Teaching our Kahana Valley Class

Elder Anderson doing some clean-up service.

 April 28, 2013

One year from today is our mission end date and we will be on our way home where ever that may be.  Time has marched by quickly, eleven months already.  Missionary work is still somewhat new to us and we are still learning.  But we are becoming more brave in our approach and teaching lessons.

May 11, 2013 is the baptism date for Larry and Jill Mauck and three of their daughters.  Another daughter and son are too young to be baptized.  This is a family that we met on the beach where they had been living for over a month in a tent because the home they were renting had a fire.   The stake youth were doing a service project and the father Larry ask what they were doing.  The Youth Leaders explained about youth conference and Larry said he had two daughters that would like to participate and they helped with the beach cleanup.  We went down to the beach to meet them and invited the mom & girls to attend Young Woman General Broadcast.  They attended and enjoyed it very much.  Marsha invited them to take the missionary lessons and they said they would like to hear more about the Gospel. 

They found a temporary place to live and moved off the beach which was out of our ward boundaries.

The Stake President(Aaron Shumway) ask us to continue to meet with them along with the young Elders.  Dennis sat in on those lessons while I took the three youngest children for a lessons more geared for them.  They are a good family.

We went to a Tongan wedding reception Saturday afternoon.   The bride and groom are in their 40’s, first marriage for each of them.  It was from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM.  Different from our mainland receptions you stay for the WHOLE time.  Lots of Loud music, dancing and people speaking about the bride and groom, all in their native Tongan language.  The couple was sitting on a couch on risers with a table in front of them with a whole roasted pig. There were about 350 people in attendance in the stake center cultural hall.  They really know how to enjoy themselves.  On Sunday the couple came to church with their native Tongan dress and spoke in Sacrament Meeting.  They said the Bishop had called them at 7:00 AM that morning and ask them to speak.  What a way to start your honeymoon!!!

A few weeks ago we had a pleasant surprise from Mark & Rebecca Olson from Highland, UT.  They are good friends of Danny and Denise.  They were in Honolulu for a vacation an came over to visit and have lunch with us. It was so fun to see them.

Mark and Rebecca Olson

We get a new mission President in July so Dennis has been busy making a DVD for President and Sister Dalton.  We had all the Sister and Elder missionaries serving In the Laie Zone during April 2013 record a good-Bye message to the Dalton’s.  We also recorded them singing two songs.  We sent the video files to Denise to compile the DVD.

The Mauck family has finalized plans for their baptism.  It is set for May 11, 2013 at 9:00 AM.  Dennis is doing the opening prayer and I am doing the closing prayer.  It should be a good turn out because three wards have been involved in fellowshipping them.

Sunday May 5, 2013 at our Sacrament meeting today a couple was visiting from Provo, UT.  Turns out they are Sarah & Cams neighbors.  What a small world, cute couple Kevin and Mari, he just graduated from BYU and is planning to go to dental school in Kentucky.

Thursday May 9, 2013 Tim and Ruth Pineda from our ward in Las Vegas came to visit us.  They were here for a week and came to Laie to see us.  We were so happy to visit with them.  We were their Home and Visiting teachers for about 5 years.  Ruth is a member and Tim is not.  They are both from the Philippines and met in Las Vegas and married there.  We ask them to meet us at the Temple Visitors Center.  We walked in and who was there to greet us but Sister Gamba who is from the Philippines.  The three of them were from the same city and speak the same dialect; they had a wonderful time talking. We watched a couple of movies at the Visitors Center.  We don’t think this was a coincidence that Sister Gamba was there to greet us.  The Lord has his hand in missionary work.

Sarah, Cam and Miles arrived late May 9, 2013, they were here for 10 days.

Cameron helping out at the Kahana Valley class.

May 11, 2013 five members of the Mauck family were baptized today.  A great experience to see them baptized.  Many missionaries never have the opportunity to teach and baptize a family. There were people from three wards attending we didn’t count but there had to be more than 50 in attendance.

May 12, 2013 we attended the Hauula fourth ward to see the Mauck family confirmed.  Larry Mauck ask Dennis to confirm him.  He was also sustained to receive the Aaronic Priesthood and during priesthood meeting he again ask Dennis to Confer the Priesthood on him and ordain him a Priest.

Tami and Jake Fackrell (Danny's sister who was also Denise's friend before they married) also came by to visit.  Tami spoke at a workshop for our ward.  It was great and so fun to see them.

Whale watching off of Honolulu

The missionaries that serve in the Kahana Valley. Elder Allen and Elder Armstrong

Sunday February 3^rd.

Danny & Denise came to visit, they had dinner with us and Kassi Hartle came over from BYUH also.  They stayed at Ko’olina which is on the other of the island several miles west of Honolulu.

Tuesday February 5^th.

We all went to a BYUH Basketball game that was played in Honolulu. Danny treated us to a great steak dinner after the game.

Thursday February 7^th. Kassi Hartle received her mission call.  Danny & Denise came to our apartment and Kassi and three of her friends came over also to open her call.  We set up “face time” with her family in Lehi, Utah. It was exciting to see where she will be going. She was called to the Little Rock, Arkansas Mission.  We are sure she will be a great missionary.

Our Wednesday class in Kahana Valley is going well.  We had seven Children attend with two non-member neighbor children.  One of them gave the closing prayer and did a beautiful job. He had been taught by the full time elders some time ago.

Celebrating Kassi's mission call at Angels shaved ice :)

Tuesday February 12^th.

We attended the BYUH devotional, the speaker was May Shumway the wife of our stake president.  After the devotional we were walking out of the BYUH book store, President Shumway stopped us and invited us to attend the luncheon for his wife the devotional speaker along with President and Sister Wheelwright the president of BYUH.  During the luncheon we were ask to share our experiences at Kahana Valley.  In Attendance was a couple who knows several of the families in Kahana Valley and their history.  They said they would to go visiting with us.  The members here are very missionary minded and are always willing to help.

We have a new Senior Couple here now they will be serving in the Tongan Ward.  They are Elder & Sister Wishart from Orange County California.  They are friends of President and Sister Dalton and are from the same ward in California.  They have some health problems and will probably be here for 6 months.  They are very nice and it will be good to have them here he is part Tongan and will be a great blessing to that Ward.

Thursday February 14^th.

Valentine Day,  Dennis did not feel well so we stayed home for the day and got rested up.

Friday February 15^th.

Dennis is going to help our 2^nd. Ward unload a container of supplies for the Bishops store house in Honolulu it is about a 45 minute drive from our place here in Hau’ula.  He dropped me off a the mall so I can get a pedicure and pick up a few items, I can spend two hours easily at the mall.

Saturday February 16^th.

It is our Stake conference this weekend.  They have a service project on Saturday mornings this time it was a deep cleaning of the chapels inside and out.  We do a class on Kahana for the children that are  not there during the week so we went there after the service project.

Sunday February 17^th.

Dennis was ask to speak at the Priesthood Leadership meeting Sunday morning and then we went to Stake Conference.   The Stake Conference General session is held at the Cannon Center on the BYUH campus.  That is where they have Basketball and Volleyball games, it was nice sitting in seats with arm rests.

pictures....

We went to a free band concert and toured the kings palace
while in Honolulu with Dave and Janice. 

Outside the hotel in Kona

They made Turkeys for Thanksgiving
with the Kahana Valley kids and missionaries.

Outside hotel in Kona

Elder Allen performed the baptism.  We only had one jump suit so they had to share.  The girl on the left is Annarosa and she was not sure she wanted to be baptized because she did not think she could get to church all of the time.  But when she was listing to the District leader interview her half-sister she decided she wanted to be baptized also. So they shared jump suits one dry and the other wet.  It was a special occasion for us since we have been teaching them for over four months.

A few of the sister missionaries at the Visitors Center at Christmas

The non-member dad came to the baptism and the confirmation. He lives next to the other family in the picture they are inactive members but seem to come to baptisms and confirmations.

Update...1/10/13

Dave & Janice Campbell were here on business so we had thanksgiving dinner with them, Kassi Hartle and Brandon Reaves had dinner with us also, both students at BYU-H and from Highland Utah area where Denise and Danny live.  We were grateful they were here to fill the gap of family.  We are finding we are all family…  we spent two nights with Dave and Janice in Honolulu, very busy in Honolulu compared to Hauula. It was nice to get back to our rural Laie area. 

December 8^th. 2012 we flew to Kona on the big island to visit again with Dave and Janice.  Good thing they come on business so they can give us guided tours of areas they have been.  Also being a senior missionary couple we are able to take a break from the missionary work unlike the young elders and sisters.

While on the big island we drove to Hilo and Dave and Dennis took a- doors-off helicopter ride over the volcano, hoping to get some good photos.  Not much action.  We also got to see the Kona Temple it is right next to the stake center where we went to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.  Our trip was too short to go to a session.  We also had the opportunity to visit with  Elder and Sister Raiper who were in the MTC with us.

Our classes in Kahana Valley are going well.  On November 28^th we challenged the girls to baptism. We are hoping they can be ready by the 29^th of December.  They have moved and are  not always at our classes.  It has been hard to track them down. Their mom and dad did give permission for them to be baptized, this is a huge step for them since the mother and father are not members and are not married or living together ( too common here).   We will update later.

Christmas in Hawaii 2012, never thought we would be in Hawaii for Christmas, have to admit it is a lot warmer than Utah.  Denise and Sarah sent pictures of their blizzard.  We felt grateful to be here.

Christmas eve we went to the mission home to have dinner with the senior missionaries that work in the mission office and the military missionaries and of course President Dalton and Sister Dalton.  They prepared a special filet mignon that was marinated for eight hours and baked, very good. 

Christmas day we were able to face time with all of our children and grandchildren. We missed being with them but it is a blessing to be here where the Lord has called us.

We had breakfast with the young Elders and Sisters in our Zone. They are very dedicated to their calling.  Most of them had called home and were happy to have talked to their families.  We had dinner with some of the young missionaries who did not get have dinner with the ward members and two other senior couples.  Later about 7:00 PM we attended a white elephant gift exchange with the young Elders and Sisters.  That was fun to be with them.

The Tongan ward had three Christmas activities, a ward dinner, a ward dance and of course the ward Christmas Sacrament program.

After the Samoan ward meeting a few weeks ago the bishop has a unique way of suggesting that he would like us to speak in Sacrament Meeting, he said “ Our ward would be so blessed to hear from you” how do you turn that speaking request down. 

With the help of the Young Elders that are in our district we were able to baptize two of the young girls that we have been teaching in our Kahana Valley class for several months.  Elder Allen performed the baptism on December 29^th and Dennis confirmed them on December 30^th.

So that ended our six months in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission. It has been a great experience and blessing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS...

Sorry for the interruption of updates...

We had a few "technical difficulties" in memory issues...not memory for what has been happening with my parents mission but memory space for the blog.  We are still trying to figure it all out but here is a very brief update...almost as a test run for us :)

My parents had a good Christmas.  We were able to FaceTime with them twice that day and that was a lot of fun.  I will let them update more on Christmas but here is a picture of the Christmas dinner they were invited to.

LOOKS DELICIOUS!!!