Hello again!
A letter so soon you say? I know you can hardly imagine it, but we have some more things we thought that perhaps you would be interested in.
I think Bob has already sent a few pictures by phone about the “wire pulling” he has been doing. It has been an unbelievable project, but is near to completion. He started around the end of March and is still working on it. He works on this project “in between all of the other things he has to do!” The project is to pull out all of the old wire that is no longer needed that used to feed the theater lights. An electrical company was hired to come in and run all new wires and put in new dimmers for the theater lights. They have been working on this project for almost a year now. To save the PCC money, they asked if the missionaries would pull out all of the old wires and take down the old conduits. The wire is being turned in for recycle of copper and so far to date they have $15,000.00 that has come back to the PCC for the used wire. Some of the missionaries work a little on this project…but just like Bob, he is seeing it to the end and is the one that they come to when “more needs to be done”!
This is a SMALL amount of the wire that has been pulled out. They cut it in shorter lengths to be sent in a truck to be recycled. They have sent about 20,000 lbs. so far!
I have to say that Bob certainly has made his mission time valuable here at the PCC in the amount of money he has helped to save the center. In addition to the money from the wire that has been pulled, a few weeks back they had a huge “snorkel lift” that was broken down. It had a hydraulic ram that extended the large arm of the snorkel outward and upward. The seals in the hydraulic ram sprung a leak. The maintenance dept. sent it for repair and it came back with the explanation that they could not take the large pins out that held the 20 foot ram in because the pins were rusted in. In other words, they said it was “unfixable!”
So Bob and a couple of the other Elders put their heads together and decided that they had never had a pin on a piece of equipment that they could NOT get out! This was not going to be an exception for them and they WOULD and COULD figure a way to do this…and they did! It took several days of work to remove the pins and take the ram out, but they did it, sent the hydraulic ram into the company and they replaced the seals and brought it back and these unbelievable guys put it back together. When the snorkel lift was again up and running, Orlin Clemets, head of maintenance (a paid position) told us that Bob had just saved the center about $10,000.00.
He does some air conditioning work occasionally, but the hot weather has not really hit yet, so he has lots of other projects out there that keep him way toooooo busy!
As for the Island Office, we are busy also. This is a picture of me and Sister Rex and the two office girls (BYUH students) that work with us. 
Anyway, with the ending of semesters and terms, etc. the students have a lot of changes with some of them moving, graduating, leaving for home, changing jobs, etc. and it all requires a lot of paper work from this office. So we try to keep all of the student files in order and straight.
Another fun thing we have been doing lately is watching for whale. Dec. through May is supposedly the “whale watching season” and we certainly have watched for them. We actually have seen quite a few…let me define what we mean here! We see lots and lots of spouting, and it is quite a ways out! If we are patient and keep good watch, often with the spouting the whale will turn or jump, etc. I can actually see them by just looking, but Bob can’t. BUT when we put the binoculars up, THEN you can really see them jump, big tail fins up…WOW it is cool. Now mind you, these guys are not right next to us, sorry to say. They are probable about ¼ mile or more away. But it is cool anyway. One evening about 6 weeks ago we saw about 50 whale in about ½ hours time. It was really neat. So that is our “whale watching” story.
Lanae was out at Laie Point one day just recently having lunch with a friend. (The Point is a popular place to watch for whale around Laie.) The car next to her had a couple of guys in it and they shouted, “Look at the whale!” Lanae said she whirled around and shouted, “Where are you looking? In our car or in the water?” As it turned out, there was a huge whale just a short distance from them with a calf and they did get a great look at it!
We are so excited for our next visitors to come…Cindy and Gil, Jeff and Audrey, and the two little boys! They are coming in on Thur., (May 7, 2009)! It is always fun to have family here. We were talking the other day about how much fun we had with the Laursens and remembering how great Taylor was, even with her broken foot! We decided you might like to see a picture of what we did each night to clean out her cast and make her foot and leg more comfortable after being in the ocean and sand each day!
Here is Grandpa Bob and Taylor on our back patio, hose inside the cast, flushing out the sand!
One place we have visited a few times is the Punch Bowl, a memorial cemetery that is actually inside of a huge volcano crater. It is a beautiful place and there is a lot to see. One day when we were there we thought we were in Disney Land instead of in Hawaii, look who we found…Mickey and Minnie! (Guess what it is…cactus!)
In spite of all of our “work” here, we do try to have a little fun and as you can see, we do! Here we are eating our “Puka Dogs” with mango relish! Yum, Yum!!! This place is at the International Market Place in Honolulu, just across from Waikiki. It is always a fun place to go!So after the Williams leave, we have Chad, Summer and Gavin coming on May 20, and then Cary, Taura, Carly, Jack, and Lauren on May 29! We are so very excited! Then in June, Rick and Teressa, Skyler and Tyson and some of the other kids will be coming back to stay at the Hukilau house! YEA for us! Everyone likes to visit!
We send everyone our love and want you to know that regardless of what it looks like, we do miss all of you! Please know how much we love you and appreciate your phone calls, letter, pictures, emails, blogs…your love and support of what we are doing here. It is a pretty great place, and one that needs and appreciates the missionaries for all we do!
Have a super wonderful day and know that each day you are in our prayers, thoughts, and hearts!
Love to all forever and always,
Your missionaries from Hawaii,
Elder and Sister Remund
Grandpa and Grandma
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie
P.S. Thanks again Amy, for putting this in our blog! Love ya!
