Sunday, September 22, 2013

Today is Sept 22nd and it is of course a beautiful dy in Hawaii. It is Sunday and we have church at 8:20 am and I just love that as we get home before 11:30 and have some time to do other things. Then I have my stake choir practice at 4 pm and tonight we are singing at a fireside where Elder Shumway is speaking.  He was the President of BYU Hawaii. We are all looking forward to that. Sooo I have been baking cookies for the fifty kids that will be singing, they are all so adorable. I will try and remember to take pictures of all of them and post them next time to this blog and maybe to Facebook. I can hardly believe that I have only 10 weeks to go and then I will be coming home and then what???? I have been so busy here that I have discovered that I have more energy than I ever thought I would at my age. So I am already started planning on what I am going to do when I get there. I sure don't want to sit around like I can't d anything right? I think we are all so much happier too when we are busy.  I am so excited that I will be able to see the show Kimberly is directing for Starlight theater, I just wish I could be in it of course.  I am thinking though of possibly putting a show together that people my age and older would like and visiting rest homes and retirement centers and perhaps earning a little money on the side to make life a little easier. I can't think of anything I would rather do as long as the good Lord allows me to keep my voice. I have sung a lot here and of course loved doing that and have learned some new songs.

Last week I started working in the new beautiful merchandise store that is located in the Hawaiian Journey building where they show our new IMAX movie on Hawaii of course. So I have met some wonderful young people I just love being with and that is expanding my experience. Since I already knew how to use the cash register since we have one in the mission settlement they had no training to do other than showing me around. We have pretty expensive things in there but very beautiful. Anyway it makes life interesting to change around and do different things. Also I go back over to the settlement at 4:30 and help them with late customers and Ukuleles. We are the busiest at that time of the day after folks have been to all the village shows. Sorry my life is not that exciting these days just kind of the same thing now every day. Well that isn't totally true, I have been seeing more of the island with the kids when they were here and  my friends I live with like to get out and do fun things go to new places etc. I do still miss everyone and plan on gtting up to SLC not too long after I get home to see the friends up there. Funny thing is that I have made a bunch of new missionary friends who are from AZ so we will be having get togethers every so often to keep  the friendships going and I look forwrd to that a lot.
Love you all, Brenda

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Gosh it has been quite awhile since I wrote on this blog. I guess things were a lot the same every week for awhile so it would have been quite boring to read.  The weather of course is pretty much the same all the time, no exciting hurricane warnings or tsunami warnings lately but beautiful sunny weather and very very hot.

We just completed the week of the fiftieth anniversary of te PCC and thousands of people came from all over the world to attend. There were people here who went all the way back to when it opened fifty years ago. They had so many events I couldn't go to very many of them but that was okay I was here with Kimberly and Kevin They came on Sept. 3rd, the day my darling husband passed three years ago and as many of you know that was also his birthday. So it was a great time for them to come see me. We did have a great time together and I took quite a bit of time off to be with them. One day they just took the car and went where they wanted to go but pretty much the rest of the time we were together. I would say the highlight of their visit was a one hour helicopter ride over the entire island of Oahu. Wow what an incredible gift that was from Kim. We were in an exact replica of the helicopter that was in Magnum P.I. if any of you are old enough to remember that favorite show. Anyway what an amazing event that was and one we will never ever forget. We spent a whole day together going through the PCC seeing everything, all the shows and they met a few of the kids I work with and the missionaries I work with every day.  They went to church with me on Sunday and then they were with me when the brand new stake center/business school was dedicated by Elder Russel Nelson. I directed my small bi-stake choir and they sand beautifully, better than ever and I was so very proud of them. I loved the whole experience although it took a whole lot of every Sunday rehearsing. That usually was the highlight of my day.

Oh we did meet up with the Richardson's from our ward as they were there at the PCC for a day.  That was fun.  I loved introducing Kim and Kevin to many people I have been working with.

We did all sorts of things like seeing the beautiful replica of a Buddist Temple not far from here on the way to Honolulu, went to the Macadamia nut factory. That is not far from here either and lots of fun sampling all kinds of flavors.

The beach was great of course an we all got sunburned, well I did anyway because I hardly ever go to the beach. All in all we had a great week and ended it with meeting Kim's friend who has gone to Ethiopia with her group, also another friend she has attended seminars with. That was a great ay and lots of fun.

I have several new roommates since Janice and Linda and Emma left. There are new ones upstairs too and we all get along just great. It is interesting to have all these women living together after we have all run our own homes for years. It takes some getting used to and lots of give and take.

They have changed everything about the wards and we meet lots of new kids this coming Sunday but I have heard that ours isn't mixed at all and that makes me sad. I really enjoy working with the kids from many different countries.

I am coming home in Dec. so I have only about 13 weeks left, so hard to believe. Jordan comes home to AZ Dec. 3rd and I want to be there to see hi before he goes off to college. It is going to be a great month this December.

I must get going to get to work for the day, I start spending several hours a day in a beautiful retail store after I work in the settlement. It was at least have air conditioning and that will be great. Maybe I won't get so very tired.

Love you all, have a great week.

Sister Brenda