looked like I imagine the Garden of Eden would look.  Flowers I had never seen before were on bushes and trees.  We took a zillion pictures to go along with the thousand other flowering pictures I already have.

Hybrid Orchard

Lobster Claws

This was called the Popsicle flower.  

White Gardenia

Car problems…we had to fork out some money.  The brakes needed to be replaced and the bearings in the front wheels had to be replaced.  The air conditioner has a problem, but still works and some other minor things are starting to become problems.  We pray it will keep running until we come home.  Today we took Sister Cooper home for lunch and Dad backed out of the driveway and didn't see an old truck parked on the other side of the road.  Actually it was parked half way on the road.  It was an old beat up truck with the back filled with their entire belongings.  We couldn't see any damage to their truck but it bashed in our back bumper.  They were happy when Dad offered money to pay for damage that we didn't  see.

Elder Cooper told us he would try to take the dent out of the back of the car.  Today, three days after the accident we met with Elder Cooper, and Elder Nielson to ask them to try to get dent out of fender. We jumped out of the car to show them where it was, and to our surprise the dent was gone.  We kidded with them to see if they had just worked on the car today while we were at work but they said they hadn't.  Well, Papa said it was a Lexis and maybe the dents pop out themselves.  Ha Ha.  We're still not sure what really happened but the dent has disappeared!!!  Just another missionary tender mercy.

We stopped outside of Kuhuku for a drink beside the road last week.  It was a farm with a garden in the back.  Papa thinks he can try growing this kind of a garden when we get home.  It is called hydroponics or growing the plants in water and not in dirt.  The small seedlings are put in a small container with holes and placed in a pre cut hole in 2" Styrofoam.  This is about a 3x8 foot bed.  You can see from the pictures the amount of produce that can be grown in a small area.

On Memorial Day we visited the National Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu (Punch Bowl).  This cemetery is dedicated to men and women who served in the military who have died.  It was a beautiful day and the sight of all the American Flags was impressive.  Each grave had a flag placed by it.

The flags were all lined up and people were there to place flowers and to walk among the graves.  Below you see a man and his son walking proudly among the graves.

Old Glory was flying proudly.  The wind was gently blowing and the white clouds and blue skies made the occasion beautiful.  

                                              

Part of the cemetery was dedicated to the soldiers who died in the Korean War but whose names are not known.  There were hundreds of graves with markers  called "Unknown".  We thought of Uncle Rex who served in the Korean war, fortunately he did not die in the war. 

We are very thankful for the many brave men and women and served in the military to protect our freedoms.  We are also saddened by those who made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives.  When we say our prayers we need to include those serving in the military.

When we serve at the Polynesian Cultural Center we have been walkabouts.  After we get all the missionaries settled at their posts, we are free to walkabout.  This little guy comes in each day with his father who works in the Hawaiian Village.  He is so darn cute.  We asked him what he has on his arms and he said, "Visa's" with his scary warrior face.  We asked if we could buy him…..

We didn't get his name.  Later checking back, he had become tired and was sleeping under the shade of the green leaves beside the hut, and no he was not for sale. 

We send our love.  Be good and do good.

Nona and Papa.