Smiles and Flowers!

 

This has been a productive week.  We got the list of potential Young Single Adults out to the Wards who might be interested in attending Institute (about 30 wards).  We have visited the meetings of 2 of those wards to personally invite them to come to institute.  And everywhere we go, we put out the word that we have institute classes in session for those who would like to attend on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  We had 10 attend our class on Wednesday and there were 70 who attended on Thursday night. 

The exciting news is that President Haverly (Laie YSA 1^st Stake) showed up with a ping pong table for us to use after institute classes.  This will be wonderful for those who want to stay and socialize.  I am in the process of putting it together.  I am thinking it would be wise to reinforce the bottom with a couple of 2X4’s on each side.  You never know when an enthusiastic player could accidentally land on the table.  Without the reinforcement, it would surely break.  We have started to settle in to our office.  I go there almost every day.  I ride my bike over and it is a pleasant journey!

Janice in our office

New Ping Pong table under construction

We had a delightful evening on Friday night when a couple of students who are seriously dating came to visit us at our apartment.  We fed them chocolate lava cake and chatted for a couple of hours much to our enjoyment! They are good for each other, and the young man is preparing himself to serve a mission.  He is hurrying because he is 24 years old and will not qualify much longer.

We have been swimming nearly every morning this week in the ocean just a couple of blocks away.  It is a wonderful way to start our day. 

Beach between Laie and Hau'ula

  It is also great physical therapy for my shoulder while I am recovering from surgery.  It is helping Janice’s knees also.  She got cortisone shots in her knees this week and she is greatly relieved of the pain for a little bit.  She really needs to have knee replacements in both legs.  For now, she is a trooper and does the best she can while hurting with every step.  Accordingly, I try to reduce the number of steps she takes each day (for those who know Janice – she is a difficult person to try to hold back). Even with that in mind, we went to the swap meet yesterday in Honolulu to shop and ran into a couple of Chinese dragons.  

Again, we are feeling blessed to be in this beautiful place with the wonderful people we work with.  Everyone is always so nice and considerate to us.  We would certainly entertain the notion of living here at least for part of the year once our mission is complete.  I spent a second after church and snapped a few shots of the flowers that are around us here in our yard.  They smell so good that we often pick a couple of blossoms and bring them into our apartment to make the house smell heavenly. 

We have a plumeria tree in our front yard!