Follow the Light

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Email #6

 

Aloha family!

 

It was so great to talk with you all last Sunday (except Kristen who had to wait until Monday).  We miss you all and love hearing about your lives and everything that is going on.  We pray for you every day.  We are so excited with the news of our new grandchild on the way!  Thanks Jordan and Faith!  We are thrilled for you (and us).

 

The work at the store is going well.  I am learning more about products we sell and about different types of ukuleles so that I can help people make educated purchases.  We have slow times every day and so with the encouragement of Elder Arnett, (a senior missionary who came at the same time we did) we learned a song that we can all play and sing together to occasionally entertain the patrons in the store.  It has been a lot of fun to learn and to perform together.  I wasn’t sure the BYU students would buy into it because of the style of the song but they join right in have fun with us.  I have loved getting to know these young people and their backgrounds.  They are incredible, resilient and faithful people. 

 

I helped with the inventory in our final store on Wednesday—Nonas.  I’m kind of sad because next Wednesday—it’s back to the warehouse with no AC and a lot of standing.  Inventory seems like a really good thing now.  The good part about this last particular inventory day was that we finished before 2:00 and the missionaries were excused to go home.  Because of ending a little early, Scott and I were able to make a Costco/Walmart run.  It took us over 4 ½ hours to do but it was much needed and something that I was hoping would happen. 

 

Thursday night, Scott and I went to a play on campus called, “Follow the Light.”  It was written by a student as her senior project.  It was based on the real life experience of Sela and Haunga Feinga—a young Tongan couple who accepted a mission call to another very remote Tongan island. It was very sweet and faith promoting.  She and her husband had to exhibit great faith as they embarked on this mission together.  It caused me to reflect how easy we have it and how few trials we really have in our mission—so far.  

 

For our P-day this week, Scott and I decided to go to the villages at the PCC and watch the “shows”.  We hadn’t taken the time to do that yet.  We made it to all six and had a great time there.  We also took the tram to go to the Temple visitor’s center.  Elder King (director of the visitor’s center) was outside as we exited the tram and walked with us to the visitor’s center. He asked how we felt about the devotional this coming Tuesday and suggested that we come inside the center and his wife, Michelle could give us some tips on how to use the tele-prompters (she is a former news reporter).  I was excited to talk with her but then afterwards, I felt more nervous than before talking with her.  I wish we had more “teleprompter practice time” than just right before doing the talks.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  I just really can’t wait until noon on Tuesday.

 

Just a note about the ukulele class that I am taking on campus: We have been working on the same song for about four class periods now—“In the Hall of the Mountain King”. It’s been a little frustrating for me to walk to class each day and then work AGAIN on the same song that obviously not many are even practicing because we go over the same parts each time.  I had decided that for me (and I think many of the senior missionaries feel the same way), it just wasn’t worth the work it takes to learn this song.  There are so many other songs I would love to put that time into instead.  But I finally turned a little bit of a corner and I can play it now.  I don’t play it well or fast but I have all the patterns down.  Again, I am reminded that if you practice something long enough, it gets easier.  This is true also of our thought patterns and Gospel living, relationships, talents and so many things.  If we keep practicing, it becomes easier. 

 

I just want you all to know how thankful I am for the Gospel.  I can’t imagine my life without it.  I am also thankful for each of you.  We really appreciate all of your love and support. 

 

Much love,

Mom, Grandma, Gayle

 

 

How I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life this week:

·        Being able to get off work early enough to go to Miliani—Costco.  

·        I felt impressed to check a reference in my talk and then was able to make a change that needed to be made. (Much longer story that I won’t go in to)

·        Being able to talk get tips from Michelle King on how to more effectively use the tele-prompter.

 

Hi dear family,

This is Dad and I’m sure you’ve fallen off your chairs in surprise to hear from me. There has been one thing on my mind for the last month – preparation for our devotional talk on Tuesday. The talk itself has been worry enough, but to top that, the process of getting it approved and ready for the day has been the bigger challenge. We have an overall time length limit within which to keep our comments - 35 minutes and 4000 words. We didn’t really hit the 4000 word mark, but have managed to hit the time limit. They have never asked an architect to speak before. So, when I presented an option with 40 slides attached, they about died. They had never seen anything like it. Even with that number of slides, it wasn’t anything compared to what I’ve shown you. They said, “You’ve got to shorten it to 8-10 slides.” I pointed out the very reason they asked me to speak was because of my involvement doing temples and if people don’t ‘see’ temples, they will be greatly disappointed. But I did end up combining pictures on slides so it was cut down to half of what it was. (20 slides) They were much happier with that solution. The other complication was getting ‘permission’ from the Church to use Church published photos. Their normal turnaround time for approvals is 45 days. I was only asked to give the talk 29 days ago. So I didn’t have time to get the normal approvals, not counting having to make changes and so forth. So, I’m not absolutely sure they will broadcast my talk live until they get the approvals from Salt Lake. The other small hurdle has been getting them to get the slides in the right places in the talk. We’ve been going back and forth on this problem for the last week. They want people to see my face more than seeing the slides I have to present. That’s definitely not a priority to me. All in all, we’re excited for when Wednesday comes around. I have been grateful to share my message with the young people here. I felt the Spirit in the writing. It just all came out at once. Lots of tweaks, but the message has remained unchanged. It’s an important message for all my grandchildren, too. 

 

I’ve been keeping busy working on projects at work, but in a large measure, it seems like I’ve not retired. People are people when it comes to spending money on buildings. Budgets always rule which are very arbitrary at a moment in time. I’m working on one project that I’ve shown ten options for and yet I have another idea or two to show them that might satisfy them. It is remodeling the Hale Ohana building, which is a large building where they want to have a Luau and live show, but ‘without columns’ in the way of seeing the show. You can do anything with money, but it’s difficult to do what they want without spending something. I’m also working on a shelter building for the carvers who only have a tarp canopy over them right now. I’m in the middle of that one. It is primarily to establish that we should plan budget for this project next year. So, it’s not a real project, just for planning. I use SketchUp for everything I do so they can see an idea and options for it. I just finished showing a project replacing a planter box with a fence railing that will be used in the entire seating area of the large Hale Aloha venue. It has a live show in it while the patrons eat a big meal. I modeled it so they could see the concerns using certain colors on some railing options they want. It went over very well. They made a clear decision based on the options we showed them. I’ve got a few other assignments like replacing old roofing on the restroom buildings. They’ve also had some cracked beams in the “Ha” show, that’s the big night show about the “Breath of Life”. It’s not going to fall in but it does need to be fixed and understood why it’s happening. So, this is what I’ve been working on. Not very exciting, but helpful to the team.

 

I hope this brings you up to speed with everything I have been involved with.

Love you all!

Dad