Snooze -- You Lose

By now you must have all heard the story of the earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that was a result of that earthquake. At about 10pm on the evening of Thursday, March 10th, the first of the tsunami warning sirens went off here in Laie. The only problem was, we had gone to bed at 9 pm and didn’t even hear that siren, or any other sirens for the next 5 hours. At 3:45 am, the deaf guy hears a helicopter fly over with its siren blaring. When I woke up, the lights of the apartment upstairs deck were on and I could hear the boys outside talking. Curfew is midnight and I was about half mad at the kids for waking me up. About ½ hour later the lights went off and so I just went back to sleep. I was the only one that had even sat up in bed to look out and see the lights. Terri (Eileen’s sister) and her husband Mat were staying with us. We all slept peacefully until Brooke, as well as Eileen’s mother called at 6:30 a.m. and asked if we were alright. We were surprised by their calls, since we had gone to bed early and not watched any TV that evening, we hadn’t heard about the potential 25 foot wave that had been forecast for Hawai, nor the evacuation warning. A 25 foot wave going 500 miles an hour would literally devastate this town. There was some damage in Hawaii, but none on this Island. That is the hand of the Lord.

At 10 p.m. the entire town of Laie evacuated to high ground. Hundreds of people brought their valuables, & 72-hour packs to the mountainside hear the Temple. People who had cars, tried to sleep in them. It was a long worrisome night for them. The blaring sirens went off every hour - on the hour. When we got to campus at 8am, we were the only ones there. We saw several kids walking back to the dorms carrying their pillows and other things that they had taken with them to high ground. People were stunned & amazed that we had not even heard the siren and had been able to sleep thru them. (In our defense, even tho all of our windows were open, they face the ocean and the sound of the surf is ever present and our apartment is made of block & concrete, and is a basement apartment -- very soundproof).

I hope you have all seen the destruction of the tsunami waves that hit Japan. It is a really sad thing to think about that devastation. We don't know how many of the kids from Japan here at BYU Hawaii lost family or friends in that disaster. Keep praying for them. They said of the 7 Missions in Japan, only 1 did not have all of the Missionaries accounted for.

The whales are in the Hawaii area from December until May. It is really quite exciting to stand at the railing of the deck and look out and see at least a “spout” . If you get the binoculars (whale watchers as Trey calls them) and follow the spouts for a minute or two, you can see which way they are going and kind of get an idea how many there are in the pod. You might see a back or two as they drift along the surface and get their breath. When they finally dive, is when you get to see the tails out of the water.

We are in a beautiful place. The weather is always wonderful. We are having a fantastic time. We love being and serving here. But miss and love our family. (Hoping for visitors).