Mission Updates

Here it is November 1, 2015.  This marks four and a half months here in Laie, Hawaii and serving in the temple.  What a wonderful experience it has been to this point.  I am so humbled to be working with so many wonderful people who love the Lord and the gospel of Jesus Christ so much.  Not a day goes by that I don't hear from someone how wonderful it is to be working in the temple and most often they refer to it as God's Holy House.  It brings tears to my eyes to hear of their true devotion to our Heavenly Father.  This calling has really strengthened my testimony of how the work of the Lord is moving forth from all directions.  For a small temple and a small community the amount of temple work that is done is amazing from baptisms for the dead right up to having families sealed together for all eternity.

As I reported last week, we are now under the direction of a new temple presidency.  I believe I misspelled the name of one member of the presidency so here it is again.
President Kealoha, President Nihipali and President Taala.  Although I don't know President Nihipali at all, I have been in meetings with the others and they are wonderful men of God and their wives are equally wonderful.  We did find out about a few changes that will take place in our callings so I will explain those now.

In the past, there have been three couples used as trainers for the new ordinance workers.  We also were responsible for re-certifying all ordinance workers.  Thus our shifts were fewer per week.  We were working three days with an additional few hours for a meeting each week.  From now on there will only be two couples as trainers and they are the missionaries.  That means we will be covering more shifts.  We (Larry and I) will be working every morning (Tuesday-Friday) from 6 am-1 pm. The other couple (the Fry's) will be working 1 pm-8 pm.  Both couples will be working on Saturday with a little overlap time because Saturday is our busiest day with weddings and new patrons. We will trade shifts each month so that will be good.  Working the same shift for a month will bring continuity to our training procedures.  That is actually what we did for the first 3 months but the last month our shifts were all mixed up.

I'll be honest.  I don't have a problem working more because there isn't much to do on our time off but I am not really a morning person anymore and it is so hard to get up at 5:00 am and be out of the house by 5:45.  I come home exhausted and it is only 1 pm.  I don't know how to unwind and take naps so I am just tired all the time.  On our previous schedule we had a day in between to recoup. I am sure the Lord will help me with what I need to do.  I know the blessings of service way out weigh the getting up early issues.

The weather has been great this week.  We have had big waves on the North Shore of the island due to hurricanes out in the ocean so we have stopped a few times to take in the beauty of the ocean.  Wednesday we stopped to look at the waves at Sharks Cove and came upon a seal that was laying on the beach getting a little sun.  It is amazing to see so many sights that are not found in Utah.  The mountains here are so green and in great contrast with the blue of the ocean and the sky (most of the time).  I guess it just makes me more aware of all of God's creations and the immense beauty in them.

Tonight there is a fireside at BYUH and
Elder D.Todd Christopherson will be the speaker so we are going to go to that.  This week kicks off the 150th celebration of the church in Laie, HI so there will be things going on all week with a special performance by the youth next Saturday.  We will not be able to attend since we are taking Keith and Debbie to the airport for a month long vacation.  We will be house sitting for them while they are gone.
Well, I have rambled enough for this week.  I'll be back next week to blog again.