Nina takes a walk most every morning and her route usually takes her down by the beach and up around the Temple. She always finds interesting things (usually flowers) to take pictures of and post to Facebook. She usually gets a number of comments and someone will tell her what kind of flower or tree is in the picture. Through that we learned from a member of our Ward here in Laie that the yellow hibiscus is Hawaii’s state flower and that’s the reason that the boulevard leading from the ocean to the Laie Temple is lined with these beautiful flowers. There are so many interesting flowers and trees here and I’m happy to learn more about them. Facebook usually is very frustrating to me … everything on it is so divisive and hyped beyond belief. The only reason I keep an account there is for the occasional post from families and friends about what is going on in their lives. Unfortunately, most of what is on Facebook today contain far too much hyperbole and hateful language. But, I do like the occasional bit of information, light, and truth that emerges from the muck and grime!

Meanwhile, most everyone knows that I’m pretty much an Apple user, perhaps even a “fanboy”. However, the latest updates to OS-X have me quite frustrated. I want the old iPhoto back! This new incarnation, called simply “Photos” is supposed to marry the iPhone / iPad photos capability with the desktop. Meanwhile, I’ve lost a whole bunch of functionality and have no idea how to get it back, even if it exists. Hopefully in the next few days someone will post information about how to make this application more useful. So, one consequence is that the photos I export to be used in this blog are now huge and can take a long time to load. Unless I run them through a second editor (I used to be able to have Photoshop be the default editor in iPhoto. Can’t do that in Photos, as far as I can tell), I can’t skinny the pictures down to make their load time more responsive.

There are several of this kind of a tree around the Visitors’ Center. Interestingly, the branches can grow together! If you look at the lower left side of the trunk places where the branches have grown into each other are visible. I’ve no idea how the tree does that. All of the trees I’ve known don’t merge branches when they collide with each other. I also have no idea how to search to find the name of a tree when all I have is a picture! I’m counting on you, Internet, to crowdsource the answer!

This has been a very nice Sunday. We were at the Visitors’ Center from 9-11:30am, then went to our Ward from 12-3pm. After dinner we went back over to the Center for a fireside on Kalaupapa, the leper colony in Hawaii. Dr. Woods, a BYU professor, has done quite a study on the residents/patients of the colony and is back doing some additional research. While he’s here he’s been presenting some firesides featuring interviews with some of the remaining residents. That was very interesting.

When we opened the Center at 9am this morning, there were quite a few people out in the courtyard ready to come in. Almost all of them were members on vacation here in Hawaii, and most of those were here because it was Spring Break back in Utah County in Utah. Further, almost all of them were at the Center because they’d gotten up, dressed, intending to go to Church a 9am just to learn that here in Laie the Church meetings start at 8am, 10am, and noon, not like the Utah standard times of 9am, 11am, and 1pm. So, since the Visitors’ Center is just across the parking lot from the Ward buildings, they came to the Center for a while before going to Church at 10am. We definitely appreciate faithful members who, even though they are on vacation, take the time to go to Church and renew eternal covenants.

Life is laid back today.