2nd Week - Trying to adjust to the time change

The first week of our “Dream Come True.” Sorry, I can't get my pictures in!! Our first week in Laie has been wonderful. We live 1.5 blocks from the beach and in the other direction 1.5 blocks from work (school). We live right across the street from the Polynesian Cultural Center and about three blocks from the Temple that will open in November after a year long renovation. We are able to hear the musical performances and practices that go on in the evenings at the PCC. We will be working in the BYU Hawaii Office of Honor. The purpose of this department is to educate and encourage students to keep their commitments they made when entering school: Honesty, chastity, residential living, dress & grooming. Another part of the Honor Code is that students are expected to govern not only themselves, but to let other students know if they are violating some part of the Honor Code. Our goal is to shift the perception about our department from being an “enforcement” department to one of educating and encouraging students to take their commitments seriously. We have spent much of this week reading last year’s cases, just to help us see what violations have been made & the resulting consequences. We both know we’re going to love it!!

Because of the time change, we wake up early each morning and go for a walk. We try to go someplace different each morning. We also walk to work and then walk in the evening -- if it doesn’t interfere with our 9 p.m. bedtime! It rains almost every day, we have been told that a 30% chance of rain here means that it will rain three times during the day. We have been soaked once while we walked, most of the time it’s OK.

Laie is considered living in the “country.” We are sure glad that we do. Even though there are paved roads and sidewalks, there are lots of chickens running around all thru town. One jumped up out of a garbage can as we walked by and scared us both. We have geckos in the house and lizards outside of the front door.

There are many senior missionaries here and they are all so friendly. They have lots of get-togethers, that we are sure we’ll get involved in. We will be trained next week to work a couple of hours each week at the Polynesian Cultural Center (plus enjoy their great buffet dinners).

We hope to see someone we know while we’re here, so start looking at your calendar & saving your $$.