Megan's Graduation

Our May highlights were Megan's graduation from seminary and from Kahuku High School. We began our Hawaii public school affiliation with Lindsey entering kindergarten in 1985 and ending 23 years later with Megan's graduation--thus 23 of our 24 years here in Hawaii.

Megan was one of the speakers at the seminary graduation; since they were studying the Old Testament she was asked to identify someone one from that book whom she admired and why. She chose Jonah and shared how initially he didn't want to do what the Lord wanted him to do but was able to overcome and served as an example. She was confident and powerful in her delivery--of course, we were proud!

Seminary Graduation, Sunday, May 18, 2008

Kahuku Graduation, Thursday, May 29, 2008

Lots of leis!

It was a good evening and the reality that this was our last high school graduation made it more eventful. Now Trevor starts kindergarten in the fall so we'll be watching and supporting on the sidelines as Lindsey begins her adventure into public schools with her children. I have a strong feeling she'll also be involved with the programs like we were as well.

Megan's next adventure is LDS Business College in the fall and then BYU Idaho in January! Three college graduates, one to go!

SIFE--Chicago and Nauvoo (May 14-19)

My last post was when we were in Palmyra and enjoying all the church history.

On our return, I stopped in Chicago to meet with the BYUH group to attend the SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) conference on May 14-16. I met our delegation of 19 students there who were busily engaged in preparing for the competition and enjoying some of the downtown Chicago sites when I arrived. This was the hardest working group I have advised, lead by an outstanding president, Al Doan. Their presentation and report were phenomenal, the judges were complimentary, and they received First Runnerup in their league, putting them in the top 40 in the country. Actually I think they would be in the top 25 at least, based on some of the other presentations we saw. (pictures to be added later)

From there, we drove to Nauvoo; most of the students hadn't been there before and it's fun to take groups to Nauvoo--much to see and to experience. We left after the awards assembly and arrived safely at about 12:30 a.m., traveling in four separate cars, and pulled right up to the temple for pictures and reflection.

After some sleep, we spent the day on Friday touring Nauvoo and Carthage--the group enjoyed some play time and some serious moments as they walked the "Trail of Hope," attended a session in the temple, and visited the Carthage jail.

Trail of Hope, where the pioneers walked, leaving their Nauvoo homes

Nik and Jordan ready for a ride

Our BYUH SIFE "Pioneers"

This was a quick but memorable trip as we then returned to Chicago (airport) for our 8 a.m. flight. We left Nauvoo about 12:30 a.m. Saturday and arrived in Chicago around 4:30 a.m., in time to check everyone in and to get to our gate. After an all day flight, we were glad to be home and greeted by family and friends.

Next year's officers and members have already begun planning for next year with the hopes of doing even better in Philadelphia in 2009.

Palmyra and Fabius, New York (May 6-8, 2008)

Before we arrived in Pennsylvania, we enjoyed a few days in Palmyra, NY, near Rochester. We arrived first at the visitor's center which is at the base of Hill Cumorah; the main feature inside the visitor's center was a display about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we enjoyed. While in Palmyra, we stayed at the Liberty House Bed and Breakfast (http://www.libertyhousebb.com/).

After lunch, we headed to the Joseph Smith home, the rebuilt cabin where the Smith family first lived and then the two-story home where they later moved. This is the upstairs of the reconstructed cabin on the actual site where the Angel Moroni would have appeared to Joseph Smith. There were two beds where the six boys slept upstairs.

Across the road was the Sacred Grove; we were the only ones walking through the grove so it was a great experience to stop and just listen--birds were humming, the brook was singing for us...

The next day we drove to Fabius, New York, about 90 minutes away from Palmyra, to do some family history work! This is the small village where many of the Rowleys lived, were born, married, and died. My great grandmother Olive Rowley was born here before her family moved to the Iowa area where she met and married James Shelby Neal.

Olive's father was David Reynolds Rowley (married Arlatia Woodruff) and David's father was Newell Rowley (1814-1897), and David's mother was Eliza Jennet Porter Rowley (1814-1847). In the Evergreen Cemetery in Fabius, we located the graves for Newell and Eliza.

After working on their family history, we enjoyed getting a connection to this village (located in a beautiful area near the finger lakes area of New York, lots of hills and trees, apple tree orchards, and other scenic vistas) and especially the people. These ancestors, Newell and Eliza, would be my great great great grandparents--three greats!

In the same vein, we attended a temple session in the Palmyra temple--small, quaint, and very friendly officiators. It topped our visit to this "cradle of the church restoration," as it's called here.

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!