Stories of Laie:

1. April Fool's Day Tsunami of 1946 and Bishop Hamana Kalili

2. Lumber for the Temple

It’s said that eventually Ralph Woolley, the project manager, knelt in prayer and asked for a solution. And soon after, the weather turned rough and a particularly bad storm blew in. During the course of it, a large freighter, which was a rare sight on that side of the island, somehow went off course and became stranded on a reef just off shore from Laie.

Some have speculated about where the ship stranding actually occurred (some people have said it was off Laie Point, and others have said that maybe it was near Goat Island), but near the end of his life, Gustave Kaleohano, brother of Hamana Kalili, briefly remarked that the stranding of the ship happened off of Malaikahana, which is identified by the stretch of beach just north of Laie Bay.

When the weather began to break, some of the fishermen from Laie went out to offer help. The captain and the shipping company, fearful that the ship would become wrecked, offered the men from Laie a trade: help them offload their cargo, and they could have it all. And the cargo they were carrying? Wood. And lots of it. All hands turned out, and as the its load lightened and the tide came in, the ship lifted off the reef and was able to escape to safety. The lumber was floated into shore, brought up onto the beach, and then transported up to the temple site. Before long the work was underway again.

3. Story of Joseph F Smith's Mission to Hawaii

Link

Tell story of how he was called and why.

4.  David O McKay's Prophetic Vision

“As the school grew, David O. McKay was doing a world tour. Hawaii was his last stop and he went to the mission school to observe elementary children raise the flag. When he saw the many different nationalities and ethnic groups of the children he was so touched,” Housman said.

David O. McKay was overwhelmed by what he saw because it was the first place he witnessed different people from different countries congregate in one place. “It was really a memorable experience for him. So much so that when he became prophet, he felt the school should be built. In 1955, the Church College of Hawaii was established.”

Happy New Year!

 We have officially come to the end of our mission.  Today, we found a certificate of release from President Russell M. Nelson in our missionary email box.  We will not get our Stake President’s release for several more days over the phone but we have stopped driving our mission car and will soon move out of our missionary apartment to a privately rented apartment in Hau’ula (about 3 miles from Laie.  We will continue to teach Institute through the remainder of this month until the Chamberlain's arrive.  

I start teaching for BYU-H this coming Wednesday.  It will be fun to get to know my students.  In the meantime, we will start packing up our apartment and get ready to move.

We have enjoyed our mission so much.  We have helped establish not only the Laie Institute but to build up a gathering place for the young people here in this area.  We have witnessed the miracles of young lives being changed and getting an opportunity to be grandparents of hundreds of young people who needed someone to talk with, tell their successes or failures to, or just to know someone cares about them.  It was fun to work together to make it happen.  Here are some beautiful pictures to end our mission with.

James Christmas

 We have had a blast with James the past couple of weeks.  We have done a lot with him and we still have a few more days left.  We will share the pictures to follow of his adventures.  

It is Christmas day! We started out at 8:00 AM this morning attending our beloved Tongan ward for the last time.  They had a wonderful Christmas musical program.  They are such wonderful singers.  We truly felt serenaded by angels today.  All of the people in the choir dressed in white.  

After our session at church, we had our traditional Christmas breakfast with blueberry muffins, eggs, and sausage.  It was nice to have James here to share that with.  We then opened our stockings from Santa (probably the latest we have ever done so since we have been married). We opened our presents, video chatted with our family in Wisconsin, California, Washington, and Oregon.  Tonight, we had a mission dinner with all of the missionaries in our mission!  We finished by singing Christmas songs accompanied by ukuleles.  We are so blessed to be here and love this opportunity we have been given to serve here.  While we miss our family and friends intensely, our hearts are filled with gratitude to make a difference here as we helped establish and institute program in Laie.

James with William, the Fijian Warrior

Two Ulus!

James at the night show Ha, Breath of Life

With Josh Button

We are still amazed at the beautiful plants in our yard

63 degrees! It finally is cooling down.

Crooked coconut trees near our new apartment in Ha'ula

James' hat given to him by his friend Kap (yes - this is a Kap Cap)

The Dog Days of December

 We are thrilled that the weather has changed here and cooled down a few degrees.  The trade winds have come and it makes the heat a little more tolerable. 

It does make the palm trees sway and the rain a little more intense when it comes - but hey, winter weather here sure beats winter at home.  Today, I went out to the car and found a stray dog in the middle of the road relaxing.  I think he had the right idea.  Perhaps I should try that for a while.  

We had our big closing social this past Thursday. We fed about 60 kids kalua pork, rice, chips, macaroni salad, and ice cream with toppings. It was a lot of work but so worth it.  Here is a shot with one of our favorite student couples, Cynthia and Jerry.  They were married in July and are expecting their first child in April.  They are both studying accounting. 

We were honored during our mission Close the Fast potluck last Sunday.  We were sung to (Aloha oe) and given tons of leis.  We will miss that monthly activity.  

The big news of this week is that we got a new car.  It is a brand new Ford Escape Hybrid.  It operates like a Toyota Prius and alternates between electric power and the gasoline engine.  We picked it up yesterday and on the trip back home from Pearl City, it got 51 miles per gallon. 

We used a few scraps of lumber, some brick wallpaper and some paint and came up with a fireplace for our apartment for Christmas.  We needed someplace to hang our stockings!  

Institute Classes Done for the Year

 We taught our last Institute class as missionaries this past week.  We have loved this opportunity to rub shoulders and discuss the Gospel with these young people.  We hope we have made a difference in their lives.  The way they are living their lives gives us great hope in the future and a confidence that the Kingdom of God will be in good hands wherever they settle down to call home.  

Some students from our Institute Class

We had our first wedding.  A young man stationed at Schofield Barracks from the Tri Cities Washington area (Pasco) and a young lady from here but is Samoan were married yesterday.  He will be deployed soon and works in Army Intelligence.  They have both served missions in the Philippines.

Trevor & Lila

We attended the Christmas tree lighting for BYU Hawaii this last week.  There we met a delightful family from Australia (but of Polynesian descent).  We were particularly touched by this big uncle tenderly caring for his nephew while his mother and father were busy visiting.

The baby's name is Levi

 

We continue to enjoy trying new places to eat.  One of our favorite places is the food trucks in Hale'iwa.  Hale'iwa is about 10 miles away on the northwest side of the Island.  It is a pretty drive.  We like to eat at a taco truck there for taco Tuesday and at a shrimp truck whenever we have an excuse.  They make the best coconut shrimp we have tasted here.  We also try to take in a sunset while we are there because they are so pretty.

Welcome sign for Hale'iwa along the road.

The Season is Changing

 

Waves crashing at Laie Point November 25th

The trade winds have shifted and it is cooling down (finally).  We actually are not using our air conditioning at night in our bedroom.  With the shift in the winds comes a new set of storms.  We have not had any rain yet but some pretty strong winds that have given us some spectacular scenes at the beach.  We tried going swimming yesterday but after Janice was knocked down the second time by a strong wave, we got out and decided that just watching the waves was better.  

We had our Thanksgiving and ate twice as much as we should have (of course you might be thinking - that is not anything new).  Joe also had a bad cold this past week that has slowed us down.  It is not COVID but is lasting for over a week.  Our Tongan Ward has a lot of it going around.  We didn't let that stop us from going to the beach and relaxing.

  

We are so blessed to be here.  Janice's knee is doing very well.  She hardly thinks of it anymore as she bicycles, swims, or walks.  

We love those who come to Institute.  We have so many friends now that we run into everyday and they are so quick to wave to us and say "Hello, Elder & Sister Lloyd!"  We just love associating with them.  It was Janice's Birthday last Wednesday and we celebrated with a cake after our class.  When we came home, our door was covered in paper hearts and a heart-shaped painting with a birthday wish on the back.  It was from our neighbor girls who come to Institute.  One is a 7th grade math teacher and the other one works for a food truck at the PCC.  It is good to have a family away from our family.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

 They really do Christmas big here.  It starts as soon as Halloween is over.  They keep the tree lights off until after Thanksgiving but the Christmas radio stations are going full steam.  We are enjoying a little break from the heat.  It is comfortable inside our apartment again.  Janice has created a Christmas village out of paper in our office (she is so crafty).  We have our tree up but not decorated.  

Janice's Christmas Village.  She is going to make some more buildings.

Our $10 tree from Goodwill

We are getting back into swimming again.  Janice had a toe infection that has now healed up.  Our favorite place is temple beach.  Most of the time it is just us and we love the warm water, the feel of the waves, and the beauty of the water, sand, and trees.  Here is a picture of the little meditation garden the Church maintains just before the beach.  We stop there coming and going to change into and out of our reef shoes.  

We taught our Sunday School class today.  We love them.  They are a rambunctious lot but we enjoy teaching them so much.  They are going to grow up to be a great strength to the Church wherever they live.

We are sad that we only have a couple more institute lessons left on our mission.  We will finish up on November 30th.  We will however teach again for a few weeks after we are released until the Chamberlains get here.  It has been wonderful to see the whirlwind of life that happens in their affairs - leaving on missions, coming home from missions, engagements, marriage, finals, failures, and successes.  It gives me great hope in the future generation.  That they will take good care of us in our old age.  We had a young man come into our office this week and spent an hour just chatting with us.  When he had to go, he thanked us for providing grandparent time for him and how much it helped him.  We are certain that we are in the right place at the right time.  Why else would we be here.  We love our mission and feel so blessed!

Laie Temple at night (we attended a devotional there last Sunday night)

Tonight we are attending the baptism of one of our students.  She has attended institute all of this semester and her friends have loved her into the Church!  We are so excited for her.