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.

Our Sprint to the End!

 We only have less than 2 months left of our mission.  That mean that we have 3 more institute lessons to teach, 4 more seminary classes to attend and monitor the lesson completions and roll, and 3 more Sunday school lessons to teach in our assigned ward.  

Sadly, we took Adam, Justyna, Hazel, and Ezra to the airport on Thursday and sent them home.  What a delight they were to have here and to love.  It helps us make it through our mission to have those little "doses" of love from our family now and then.  We will forever remember little Ezra reading the green sheep book and saying, "Where'd he go?"  We will remember the game of "I've got the girl" in the ocean that we played several times with Hazel.  We will also remember the pride we had as we introduced Adam and Justyna to our students and and friends here.  We played on the beach and the ocean almost everyday with them.  We watched sunrises and sunsets, and went on beautiful walks together.  Surely, heaven holds some of those same experiences for us.

Janice and I are amazed as we look back and see the things that we have been involved in here on our mission.  We have established a gathering place for the young single adults who are not BYU Hawaii students - a safe and pleasant place for them to come and enjoy one another's company.  We hope that the foundation we have laid will be built upon as time progresses here.  What a joy it has been to be involved in helping young men and women prepare for their missions, to adjust when they get home, and to socialize in a setting where perhaps they will find their eternal companions.

We have a meeting tonight with the stakes to discuss establishing an institute council.  We hope to see great things grow out of it!  Here is the link to the handbook about it: Establishing a Gathering Place for Young Single Adults

November Starts with a Visit from Heaven

Sometimes heavenly messengers come in the form of family.  On Wednesday, we picked up Adam, Justyna, Hazel, and Ezra from the airport and since that time, have had the time of our lives.  What a delight to be with our loved ones if even for a week.  We are so happy to have them here to share what we love in Hawaii.  Perhaps rather than describing what it is like, we will show you the pictures.

 

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