Today was a very special day for us here in Laie and for me in particular. Several General Authorities are here in the Islands on various assignments, including Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve. Because of the Polynesian Cultural Center and BYU-Hawaii, General Authority visitors come fairly regularly. A few months ago, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, another member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was here and held a missionary devotional at the Tabernacle in Honolulu. We stayed behind in Laie to keep the Visitors’ Center operating while all the sister missionaries went down. Elder Renlund is doing the same tomorrow and we’re doing the same as well; that is, staying here to keep the Visitors’ Center operating so all the sister missionaries can go down for the meeting.
Today, however, because Elder Renlund and his wife are good friends with Elder and Sister Swinton, the Visitors’ Center Directors, Elder Renlund and his wife came a day early and spent almost two hours with the Visitors’ Center missionaries in a private, personal meeting. It is impossible to describe the feelings and atmosphere during that meeting. Suffice it to say that I have a personal witness that he is an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were all richly blessed this morning.
When Nina and I got to the Visitors’ Center this morning to open up and get the building ready for the day and the visitors (we were on the morning shift today), when I checked the equipment in the large theater where we would be holding the meeting with Elder Renlund, half of the lights were not functioning. Four row of lights, two in the front and two in the back, were dark. Resetting the system made no difference. I called the Temple engineer, a very capable fellow, who hustled down and went through everything he knew about the lights to no avail. We concluded that the problem most likely had to do with the lighting controller for the room. When we start a video, the lights automatically lower and at the end of a video they automatically go back up. There’s also two buttons, one in the front and one in the back, that when pressed, cycle the lights. If the lights are up, pressing the button lowers them. If they are down, pressing the button raises them.
The problem was, the engineer had no idea where the light controller was for that room. The help desk person in Salt Lake wasn’t able to help either, as he was out of the office at a different Visitors’ Center and didn’t have any of that documentation with him. So, after trying everything the engineer could think of, we just decided we’d have to proceed with the partially darkened room.
Elder Renlund and his wife arrived, everyone sat down, one of the Coordinating Sisters (kind of like a Zone Leader) stood up to conduct the meetings … and the lights came on. All of them. No one had done anything in the previous twenty minutes. I later talked with the engineer who said he was just as surprised as we were. An hour or so later I talked with the help desk person in Salt Lake City about a different problem we were having and asked if he had done anything. He hadn’t. Somewhere there’s possibly a logical explanation. Meanwhile, for me it was a very small miracle letting us know that our Father in Heaven knows our exact situation and wayward lighting controllers are not a problem for Him.
Later in the afternoon Nina and I had an assignment at the Polynesian Cultural Center to take tickets at the Hale Aloha Luau. While we were there we were treated to watching the King and Queen of Tonga come into the PCC for a special event. The Tonga village at the PCC has been completely rebuilt and the new venue opened up a couple of months ago. Tonight was the formal dedication and official opening ceremony of the island (the largest of the Polynesian Islands at the PCC) was this evening. Royalty as well as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ in one day. It’s definitely a day for the blog!
Ta ta for now!