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

{Busy, Busy}

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.

The blonde is Summer Eiland from Arkansas, and Jeanne Cabella is from Saipan. We were wearing our Hawaiian uniforms on this day. Our little office is just a “bustle” of activity from days start to end. We are busy preparing for the World Fire Knife Competition on May 14-16. Then in July we put on a huge Tahitian Event where they have dance competitions, etc. It is called Te-Mehana Hiro’a O Tahiti. We had a Samoan Devotional on Sat. and the office did all of the table decorations and setting up and serving of the food for that, as we do for all of the Island Devotionals. Bob and Elder Rex helped “remake” the wooden vases that were used for the flowers for the tables. Lanae had to decorate for a wedding of a friend and she had them remake these vases and they turned out so neat that she has made more and is used them for the Samoan Devotional and then Sister Rex is using them for her table decorations for her daughters wedding that they are having here on the beach in June!

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!

April 26, 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

We are feeling guilty about being so “delinquent” in our letter writing! We just seem to keep so very busy with our every day activities at work, (Bob just ask me if we should call it “work” because it really is our mission!) But we must say that this is a service work mission…and we would never want to change that! Bob starts each day at 7:00 a.m. and I follow behind him at 8:00 a.m. We try to get a lunch break and when we do we come home (just across the street) for 45 min to 1 hr. and then back until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. (Sometimes that turns into 6:00 p.m. or often later!) Then we work about 2 nights a week at the restaurants and luaus and the other nights we usually have ward and student activities. Night time finds us dragging into bed about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. (we must admit that sometimes we stop for a session of “Lost” before going to bed! Our neighbors upstairs got us going on that, (and we know that a lot of YOU kids are caught up in it also… we watch them on DVD…having about 5-6 years worth to catch up on! Boy will I be glad when we are caught up to this year’s series so we can figure out what is going on!) “Lost” seems to be our “winding down” for the night. Most of the filming for “Lost” is done here in Hawaii so we like seeing some the places we recognize.
On Sat. we do our cleaning and yard work and shopping and try to get in an afternoon of relaxing at a beach or sightseeing if possible.
Sunday is a marathon of meetings as we have become so involved with the ward and Stake. Bob is now on the High Council and I am Enrichment Leader in the Stake R.S. We continue to be mentors for our ward which gives us lots of interaction with the students and we really like that part.

We had a great visit from Gerald and Kaye Carter and Jim and Betty Kimmell from Feb. 25, 2009 to March 3, 2009. We told them the “ropes” of vacationing here on the Island of Oahu and they were off and running. The weather was very windy and rather cool (typical winter weather for Hawaii) while they were here, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and we must say that we LOVED having them and visiting with them.Here we are on top of Diamond Head with Honolulu and Waikiki in the background. Can you imagine the six of us making the trek up on Diamond Head? Well, let me say that is the second time we have made the trip and when the Laursen’s were here, it happened again! It is a great hike…we love it!

I spent a week down with the “gom-boo” flu in late March, but Bob was strong enough to stay away from it! Making me stay in bed is like “torture”! But I actually wanted to during this time…must have been really sick, huh? Bob said to be sure to tell everyone that I am NOT a good patient. He tried to take care of me and I just didn’t feel like being “mothered!” Anyway, we made it through that siege!

So now it is April 1st, 2009 and the Laursen’s came to town! We had so much fun with them and loved every minute of their time with us.
Here we are at the famous Hukilau Café! WOW did the boys like this place! Just like everyone else, it is a favorite spot once you get a taste of the Hawaiian food and atmosphere of this joint!

Dale, Lisa and the kids never stopped once they got here! They went from morning to night at high speed. If you are interested in knowing all they did and saw, email Dale and he can send you a LONG list of everything they did, saw, ate, and experienced! It was all so much fun, and Taylor was such a great sport even with her broken foot! The only thing she could not do was climb Diamond Head…so she and I went shopping at the Ala Mona Mall instead! She took home “her own private beach” in her cast…when Uncle Ryan cut it off…there was the sands of Hawaii!!!! So lucky for her to have an Uncle that can make sure she had a water proof cast for coming to Hawaii…thanks Dr. Taylor! The ocean did claim one her crutches however! It was their last day here and she wanted to go boogie boarding one last time…the waves just caught her by surprise! I wonder if some whale is using it for tooth pick right now.
So here is the gang down at the International Market Place having a “puka dog!” Every have one of those? Thanks to Jeff Drury, (Cindy’s son), we now know all about them and will introduce them to anyone that wants an introduction!
Want a tattoo? The Laursens spent two days at the Polynesian Cultural Center and this is part of what “the boys” have to show for it! Looking great, don’t you think?

So Aloha to all of you! We hated to see them leave…the next few days left us homesick again for everyone at home!

So this ends our letter for this evening. We send our love to all. We are looking forward to more family visits soon!

We understand Utah is finally getting some spring weather! Yea for all of you!

Love from us here in Hawaii!

Love to all forever and always,

Elder and Sister Remund
Grandpa and Grandma
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie

Update!

Family letter time! WOW, we cannot believe how fast the time is going and how unbelievably busy we are! Letters and emails are getting less and less, as you all well know. Bob has been called to the High Council and I have been called as Enrichment Counselor in the Stake Relief Society…and we thought we were busy before this happened! But it is great, and that is what we are here for. So push up your sleeves, Elder and Sister Remund and keep working! As you will see, we still find time to play and enjoy. The weather is still beautiful, a little more rain and wind, but warm and no ice or snow!
Let’s go back a little to December…below is a picture of the “missionaries” at the Honolulu Hawaii Temple Visitors Center. It was very beautiful. Each of the 14 stakeswere ask to decorate a tree, they each had scripture references, and then they were placed in the different rooms of the center. It really was great. Our stake did a tree (actually 2 trees) decorated with handmade dolls from each of the countries represented at BYUH (80 in all). I volunteered to make the doll from Ethiopia! The doll bodies were all alike and then we made the costumes. The pictures sure do not do justice…wish you all could have seen all of the trees, they were really magnificent!

JANUARY WAVES ON THE NORTH SHORE…

The above picture is “Sharks Cove” taken in September. A super great place to snorkel…especially for kids. Water is calm and lots of sea life…then when the winter waves came in, the same cove looked totally different. The picture below is taken from the same place but in late December. The waves hitting the rocks (reef) were from 50-100 feet high! It was just unbelievable! So beautiful! No snorkeling for a few weeks…actually we were there about a week ago (mid Feb.) and the waves are still coming in pretty big!Hence, the high surfing waves that bring all of the world cup championships to the North Shore. We saw a lot of those big waves and a few of the surfing “dudes” doing there things. We were not able to get to any of the actual contests, however, as they hold them during the day and we could not get away from work to go. Maybe next year! They still have 8-12 foot waves coming in, according to the weather!

JAN. 24, 2009…DIAMOND HEAD
This was on our hike to the top of Diamond Head! Can you believe that “us old foggies” actually did such a thing! And we must admit, we did really well! I have to tell you a funny story! Bob was behind me and I could hear him “huffing and puffing” and I was getting a little worried about him. The trail is very narrow and you can’t turn around very well to look, as people are coming down the trail on the other side of you. Well, I kept going slower and slower to let him have a little more rest time. Finally his breathing became sooooo labored I was scared so I stopped and turned around…and guess what? Bob was doing GREAT…it was the “old quezzer” (much younger than either of us) that was creating all of the noise! Boy was I relieved and we had a great laugh about that one! Note Waikiki in the background! Beautiful to say the least!

FEB. 7, 2009…HIKE TO WAIMEA FALLS
Bob and I and Elder Dixon took a beautiful hike into the Waimea Valley up to the falls. For any one watching the TV series “Lost”, these falls were in the most recent episode! Does anyone recognize them? Also, remember the banyon trees we took pictures of last fall and showed pictures of myself and Sharlene in the middle of them? Well, that exact spot is where some of the episodes of Lost have also been filmed! We can show you a few other spots on the island where some other episodes have been filmed also…come for a visit and we will share it all with you! The hike was beautiful and very easy. The falls are nothing like Bridal Veil, but the beauty on the way up is well worth the hike! Can’t wait to show everyone! Lots of taro plants and Hawaiian flowers.

FEB. 14, 2009 – HIKE TO MAKAPUU POINT AND LIGHTHOUSE
We certainly have gotten more adventuresome in our hiking, especially for our age! This was a great hike and we had hoped to see whale from up here, but to our disappointment…not today! This is a famous “whale watching” area however. BACK TO REALITY…
Just in case you think perhaps we don’t really work…let’s get back to our real life! They decided to put down “astro turf” on the stage of the Pacific theater (where they have the nightshow). The “men in blue” (the REAL workers) pulled up the old flooring and rolled out the new astro turf, glued all of the seams, and then spread 1 1/2 inches of sand down into the turf to make the cushion flooring for the dancers and performers. Above are shown the boards and sand bags holding down the seams while the glue dries. This all had to be done starting Sat. night (after the last night show) and ready to dance on come Mon. evening at 7:30 p.m. They don’t believe in “holding up the show”, even for construction or repairs! It’s called working 24-7 to get the job done…whatever it takes!

FEB. 21, 2009 – NEW ZEALAND (MAORI) DEVOTIONAL

Myself, Sister Rex, Sister Jones and the rest of the gang cooking breakfast for the devotional. Below are our wonderful Maori friends presenting their devotional. We love these people! WE LOVE TO SEE PEOPLE FROM HOME!

On Jan. 20, we had some visitors…Joel and LuAnn Kohler, Mark and Vickie Sweat, Grant and Karolee Kohler, and John and Paula Provost. (Bob is behind the camera!)
Also we had Paul and Joyce Probst, and Ray and Ruth Farrell call us and we stopped and had dinner with them. Earlier in the year we had Kevin and Gayla DiStephano come to the center and stop to see us also. It really is fun to have “folks from home” stop by!

FAMILY HOME EVEN LUAU …
One of the Hawaiian families from Laie invited the missionaries over for a “thank you” luau. It was really a fun, fun night. There was all of the Hawaiian luau food and TONS of it…then they had live music. This guy was the lead singer and let me tell you, they were soooooooooooooo good! They played music of “our” time, music from the 60’s and we danced, sang, and ate and ate. Notice the “dread locks”…we see a lot of that here, but this was truly a sight to behold! But his voice surely made up for his looks! So we keep busy and love it all…work and play…church and business. Please forgive us that we can’t keep up with too frequent of emails, etc. We do just what we can and we know you are all doing the same.

We miss you and can hardly wait for some family visits! Tues. (Feb. 24, 2009), Gerald and Kaye Carter and Jim and Betty Kimmel are coming in and will stay with us for a week. They will visit and tour the island while we work in the day and we will do some playing and visiting with them in the evenings and weekends. We are really looking forward to it!

This is the sunrise we wake up to each morning…what a beautiful blessing!We send our love to all. We miss you and love getting your pictures, emails, blog updates, etc.

Love to all forever and always,

Elder and Sister Remund
Grandpa and Grandma
Dad and Mom
Bob and Vickie

Update

It has been quite some time since we have written a letter to you and updated all of you as to what is happening to us here in Hawaii. Let’s see, where should we start? Well, let me start by telling you that there is ONE LESS LIVE RAT IN HAWAII!!! And how would I know that? Because we caught it in a trap in the attic of our office! We knew, (well, Lanae my supervisor knew) that we had a rat because she had heard it in the ceiling. Of course there was the possibility that it was a mouse or mice, but she suspected a rat and so she told us to watch for signs. Sure enough, within a few days we say droppings in our conference room where there had been some boxes of Top Roman Noodles stored. That blasted rat had eaten through some of the boxes! Then the next day we found some droppings on one of the desk tops and also on one of the chairs…so needless to say the Sister Missionaries are all going “crazy” and cleaning and cleaning and I was just hoping that one morning when I opened the door and got the office ready for the day that I wouldn’t meet him eye to eye! We also called the pest control guy and told him we had “rat citings” in the office and he came over and put traps up in our attic. The traps are like a mouse trap, but many times bigger and they use coconut as bait…sure enough when he checked the trap the next morning he had a dead rat! WOW, were we (Sister Missionaries) happy to know that! They keep the traps set for a few days but so far we haven’t caught any more. When Chad (the pest control guy) came down with the rat he said it was a big one but none of us were interested in seeing it! He said he always ties the traps down to something because sometimes they will drag the trap and get away before they die! Oh………..just another exciting adventure! People here are all used to rats and aren’t as “freaked out” as us Hallies!

Speaking of rats…or varmints…or whatever all of these creatures are here in Hawaii…notice the size of the snails we have here! This critter was one I nearly stepped on while walking into work one day! Had I stepped on it, I probably would have turned my ankle and ended up on crutches! They really are BIG! Pretty slow too…just like they say… “Slow as a snail!”

So we worked and worked and worked on the Christmas Lagoon. It turned out a raving success for the PCC. This had never been done before, but it is sure to be repeated next year. After their Haunted Lagoon for Halloween they came up with the idea of having a Christmas Lagoon, and around here they don’t do anything on a small scale. They put their heads and talents together and came up with the neatest things.

So the idea was to have the Christmas story portrayed along the island lagoon as people rode in the canoes. They had a simple story line that told about a little girl that loved Christmas for the presents and candy so her parents told her the story of the Christ child and His importance in the celebration of Christmas. Each part of the story was portrayed along the lagoon with music, songs, dancing, live animals (Mary on the donkey, sheep and goats, etc.). Each part of the Christmas story was acted out and then it also told of some of the commercial parts of Christmas like the presents, candy, Santa, etc. and they had a life size gingerbread house with children dancing and singing, Santa’s workshop at the North pole with the elves singing and dancing and a Candy Cane lane with the same things going on. It took the men (Bob and some of the maintenance men) about 2 weeks to put up all of the lights (over 5 miles of lights) and it was really beautiful. Bob made a really neat lighted star for one of the islands and when everyone saw it, then they wanted all of their stars to be like it…so he became known as the “star maker” and I think he made over 20 of them in different sizes! He had the wood shop cut the wood and he put them together and put the lights in them…they were really a hit.
The Lagoon looked as beautiful as Temple Square…just a really different look than we are used to seeing. People loved it and many came to ride the Lagoon and plans are being made to repeat it next year and of course it will be bigger and better!
This is a small area in the lagoon, the reflections in the water made everything so pretty!
Above is the North Pole where Santa and his elves were singing and dancing! So cute!
A far away look at one of the manger scenes where the angel appeared to Mary. The pictures just do NOT do justice to what it really looked like…but you get the idea!

Getting everything ready, from Dec. 1 to 13 we worked about 12-16 hours a day getting everything ready, from lights to props, to costumes, to practicing with the performers, to preparation for feeding everyone (a MUST around here…if you do anything, you get fed!) Then the actual time for the event was Dec. 15 to the 22 and we spent about 18 hours each day helping, working, and presenting…and loving every minute of it. Boy were we tired when it was over!!!!!

Bob is now in the process of taking all of the lights down…and it has turned into a “one man show” because all of the other guys have other things that they need to do and of course Bob takes on the project by himself! He has worked for the past two weeks on it and thinks that perhaps in another week it will be done. He has had to get the “snorkel left” to get high enough to get the lights from the trees and he actually likes doing that (I think)!

Here are some pictures of Bob taking down the lights with the snorkel.

Down comes “1” of the “1,680” strands of lights…5 miles worth, OR “169,680 individual lights…eat your heart out Troy!
Bob was sooooooooooo in heaven with this “BIG BOY” toy!

Next year if anyone wants to come and volunteer their time, they can help put up and take down lights! Any “takers” on that offer?
This is Bob’s cart filled with extension cords…he filled the cart three times like this! (There were 320 heavy duty cords!) So this HAS been quite a project. He got an email from the director of the Islands today thanking him for his devotion to getting the lights and electrical equipment put away and accounted for. The comment was, “Many are excited about such activities and projects but few truly see it to the end!”

Just one other little fun story about this event…one night one of the goats that was in the live manager scene got a little hungry and strayed from his “assigned spot” to eat. Before anyone noticed he was nibbling on a nice green bush…one covered with lights…he not only ate greenery, but lights and wiring also. Needless to say, it was a shocking experience for him! But he did live through it!

I think I told you about the flood…what an adventure that was! I believe the final word was that we had 16 inches of rain in 18 hours. Now that is a lot of water! Many of the homes that were damaged are still being repaired and families have not moved back in. It was something that was one of the “you have to see it to believe it”…just trying to tell about it does not really work! Many miracle stories have come out of it and we were blessed to not have any lives lost on the island during that time.

Just a couple of days after the flood we experienced our first black out! We were over in Honolulu with the Nebekers and were in Ruby Tuesdays at the AlaMona Mall, having just ordered our dinner. The lights dimmed and then GONE! Everyone just waits for a few minutes to see what is happening and then we started getting the word that it is a major black out all over the island. There had been a lot of lightening and thunder (which is not a common thing here) during the day and quite a bit of rain. All of the city was dark, there was a tiny bit of generated power in the restaurant, but they said they were closing the restaurant and the mall so everyone had to leave. They came to our table and said since we had already ordered and our meal was started they could finish it on the grill and they put candles out for us to finish. That part was really quite fun! So we just took our time and had a nice dinner and then left. The parking lot was so jammed as well as the streets of Honolulu! No street lights to help the cars to move around. We were parked on the third level of this HUGE parking mall…it is about 2 city blocks long. We just decided to hang out there for a while…we were up where we could see out and we just watched the cars and people for another hour and then decided to work our way out and home. After we got out of the parking lot and through the major city streets and out to the freeway it wasn’t so bad, except very, very dark! No lights anywhere…and it stayed that way until about 3:00 p.m. the next afternoon! We kept our refrigerator door closed so the cold would stay in and we didn’t have any food spoilage.

Needless to say we are now preparing our 72 hour emergency kit, pretty much a duplicate of the one we have on our pantry shelf in Midway, so we will be more prepared for such things in the future. When disaster warnings come, such as a flood, hurricane, tsunami, tropical storm, earthquake, etc. we have instructions to go to certain areas…our area is on the hillside behind the temple. They have huge sirens on huge poles all over the island and once a month (the first Thur.) they test them at noon. When the sirens go off we are suppose to leave and go to our designated areas with our emergency kits! So far we have not had a signal to do that, but most of the missionaries have told us that at least once during their stay here they do get that experience! (Actually, I was a little disappointed this past week when the tropical storm warnings we were hearing about didn’t really progress to major tropical storms!!!) Just lots of wind and a little power outage around the island, but nothing too major!

Well, we are so busy and very happy serving here. The people love Bob more and more the longer we are here because he does everything and anything for ALL! He has become the hero to everyone! “Bob the Builder” is ONE of his nicknames, even among the students!

So that is a little wrap up of our Christmas events…and we will be telling more in our next issue of “Catching a Glimpse!”

This has been a fun letter to write, especially as we listen to the ocean waves on the beach just outside of our door. We drove over to Costco on the other side of the island tonight after work to get some supplies for our ward camp out on the beach tomorrow night, and we sat outside and ate our salad and ice cream sundae in the nice warm breeze. I really love being able to be outdoors and no worries about the weather at any time! I am getting more and more attached to the climate with every passing day! Sorry, but we DO NOT miss the cold and snow. (No, I probably should rephrase that…”I” do not miss the cold and snow…Bob sort of DOES miss the snow, probably not the cold!) We send our love and say good bye for now,

Elder and Sister Remund

And the floods came.....

Just one quick update today...yesterday (Dec.11, 2008) was one of those days that you see on TV all of the time, but never realize that some day you might be there! Well, it happened for us.

It started raining during the night of Dec. 10 and didn't stop for 12-15 hours. Now...I am talking rain! Like we have never, ever seen before!!! By 6:30 a.m. on Thur. our phone was ringing about flooding apts., roads, etc. This was something to see once, but one hopes it only happens once in your life time. Many of the locals here say they have not had this happen to them before. We have yet to hear the total amount of rain, but in Laie it was somewhere around 12-16 inches in that short period of time. Needless to say, some roads and bridges were washed out, homes washed away, etc. When we first left our apt., which is just across the street from the PCC, we could see the PCC parking lot was FILLED with water, it was running in rivers down out of the mountains. There were kids out playing in it and the water was up to their waist! They had their boogie boards and were having a blast! Cars were stalled as well as people! Everything shut down and we began to help, just like on TV!!!! First of all, we had a missionary couple that was leaving to go home and Bob and I were assigned to get them to the airport, on the other side of the island. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get there...normally a 45 minute ride. Flooding, unbelievable traffic, detours, rain that made it impossible to see the road, etc. made the trip rather a difficult one. We accomplished that task and then came back with the same difficulty. After we arrived here we went to one of the homes, and helped empty the house and pull out the carpet and all of the floor coverings so things could start to dry. Many of these homes are very nice homes of the administrators of the PCC and college and a lot of them are much more humble homes of the polynesian people here. So very sad and yet everyone so grateful that no lives were lost. Some of the homes we saw had as much as 6-8 inches of water inside in every room and water lines of up to 12 inches or more! The water, of course, is a red, mucky sandy dirt. It is so devestating for so many. They set up emergency shelters for those that are now homeless until temporary homes become available. WOW, we came home tired and grateful that we could help and grateful that our home is situated in a place where no water got into our apt. We had lots of water and large, large puddles in our yard area, but nothing got into the house.When Summer lived here last year on the big island of Hawaii she told us of the rains and flooding...she sent pictures, etc. Well, now we realize exactly what she was talking about!So today we are sure we will be doing the same thing again...helping all that need our help to overcome the disaster. We are happy to be able to help. Will tell more later...now, off to work! Love to you all,Elder and Sister Remund