Weeks 53-57 Hurricane Watch
As the weeks continue to fly by we continue to easily admit that mission life is great! And part of this admission is that serving as a senior couple, with its flexibilities not afforded to younger missionaries, helps to make a mission life even better. But still at the core of what we do is the love of the Lord, His Gospel, and the hundreds of young missionaries who have taken this leap of faith and signed on to 18 to 24 months of hard, but rewarding service. We thoroughly enjoy teaching friends with the missionaries, participating in weekly district council and zone meetings, and serving their needs as they go out two by two and share the good word.
We love our temple days with our district once a transfer (every 6 weeks)
Saying good-bye to Elder Berry (3rd from the left back row) and to our district. Such great, hard working missionaries!!
Elder Mangum serving with Elder Seethaler and Elder Berry at the temple
Sister Mangum serving up tennis balls with Sister Nutall a few times this transfer. Sister Nuttall played tennis in high school and so getting back on the court brings her great joy! (The Diamond Head back drop also bring us great joy!)
Typically to talk about the weather is a rather dull topic, except that here in Hawaii we seem to now be on continual hurricane watch as several of these beasts are once again lined up out in the ocean to our east. One hurricane, Lala, has already ravaged the Big Island, knocking out power, and washing out roads and bridges. Even here on Oahu our power went out for 20 hours and we were reminded of how we would have not made good pioneers back in the day. And now Lowell is threatening Kauai. Not to mention Karina and Marie who are still lurking in the distant shadows and slowly heading in our general direction. Time will tell. We always knew that the tropics are known for ongoing ocean breezes and occasional strong winds, but we had no idea that hurricanes also are part of the rich climate phenomena.
Downed trees were a common site all over Oahu after the hurricane. We lost power for 20 hours due to a downed tree nearby. Many nearby areas were without power for several days.
This is a view from the Big Island where roads were washed away. Gratefully our missionaries were safe and are now back in their areas.
Hurricane Lala hit on a Sunday so all church meetings were cancelled. We joined with two districts to hold a sacrament and testimony meeting in our mission office building which had some power. Missionaries bearing witness of truths they’ve learned while serving as a missionary is inspiring and life affirming–a small joy amidst the big storm.
The mission is growing as large numbers of young missionaries are being called to serve here, particularly sister missionaries. In fact, last week’s transfer included the arrival of 20 sister missionaries and 5 elders, while only 7 missionaries returned home. And more large groups are on their way. We love the influx of sister missionaries and soon the mission will be approaching a 50/50 mix of elders and sisters.
Here are 5 of the 7 missionaries heading home. We’ve made good friends with all of them and admire their sincere dedication and service to the Lord.
Our fleet of 110 cars keeps us busy — oil changes, tire rotations, safety inspections, renewing registrations, flat tires, mechanical breakdowns, fender benders — all make for each day being a little different. About half of the fleet is being replaced with 2027 models over the next 2-3 months so this will require our close attention to the many details associated with trading in old 2023 and 2024 models for new Kia Sportages. Let’s just say that we look forward to ridding the fleet of Nissan Rogues as they have been just that, mechanical rogues that refuse to conform to what we consider to be acceptable breakdown rates. (Sorry, not sorry, Nissan.)
We enjoy spending time with other senior couples on the island. And sadly last week we said good-bye to another office couple, Eric and Debbie Vogelsberg, who served as housing coordinators. We haven’t met more hard-working, organized, dedicated people! We will greatly miss them.
We’re down about 10 senior couples since we arrived a year ago. They are not being replaced due to the demand for senior couples in the growing number of missions worldwide.
Good-bye office missionaries dinner for the Vogelsbergs (second and third on the left). Such great people!
Thanks for reading this installment of our mission blog. We head home in five months so if you want to come visit you better start crackin’. We would love to see and hear from anyone who is so inclined. We thoroughly enjoyed our short visit with Bishop Johnson, his wife Jenny and their son Cole who stopped by before helping Cole get settled at BYU-Hawaii where he will begin his college career, Excited for him!
God bless,
Michael and Karen Mangum