BYU Hawaii

When we arrived in Hawaii, Brother & Sister John Bailey picked us up at the airport and greeted us with a beautiful lei.  Every time I have visited Hawaii, I always wanted to be welcomed in that way.  We loved the lei.  The next day, we had the opportunity to be guests in Brother Bailey's education classes and we shared a little bit about our teaching experiences.

That morning we had breakfast in the student cafeteria.  As we were getting our breakfast, there was only 1 person in the entire place that talked to us.  He asked us if we were from England because he had noticed our name tag.  We found out he was from FIJI!  We had breakfast with him and we were so impressed with him. He is the only member of his family.  He came from a small island in Fiji and met the missionaries.  When his family found out he was joining the church they kicked him out of the house.  They put him on a boat to Suva which he said was a two and a half day boat ride.  He went on a mission for the church and he said he wrote his family every week, but they never wrote him back.  When he returned from his mission, there was no one there to welcome him home.  He stayed in Suva and went to the church school and worked.  He continued to send letters to his family and asked the missionaries to deliver them.  His family has finally softened their hearts somewhat, and they are communicating with him now. We had tears in our eyes as we listened to his story about all he sacrified for the Church of Jesus Christ.   

 The BYU Hawaii campus has some beautiful buildings.  This is a mosaic portraying David O. McKay at a flag raising ceremony at an elementary school in Hawaii.  This gave him the vision to expand the church college system, so these children could further their education.

We were so surprised to have a cute 1 bedroom apartment right on the beach.  This is our view from the porch.  As we were unpacking I hear Mike say, "Oh my gosh!"  I thought something was wrong and asked him what was the matter.  He says, "This place is so awesome!"

This was one of the beautiful sunrises we have witnessed as we walked on the beach.

We had dinner with Courtney and Robby Hundley and their cute girls.  We had a really nice time visiting with them.  



We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center and these are the cast members from Fiji.

This is Mike dancing with the other lucky people that had birthdays in October.
Fiji's Independence Day is October 10th, the same as his birthday! 

The Laie Temple.  It has been closed for over a year because of remodeling and the Open House starts next week.  We missed it by 3 days. 

We leave for Fiji on Tuesday, October 19th.