A Bleak Hawaii Mission

January 2, 2022    Email #14   Aloha Family and Happy New year!   The Hawaiians really celebrate New Year’s Eve big here—at least in Laie.  I have never heard so many fireworks go off in my life and for hours and hours.  We were all exhausted that night so we went to bed early and didn’t celebrate much at all.  I now regret not driving around town and seeing all the home fireworks because we heard they were just incredible.  We will have to do that next year.   The biggest celebration this week was that Katelyn arrived here safe and sound.  Her flight made it here even though it was a couple hours delayed and arrived about midnight.  Jordan and Faith were kind enough to go pick her up—the airport is an hour away without any traffic.  It has been so much fun to have all three of them here with us for a few days. Jordan and Faith flew home yesterday (Saturday) and Katelyn will be here all week which we are so excited for. We...

December 26, 2021  Email #13   Aloha Family!   I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  It was so good to connect with many of you and learn what your Christmas was like.  Thank you so much for making our Christmas extra special with the ornaments the grandkids made, the very thoughtful gifts and the book with thoughts from each of you.  It made our Christmas so much more meaningful and very, very special.  Thanks from the bottom of our hearts. Our Christmas was simple and we loved it.  Oh course, the best gift was having Faith and Jordan here with us. Faith had brought small Christmas stockings that she put out some time during the night (since they woke up so early).  Isn’t it funny how such a small tradition makes it feel so much more like Christmas?  After gift opening and a walk down to the beach, we went to a breakfast at the Ostergaard’s house and had a fantastic meal. The Scovilles and Bearrys were also in attendance.  We...

December 13-19, 2021  Email #12   Aloha Family and Mele Kalikimaka !     It felt different today in sacrament meeting.  Our ward in Bountiful is always bustling with excitement the Sunday before Christmas.  Seats are being saved like crazy, extra people are in attendance to hear President Eyring speak, and usually there is a choir practice earlier in the morning.  There were 26 people in attendance at our sacrament meeting today—that is including the stake high counselor and six missionaries.  They announced that it would be our Christmas program today and that those in the audience would be the speakers.  Then we were asked to come up and tell about our favorite Christmas hymn (or other hymn about Christ) and why it is special to us.  Then we sang one verse of that hymn together.  The regular pianist was not comfortable playing songs that she had not previously practiced, so I was asked to play the songs as we sang them.  This...

December 6-12, 2021  Email #11   Aloha Family and Mele Kalikimaka!   It doesn’t seem like Christmas yet to us but hopefully that will still happen.  Maybe when Jordan and Faith get here! No complaints about the weather being in the 70’s--it’s just not Christmassy.   J      The word of the day on Monday was “RAIN”.  Oh my goodness.  I have never seen that much rain in 24 hours in my life.  It rained 90 percent of the day and I am talking a hard and steady downpour.  I think we received at least 3-4 inches in 24 hours and we were supposed to get another 4 inches the next day but it didn’t rain as hard.  We were scheduled to have a devotional Monday night with the Walkers but because of flood warnings, it was cancelled. The wind was another issue.   It was blowing so hard the night before that both Scott and I did not sleep very well.  Our windows were rattling pretty badly.    Work was crazy Mon...

December 5, 2021  Email #10   Aloha Family!   It turned cold this week.  Our low was 64 degrees this morning (haha).  But honestly, it has felt so good to me.  While working on Friday, it was the first time since being here that I didn’t feel hot and sweaty.  My hands actually got a little cold at one point.  We have been able to  sleep without the overhead fan going all night for the past couple of nights. I’m sure this “cold spell” won’t last long but it has been nice.  And it is definitely the rainy season now.  It has rained VERY hard several times during the day, for the past several days. Another way that we know it is winter here, it that the big waves are here on the north shore.  We have seen some BIG ones. They are amazing to watch.    I found a small Christmas tree at our local drug store.  It will work perfectly in our little apartment.  I just had to have something that looked like Christmas aro...

November 28, 2021  Email #9   Aloha Family!   I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a nice dinner with four other couples who we were with at the MTC. It felt very different (which is to be expected) but was nice. We missed you all very much.  The rolls I made to contribute to the meal did not turn out very well at all.  I have not had success YET with anything I have baked here.  I now believe it is due to the flour I am using. It is very heavy and just doesn’t taste good.  Oh well!  That evening we drove to Kailua (50 minutes away) to visit with Connie and Peter Uluave.  They had a lot of company there.  We all went to the park and played pickle ball.  Good times.   Monday morning as I was walking in the rain to my ukulele class, I heard a “crash” behind me and I turned around to see what was going on.  I saw that a girl was lying on the street with her ride-on scooter on top of her and gasoline leaking out of ...