March 2019

I'm already getting sad that we'll be leaving the land of paradise with the beautiful clouds, ocean, sunrises and sunsets.

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I feel like I should make a reminder disclaimer: This blog is a journal of our mission which is very different from most other missions. Our mission is to serve at the BYU Hawaii University campus every day from 8 am to 5pm. We are not on a proselyting mission. Steve is a mental health therapist to the students and dependents. He is extremely busy with appointments every hour of his day starting at 8 am. The counseling department is currently down from 5 counselors to 2 1/2 counselors so there is never a spare moment. If one student cancels, another takes the appointment time immediately. Of course Steve's work is all very confidential but the main reasons students come for counseling are anxiety, stress and depression. I work in the Registrar's office (we handle all class registrations, grades and graduation) and with the VOICE program (we help foreign students improve their English). Currently, I have been working with two students from Mongolia and one French speaker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to learn English. They know NO English but their spouses are English-speaking students. Can you even imagine trying to speak Mongolian, or Japanese, etc.? 

We have many other assignments and activities that also keep us very busy. We facilitate the Addiction Recovery Program every Tuesday evening at 9 pm (that's when students are available and out of classes and work). We attend a free weekly ukulele class. We taught the Marriage Enrichment Sunday School class in our married student ward. We attend the Temple every week. We take tickets at the dinner venues at the PCC once a week. I occasionally help out with the music in our ward and recently played the organ for the stake choir and stake conference in the Cannon Activity Center. Throw in two loads of laundry and shopping and cleaning every week...well not much cleaning. There are great benefits to living in a small apartment. So we do keep very busy and we always play on Saturday. I can't share much about our work assignments so I share what we do for fun.

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If you watch Magnum PI, these mountains are always in the background pictures. Millions of years ago the lava from volcanoes oozed down the mountains making the ridges that are so iconic on this side of the island.

We live near Kualoa Ranch which is a big tourist attraction with many different activities for tourists to purchase. You can go on a zipline, horseback riding tours, kayak tours, Hollywood movie site tours, electric bike tours, jungle jeep tours, ocean voyage on a catamaran around Chinaman's hat, a Kualoa farm tour, secret island beach, ATV tour, etc. We finally signed up for a package tour that included the jungle jeep tour, the ATV tour and the catamaran ocean voyage. We both agreed it was worth the money. Oh, with three tours you get a free lunch buffet which was only so, so. Oh well. There have been many movies and TV shows filmed on the 4,000+ acres of the Kualoa Ranch. Just a few of them are: Fantasy Island, Tears of the Sun, 50 First Dates, You Me and Dupree, Lost, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Pearl Harbor, Mighty Joe Young, Windtalkers, Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Jumanji, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Battleship, Snatched, ER, Amazing Race, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum PI (old and new), And these were only the movies I have heard of. Many of the BYU-H students also work at Kualoa Ranch. In fact, the driver on our Jungle Jeep tour is a Samoan in our student ward. One of our guides said the PCC trains the students well and then Kualoa Ranch steals them away (because they pay better). Of course most of the students on our campus are bi-lingual and they make wonderful tour guides to the Japanese and Asian tourists.

These ocean views are from high up the mountain during our jungle jeep tour.

Here is Chinaman's Hat which we walked to during low tide last summer and then climbed to the top. You might recognize it from Magnum PI also. It's always in the background pictures.

Old movie sets from Jurassic Park which was filmed here and some lost helicopter crash.

The ATVs had to be our favorite.

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We found this fellow on our local beach where the monk seals usually hang out. He's probably 4 feet long and the turtle guard said he was about 45 years old.

The beaches have so many campers enjoying the beautiful weather. We came across this group having so much fun. They were playing kick ball with a beach ball and then sliding on the blue slip 'n slides and flopping into the pink kiddie pools as the bases. Great idea for a family party.

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Our beautiful double large chapel on campus. There is a chapel on each end with a cultural hall in the middle. All the religion classes are held here so there are tons of classrooms and professors' offices.

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One evening we ate at Ty's food truck (a student's entrepreneurship project) with a chicken tender cooked in a waffle on a stick and drizzled with honey... quite delicious. Then on to Sunset Beach for a spectacular sunset. It was crazy windy and lots of surfers enjoying the waves.

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I'm starting to think of all the little things we'll miss around here: the Hawaiian styled campus, waving flags representing 76 different countries, the palm trees swaying, and the logo "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve".

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This is the huge dining venue, the Gateway Building, which houses Island Buffet and Prime Dining. The mural surrounding the interior is one of the largest murals in the world. It is over 500 feet long, 20 feet tall, and took six months to paint. You will also see representations of students from different parts of the world that come to study at BYU-H campus, and pineapple field workers, as well as many others cultures who come to Hawaii. The front doors are 12 feet tall and 12 feet wide, each weighing 1000 pounds. they are hand sculpted, the Island Buffet doors with taro leaves and Prime Dining doors with breadfruit. The building posts are a replica of koa wood which is used to build houses, canoes and jewelry. Even the beautiful tables represent tapa cloth.

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Culture night is one of the biggest events of the year at BYU-Hawaii. Twenty-seven different cultures share their traditional song and dance with colorful native costumes and plenty of live music. It takes three hours on two nights for everyone to perform. It moves fast and is so professionally done. Because Samoa and Tonga are the two largest countries represented on campus, they are the last show of each evening. These students have great love and patriotism for their native countries.

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This past Tuesday was a school holiday, Prince Kuhio's birthday. We hiked the Ka'ena Point 7 mile round-trip hike. It's the furthest north you can go on Oahu. The road ends and you hike the the rest of the way along the ocean to a bird/monk seal sanctuary. There was no elevation change just a rocky, rutty trail. A missionary group was planning to go but they kept cancelling so we went alone. There were plenty of other hikers. It was beautiful weather and majestic ocean to enjoy.

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You may remember I mentioned there is a closet of beautiful wedding dresses for the girls to borrow when they get married if they would like. At the Young Single Adult Relief Society birthday dinner they had a fashion show that any girl could model any wedding dress they chose. These girls were thrilled to try on wedding dresses and enjoy the fun.

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We finally made it back to Pearl Harbor to tour the Bowfin submarine. There are only 15 American submarines that remain from WWII and the most famous of them now sits in Pearl Harbor. This sub set off on its first mission exactly one year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 44 different enemy ships eventually succumbed to her guns. Once inside you can feel the cramped quarters the men lived in. Near the Bowfin is a memorial of the 52 submarines lost or sunk during the war (19% of the submarine fleet). We appreciate these sites and love being seniors, it was only half price.

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Are you ready to consider serving a mission? Would you like to come to the Hawaii Honolulu Mission? At the moment these opportunities are available.

PCC is looking for the following:

Handyman - Commercial Kitchen Repair - needed ASAP (new assignment)

Plumber - needed December

Electrician - needed December

Contact Elder Gary Cain @ 206-567-4313

BYUH is accepting applications for Hale Coordinators (Dorm Parents)

Call Janey Grover @ 530-306-2111

Many of the business skills from your career are needed. The PCC uses many accountants, IT experts. BYUH is always looking for Seminary/Institute teachers, HR experts, office help. Please give them a call if you are even curious.

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I have to laugh when we plan to go into town (Honolulu area) to shop at Walmart and/or Costco. It takes an hour each way to get there. So we try to go only once a month. It becomes an all day affair. At home, we're 5 minutes from Walmart and 15 minutes from Costco. 

March 30th we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary! We both feel so blessed!