Week 58-62 KIA Heaven

Aloha Dear Friends and Family:

We find ourselves at the 14 month mark with just four months to serve.  It’s so bittersweet pondering our departure as we’ve absolutely loved our time living among and feeling a part of the Hawaiian culture and people.  They are so loving, so welcoming, so willing to serve the Lord.  I think God must be Hawaiian 🙂  We are immersed in all of it and feel so grateful.

Speaking of gratitude we’ve been so very busy switching out the GPS devices that are installed in each vehicle which monitors driving behaviors.  It’s a safety tool that has dramatically reduced the number of accidents among all missionaries who drive church-owned vehicles.  (As a mission we named the device JARVIS-Just a Really Very Intelligent System, from the movie Iron Man.  It fits!).  The church recently switched companies, so every car in our mission needed to have the new devices installed and it fortunately coincided with the arrival of about 35 of our new KIA Sportages on all the islands.  So at all the zone conferences we were there to bring in new KIA Sportages, switch out old devices and put new ones into new and existing cars and then take old cars to trade in to the KIA dealers.  It was quite the logistical undertaking that required lots of coordination and organization.  We made mistakes, but with the help of other senior couples on the outer islands, we got it done.  Michael and I flew back and forth to Maui, Kauai and the Big Island on three consecutive days thinking we’d planned enough spare time to explore each island a bit, but in the end, we had zero time left so we ended up with good views of the airport to the KIA dealer to the church parking lots.   That was four weeks ago and since then we’ve also swapped out 21 old cars here in Oahu for new KIAs.  It’s KIA Heaven here in the Honolulu Hawaii Mission; a total of 66 new cars (our fleet total is 110, that’s a lot of cars).  These are great vehicles, almost too nice for young missionaries, so when we got a call last week that somebody scratched the side of one of our brand new KIAs we were pretty heart sick.  It will be repaired, but like our children, these cars are growing up so fast.

Sadly during this time, our sweet 103 year old stepfather and grandfather passed away.  Floyd Anderson married Michael’s mother three years after his father was tragically killed in an airplane crash when Michael was just 14 years old.  So Floyd has been in his life for over 53 years.  He has been grandpa to our children and grandchildren.  He lived a most interesting life, including pilot training during World War II, service as a church missionary in the mid-western states, a professional career as a psychologist and professor, and was a loving grandparent and great grandparent.  He loved education and shared many stories of his life with us.  We flew to Utah for a few days to celebrate his life with family and friends.  It was a lovely service attended by all of our children and many of my siblings, which is a tribute to the impact he had on their lives.  Michael’s remarkable 95 year old mother, Alice, spoke at the funeral.  He will be greatly missed.  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/saltlaketribune/name/floyd-anderson-obituary?id=62453440

Mission life continues to inspire and thrill us as we watch our young missionaries teach and baptize some wonderful friends who bring their curiosity and eagerness to learn more about our Savior.  We are all seeking that light and truth.  God has shown Himself to me through this beautiful gospel and we are forever grateful to our Savior Jesus Christ for His atoning sacrifice which makes it possible for us to be forgiven of our mistakes and feel whole through His amazing love.  We can’t do this life alone; He is always there for us.

Thank you for your love and support.  We feel it and are strengthened by it.

Michael and Karen