January 2019

We don't have many full moon nights left on our mission. Late one night when Steve remembered the full moon, we jumped out of bed and drove to the ocean and took a quick picture.

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This is Jagi and Luka in our Ward from Mongolia. They blessed their twin little girls today. I loved that he blessed them in their native language. They were given native Mongolian first names but they go by their middle American names of  Ella and Eva. They are now three months and very healthy after spending a month in the ICU. Jagi went to the hospital in Honolulu every day for a month to nurse her babies. We got to take her several times. It was a wonderful ministering experience.

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As our Christmas gift to each other we went on a submarine ride about 15 minutes off the shore of Waikiki beach. We took a large boat out to the sub with a beautiful view of Diamond Head, it was a totally beautiful day. The day before we had six inches of rain on the north shore and the road was even closed coming our direction. It's interesting how once you cross through the mountain tunnel to the other side of the island the weather can be totally different. We were followed by dozens of dolphins breaching and spinning.

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This is a sweet new family that just moved into our ward this semester. They are both from Phnom Penh, Cambodia and served missions in their own country. She joined the Church in 1999 with her parents when she was 10 years old. He was of the Buddhist religion and joined the Church in 2003. They were married in 2014 and have a little 3 year old. They speak perfect English. So many students struggle with their English even though they must take an English proficiency test to be admitted. They are the students we get to visit with in the VOICE program.

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Our neighbor Brian and his pack of hunting dogs are off looking for wild pigs to eradicate for the State.

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Two items we have found to be delicious. The Japanese bread crumbs come from Costco and are great on chicken, pork chops and zucchini. I'm sure shrimp would be fabulous. The Mae Ploy is a spicy dipping sauce that I use on everything, especially the chicken and pork chops.

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We've made peace with the ants by using these containers for our cereal. At least ants are the only bugs in our apartments. The stories from other missionaries about their constant big cockroaches and centipedes makes us happy to keep the ants.

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We're starting to repeat a few adventures with new missionaries. We climbed to the Makapu'u lighthouse again after doing it when we first came. It was a much cooler day this time around and extremely windy being up so high. Sometimes you can see whales but no such luck today. Sadly the light house trail has now been fenced off. This is as close as we could get.

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Last September one of the BYUH students was bit by a shark while surfing at Pounder's Beach. This is the beach we have played in several times. If you zoom onto his right arm you can see the shark teeth marks. He said he was a 1/2 mile out from the shore when the shark took hold of him. He also had marks on his leg and ankles. They figured the shark it to be 10-12 feet long.

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On MLK day the University was closed so we had the day to play. We went north to Hale'iwa with friends and had lunch over looking the ocean and then shared a shaved ice with ice cream inside. Quite tasty.

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This house is on a street near us. The front door is totally bashed in. I'm sure there are no CC&Rs on this side of the island.

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We have at least 100 roosters caged within a mile of us. They are caged separately and one leg tethered down. Now why would folks keep roosters if not for cock fighting? The roosters next door to us were moved, we're so grateful.

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We do enjoy our have beautiful sunrises and clouds. 

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Out for a walk on Sunday evening, this sow and 7 piglets crossed our road! We talked to the neighbor and he said he raises them to eat. They live and scrounge in the densely overgrown empty lot. Guess that's why they weren't afraid of us.

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We went on a tour of a 14 acre estate/museum called Shangri La. Diamond Head is in the background. This is a view of the pool house. Doris Duke built the house as her secret get away. Duke University comes from her family name. Her gr'father owned the American Tobacco company and she was the only child and inherited all the money so she had homes all over the world. She had a love of middle eastern art which completely fills the house. She would buy some 20 foot ancient mosaic art piece and then build a room or patio to display it. Our ticket also included admission to the Honolulu Museum of Art, which we found really interesting. They had art work from Cezanne, Pizarro, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Gilbert Stewart, Thomas Moran and Remington, etc. There were plenty of works from China, Japan, Middle East, Africa, Indonesian, Korean, etc. also.

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Yao Liao, is a freshman from Guigang, Guangxi, China. When she joined the Church at the age of 15, there was not a congregation in her city. "When I first started going to church, my city didn't have any Priesthood holders, so I would travel overnight by bus for 13 hours (one way) to have the sacrament. The journey wasn't always easy." Due to the sacrifice Liao made by going to church, she described how sacred she feels church attendance is. 
Liao was introduced to the Church by her mother's friends. she said when she heard about the gospel, she felt happy and loved. Those feelings led Liao to travel with her family to Hong Kong. There she was taught all the missionary lessons in a day and then she was baptized the next day. When Yao had been a member only two months she traveled 30 hours to go to a Youth Conference. There she heard people talk about BYUH, so she made the goal to come here. "I wanted to meet many people from different countries." Yao also served a Chinese speaking mission in Sydney, Australia. In Laie, Yao said she is blessed to be close to the Temple and church meetinghouses. Now her home city has priesthood holders, so she can partake of the sacrament without traveling so far. How could the Lord find one person in a population of billions? There are no missionaries there. No one was looking for her. Liao's story proves the Lord knows us personally and God answers people's prayers no matter where they are. (From the BYU student magazine 'Ke Alaka'i).

This is Lina Legoretta, (I mentioned her in a previous blog). She is a freshman from Jordan studying computer science. She was born and raised in the middle East as a Muslim. She moved to Virginia in middle school and since then, she said she had felt like she was floating and lost without structure or religion. She said she feels relieved to have found the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Lina was baptized in November of this year. She said she chose to come to BYUH because it was culturally diverse and she liked how the school had standards and was religious. At BYUH and other church education schools, there is an honor code that students must sign and follow in order to be admitted. Lina said she believes her Muslim background helped her adjust to the culture and standards because their beliefs and ways of life are so similar. Lina said her family is super supportive of her and her decision to join the Church. She said, "I know that everything happens for a reason. I was meant to be here."

Misssion Tidbits:
New Year's Eve around here is crazy. The fireworks started about 7pm and went long past midnight. In fact, they've been going all week long. The native Hawaiians don't celebrate the 4th of July because they have always been angry about being dragged into being a state. They loved their king and queen and didn't want to join the United States. The native Hawaiians won't/don't celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks (though the PCC put on a beautiful show). So New Year's Eve is their big chance to display their fireworks. They go all out with the big, beautiful ones that burst colorfully into the sky.  Truly a sight to behold.

We are so blessed to have many of the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints come to BYU-Hawaii to speak at graduation or the weekly devotionals. Of course who wouldn't want to come speak in Hawaii? We have heard from: Pres. Russel M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, M. Russell Ballard, Jeffrey R. Holland, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, David A. Bednar, Quentin L. Cook, Ronald A. Rasband, Gary Stevenson, Dale G. Renlund, Patrick Kearon, Robert C. Gay, Randall K. Bennett, Kim B. Clark, David F . Evans, Allen Haynie, Jorg Klebingat, Erich Kopischke, Kevin W. Pearson, Kevin Duncan, Craig Cardon, Devin Durrant, Dean Davies and Jean B. Bingham.

Elder and Sister Renlund spoke at the World Wide Young Single Adult fireside which was broadcast from our Cannon  Activity Center on campus. Missionaries that volunteer got to check purses and bags before they entered. It was broadcast throughout the world. We are pretty intimidating wouldn't you say??

Remember our new/used dryer we got at home from Craig's List? Well, it died! Since it was within the warranty period, the fellow came back and fixed it. We just need it to last another 5 months.

The stand-up fan we bought for our living room when we first got here finally died of rust. Nothing around here lasts very long. We have kept a fan blowing into our closet 24/7 to keep the mold off our clothes.

Since being here, I have never needed to use hand lotion on my feet or hands. They are baby soft:)

If you read all the way to the bottom of this blog, please tell me what you pay for a gallon of gas. Our high in Laie was $3.89, we're down to $3.15 now. At Costco it's as low as $2.65.

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