October is Finished! Hello November!

 One thing that they don't tell you is that time accelerates on your mission.  October has flown by and we have been very busy.  We are staying for Winter semester now so Joe can teach his class at BYUH.  We have bought a car so we have transportation and rented an apartment so we have a place to stay.  Here is a picture of the beach at the end of the street will be be living on.  The crooked palm tree is the landmark we use to know where to turn.

We are relishing each experience we have as we see the end of our mission zooming up.  Since we haven't posted in a couple of weeks, we will try to catch you up.  We attended the Fiji Devotional at the PCC. They put on a devotional that shared their spiritual as well as their cultural heritage just for the senior missionaries.  Here is a shot of their depiction and story of their journey to settle Fiji.

We love teaching our institute class.  They are such good young people and always respectful of us even if we get a little boring sometimes.  Here is a short video of what it looks like after our lessons.

One of the benefits of living close to BYUH is that we get to take part in the concerts and activities they offer.  The other night, we went to a music concert that had 2 excellent choirs and featured some solo music from different cultures that are represented here.  I have inserted a video of a Mongolian number and a picture of one of the choirs.

We know that we have included a large number of sunset pictures but it never ceases to amaze us how unique and beautiful each sunset is here.  

Rainbow in Haleiwa near a tsunami warning siren pole

Working at BYUH and Finishing Our Mission

 We have completed all of the preliminary and final interviews and it looks like Joe will be teaching an Education course winter semester and be a faculty supervisor for some student teachers.  The semester begins on January 4th so we will probably be released prior to that instead of our January 11th official release date.  We are working on buying a used car that we can then resell in April, renting an apartment, and making arrangements for the transition over to our replacement couple at the end of January.  Excitement in the wind down the road!

We are really looking forward to the visit of Adam, Justyna, Hazel, and Ezra!  It will be so fun to have them here for a week.  We can't wait to show them around but most of all we cannot wait to take our youngest grandchildren into our arms and love them.  Being away from our family is the greatest sacrifice we make.  We hope they will be patient as we serve.

We have been having a great time with our institute classes and our attendance has skyrocketed.  We have over 60 enrolled on Wednesday night when we teach and 220 on Thursday night.  We love it when we are walking around town or at the Polynesian Cultural Center and our students recognize us and say hello.

We Love Sunsets Here

Sometimes Geckos Hang Out in Weird Places

Hard to Believe these Colors are Real!

One of our favorite FHE treats.  Coconut icecream middle,
topped with shave ice, Mango, Coconut, and Pineapple flavors, 
covered in condensed milk, and topped with whipped cream.
They call it the Angel's Halo!

The Eve of Something Great!

 This has been a busy week and fraught with a little drama as we start to establish a gathering place.  As often happens, when something good begins to happen in the Church to establish Zion, Satan will use his favorite tools of misinformation, discouragement, and lies to try to stop the work.  We have been having the largest gatherings yet at institute since we arrived here with over 150 attending the Wednesday and Thursday sessions.  Unfortunately, we were the center of accusations of leaving the oven on in the Heber J Grant Building because we often have baked cookies there.  Although that is a remote possibility, we are conscientious in leaving the kitchen in better shape than we found it.  We think that a more probable explanation is that when the microwave oven in the vending area was broken, students found the kitchen open and used the oven to heat their lunch. It was as if a certain academic department and the physical facilities department were anxious to point out the inconvenience and outright disregard for following their policies focused on us so that we would be put in place.  That little event was discouraging to us and I quickly apologized to those who were concerned and asked what I could do to make sure that it not happen again.  At this point, we have been banned from using the ovens for baking cookies which is unfortunate because our apartment frequently is in the high 80's during the day.  Using our apartment oven is prohibitive.  Accordingly, Janice made no-bake cookies this past week.  We will quietly appeal that while Church buildings generally are not to be used for cooking, Institute buildings allow it. Since there is not an institute building here, and we are following the handbook to establish a gather place for the YSA population here, perhaps an exception can be made.  We shall humbly wait for the results of that appeal.  We have hope that we are laying the foundation of a good work here to bring the YSA's in Laie and surrounding area closer to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

We decided this Friday to make a quick reboot and reserved a nice air conditioned room at a hotel at Waikiki for the night.  Janice and I had a great time, we went to dinner on the beach, saw the colors of the sunset there, and shopped at the International Marketplace.

We anticipate that we will be released sometime in January.  Our hope for a mission extension did not work out.  We are pursuing my employment as an adjunct professor for the Education Department and teach a class and supervise some student teachers.  We would only do that for winter semester, then return to our home in April.  We have a couple of possibilities for renting an apartment for those three months.

A wild fire behind the temple this week

The Lloyds at Waikiki

The Japanese Marketplace (image is backward)

Sunset at Waikiki