Kona February 18 - 24

Temple dawn

Kona February 18 – 24

Aloha Dear Family and Friends,

Another Sunday has come and we continued our ‘speaking tour’ of wards on the Big Island.  Four Wards down and five more to go!

Ke'ei Chapel

Today we had the opportunity of speaking at the Ke’ei Ward just a few miles south of our apartment.  Each ward has its own personality and Ke’ei  is no exception.  The building is 50-60 years old, small and situated just above the highway.  The view from the front of the chapel is spectacular, overlooking the coast south of Kealakekua Bay from about the 1300 foot elevation.  Two unique features of this building…first it is quite small and appears to have been built in phases.  Second, it has an outdoor baptismal font.

Beyond the architecture and setting, the most memorable feature of the Ward is the members!  We felt very much at home, greeting many familiar faces from their service in the Kona Temple.  The Bishop greeted us when we arrived and in appearance,he looks like a seventeen year-old kid.  He told us that when he accompanies the youth to the temple for baptisms, he is often “mistaken for one of the youth!”  We don’t know his age but we’re sure he is spiritually much older than his physical appearance.

The two full-time missionaries assigned to the ward spoke as ‘youth speakers’ before Sister Elwood gave her wonderful address.  As sometimes happens, even with cancelling of the ‘rest’ hymn, I had about seven minutes to speak.  I’m grateful for the promptings I received while preparing my notes on Saturday because the two major changes to my ‘stump’ speech were all I needed to use to fill the time. After closing with a few phrases in Hawaiian relating to establishing the temple as a priority in our lives, I gave my testimony and closed, only a minute overtime.  Later, I received a great comment from one of the brothers in the ward when he told me I was a “Kama’aina” which means literally a “person of the land or local born Hawaiian.”  I asked him if that also meant I could get the Kama’aina discount on green fees!

This week in Hawai’i, the big news has been the weather and there has been plenty of it to go around.  A strong weather system rolled down the island chain dumping an incredible amount of rain across the islands.  On Kauai, the rain caused streams to rise quickly and in one case, rising water flow washed a hiker from New York out into the ocean causing her death and stranding more than 50 hikers for a cold, wet, night on the beach.  In the morning, the water flow dropped enough to allow them to safely re-cross the stream.  We remember hiking the same trail years ago.

On Oahu, Maui, and Moloka’i, flash floods roared through streets, yards and homes creating a lot of damage.  On the Big Island, it rained for most of the week on the Hilo-side of the island changing normally gentle waterfalls into raging torrents.  Here in Kona, for most of the week, we have enjoyed beautiful, mostly clear weather with a few light showers…until Saturday evening.  The whole Island was under a flash flood warning and threat of thunderstorms.  Saturday evening it was our turn, we received our first major thunderstorm and about an inch of rain, all in fifteen minutes!

The rest of the big weather news revolved around Winter Storm warnings for 6 – 12 inches of snow accompanied by blizzard/white-out conditions.  Temperatures last night were in the mid-twenties plus high winds.  Okay, that was for Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the two great mountains on the Big Island.  For perspective, Mauna Kea is 90 feet higher the Grand Teton peak in Wyoming.  Hawai’i is great!

Rain equals beautiful mossy walls

Our beautiful temple was relatively quiet this week, being blessed with our usual mix of visitors and local members.  While we are not to be concerned about the ‘numbers’, we have noticed that attendance for the first two months of the year is significantly higher than last year which was a very good year.  Our computer network has stabilized allowing us to take care of the scheduling, recording and reporting that is a key part of our responsibilities. 

We also encountered an unusual circumstance when scheduling a family for their first visit to the temple.  As the Assistant Recorder, I get many questions about procedures and policies.  While working on another project, I felt prompted to ask Sister Elwood to read a section of the Handbook in order to familiarize her with some of the issues that Bishops deal with.  Keep in mind that I have been in this position for more than five years, so, when a specific policy question was raised, I gave my answer only to be corrected by my beautiful companion as she cited a paragraph from the Handbook that I had overlooked.  I’m so proud of her and all she has learned while serving in the Recorder’s office.

This coming week, we get to experience a new version of the Temple Scheduling Program and begin our preparations for another visit by our beloved brothers and sisters from the Pi’ilani Ward on Maui in early March.   This week we will also celebrate Sister Elwood’s’ birthday at the end of February.  Time continues to speed along!

Much love and Aloha from Paradise!

Sunset February 23

Kona February 11 - 17

 Floral Arrangement at Church

Kona February 11 – 17

Aloha ‘Ohana a Hoaaloha,

Another week has flown by and we have been blessed with another week in the second smallest Temple in the world but with the biggest heart!!  It has also been a very interesting week for us, with several new experiences that continue to teach us and strengthen our testimony of Temple service.  This week also brought a sobering moment when we learned the names of the senior Missionary couple that will be replacing us in April.

We had a great phone visit with the newly called couple who now live in Manti and currently serve in the Manti Temple.  After our 50 minute phone visit, we are very comfortable with leaving our post in their hands at the end of April.  The emotional impact of the change has not yet had its full impact on us.  Every time the subject of our leaving comes up in our visits with patrons and ordinance workers, everyone, including ourselves, can’t believe how fast these past moths have flown by.  We guess when the Missionary Department contacts us to arrange our transportation back home, the reality of a release will really hit us hard.

Orange Hibiscus

This week, we received an Email from a couple living in Salt Lake who wanted to visit with us about serving a Temple mission.  I was just replying to their Email when they called my cell phone.  We had a great visit and they related how a week or so ago they had felt prompted that they should prepare and serve a mission.  This prompting kept them awake for most of the night!  In doing some research, he had discovered our Blog through a Google search, and had read all the posts.  Our experiences, it appears, focused their desire to serve a Temple mission.  We encourage them to move forward and follow the promptings of the spirit while preparing to serve the Lord.

Our friend, who lived in the same apartment building, moved this week to her ‘homestead’ down in Ocean View.  As we noted earlier, she had purchased a lot in the Ocean View subdivision as a place to continue her desire to be self-supporting.  She has been a good friend and we have shared a number of meals together.  On Tuesday, she loaded all her worldly possessions and her dog into her car and headed south.  She had loaded her mattress and surf board on the top of her car and I helped lash it down tight so it wouldn’t blow off during her trip.  A little more than an hour later, she called and reported she had arrived without incident, although she had given up trying to untie all the knots on the mattress and was going to sleep under an umbrella and put up her tent and untie the mattress the next day.

The sun has finally settled into the ocean and the late evening is descending into night.  Our love and prayers are with you all from Paradise!

Me ke Aloha pumehana!

Blue Iris at the Temple

 

Kona February 4 - 10

Kona February 4 – 10

Aloha Dear Family and Friends!

It is good to see that some of you are experiencing some slightly warmer temperatures that bring the promise of spring being not too far away!  While we have noticed little evidence of seasonal changes here, we have noted that the shrubs and trees across the Island have passed through their “winter” and are now putting on their springtime explosion of new growth and colorful blooms.  The first sign of fall seemed to be the shedding of leaves by the Frangipani (Plumeria) trees and the drying of the leaves on the Kiawe trees.  As this is our first long-term experience in Hawaii we weren’t sure it was a seasonal change or the results of our ongoing drought conditions.

We are most grateful that it apparently was seasonal changes because now the Plumeria is pushing those beautiful and fragrant flowers we love so much.  Bougainvillea is bursting in color from white to lavender, pinks, reds, copper and all the shades of color in between!  The Kiawe forests are turning green; Poinciana trees are ablaze in orange while some trees we don’t know the name of are turning into huge bouquets of lemon-yellow blossoms.  It will be a blessing to have two Spring seasons this year…one in Hawaii and one back in Boise.

 

Ed the Gardner

These changes are also taking place on the beautiful Temple grounds which are lovingly groomed by Ed the Gardner.  Ed works for a landscaping company that has the contract for maintaining the temple grounds.  He is not a member of the church but the care and attention he gives to maintaining the grounds is very inspiring.  Other than making sure our “Orchid Aisle” gets water and fertilizer, the work of Ed and the members who maintain the orchids has created a very peaceful and beautiful setting for the Temple.

Tall Palms around the Temple

Speaking of peaceful…this Wednesday afternoon as we were leaving for the day, we heard a cacophony of noise coming from the tall Palms and other large trees surrounding the temple grounds and parking lot.  At first we thought it was a flock of Myna birds having an argument over something.  As we proceeded down the walkway the squawking grew louder and we saw three or four flocks of about 15-20 birds each, flying through the tree tops.  We had never seen this type of bird before in Hawaii.  They were the ones making all the racket and looked and sounded like large Parakeets as they flew.   They were a dark grey in color with a reddish-orange head. 

The next day, we saw Ed and asked him about the birds and he said they were a variety of Parrot.  It is likely that someone brought a mating pair to the Island and that they probably escaped into the wild and have been flourishing ever since.

This week in the Temple brought a new learning opportunity!  For the last several months we have been experiencing random computer network outages.  We have learned to ‘reboot’ the modem by unplugging the power for a few seconds then plug it back in to resolve the problem.  The outages drew the attention of the Church’s Network Operations center and they recommended we install a new modem to correct the problem.  Facilities Management (FM) installed the new modem on Thursday.  Friday morning, we began experiencing outages to our network again.  This time, our ‘reboot’ solution only worked for a few minutes before the network would fail again.

To make a long story short, we spent most of the day troubleshooting all the network components and more importantly, without the ability to access the Temple Scheduling, Prayer Roll, Email, and Temple Entry systems.  I finally asked FM to reinstall the old modem which re-established the network and we were solid all day Saturday.  Tuesday will bring another round of diagnosis and investigation to locate and eliminate the problems.  I have gained a greater appreciation for those technical gurus who worked with me in my past career!  We characterized the experience of not having access to all of the systems that make our Temple work efficient and accurate, to the world before the Priesthood was restored!

Much love and aloha from Paradise!

Kona January 28 - February 3

Conference Flowers

Kona January 28 – February 3

Aloha,

Another Sunday has come, another month has begun and another opportunity to write somewhat about our past week here in Paradise.  There were several highlights in our week we want to share with you.

For two days this week we were blessed to spend long days in the Temple with the Tongan Saints from Maui.  On those days, we arrived at the Temple a little after 5 a.m. to get the office opened and assisting the Presidency in welcoming them into the Temple.  Their service began at 5:30 am and continued without a break until after 4:00 pm in the afternoon.  Someone asked one of the brothers if they were fasting, but they were not…just enjoying serving in the House of the Lord without breaks or lunch.

While the Tongans are warm and loving, once they get to know you, they are the most reverent patrons we ever have in the Temple.  I received a very warm greeting when I offered the only few words I know in Tongan…Malo E lelei…the equivalent of aloha!  I almost felt adopted!!

On a special note, our neighbor and friend from an apartment in our complex knocked on our door just as we were preparing to leave for our Wednesday evening shift.  She wanted to invite us to “break bread,” her term for eating dinner.  We apologized and explained we were just leaving for the Temple.   She is not a member and has become a good friend even though she has decided she doesn’t want to become a “Mormon” just now since she is preparing to move to ‘homestead’ on the south part of the island.  When we returned home about 9:00 there was a plastic bag with a plate of Short Ribs, grilled onions and Broccoli for our dinner.  On Friday, just as we came home after a long 12-hour day, she knocked on our door with a plate of baked chicken and green salad for our dinner.  This is part of a sweet story we will bring home with us to tell.

This weekend was the Kona Stake Conference.  We’ve noted before that there’s been a project to construct a Pavilion on the west end of the Temple property that can be used for all kinds of events for the local wards and a gathering place for the Saints from Maui, Lana’i, and Moloka’i when they come for Temple appointments.  This Saturday evening, the first session of the Stake Conference was held in and around the completed Pavilion and it was dedicated.

We know some of you may get a little tired of hearing from us about how beautiful the island of Hawai’i is, especially when it’s cold and snowy where you live.  We, therefore, ask your forgiveness for sharing the scene of this Dedication and Conference meeting because it was so physically and spiritually inspiring.

The pavilion is probably 40 x 60 feet in size, with a well-constructed, finished roof and lighted ceiling supported by 12 concrete columns and seats a couple of hundred when they bring in chairs from the Stake Center.  The sides between the columns are open and the open ends overlook the Kona coast and ocean on the west and the beautiful grounds, tall palms and Silk trees framing the Temple on the east.  Because of an expected large crowd, they erected a large canopy tent in the adjacent parking area to house the overflow and of course, the refreshments.

The high temperature in Kona yesterday was 82 and it was about 78 when the meeting started at 6:00 pm.  A soft, light breeze from the ocean side cooled the scene as the meeting began with some prelude music sung acapella by a Tongan choir from one of the Kona Wards.  If you’ve never heard a Tongan choir sing, you’ve missed a beautiful experience!

West - Towards the Ocean...Makai

East - Towards the Temple...Mauka

President Hendrickson began his remarks by referring to the beauty of the scene with the setting sun over the ocean on the west and the beautiful Kona Hawaii Temple on the east.  After his remarks, the Pavilion was dedicated and the speakers spoke on the subjects of revelation and prayer.  The First Counselor in the Stake presidency began his address by referring to the words of the dedication of the structure which included the walls, as we mentioned earlier, were open to the natural surroundings.  He described them as being extra special walls since they were the created by God Himself.  This description describes the special beauty of this whole scene and we were blessed to be a part of this program!

OK, enough about Paradise!

There has been an unexpected result of our speaking in Sacrament meetings here in the Kona Stake!  At the end of my talks, I used three phrases in Hawaiian to emphasize the importance of the Temple in all our lives.  Since then, the word seems to have spread that there is a Haole Missionary at the Temple who speaks Hawaiian!  I do not speak Hawaiian, at least not very much, more like enough to start a conversation that I can’t finish.  Whenever someone addresses me in Hawaiian I get a blank look while my old brain tries to switch languages and search for the appropriate Hawaiian response.  On the occasions when I respond appropriately, and even when I don’t, they always enjoy the effort.

Time is flying by so quickly!

Love and Aloha from Paradise.

 

Kona January 21 - 27

Beautiful Orchids

Kona January 21 – 27

Aloha ‘Ohana a na Hoaaloha!

Warm greetings on a beautiful Sabbath Day here in Hawai’i.  It was good to attend our ‘home’ ward today without having to travel to the far side of the Island and speak in other wards.  If memory serves, we only have five more wards to visit before we leave.  While we enjoy visiting the other wards and since we basically use the same talk, speaking at Sacrament meetings is more of a blessing than it might seem.  We might, however, be in for some extra preparation if we had to return to one of the wards where we spoke earlier.

  L to R - us, President & Sister Mossman, Elder and Sister Walker, special guests

 

This was an extra special week to serve in the Kona Temple!  Our week began on Monday, with a luncheon with Elder William R. Walker of the First Quorum of the Seventy, the Temple President, Matron, and some other guests.  Elder Walker and his wife Vickie were very gracious and he related many experiences about the temples and with President Hinckley and President Monson (Elder Walker is the Executive Director of the Temple Department).

Wednesday began our Temple Review conducted by Elder Walker.  The Temple President, counselors Matron and her assistants were all involved at various points during the review.  We enjoyed another lunch with Elder Walker in our little Recorder’s office and again at a Devotional for temple workers, sealers and spouses.

After some opening greetings and remarks to the nearly 200 Ordinance Workers and spouses assembled at the Devotional, Elder Walker opened it up to questions.  The questions ranged from the temples in Rome and Paris to Brigham City.  He also told of experiences he has had with Presidents Hinckley and Monson and about the process for selecting temple sites.  He freely spoke about little known facts about the site selection process and how key the role is of the Prophet who makes the final decision.  It was interesting to hear that, on some occasions, the announcement of a new temple has been made at Conference by the Prophet and that no other General Authority was aware of the  decision to build a temple in that city. We all gained a testimony of revelation!

We were expecting Elder Walker to come into the office and review the recording procedures and sacred record controls we maintain.  It came as a surprise and relief to have that part of the review pass us by.  We are hopeful that it meant we were taking care of everything in a satisfactory manner.

Finally, on Thursday afternoon, Sister Elwood and I were invited into the President’s office for a personal interview with Elder Walker.  As in all of our other opportunities to be with Elder Walker, he was very kind and at ease with us while expressing appreciation for our service.  We are so grateful to be led by a living Prophet and to have brethren like Elder Walker who give faithful service and leadership to the building of the Kingdom of God here on the earth.

Our testimony of the Temple was strengthened by the experiences of this past week and we feel so blessed to be able to serve in a small way, in this marvelous work!

Love and Aloha from Paradise!

Birth of the Tree Fern Branch

 

Kona January 14 - 20

Kona January 14 – 20

A cool Aloha from Paradise!

Yes, I know our temperature is not even close to being like the cold most of you are experiencing in Idaho and Utah but it’s actually cool to us and I’m sitting here in my BSU windbreaker.  A strong cold front moved through Hawaii Saturday and Sunday with 30-40 MPH winds out of the north, resulting in night/morning temperatures at our elevation in the high 50 – low 60 range.  Our apartment has the old louvered glass windows that are impossible to close tight enough to keep out the winds, so we fell asleep last night listening to the howl of the wind while we burrowed under the comforter.  We slept well but getting up at 6:30 this morning was on the chilly side.  Our only source of heat would be the oven!

This week has been very busy in the Temple as we are making preparations for our Annual Temple Review to be conducted by Elder William R. Walker of the First Quorum of the Seventy.  The need to get the Review agenda completed and published finally rose to the top of the priority list and by Saturday afternoon, it was almost completed.

We are looking forward to meeting Elder and Sister Walker during their visit.  President Mossman invited us to join them for lunch tomorrow.  While we are not formally on the agenda for the Review, there is a time scheduled for interviews with Elder Walker and we suspect we will have the opportunity to visit with him one-on-one.

Today, we were assigned to speak at the Waimea 1^st and Waimea 2^nd Wards as the second week of our speaking tour continues.  It was another beautiful morning trip to Waimea and we actually arrived ahead of time.  Sister Elwood was very kind to me and only left me about 5 minutes to speak.  All those years on the High Council have proven valuable when it comes to adjusting my remarks to fit the time left.

We continue to be blessed to be with the Saints here in the wards on the Big Island.  The members are so kind and loving to us and we recognize many who come to the temple as ordinance workers and patrons.

During the passing of the Sacrament today, we witnessed a very special act of service.  There is a young man in the Waimea 1^st Ward who is blind but possesses the gift of playing the piano and organ.  He was featured in the Church News last summer for playing the Tabernacle Organ in a recital in Salt Lake.  Today, as he passed the Sacrament, he was carefully guided by another Aaronic Priesthood young man in order to serve in his Priesthood assignment.  It was a very touching scene and Sister Elwood mentioned it during her talk.  We were able to meet with him after the meeting for a few minutes.  He is a very special young man as is the member of his Quorum who helped him function in the Priesthood.

Today, we realized that we only have 100 days left to serve here in the Kona Hawaii Temple.  While we look forward to seeing family and friends in person again, we will greatly miss the wonderful people we associate with and the special opportunity to serve in the Temple.  In the meantime, our schedule and hearts are full so the time will continue to fly by quickly.

Much love and Aloha from Paradise

Kona January 7 - 13

                                    Sorry no Pictures  Blogspot has changed something!

Kona January 7 – 13

Aloha dear family and friends!

It’s almost Pau I ke La (at the end of the day) for most of you, at least if we get this posted soon.  We have been Skyping with some of our family and it’s so wonderful to be able to see and talk across the 3000 miles to Idaho.

This Sabbath Day began our Island-wide speaking tour with a visit to the Honomu Branch on the Northeast side of the Big Island (190 miles round-trip).  We were uncertain how long the trip would take but we thought 2 hours would give us a few minutes to rehearse our talks before the meeting began.

For those of you unfamiliar with driving on the Big Island, you can throw away your concept of driving on the mainland.  The maximum speed anywhere on this Island is 55 but there are few stretches of road that you can drive that speed and the limit is always changing from 55 to 45 to 35 to 50, etc.  We Arrived at Honomu in time but we got lost in the little town of about 500 residents.  Lost!!  After asking for directions, we arrived in the middle of the opening hymn!

We enjoyed the service in spite of being the only two speakers!  The members were so wonderful and gracious; the experience will be a fond memory for us.  Our subject was, of course, the Temple!  Sister Elwood used the Primary song, “I Love to See the Temple” as the basis for her talk and I chose Sections 127 and 128 from the Doctrine and Covenants.  I did take advantage of Hawaiian Time and talked about 10 minutes longer than the meeting is scheduled.  Everyone seemed OK with that, except for the Gospel Doctrine teacher who complained, a little, about her time being slighted by long-winded speakers.  She was alright though, she was from Idaho!

Our drive to Honomu was beautiful!  The sun was just rising when we left the apartment and the light traffic was a welcome relief from the sometimes heavy traffic in Kona.  The drive took us up along the highway near the major volcanoes Hualalai and Mauna Kea.  As the sun rose it turned the landscape into a misty collection of shadows, valleys and contrasts.  We passed wild turkeys and feral goats along the highway as the landscape changed for the rugged lava fields near Kona to the deep green, grass-covered gentle slopes of Waimea and the Hamakua coast. 

The rising sun also highlighted the towering height of the Mauna Kea volcano the top of which was visible in the morning mists and wisps of clouds near the summit of nearly 14,000 feet.  Crossing through the rangelands of the Parker Ranch (175,000 acres) dotted with cattle grazing in the deep grass, we followed the Hamakua coast line through groves and forests of Mahogany, Eucalyptus, and Koa trees.  Everywhere we looked the color was shades of green, lush foliage.  If you’ve not experienced this side of Paradise, it’s hard to overstate the beauty of Hawaii in the early morning!

The Temple has been busy this past week, which is a wonderful thing!  Trying to arrange all the schedules for baptisms, sessions, and speaking assignments for 18 church units has proved to be a daunting task.  Just as we get one stake scheduled, a Bishop will call with a change and we start all over again.  To add to the fun, the Temple President has a penchant for asking for some new report or statistic that has never been created before.  Anyone know of a cure for callouses on fingertips from using a keyboard to the extreme?

We look forward to another week serving in the House of the Lord!  The joy of serving in this special Mission continues to sustain us and we pray we are serving according to will of the Lord.  It will also be another time of preparation as we are assigned to speak next Sunday in two wards in Waimea.  We will be blessed with another opportunity to drive the same road as today, in the beauty of the early morning.  We will try to not be late!

Love and Aloha from Paradise!