December 4th -10th

Senior Conference

The first ever Hawaiian Senior Conference. All the missionaries from the Honolulu mission, which was all the Hawaiian Islands, were at the conference, except for the missionaries in Laie mission which was the temple and the Polynesian Cultural Center area. The missionaries were flown over from the other islands for the conference.

First they started with a brunch of donuts and banana bread and milk and juice.

Next we went to one of the chapels and listened to talks, and then the office staff each gave a presentation about things in their areas such as the nurses talked about first aid kits in apartments.

After that they fed us lunch of Subway sandwiches. We then had a break where we could go and do anything we wanted.

Us and the Clark’s went to the Punchbowl. It’s an extinct volcano and the crater is now a memorial for fallen soldiers. It was created in the late 1940s, after Pearl Harbor, and the 112 acres are the final resting place of around 53,000 veterans from World Wars I and II, the Korean war and the war in Vietnam. 

We first walked up to the rim to enjoy the view of Honolulu. The road up had small memorials plaques for different groups of soldiers.

There were views from different sides of the rim. Plus beautiful trees and other memorials.

Coconut tree

This is looking down from the rim into the beautifully gardened crater cemetery.

 The below memorial is for the US military who were captured by the Japanese and died working on the Burma “Death” Railway, More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced laborers perished during the construction of the Burma Railway. Prisoners suffered from disease, starvation, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese.

After that we went to explore the main memorial in the Punchbowl.

The middle part, behind the tall statue is the chapel.

The interior of the two sides have maps depicting military action in the pacific and in the Korean and Vietnam war.

The maps and images are made out of colored mosiac concrete and colored pieces of glass.

The below is a slideshow of the maps and decriptions

The box looking buildings going down the stairs are the courts of the missing from each war.

The interior of the courts are covered in names

After we explored the memorial we headed to the mission home where president Sloat and his wife lived. It was a big house in a very nice neighborhood. It was beautifully decorated. They did add some pictures of their own on the walls. They had so much room that one of their sons and his wife and kids was staying with them while they waited for base housing.

Everyone got a picture with President and Sister Sloat before eating dinner.

The house even had a pool and we sat out there and ate our Hawaiian Haystack dinner. The couple we are sitting with were from another Island,one with not as many amenities as Oahu. They have one small grocery store. Their house doesn’t have hot water in the kitchen sink and it is limited on a lot of other things as well. They spend their time checking up on the elderly in the ward (branch?)

After dinner there was a farewell to the missionaries that were leaving and we sang them the Hawaiian Farewell song. They each bore wonderful testimonies. Everyone was allowed to wear Hawaiian shirts to the dinner, as you can see.

President Sloat gave each of the couples a spiral bound book of talks about Jesus made by prophets.

Thrift Shop Service

This is the St. Anthony thrift shop we serve at. It has the pantry in the back for homeless and other families in need. The Days served here before us, and the church donates food to their pantry. We usually put away food in the pantry, but I’ve been helping at the register for the past few weeks while Charlotte has had family in town. I also organize the shelves and make sure the right sizes are where they should be. The thrift shop has had 1/2 price sale on everything in the store the past month (December). Their prices on everything were already really low, so it’s probably the least expensive thrift shop I’ve ever been too. It’s been fun looking at stuff after I’m done serving, or as I organize things.

This is the pantry part of the building. People come in the back door to pick up food. We weigh donations and put them in the correctly marked cabinet.

Eating Lunch with the Birds

Egrets, chickens, and several other birds hang out at outdoor restaurants hoping to get a fallen morsel. You aren’t supposed to feed them because it just attracts them more, but Elder Whitman couldn’t resist because they were even standing on the tables while we ate.

Missionary Christmas Conference

The senior couples take turns providing the food and decorations for the conferences. This conference was for all Oahu and Kauai missionaries, so there were a lot of missionaries, so most of the Seniors brought food. I had told the sister that was in charge of the dinner that I had some decorations I had bought for the YSA party that she could use if she wanted to. She did, so she asked me to get there early to help decorate. Her husband brought wire cutters so I could cut apart the wreaths and greenery into small table centerpieces.

Their decorations were similar, but they had Sister Kitashima’s nativities she had collected all over the world that they put with the greenery. She had died right before we arrived in Hawaii. There were so many tables though so I put my centerpieces between the nativities and added bows, pinecones, and berries. It helped fill the tables in. I also had the tree I had gotten, the packages, and the two small trees. So I decorated with those as well. It really made things look festive.

The conference started in the beautiful chapel of the old tabernacle. There were talks and musical numbers.

After that was a wonderful lunch of ham, funeral potatoes, green beans, salad, rolls, and cake. The senior missionaries got to eat last after all the serving was done.

After eating, the missionaries shared their musical talents.

Then there was a final meeting in the chapel with more talks and musical numbers. President Sloat even sang. He was really good.

YSA Christmas Party

We went over about 4 to decorate and set up tables.I had asked the missionaries to come help. All 6 of them showed up. The set up tables and chairs, manually rolled up the basketball hoop, put up Christmas lights, etc. By the time President Aki got there things were looking pretty good. The decorating committee arrived after that and helped do the finishing touches. Sierra untangled the fairy lights, Max put the candies on the wall, Justin put out the decorations on the cookie table and found a large nativity, Humberto decorated the Christmas Tree. Someone brought a Christmas tree and they set it up and put lights on it. It looked great when everything was all done. I was glad the YSA had a beautiful Christmas party. We shared pictures on their facebook and a lot of people showed up at the next activity.

The grilling committee, with President Aki in charge, grilled a lot of yummy meat. The fire got out of control at one point. I think one of the committee was playing with it.

I made a salad with the leftover bags of lettuce from the Missionary conference. The also gave me a whole leftover yummy cake for the YSA party. There was also funeral potatoes, lots of desserts, rice. It all was really good.

After dinner we did the white elephant game. Alyssa had bought extra ones in case people forgot to bring some. Shayden surprised everyone when he came in dressed as Santa Claus ringing a bell. There were some funny gifts and some very coveted gifts like a Xbox that the Aki’s were getting rid of. There was also a lava lamp. speakers, silly gifts, a coveted Chinese wall hanging scroll, etc. We brought Whitman’s chocolates with a tag attached saying Elder and Sister Whitman’s chocolates.

Elder Whitman and the YSA High Counselor fought over these slipper fly swatters. Elder Whitman stole one from the High Counselor when it was his turn. The high counselor found another one in the wrapped gifts and they gave each other a high five with their slipper fly swatters. It was really funny.

After White Elephant they decorated cookies to give to people. I had made about 90 cookies for it and so did Sister Aki and she sent dough home with people as well. So we had over 400 cookies. But we really didn’t need that many. The frosting was mostly pastels and only a few sprinkles, so it was hard to decorate a good Christmas cookie.

They also had kareoke planned, but we got really tired and left before then. I guess it was supposed to go until 10. It had been a great party! Fortunately, we didn’t have to take down decorations because the Relief Society wanted to use them for their FHE Party.

Military FHE at Base Chapel

On Sunday we had the base military FHE at the chapel. The sister missionary that was normally in charge was transferred, and the ones left didn’t feel ready to take it on, so I was asked to arrange it. I asked the Kaneohe missionaries if they would give a lesson on Christmas symbols and I sent them a couple of church articles to help them. I also made some Christmas symbols as handouts and for them to use as visual aids. I took the little tree for them to get the children to hang them on as they talked about each one.

After the lesson I had asked Elder Whitman to be in charge of the game. I wanted to do the game Fruit Basket but using the Christmas symbols instead. It was a game where everyone was given one of the Christmas symbols and when the person in the middle called their symbol they had to change seats. It was a game that everyone could play and have fun with, kids and adults. The adults learned to just move over two seats but they children were racing around to the other side to find seats. Elder Whitman then had just the kids play for a little bit, but pretty soon they were trying to be in the middle. And then he had just the adults play. They couldn’t just move over two seats anymore. I think everyone had fun.

After that we had refreshments. I had asked 5 people to bring treats, a couple were families that didn’t go to church very often. One of them didn’t make it and the other dropped off her treats and left. So much for fellowshipping.

One of the families I asked to bring treats was the ones that had the snow cone machine. They brought it with all their toppings. It was a hit! It had been a fun activity. We are supposed to use our talents to aid in our mission, and planning activities is one I can use.