Graduation Night - May 9, 2008

It's been a while since I've posted anything new! Preparing for our trip and the end of the semester!

But we're here in Pennsylvania now, and enjoyed being able to attend the graduation exercises for Jenny and Aaron. Here are some pictures from the event!

Before leaving for graduation, we took a picture with mom and dad and . . .

. . . . Jenny and Aaron at their apartment. Jenny graduated with honors (cum laude) which means she graduated with above 3.5 and wore the "ropes," or cords. Since Aaron finished his Master's degree, he wore the hood and was "hooded" at the ceremony. He's wearing it in the picture above, before leaving for the commencement exercises.

Afterwards, some evidence that Hawaii was a part of the ceremony with the leis from the islands!

Afterwards we came back and had brownie sundaes with Aaron's parents, his brother and sister-in-law, and all of us. It was a fun memory and we were really glad we were here to participate in it.

We're staying at a bed 'n' breakfast a few miles outside of town, an older country home, originally built in 1830, called the Partnership House (http://www.partnershiphouse.com/). We have enjoyed our country style breakfasts both mornings and learning more about the area.

Accreditation is Officially Done! (for at least five years)

Our accreditation visit was held last Wednesday-Friday, March 26-28. March 26 was actually a holiday (Kuhio Day) and March 27 was my birthday--so it was interesting timing for the visit. We had five team members plus the representative from the accreditation office. We have been preparing for several months, including a 50-page report I worked on during the Christmas holiday that was due in January, a schedule for the team appointments for those three days, a team room with material they requested, an assessment "best practices" display and reception, just to name a few of the aspects that kept me busy. But the brief oral report on Friday by the team chair was extremely positive and many expressed appreciation for the work and organization shown during their visit. We'll get the first draft of the written report sometime this month or next, make any revisions in errors, and then get the final results during July.

To celebrate, Dianna and I enjoyed a relaxing Saturday, including lunch at a Thai restaurant in Haleiwa.

Then on Monday our SIFE team competed in the regional competition in Honolulu. It was actually some close competition--both HPU and BYUH were selected to go to the national conference last year but only one could attend this year--there were a total of four schools in the league and we won. We took 21 students from BYUH (the largest delegation we have taken to a regional meeting), and the presentation team was incredible--much time and effort was dedicated to this presentation. Our student leadership with Al Doan and his support team are exemplary, committed leaders. Now we're planning for the national conference in Chicago.

That conference will come at the tail-end of our visit to Jenny's and Aaron's graduations, which will include visits to Palmyra. Dianna's been successful in making some arrangements there. We're looking forward to the break in routine and time with the Jensens.

We enjoyed Family Home Evening last night with Lindsey and the boys--John is on Molokai for the construction project. Trevor conducted the meeting, Devin lead the music (sound familiar) and then Trevor selected a game for us all to play (the Stars game). It's fun to have little ones again for a Family Home Evening--we really do miss those fun years (most of the time).

Megan was excited to receive an email yesterday offering a scholarship at LDS Business College (half tuition for two semesters) but she's also waiting to hear from BYU Idaho. It's nice that she's beginning to have some options and to be selected for some special freshman awards.

This will be all of my musing for now--look forward to reading yours!

Stake Conference

We're excited for Erin and Wil and their fun news!!--it was great to be the first to hear that they are having a boy--Dianna wasn't home so Erin called me at the office. Seems like only a few years ago that we were preparing for her birth, shortly after we arrived in Hawaii. Wasn't that two or three years ago?

And Lindsey turns 28 tomorrow--that's also very hard to believe. Mom looked at the picture of our family, which is sitting in our kitchen window, and had tears in her eyes as she tried to recall when we had four little ones in the house. I honestly can say I didn't wish for them to grow up fast--we kind of prided ourselves in allowing their childhood to be longer than many others. I wonder what traditions they will adopt from their growing up and which ones they will choose not to adopt!

We had a busy few days this past weekend with Elder Sheldon Child, our visiting general authority, who was here for our stake conference on Friday and Saturday. We met with him from 2:30-5 on Saturday, including an hour with our five bishops. Then dinner and then the evening session from 6:30-8:00--I spoke at that session.

When we were planning our stake conference, we called Elder Child about a month ago and he said the brethren have asked them to focus on (1) increasing our testimonies of the Savior and (2) strengthening families. So I combined the two topics and spoke on the importance of the parents' role in increasing the testimonies of their children. I pointed out that Dianna and I didn't grow up in LDS families so sharing our testimonies was a new concept to us; we used to avoid fast and testimony meetings when we were investigating! However, we tried to help our children develop their testimonies by having weekly home evening, daily scripture reading, family prayer (morning and night), and participating in various ordinances (father's blessings and baptisms, etc.). Something I think we could have done more was actually share our testimonies as parents and teach our children how to share their testimony, beginning in family home evening. I can always tell those families in which children have had the opportunity to do that. I hope each our daughters/husbands will have their children share their testimonies often during appropriate times in the family and regularly share their testimonies on fast and testimony Sundays--your children will gain strength and be among those willing to be bold enough to share theirs some day. It's so important today with all the challenges facing youth and it will only get more difficult--they'll need that extra strength! We'll try to help, too.

Elder Child talked then about the importance of family home evening. He pointed out that the brethren are concerned about how distractions are interfering with our families holding family home evening on Monday night. So I'm appealing to each of us as families to have our weekly home evenings every Monday; it's the really important. We always kept the TV off, didn't answer the phone, and had family focus time. We were more faithful when our four were young, but it's been more difficult with only one--and a senior! But we're going to do better as well.

At our Sunday morning meeting, Sister Ellis spoke; her husband is first counselor in the temple presidency. She shared how she attended a preschool "graduation" for her four-year-old granddaughter. The children were asked to share what they wanted to be when they grew up. One boy wanted to be a fireman, and another wanted to be a policeman; one boy wanted to be a lion (she wondered about him as he bounded on the stage). When her little granddaughter came forward, the teacher asked her what she wanted to be and she said, "I want to be a Relief Society worker and go to the temple every day like my tutu (grandmother)." We were all touched and hopefully you are too as you think about the examples we set for our children.

Elder Child was very positive about our stake and said we're doing everything perfectly--he didn't really have any suggestions for improvement--especially since we have almost 90 percent sacrament attendance--but we want 100! I enjoy our stake members--cute families, young children--we have nearly 100 children under the age of 2 in our stake! These families keep our bishops very busy but we have a great team.

We had several opportunities to eat while Elder Child was here; he visited some member homes on Saturday morning, and some of them had prepared food; there was a TVA activity with food, then our Saturday evening dinner, then lunch after the conference on Sunday. He said our theme song for our stake should be, "'Til We Eat Again." . . . 'til we eat, eat eat, 'til we eat . . . Guess that's the theme song should be here in Hawaii.

Mom prepared wonderful lasagna last night and we invited Steve Gibson over for dinner; his wife is on the mainland. So I've already had my birthday dinner but I think we're getting together with the Pierces next Monday night for our FHE-combined-birthday dinner for Lindsey and me.

Last week (Thursday) Dianna and I went to the school play, "All My Sons," a play by Arthur Miller, based on a true story. It's an American tragedy; one of my students in my communications class had a supporting role. They had the seating on the stage (about 5 rows) so we were only a few feet from the characters. Most of the characters were very strong and it was very sobering message . . . with a surprise ending.

Last week I represented our university president at a meeting in the our governor's conference room; it was a 17-member task force that's looking at options to buy the Turtle Bay Hotel and the land around it to preserve the beaches etc. It was a proposal the governor made in her "State of the State." I was even on the news when they filmed those of us at the meeting. Our president was out of town last week and is out of town for our meeting again tomorrow, so I'll represent him again there.

Closing story: Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was: A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

I enjoy reading the blogs of our family members and learning about their activities. It was great to see Jenny's update with her class and then visit on Saturday. We were a part of Lindsey's blog as they spent time here yesterday--Trevor is very creative and will probably become a professional traveler. All his games revolve around planes and theme parks. Erin's having fun in Melbourne now so it will be fun to learn about her travels there. It's been helpful to read about Megan's thoughts since we don't get to have too many conversations . . . So these are a useful means to keep in touch with one another!

Mom's made her reservations for May to Iowa and Pennsylvania. I need to finalize my schedule and make my reservations as well; she'll leave a little earlier so she can get to Iowa and then return earlier while I go to Chicago. She's also made reservations for both of us to visit Australia the end of July. Aunty Betty will "housesit" while we're gone and looks forward to some vacation time after a brutal Iowa winter.

My dad seems to be showing some signs of improvement but still very dependent on his health care, particularly the regular diabetes checks 3-4 times each day.

We enjoyed our dinner with Keith and Judy Roberts at Turtle Bay last night; they'll be leaving on April 8 so it was great to spend some time with them before they leave. Our days and evenings are always full, it seems. For example, this week during the evenings:

Monday - President Arnold Wunder from Maui and his wife came for dinner; mom prepared a great meal (chicken rollups!). He was the devotional speaker on Tuesday
Tuesday - I participated in ministering visits for the BYUH 9th Ward, which had its ward conference today
Wednesday - I attended a Planning Advisory Committee meeting (6:30-9:30 p.m.) for the sustainability plan for Koolauloa. Keith has been the BYUH representative and now I'll be filling in for him.
Thursday - We did the temple sealings that Dianna wrote about in her blog--certainly a highlight and particularly to have Lindsey and John assist us.
Friday - We relaxed at home!

In conclusion, my highlights for the week were our two temple experiences; first, we attended the usual 5:30 a.m. session yesterday. Second, I always enjoy completing our family names for temple baptisms, endowments, etc., but I had a feeling of real rejoicing in doing the sealings. I felt like those who were on the other side were truly rejoicing that their work had been truly completed, they were sealed as couples and families forever, and could finally reap the full benefit of the gospel. It will be fun to visit with them some day and learn about what they were experiencing on their side of the veil.

Now that we completed our last of five ward conferences today for this academic year, we are now preparing for our stake conference which will be held next Sunday with Elder Sheldon Child as our visiting general authority. I've been working on my talk today!

Executive Committee Meeting

For the past several weeks, I have been planning and worrying about our Executive Committee meeting. They flew in on the Huntsman jet on Sunday, went to four different locations for firesides; we met all day in meetings. I was at the office by 6 a.m. to make a few changes to my presentation and check that everything was ok.

The meeting went well and seems like a real blessing to have two apostles (Elder Nelson and Elder Ballard) and other general authorities (Elder Tingey who is president of the presidency of the seventy) and Sister Beck (general RS president). We also had the other CES presidents (President Samuelson, President Clark, and President Woodhouse); Elder Kerr, our commissioner; Gary Moore, Seminary and Institute Director; and other commissioner staff (Roger Christensen and Jim Tidwell). They spoke at 4 this afternoon to the full BYUH ohana and encouraged us to support change.

I got home around 6 so it was one of those 12-hour days. They return to SLC tomorrow.

WORK, WORK, WORK

This month has been busy--to say the least--and it doesn't help that I'm awake by 3-4 a.m. thinking about what needs to be done. Occupying my thoughts and time has been the work of our Organizational Design Team (along with Bret Ellis, Steve Tueller, David Lucero, Arapata Meha, and Susan Barton). Lots of hours and considerable stress as we look at how to restructure BYU Hawaii so that it's less costly. We meet about 8 hours/week but are expected to spend 15-20 percent of our time on these activities.

Our Executive Committee (12 members that includes Elder Nelson, Elder Ballard, Sister Beck, Elder Tingey) arrive tomorrow to speak at four firesides on the island and then meet with us all Monday. We had originally been asked to schedule six FHE groups but they were canceled yesterday by the commissioners office. Working with President Wheelwright on the agenda and working with the presenters has kept us busy.

Our WASC accreditation team comes next month--five members will be on campus--which will complete a five year, three phase process. I worked on formatting the 50-page report during the Christmas holidays. Now it's up to the faculty as they meet with the team to share their program outcomes and evidence of student learning.

We have weekly President's Council and President's Advisory Council meetings, as well as monthly University Council meetings; weekly PIRAT (Planning, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Testing) meetings; weekly IR meetings with the student researchers.

I'm team teaching business communications again this semester--it's a highlight for me to be working with the students, twice each week for 90 minutes. The class is totally different from the way I taught it previously with more technology.

I'm also the SIFE advisor and we're preparing for our regional competition the end of March. We have an outstanding president with Al Doan and continued support by alumni and others. Our national conference is in Chicago in May.

Serving as the first counselor in the stake presidency with weekly presidency, twice monthly PEC, monthly bishopric training, and stewardship interviews with each of the Elders Quorum presidents is fulfilling and another highlight. We're preparing for our stake conference that will be held on March 15-16 with Elder Sheldon Childs as our visiting authority.

Serving as a dad (when Megan has time) and to my other favorite daughters is a highlight; Dianna and I always compare notes each day to see if we've heard from them sometime during the day (the "Millennial Generation"). Of course we love our time with Trevor (piano lesson each Thursday), and with Devin and Kyle. Always a lot we could write about.

Dianna and I are looking forward to our travels to Pennsylvania in May and to Australia in July--some fun family events! More as we go along--these are some of the things that keep us busy.

Trevor and Devin and Kyle

We enjoy spending time with the boys--they have such great imaginations and like to use their experiences in travel. We were with the boys at their home the other night while John and Lindsey had an activity. Trevor wanted to play hotel; so when I arrived, he had me wait in the lobby (living room) and then checked me into my room (their room, second door on the left). They had a lot of their toys on the floor so I "complained" that the hotel hadn't prepared the room after the previous guest had left and wondered if he could get the maid to get it ready. He said there was a "boy maid" that would get it ready and I could go back and wait in the lobby. A few minutes later the room was ready and I checked in. Later we sat on the bed and did lots of rides (sounded like a lot of the Disney rides) going up and up and then all of a sudden going fast down the the track and around the curves.

We laughed one evening when he was at our place; Dianna prepared his dinner and then he got to full to finish everything and asked for a box for take home.

We decided that they are certainly getting a fair share of restaurants and travel! Like I said--fun and imaginative.

Devin's attention span is also getting longer so he focuses on activities longer--I enjoy just holding Kyle--and getting some more and more smiles!