Laie Report for Sunday, May 15, 2016

Greetings all from nice air conditioning! Today turned very warm and humid, weather that’s supposed continue for several days. I’m quite grateful for good air conditioning….

As we started our shift at the Visitors’ Center this morning at 11:30am one of the Spanish-speaking sister missionaries came in and said, “I’m so excited!” I asked her what was happening. She said, “It’s Sunday. I just love Sundays! I love being at the Visitors’ Center on Sunday!” Well, she’s right. we also really enjoy Sundays at the Visitors’ Center!

We’ve had a very nice week at the Visitors’ Center. Many visitors from many different places, but particularly mainland China … which is becoming quite usual. The Chinese tour companies and guides have figured out that we have Chinese-speaking sister missionaries who are quite happy to take over the tour-giving responsibilities so the tour guides can sit over in the corner playing with their smart phones for 15-20 minutes. Our Chinese-speaking missionaries are getting very adept at working with and talking with groups of 25 to 40 mainland Chinese visitors.

Our evening tram numbers continue to grow and are starting to stabilize. The next task will be to figure out how we can logistically manage two trams and two busses between 6pm and 7pm. We’re quite limited on space both at the Polynesian Cultural Center and at the front of the Visitors’ Center. But, the demand is going to be there so we’ll get it figured out.

I had a fun little experience this morning. Two very small girls, who live close by, came into the Visitors’ Center just before noon. The came up to the front desk where I was standing and the smaller girl, maybe 4 years old, put a colored “Book of Mormon” bookmark on the counter (she had apparently colored the book mark in her Primary class a bit earlier in the day) and her older sister (maybe 5?) said, “Our teacher said that we could get a free Book of Mormon?”

We, of course, have plenty of books on hand, but our practice is that we only give them to people who (1) aren’t members of the Church and (2) express a specific interest. Fortunately, the other day someone gave us two Books of Mormon that they had laying around. One had some writing on the inside front page, the other had a number of verses in the book marked. Neither of them were books that we’d give to an interested non-member. Sister Smith and I had talked on Saturday about what we should do with those books and decided (probably prompted to do so) to hang on to them in case there was a good opportunity to use them. Otherwise, in a few days, we’d take them over to the BYU-Hawaii “Give-n-Take” sharing facility.

One of those books was just the thing for this little girl. The writing in the inside front was a printed testimony from a youngster. So, I gave the girl the book. My goodness, was she delighted! She held onto the book like it was the most precious thing in the world (which, she’ll learn some day, is veritably true). They walked a bit around the Center, then ran back home to tell their mother about getting the book. It certainly made our day!

I do get a little bit of time for some ham radio activity. I helped a bit with a ham radio licensing class last month and spent some time this evening with one of the fellows who got his Technician Class license last month. He’s looking at what kind of a radio he wants to buy. I have a couple of them here so I’ve lent him one of my walki-talki radios to try out. There’s another smaller group of people who will be taking the ham radio license exam next Saturday morning and I’ll be helping out with that testing session. Ham Radio is a lot of fun, but it has to be almost last priority for the time being. But, when I can, I get out my gear and play a bit.

The Temple is just across the field from our house and we try to get there every week. We were able to go over on Friday morning to do some work. It was a beautiful morning. When I came out of the Temple I took a picture from the front door looking east out to the ocean. That picture is attached. The Temple grounds-keepers maintain the grounds all the way out to the ocean, where there is a small meditation garden called, of course, Temple Beach. In total the grounds-keepers take care of 14 acres of property and do a magnificent job. The Visitors’ Center is in the building just to the left of the flag pole (and I’ve no idea why the flags weren’t up!). To the right is the Family History Center and the Distribution Center. As you can see, it was just another beautiful day in paradise!

My sister Eileen and her husband Phil are here in Hawaii. They’ve come specifically for Phil’s son’s graduation with his masters degree from the University of Hawaii. They’ll be spending the afternoon and evening with us tomorrow. I think we’ll go over to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a luau and the night show. That should be a lot of fun. So, ’til next week!

View from Front Door of Laie Hawaii Temple
View from Front Door of Laie Hawaii Temple

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