November 13-19 2023

Contents

Missionary Work

This week we met with a couple of impressive Marines at the food court on base.

Mason: He is good at tech and is an officer. He was also the Elders quorum president and a return missionary. We hope to get him to come to the family ward since he doesn’t want to see his ex girlfriend in the YSA ward.

Ferrin: He is from American Samoa. He seemed kind but reserved, like he wasn’t interested. We did our best though, telling him of upcoming activities and inviting him to church on Sunday. He works with manned and unmanned watercraft. Sounded interesting.

We also drove around looking for people on the rolls. Several addresses in the roster are wrong and there is no such address on base. Not sure how that happened. I also searched for people on Facebook for hours and sent them messages when I found them, but only one responded back. A lot of them have moved from the base and we just want to confirm it and get them off the rolls so it isn’t confusing for future missionaries. We would like to get thier new addresses too so we can get other missionaries to them. But most time they don’t want to share their new address

Armed Forces Toy Drive

We had gone to the Base Armed Forces YMCA and asked if there was anything we could help them. They asked if we could do a food or toy drive. I made some sign up sheets and gave them to the Clarks to pass out in their wards and we passed one out in Kaneohe 2nd Ward. The YMCA said we needed to have the items there by the 15th so we only had one week. People were so generous and donated a lot of toys. We filled two car loads worth of of toys. We dropped them off on Monday. The young woman in charge, Michelle Bossy, was very grateful.

Sister Clark Birthday Snorkeling

It was Sister Clark’s birthday, and the thing she wanted to do was go snorkeling. So after we dropped off the food, we took her to the secret beach with all the coral. We saw several turtles and lot of different fish. Saw puffer fish, alligator fish, butterfly fish. Sister clark saw a rock fish. We saw lots of giant sea cucumbers. And lots of coral. Secret beach bay is filled with coral. It was a little choppy at times though, but it was fun. Afterwards we went and got lunch together.

Domino fish. They were in small swarms around the coral

Sea Cucumber. They were all over the place. They looked like giant slugs almost as long as my arm. They weren’t moving so I wasn’t sure if they were alive, but they were squishy when touched. Most were covered in grey algae. No eyes, no brain, primitive echoderm. They help clean the ocean by digesting fish waste and algae

A lone cornetfish as long as my arm

Lots of large surgeon fish larger than a plate.

We also saw some other brightly colored tropical fish but need camera to remember what they looked like.

YSA FHE: Volleyball

In the Evening we went to the Young Single Adult FHE. They were playing volleyball.

There were people there I had never seen before. Lots of Hawaiin YSAs. I found out that they take Volleyball very seriously in Hawaii. They were all really good at it. It was very competitive and brutal, but they were still really kind when someone missed. The women were also very powerful spiking the ball. They weren’t slow like like someone with extra weight on them, they were athletic and strong. Kailee was there with her boyfriend from BYU. He works at the PCC. He’s from Tahiti and works at the PCC as a Tahitian dancer and performer. His name is Soko. He works at the PCC to pay his tuition. He quit school when he was 14 to help family, so it’s been a struggle getting the hang of college. He’s the one with the hat on.

Thrift shop

We did our Thrift shop service at St Anthony’s on Wednesday. John unloaded a truck full of 350 lbs of food. I organized the children’s clothes and helped at the register. Audrey stayed with me to help. Most of the stuff didn’t have price tags so she helped with that. Everything was still ½ price. Audrey helped me close the register at the end of the day so I could do it if Charlotte isn’t able to be there. I had to count out 50 dollars of change and then see what the profit was.

Hoomaluhia Botanical Gardens

John hasn’t been feeling up to doing much lately. I think his blood sugar might be the problem. He didn’t bring the equipment to check it. Sugar stuff is everywhere. It’s such a temptation. I am having problems with it too and feeling blase. Sugar makes your energy tank, and then you want more to get an energy burst. I hoped to get my energy back up by exercise, so I went for a hike at the botanical gardens. There were lots of trails and lots of unusual plants. I downloaded a plant identifier app to help me figure out what they were. A lot were labeled though.

The first one I identified was this palm by our apartment. It’s a Mexican fan palm. I wanted to know if it was a date palm because it had clusters of fruit growing, but it isn’t. It is one of the tallest palm trees on the planet

On a trail overlooking the lake at the gardens

Aloha Stadium Market

On Saturday the Clarks picked us up and we went to the old stadium market. The Days had told us it had souvenirs for a fraction of the cost.

There were a lot of booths around the stadium. The stadium was condemened because the wrong kind of steel was used to build it and it was rusting.

There were lots of tourist items for sale. I wanted to get a carved tiki statue but they ran about 30 dollars. We did get some shell lai’s for family members when they come to visit. They cost anywhere from 3 dollars to 6 dollars each.

There were also lots of hawaiin floral clothes booths. We got the guys matching hawaiin shirts and tried to find a matching dress for us.

We saw lots of members at the market. One of the booths that were members was this hand carved wood booth. The member is working on the turtle below and Sister Clark is in the background

I especially liked these rustic turtles that weren’t finished being carved yet. He said that they were 1500 as is and a lot more when finished.

I liked this large whale wall hanging too.

His father was selling fresh coconuts. When I asked how much they were, he gave me one for free. He trimmed off the green outer shell with a giant cleaver and then cut off an opening in the top and put a straw in it. The coconut milk was cold and delicious. Josie had said that fresh coconut was so much better. The coconut inside was also tender and I could cut pieces off with the straw.