Update

Everyone says how beautiful the fall leaves are this year. I suppose we can thank the snow from last winter for that! I think about the beautiful colors a lot and we have pictures of the hills from past years to help remind us. Lynn sent a picture from his phone of the hills behind our house and it did look beautiful. It is beautiful here but there is not the changing of seasons…this will be quite a change for us. The thing I really love is being able to eat outside most of the time and whenever we want and never worry about the weather. It is always pleasant. Today Bob started laughing during one of our church planning meetings. It was a meeting where they were talking about our ward activity party on Oct. 28 and having a Halloween party and where it was going to be. It is scheduled for the “Little Circle” on campus…a fun place outdoors, of course, and when he said that Bob thought, “Wow, it will probably be snowing and cold!” Right then he starting laughing and said, “Guess what I was just thinking?” Well, of course, that is NOT a problem over here but we cannot get our selves out of that mindset! Some of the other missionary sisters and I were talking the other day about being excited to see how they decorate for Christmas here…it will be fun to see! The stores are full of Halloween and Christmas, just like in Utah, but a lot of the trees that are decorated are palm trees!

Let me tell you a little about our past couple of weeks. One Sat. we went for a drive to the Blow Hole down by Honolulu. It is a beautiful place and has a beautiful beach. This picture is from the Blow Hole. The water looks like a wave coming in but it is really a 2 foot hole in the rocks where the water comes in and blows out the hole.

We took a couple of girls from our ward to Wal Mart and Costco on Wed. evening. It is about 20 miles away, but takes about 45 minutes to get there. A lot of the students don’t have cars and sometimes they need a ride to pick things up. There is a bus system that goes around the island several times a day, but it takes a lot of time and if they have a lot to carry, it is hard on the bus. We enjoyed taking them. One was a girl from Alberta Canada, not far from Cardston. The other is a little girl from Cambodia. I say little and I mean little! She probably doesn’t weigh more than 75 pounds! She looks like she is about 15, but she is 26. She served a mission in the Provo, South mission and then went back home. Then she got a sponsor to help her come here to get her education. She is a cute girl and we had a great evening with them. We took them for something to eat after shopping, and WOW can they eat!! I guess they are living pretty meagerly! They were so grateful to have the ride and I know they had lots of fun. We have a fantastic ward and really love the kids and the activities there. The Sat. morning of conference we had a ward breakfast before conference. At 6:00 a.m. (which was 10:00 a.m. for you) we met at the Aloha Center (the student center for the campus) and the bishopric and the two missionary couples assigned to the ward (us and Bro and Sis Denos) cooked breakfast for them while we watched conference on the big screen. It was great. There were about 75 kids there at 6:00 a.m.! A lot of them were in Sunday dress, especially the Asian kids. Dresses, white shirts and ties…they have a lot of respect and they show it at times like this…it is neat to see. Actually, the grownups (us) were just in casual dress. However, we watched conference together, it was great, wasn’t it? Then everyone helped clean up and we came home and watched the afternoon session at 10:00 a.m. here! Then Bob and I cleaned the house, washed windows, washed the car, and then got ready to go to work at the Restaurant. Then we came back home and Bob took a nap while I made banana bread and then he had to go back to work at 8:30 p.m. to plant a 40 foot coconut tree inside the big theatre! This is a project that has been in the planning for a couple of weeks. The PCC is making some big changes to their night show for next year and the Samoan’s want to climb the tree during their part of the show. So that is what the men have been doing.

Bob and Elder Florence built a large platform to put the tree on after it was down, so they could get it into the theater. They used a large spade to cut around the tree, which was out in the PCC nursery and put it on a truck.

They had to wait until after the night show, which ended at about 9:00 p.m. and then they worked all night and into Sun to get it in and up. This picture shows them bringing in down the tunnel and onto the stage. Then they put the platform on 3 inch pipes and rolled it onto the stage.

This is the hole they planted it in on stage. This shows the tree up and tied in place while they brought in dirt to put around the root base.

Now the tree is up and in place. It is 40 feet tall, the root base is 4 foot in diameter! It has about a two foot trunk at the base. They will not close down the theatre to do things…they work at night to get these things done. The tree was out in the PCC farm where they grow their pineapple, bananas, and coconuts and it was really big. I went out to watch when they took it out…it was amazing. It has been the talk of the center all week. The three missionaries and lots of Polynesian help were so excited to be a part of such a great project! They all have great ideas, and they DID accomplish what they set out to do!

The theatre is sort of like Tuachan. It has seating under cover, but the stage and backdrop (which in this case is a big volcano which goes off during the show!) is all out side. So the tree is planted somewhere on the stage but is actually outside. It looks like it has been growing there forever!

A little more about watching conference here. Sunday morning we watched it at 6:00 a.m. which is 10:00 a.m. for you and it is live from SLC. We could go to the Stake Center and watch it delayed, but didn’t want to get dressed up…I wanted to sit in front of the T.V. here and watch it in my pajamas. Then Bob went over and finished working on the tree while I watched the afternoon session at 10:00 a.m. We have a missionary family dinner once a month, which was held after conference this week. It is usually on Fast Sunday. We take pot luck and I am taking Ritzy Chicken. We usually do it on fast Sunday and they call it Break The Fast. We eat together and it is a fun time. At 7:00 p.m. we met again at the college and they did a rebroadcast for the men of the Preisthood session and a rebroadcast of the R.S. for the women. So that is what our conference weekend was like. Pretty busy!!!

We sure did enjoy conference. Lots of great advise and counsel about not being discouraged, but having hope through our faith for the future. I really felt like I needed to hear that, and I’m sure most everyone does at this time. The world is surely in a mess right now! I’m grateful for the gospel and our teachings to give us the strength to keep marching forward in faith and obedience.

This week Bob worked again tearing down more old buildings and also working in the cafeteria areas on equipment and the walk in refrigerator. Boy is it a big walk in…it is a room about the size of our entire house! Pretty cold in there also. They use fork lifts to move things around in it.

The rest of the week was pretty normal for us. On Sat. (Oct. 11, 2008) there was a devotional in the Fiji village. It was so great. Speakers and dancers and singing…a lot of neat things to see in action about their culture. We love these times. Because I am involved with the Island Office, the staff helps with setting up and the food afterwards…of course, Bob was there too because my “boss”, LaNae really likes him! Are you surprised! She loves his blue eyes and always wants to know if he has a brother she could have…she said she would give up her husband for a brother if he is just like Bob.

We sure love everyone’s emails and blogs, etc. We want you all to know how much we love you. Keep writing and sending pictures. It’s fun for us to keep up on the news at home.

This last picture is of some of the shrubbery around the front walkways of the PCC, BUT the best part is that right in the middle of the picture at the top (just above the black car) is “OUR HOUSE!” This picture was being used by one of the students that work with me in the Island Office as her screen saver. One day she pulled it up to get into her computer and I saw it and said, “Hey, that is our house!” She couldn’t believe it, but there it is!

We love you all. Have a great week. We miss you but are happy and well in our beautiful place here in Hawaii. We do work hard, but it is very rewarding!

Love to you all forever and always,

Brother and Sister Remund