{September Update}

Missionary Life at the PCC during September 2009

I must say that Sept. was a busy, busy month as it was the month of preparation for the Haunted Lagoon for the Polynesian Cultural Center. Hour upon hour was spent getting everything ready. Bob was certainly one of the “number one” individuals involved in this process. We truly put in lots of “over time” and we hope the pay is worth it! The Lagoon will run all during Oct., so there will be more on the “results” in our October Missionary Life report!

During Sept. there were two of our favorite missionary couples that completed their mission and left us! We become like family to these people and have learned to love them so much. Pictured below are Tim and Elaine Hobbs from Franklin, ID. They worked in the warehouse and they were both such good workers! We loved them so. Bob and I took them to the airport and I have to admit, I shed some tears when we dropped them off! (As I said, they become “family”). We have lots of plans to spend time with them when we return to Utah.

TIM AND ELAINE HOBBS

Bob and Billie Dewey were also great friends of ours. They were here on their mission when we first came in Aug. of 2008. Elder Dewey was an engineer doing drafting in the maintenance building where Bob works and Sister Dewey was working in the Island Office and was my trainer. We became great friends. They are from Chino Hills California. They returned as volunteers for 4 months from June-Sept. 2009 as Elder Dewey was asked to do some specific projects at the PCC. So Sister Dewey and I spent more time together in the office and it was GREAT! We plan to see them also when our mission is complete and we return home.

JEANNIE CABELLA, BILLIE DEWEY, VICKIE, LANAE NGATUVAI ISLAND OFFICE WORKERS

A good friend, Lorrie Belcher (I worked with her for many years in the Heber City Hospital, where I worked in surgery and she did anesthesia), and her husband Steve came to visit her sister and husband that were working as volunteers for BYUH for 4 months. Isn’t it a small world, especially within the church! We were able to spend a couple of afternoons and evenings with them. Taylor kids, remember spending time at her house as we were “cat sitting”, enjoying her hot tub, or eating her delicious meals, when she lived in Valley Hills? She is a great friend and lots of fun. It was fun to be with them again.

BOB, VICKIE – STEVE, LORRIE AT HALEIWA HARBOR

The Island of Tonga had their devotional on Sept. 12, 2009. We love going to the devotionals and seeing the students perform and learning more about each of the island culture. Also it is a time for more “eating and ‘talking story’!” Each island here at the PCC does a devotional once a year. The office where I work is very involved in getting these devotionals ready, setting up, planning and preparing the programs, food, decorating, etc. So they are always a big event for us.

TONGAN STUDENTS PREPARING FOR DEVOTIONAL

FASI TOVO, MANAGER OF ISLAND OF TONGA

Sept. 10th, 2009 was our fourth wedding anniversary. We decided that we would do the “Dinner Cruise” out on Waikiki to celebrate. It was so beautiful and such a fun thing to do. The sunset was spectacular, of course, and to see the skyline of Waikiki at night from the ship was something that we are happy we did not miss!

WAIKIKI DINNER CRUISE ON “STAR OF HONOLULU”

So there is another thing we wanted to tell about that happened in Sept. We were able to be a part of a baptism. Being “service missionaries” does not always give the opportunity to proselyte and be a part of many baptisms. This one was very unusual and special to us…

MICHAEL CAMP’S BAPTISM STORY

Sept. 26, 2009

We attended the baptism of Michael Camp tonight in the Laie Stake Building, Laie, HI. This was a very interesting and unusual story.

Brother Camp is a counselor in our Ward Bishopric in the BYUH 20th ward, 3rd Stake. He is a student, approximately 26 years old. He is married to Hailey, and they are expecting their first child. He is originally from New Mexico and she is from Utah.

Brother Camp tells the story like this: He said it was during his mission that he began to have some questions about a few things. He was having great success with baptisms and in the mission field he was hearing a lot about converts and their own conversion stories. He said he noticed that “everyone” had memories of some kind about their baptism day and the event. As he thought about it, he could not remember anything about his own baptism day. He had grown up and was active in the church as a young boy. There was a short span of time during his young boyhood that his parents and family were a little dysfunctional due to a marital separation, but that was resolved and he was ordained to the Priesthood, etc. as any young man growing up as an active member of the church.

He remembered when he was interviewed for his mission and getting ready for his temple recommend the Bishop had said to him, “You don’t have a baptism date listed here, when is your birthday?” Apparently the Bishop at this time put his 8th BD as his baptism and confirmation date. He didn’t think any more about it except occasionally during his mission.

He returned from his mission, started college in N.M., met his wife and married in the Temple. Events led them to BYUH. He said when he kept hearing about the conversion stories of the many students in his ward here at BYUH, he kept wondering why he could not remember his own baptism. He was called to be a member of the Bishopric of the BYUH 20th ward and it began to worry him that he could not remember any of this important event. He spoke with his parents about this and found that neither of them could remember the event either and determined that the timing would have been during their separation. They did, however, remember the baptism of his younger sister. After many questions and much prayer, it was determined that he probably had never been officially baptized nor confirmed a member of the church!

His Bishop had him write to the First Presidency to see what he needed to do to correct this. The answer came that he simply needed to have the baptism and confirmation performed and recorded and then all other ordinances that had already been completed would be valid.

So he announced that he was being baptized and confirmed on Sept. 26, 2009! It was a great day! His cute little wife, pregnant and all, was on the front row of course! Many of his friends here at BYUH and the 20th ward members were in attendance. It was very spiritual and wonderful evening. Bob and I will probably not experience a baptism under those conditions again…what a joy for us to be a part of it!

MICHAEL AND HAILEY CAMP

Yes, Sept. was busy and eventful and fun and we loved it! We hope you have enjoyed reading all about it and look forward to our “memories for Oct.” to be coming soon!

Life in Hawaii has been good to us. Our blood pressure for both of us has never been so good! We assume that is a good thing! Hope life in Utah and over the mainland is good to each of you.

Love to all forever and always,
Your missionaries from Hawaii,
Elder and Sister Remund
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie
Grandpa and Grandma

JOYCE LOURENE MILLER EDWARDS

Due to circumstances beyond our control (we are sure you have heard that before!) we are far behind on our blogging and therefore need to repent and get caught up. Our plan is to update each month since Sept. 2009, with a few pictures and information about what we did during that time. BUT before I start with September, I want to blog a short tribute to my Mom. She passed away on Dec. 24th 2009. We were able to go home to Utah from our mission in Hawaii from Dec. 18, 2009 to Jan. 5, 2010 to help and be with her and to assist the family with her funeral. It was a blessing for us to do that and to be with our family for Christmas.

MY MOTHER…JOYCE LOURENE MILLER EDWARDS

Nov. 20, 1926 – Dec, 24, 2009

My mother passed away Dec. 24, 2009. She had been sick for several months and because Bob and I were serving our mission in Hawaii, my sister Susan and brother Dave and their families, and my children and their spouses took care of her. I am so thankful to all of them for the time and sacrifices they gave to make her life happy.

When we left to come on our mission, Mom was relatively well. She had suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for over 20 years and had become quite crippled. Therefore, physical mobility was a problem, yet she remained very independent and lived alone in her home until she died. She eventually died of EFD (esophageal function disorder).

It was a blessing for us to go home and be able to help care for her and visit with her for a few days. It was a blessing to be able to be with our family and friends in the celebration of her life during her funeral (held Dec. 28, 2001 – her and Dad’s 65th wedding anniversary date) and the days following. It has been a “bitter-sweet” time for us.

My mother was such a beautiful person, inside and out. She was truly a peacemaker during her entire life. It is an honor to be her daughter and to have been loved and taught on this earth by her. Her life was not always easy, but she always made the best of everything. She sacrificed much, giving hours of service to us as her family, Dad, the community, and the church. She had a strong testimony of the gospel and loved her Savior, Jesus Christ, with all of her heart.

Mom was a “classy lady!” She liked to always look just right and took great effort to do so. She will live on in our memories as a beautiful person from inside to outside!

Mom had a good life. I was privileged to help her write her history a few years ago, and now that history becomes a priceless treasure! She was such a beautiful example of love; sacrifice; devotion; humility; she was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, and friend; homemaker; community worker; and church worker. She was a true example of a Christ like life!

I miss her so much already! Many times a day I think, “I need to call Mom.” Oh, how I would love to talk to her ‘one last time’! One memory that is special to me is that every time we spoke to one another, our conversation ended with, “I love you,” “I love you too!”

I know that she knew she was loved by all of her family and friends, from the devotion and love everyone gave to her. Those memories will live on forever of the time and hours spent to visit and enjoy her company, help comfort her pain and ease her suffering. I know she now lives on, free from physical suffering and deformities, and continues her life with those that have gone on before her. It must have been a marvelous reunion for her with Dad, Phil, Jason, LaVaa, her parents, her brothers, and many other family members and friends. What a blessing the gospel gives to us with our knowledge of our life hereafter and progression in the eternities.

I pay tribute to Joyce LouRene Miller Edwards, for her life, for what she has done for me and my family, and I give her the love of my heart for being my mother. I anxiously wait for that time when we will be together again, for I know that time comes!

{Update}

Update time from Hawaii. We are truly enjoying the tropical weather, in spite of some humid days. We were so prepared for two hurricane storms that were predicted, but by the time they reached our island they were blown out. So we didn’t even see a tropical storm from either of them. Actually we are grateful for that, but we both thought it would be nice to see how we would really do in a “real” tropical storm! They tell us that we still have time…hurricane season is still on!

Our service work here is so busy with each and every day bringing lots of work to do and lots of rewarding times. The time is going by very quickly for us. We only have 10 months left to serve. There is so much to be done and Bob just keeps getting more responsibilities and projects given to him to work on, besides his normal day to day air conditioning and refrigeration responsibilities.

Due to the economy, the Polynesian Cultural Center has truly felt the effects as most every one has. Without the work and help of the missionaries that serve here, it is pretty evident that the center probably would not be able to stay open and functional. The Polynesians are well aware of that and are so very grateful for our time and service, to say nothing of the many talents of the retired missionaries that come from all walks of life, bringing expertise in so many needed areas. It is truly a blessing for us to be here and we do appreciate their humility and love towards us.

Some of the missionaries that we have come to know so well are now starting to leave, as their release dates come up. It is hard for us to see them go. We truly are attached to many of them and have such great friendships. Of course, there are a few that we will be happy to see leave also…opps, did I just say that? Well, not everyone is perfect like us I guess!!!!!

We also have had many of the students from our BYUH 20th ward leave and either go home to work or off to the mainland for work. We have become attached to many of them also, and hate to have them leave us. Most of them we will probably never see again.

We hope all of you are surviving the economy crisis. It surely is having an effect on everyone so we know that our family at home is certainly going to feel it. We pray each day that you will be cared for and successful in your work. We are grateful for your help and sacrifice to make it possible so we can remain here to fulfill our mission. So many are helping with our home and yard, our personal mail, etc., and many are helping to care for my Mom as she is having some difficult health issues right now and is going to require a lot of care when she returns back home. It takes everyone to make it all happen and we love and appreciate all of you for what you do for us.

Some of the things that have been big over here lately:

The opening of the new night show, “Ha, Breath of Life” on Aug. 14, 2009. This has been 3 years in progress and an awfully lot of Bob’s time has been spent on getting the theater remodeled and reconstructed with special effects, new sound system, lighting, hanging new cat walks, painting, etc. One of his special projects was the “kite” as we wrote about in our last letter. It has been quite a big deal and has turned out superb! The picture below is from one of the posters used to advertise the new show and is a great picture of the kite.

The kite is very symbolic in the story line of this new show. It has taken a lot of work to get it all ready and working right. It had to be hung high in the theater so no one could see it until they were ready to fly it and then it had to be lowered down for them to fly and then go back up into its “hiding place” again. It is pretty impressive how it all works. Below is a picture of the winch that Bob had to build to make it work properly. Notice the head of the kite as it is brought into place, 100 feet above the stage floor.

We realize that it must seem that all we do is play and have fun, but really we do work very hard. But we also like to play hard…so we do whenever we get a chance!

We went with 8 other missionary couples to the Lualoa Ranch, just 15 miles south of us. It was a Sat. on our P-day and we did a couple of fun tours of the ranch. It is a beautiful ranch taking in about 4,000 acres. We took a “Jungle Expedition” in a 6 wheel drive, jeep type vehicle. It was similar to the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land, but it lasted 30 minutes! We went over the jungle trials and into the back country, up the lush, remote Hakipu’u Valley to see the fantastic ocean and mountain views. The expedition went through isolated stream beds, powered up hills and tackled rough terrain going over many secluded spots that overlooked the dramatic windward coast line. It was so beautiful.

Our next ranch tour was called Movie Sites. We boarded a bus (old school buses that they had taken the windows out of, so it was open air) and went on a narrated tour across the Kualoa Ranch and into gorgeous Ka’a’awa Valley where many of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster movies and television shows were filmed. Some of those are: Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, a lot of Lost was filmed here, Pearl Harbor, the Wind Talkers, Mighty Joe, George of the Jungle, and Godzilla. This is only a few of the ones we saw, but notice below the footprint of Godzilla! There were about 6 footprints across this huge valley area…pretty fun to see all of it. During the filming they were 8 feet deep, but they had to fill them up after filming because the cows would fall into the hole at night! (They had a few bar-be-ques during this time!)

So it is now time again for the Haunted lagoon! Because of the economic depression, last year in Oct., the PCC was looking for additional means of bringing income to help maintain jobs and stability. There had never been a haunted house or such on the island of Ohau before, so the PCC decided to try out the idea with the expectation of perhaps attracting 3,000 to 4,000 extra visitors during the week that it was open. It turned out to be a huge success, attracting over 14,000 guests. Therefore, there has been work going on during this past year for a bigger and better Haunted Lagoon. This requires a lot of work and sacrifice from the missionaries, especially the men. They have a lot of talents that are needed to make it successful (and they have a lot of fun doing it!…and guess what, the labor is free! BONUS !!!!!)

So this year it is scheduled to run every M-W-F-S of Oct., and Mon thru Sat. the last week of October. It is going to be HUGE. Just take a look at three of the six characters that will be introduced into the lagoon to make it more exciting and fun.Sorry about the picture being blurry, but I was SCARED !!!!!!!!!!!!!

These “dudes” are pretty big and quite scary! They are on big carts with wheels. A person gets inside of them and there are levers that make the arms, hands, and mouth move. The eyes light up and flash. Things are just getting started as to the work that will go into setting up all of the Haunted Lagoon. So Kent, Janie, Jacie, Abby, and Isaak…get ready to get your pants scared off!!!! We are so excited to have you guys come to visit us in October and get to ride the canoe through the haunted lagoon! So, for us time is going fast !!! We only have 10 months left to serve and we have lots to accomplish before that time comes! We send our love to all of you and hope you are well and happy. So until next time…

Love to all forever and always,
Your missionaries from Hawaii,
Elder and Sister Remund
Grandpa and Grandma
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie

{Weather update}

All remains well in Paradise! Very little wind or rain here in Laie so far. News telling us that Felicia has pretty much been blown out...but aftermath results may still result in wind and rain. Other parts of the Hawaiian Islands have had some strong wind and rain, but not much here. It is VERY humid, due to the overcast condition from the storm...so actually rain would be welcome. We remain well, happy and very busy!

Have a super wonderful day.

Love from hawaii

{Storm update}

Weather here is still "up and down" with Felicia. The storm has been downsized to a Tropical Storm and they keep telling us to be prepared for winds and probably lots of rain, but we haven't had it yet! The water is really churning, however...I love the sound! Last nights forecast told us to expect the wind and rain to start late today and into tonight...but we are soooooooooooooo prepared...and so NOT worried!

We will keep you posted!

Love from sunny Hawaii !!

Hurricane Felicia

Just wanted to send a note and say Hi and let you know about the weather here, just in case you have heard about it on TV.

We are still watching "Hurricane Felicia" to see how it is going to affect our island, if at all. Everyone is on alert to move to shelters and have our emergency supplies ready and on hand. The news said tonight that they think she will hit the islands tomorrow night, but she is dying down and the winds have been 180 MPH, and now are about 100 MPH. By the time she reaches us, they hope it will only be 75-80 MPH, which classifies it as a Tropical Storm and not a class 1 Hurricane! So they tell us to plan for wind and possible a lot of rain from Mon. night through Tue. or Wed. But then again, it could change course and miss us completely! Amid it all, we are not even worried! We have our 72 hour supplies by the door and life goes on as usual. Actually, sort of fun to see how everyone handles it! Certainly they do prepare and plan for what could be! I guess living on an island, you need to know and be prepared for such things. No need to worry about us...things are good. By Thur. or Fri. she will have passed us and probably be blown out. The ocean is certainly churning tonight however, we love to hear it out of our windows...great for sleeping!

Just wanted to update all of you and tell you how much we love you, miss you, and are thinking about you. Everyone is so busy with work, church, school starting, etc.

We pray for you every day.

Love to all

Update

We realize it has been quite some time since we wrote to update everyone as to what is going on with us here in the Honolulu Hawaii mission! WOW, the time is speeding by for us! We have less than a year left and there is so much to be done! Know we know why our boys didn’t write as often during the last half of their missions…so much to do and so little time. Boys, we apologize for scolding you for not writing more often! Looking at it from a parents point of view is certainly different than looking at it as a missionary! It is nice to be on the “other side” now, but we do realize that those at home like to hear from us!

Since our last letter home we have had lots of visitors. Gil and Cindy, Jeff and Audrey and boys were here during the first of May. Chad, Summer and Gavin came the third week of May; and Cary, Taura, Carly, Jack, and Lauren came the first of June. Then Rick, Teressa and the 2 little kids along with Mark and Paige and 3 of their managers from the Grease Monkey’s and family members (7 in all) came. The managers stayed 1 week and then Rick, Teressa, Skyler and Tyson stayed another week.

Bob with Cindy and Gil at our favorite restaurant, Haleiwa Joes

Summer, Chad and Gavin at the Punch Bowl Cemetery

Cary, Taura, Lauren, Jack and Carly at Hukilau Beach

Teressa, Rick, Vickie, Bob, Tyson, and Skyler at our “favorite” again…Haleiwa Joes!

So there you have it, a picture of each of our visitors! What a blast we had with everyone. We hope you have had a chance to see everyone’s pictures, because we had such a great time with each one, but can’t put all of the pictures in this family letter!!!!!

We are truly loving the weather and climate here…it is going to be so difficult to come back to Utah’s winter weather! It’s a good thing our family is all there or we might consider making a change in habitat! Let us tell you a little about what we are doing.

Bob has been working lots of hours keeping all of the refrigeration units, including air conditioners, ice makers, freezers, refrigerators, etc. running in this warm weather. The units really have to work hard to keep up. Many of the buildings and offices have air conditioning and the large kitchens for the PCC require huge freezers, ice makers, etc.

He has recently been involved with helping the PCC get their new night show underway. He was ask to build a mechanism that would raise and lower a “kite” during the Maori (New Zealand) presentation. The kite is in the form of a person (sort of) with a warrior face, it is about 10 feet wide and 8 feet high. It is built out of reeds and cloth, made by the manager of the New Zealand village, Kim Makekau (one of our super good friends and a wonderful guy!) In the Maori culture this particular kite would represent the spirit going to heaven. So during the story line of the night show a young boy and his father are flying the kite. It comes down from the 200 foot ceiling of the Pacific Theater and drops about 100 feet. They fly the kite during a song that tells about a legend of the spirit going into heaven and then it goes back up into the sky. Bob had to create and build the unit that attached to the kite to make it “fly”. It is pretty neat. The manager and his wife are really happy with what he has done and La Makekau (Kim’s wife) told me the other day how much they appreciated Elder Remund being here to do this for them. She said, “Isn’t it wonderful how the Lord puts the right people in the right place at the right time to make things happen!” They are so excited about all of it…the kite really makes the New Zealand presentation come to life and makes their legend so real. Today Bob met a guy from church headquarters in SLC that is over all of the pageants and productions that the Church put on. He was impressed with Bob’s work also!!

They are putting up new catwalks in the Pacific Theater to hang the new speaker system and lighting system from. The missionaries have been helping put the catwalks up…quite a deal in such a big theater. He has been involved with a lot of the wiring that has been going on (remember our last letter telling about all of the wire pulling, etc.).

There is just so much going on to get the Pacific Theater renovated and the new night show ready…it has been in progress for about two years now and the show should be ready next week. Elder Dallin Oaks is coming on July 22 and it will be presented for the first time to him. There will still be some kinks and issues to work out…but it is coming. What fun and excitement it is for us to be here during this time and for Bob to play such a big role in all of it…a true highlight of a “service mission”.

My work at the Island Office remains busy and fun. We do so many different things… student files, student time cards, managing schedules for students and managers, we help with a lot of the catering for the villages, decorating for weddings and devotionals…the list of WHAT we do is never ending. Each day is a new adventure, so never a dull moment!

A couple of the big events we just finished have been the World Championship Fire Knife Competition and the Tahitian Dance Festival Competition. The Fire Knife was in June…fire knife throwers from all over the world came to compete, including Samoa, Tonga, Japan, USA, and many of the Islands of Hawaii. These boys start learning this skill at the age of 2-3 and are trained very well. The knife is about 3 feet long with a huge hook type knife on one end (very sharp) and a torch on the other end. They have routines where they throw them, spin them, etc. Often the knife is torched at both ends and sometimes they put two knives together…their routines are about 8 minutes long (for the older boys ages 12-30ish), and the younger boys have shorter routines. It is pretty impressive and so fun to see. The event went for 3 nights. Being a part of the Island Office, where all of the organization for the event takes place, Bob and I were heavily involved! One of the things I did was help with the first aid as each contestant came off the stage to look them over for burns and treat them when needed. Each one would get some type of burn, but this year every burn was quite minor…we would clean and dress the burns from the fire and wounds from the knife. The winner trophies were HUGE and cash awards for the big winners were over a thousand dollars each.

The Tahitian Dance Competition was just last week, in July, but only 2 days. A similar event to the Fire Knife event. Dancers from Tahiti and Hawaii, solos and groups, competed. Costuming was unbelievable…some of the kids were under 2 years of age! So cute and the older ones were really getting good. The judges were flown in from Tahiti and “wined and dined” while they were here…part of the Island Office responsibility also! On both of these events we would work until about 2:00 a.m. and get started again at 7:00 a.m. So our hours were long and we were tired…but so great to be a part of it!

Our student ward is great also. We have had quite a bunch go on missions. Just to night we are going over to Hale One Lounge (one of the girls dorms) where one of the Japanese girls from our ward is going to open her mission call. It came today and she sent me a text and invited us to be there. We get close to the kids and it is hard to see them leave, however we know this is what their lives are for…education, missions, marriage and returning to their own countries to make life better for all.

Next weekend on Sat., July 25th, we will be flying to the big island of Hawaii to Kona to the temple. We are taking some of the students, many are return missionaries and can do endowments and if not endowed they will do baptisms. The bishopric will be going as well. We will leave early in the morning and come home that night. The flight is less than an hour. We are really excited to make this trip with our ward.

This coming Sat. we are going take a break and go to the Kualoa Ranch and do a Jungle Adventure ride and also a Bus Tour Ride up into the mountains. This is a beautiful area of mountain range and valleys that over look the ocean. It is only about ½ hour drive south of where we live. Many movies have been shot here including Jurassic Park, Windtalkers, parts of the Godzilla movies, and a lot from the TV show Lost. We are certainly looking forward to this day of adventure. We are hoping some of the other missionaries will be going with us.

We will take some pictures of our adventures, of the “kite”, and a few other things and get them in another letter soon. For now we have to say that we surely do miss all of you and all of the happenings at home. There is so much going on there and we love having you call us, email us, sending pictures and blogs to keep us involved. Summer time is always a fun time and we do miss the vacations, picnics, boat outings, ball games, dance and piano recitals, swim meets, etc. that we know all of the kids are involved in. To miss school events, weddings, baptisms, birthdays, etc. …. this is the hard part for us. We are sorry to hear about Cal Edwards (Joan’s brother) death and Joni Nielson (LaVaa’s sister Trudy’s, daughter) health problems. We know many members of our families have trials and hardships with health and with this difficult economy…all we can do is pray for help to understand to know what to do, then have the faith that the Lord will bless us, each and everyone, with those things that are needed in their lives. Most important, we must endure…the true test is in “HOW WELL” we endure it!

We pray for each of you daily that you will be happy and successful and protected. We know you help each other out and we are grateful for everyone doing so much to take care of Mom and our home and yard. It takes all of you to make our mission successful! Thank you each one for the part you play. We love you all.

Love to all forever and always,
Your missionaries from Hawaii,
Elder and Sister Remund
Grandpa and Grandma
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie