January 17, 2016
Greetings from Laie! Life here continues to be just plain delightful. A year ago today we were in Mumbai, India looking forward to this mission experience. Now we’re almost ten months into our service term and I can say that we’re pretty much settled into our routine.
That routine is being shaken up a bit this week and next. Last Friday the previous Visitors’ Center Director and his wife, Elder and Sister Priday, completed their two-year assignment and are now returning home to their family. The new Director and his wife, Elder and Sister Swinton arrived very late Friday evening. We met them Saturday morning when they came over to the Center to begin their orientation and service.
I’ve attached a picture of the new Director and his wife to this email. They are very gregarious and outgoing people. We shall certainly enjoy working with and for them for the next thirteen months.
The changes continue next week when Elder and Sister Jensen complete their mission and will be replaced by Elder and Sister Andrus (they’re in the MTC this week getting ready to come over) from Rexburg, Idaho.
We are definitely in the lull between the holidays and spring break. In February the traffic will pick up considerably for a few weeks. Right how we’re having about half the number of visitors we were having in the time around Christmas.
The main source of our visitors continues to be the Polynesian Cultural Center. PCC guests can take a “Laie Tram Tour” that goes from the PCC through the BYU-Hawaii campus, through town, and stops at the Visitors’ Center. Fifteen minutes later that tram (which is a bus with no sides) comes back to pick them up and takes them back to the PCC. The trams run every twenty minutes from 3pm until 7pm. When the tram arrives, the guests are invited into the Center, we give them a short presentation, and they break up into small groups to give more individualized tours or answer questions. When the counts are lower, we get to spend a lot more time with each of the guests and it’s so much fun to get to know them a little bit.
Sundays are quite a bit different since the PCC isn’t open on Sundays. So all of our visitors are “walk-in” visitors. Today we had a couple from Poland who are back-packing around the world. Another family from Sweden came in and stayed about a half an hour. We had a visitor from Germany and another from France. And we also had several families with young children from Utah and Idaho along with quite a few older couples having a vacation without children, also from Utah, Idaho, or Arizona. It looks like we’ll have about 700 visitors to the Center today.
Just before coming home after our shift today I visited for a while with a couple from Santaquin, Utah (south of Provo). They have six sons; the youngest graduates from high school in the spring and will go on a mission. They’re taking their first vacation in many years in Hawaii. They were both very interested in the history of Laie and the Church here in Hawaii. We had a great visit. They are also planning to serve a mission in about ten years time and had a lot of questions about preparing and the paperwork needed. I sure hope they’re able to do that. This is a very rewarding experience. Definitely worth it!
This transfer is winding up, ending next Saturday evening. That means we will be doing apartment inspections next Thursday. The sister missionaries get quite concerned about how we’re going to judge their apartment and have already started lobbying for us to take into account how hard they are working and how little time they have to do “deep cleaning”. I’ve got a couple of bicycles that need maintenance. Everything else seems to be working correctly. I’m OK with that!
We’ve had a good week … and a very normal week. The weather has been fantastic! Very little rain, partly cloudy skies, low winds, and temperatures in the mid to upper 70’s. The weather should continue for a few more weeks. So, with that I’ll sign off for another week. Life is good. The Church continues to be true. Life is very nice in this little corner of paradise!
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