The Latest

So we had "world fest" a few weeks ago and I signed up for the Tongan and Fiji club.  They've had a few opening socials here and there which I have gone too, but a couple Sunday's ago they had gospel forums.  Pretty much each club put on their own fireside.  Me and my roommates hit the Samoan one first.  We played a game where we were divided into groups and each group had an animal sound.  Then we got all mixed up, closed our eyes, got on all fours, and made our animal sounds and tried to find the rest of our herd!  Then a Samoan talked to us about some of the customs and gave a gave an example sample "thank you" speak to us.  It was rather long.  My roommate said Samoans talk forever and they just keep going on and on and thank everyone individually.  Then they fed us.  Lots!  There was taro, which is pretty much like a potato, chicken, some rice (of course, nothing over here is ever served without rice), curry, noodley stuff, and then boiled bananas!  The banana was so weird because it was hard, and not sweet tasting.  They use green bananas, boil them in the peel, then bake it in coconut milk I think.  All the while it still keeps its form though!  After that we went and caught the last of Tongan club.  A Tongan guy was talking (obviously to the Tongans) about not thinking they are 100% Tongan, because they are not.  No one is 100% anything.  We have all kinds of mixings!  I think he was talking about that because I had been talking to some Tongan twins, who are really cool, and they were saying how they don't even want to be in the Tongan club because the presidency wants it to only exclusively be Tongans in it.  Which that is totally against the whole idea of BYU Hawaii, but I guess there gets to be some jealousies, especially with the Tongan girls when non Tongans come to things.  Anyway that was gospel forums!

I've started to hang out with some more regular people now.  There is three boys, Nate, Steve, and David.  Steve is like 24 and aching to get married, then Nate and David got home from their missions like a week before school started.  (All of their parents brought them out here too...Mama's boys apparently)  Anyway, Nate and Dave are still a bit scared of girls I think, but they are nice fun kids.  Me and Kayli went to the beach Pounders with them.  It is called Pounders for a reason, I found out very quickly when I went in with my first wave to body surf.  Which by the way, some people body surf so gracefully.  They just stand right out of the wave after it takes them in.  Me on they other hand I get tossed all over the place and as soon as I replace my swimming suit another wave comes and hits me.  Nate tried to teach me to swim in a diagonal so you are in the barrel of the wave, but I haven't really mastered that yet.  We went over to a rockish part and there were HUGE crabs!  All over the place!  Then we made David into a mermaid!

After the beach that night I headed to Enrichment.  There was all of 7 girls there so it is good I went.  It was an ingenious activity though.  We made bags out of old Tshirts!  It was so easy.  I little snip with the scissors and a little sewing across the side and vala shoulder bag!  Then we put some emergency essentials in them.  Remember when they had the tsunami warning over here last February?  Yeah, they are making us be more prepared now.  And we had a tsunami drill last Friday.  I guess they do it every Friday of the first month.  All the happened was a siren went off.  We didn't get to practice any time of stop, drop, and roll stuff.

Last weekend it was one of my roommates birthdays on Saturday (Theresa 25 yr) and then it was (Beth's 21 yr.) on Sunday.  So all nine of us went to Haleiwa for some Thai food!  It was really good!  I quite liked it.  Me and my roommate Angie split, she got noodles and I got curry stuff.  I've always liked yellow curry and I wish I would have gotten that because Fay got that and it was delish.  Next time.  We drove over in two cars.  We borrowed one and then my Japanese roommate Kiyomi, who has a car, drove too.  But Kiyomi doesn't have a license!  She has failed the driver test two times I think!  Ha!  So I didn't ride with her.  But when we got home, she just hopped our curve, drove across the lawn, in between to trees, and parked the car on the driveway that way!  Crazy.  Really funny at times too.  Here is all of us out to eat.  I really like all my roommates.  They are all good, fun girls.



Kau'i (New Zealand 19) Beth (California 21) Theresa (New Zealand 25)  Fayrina/Fay(New Zealand, but raised in States 18) Me, Jessica(Las Vegas 23ish, she served a mission here) Angie (Virginia 24)  Yasuko (Japan ?) Kiyomi (Japan also served a mission here)

 Last Sunday we attempted to go have a BBQ on the beach with Nate and Steve.  But our coals just weren't really working with us and Steve was pouring gallons of lighter fluid on them and we weren't getting results.  So we went back and cooked the burgers and hot dogs at their house then took them back to the beach to eat.  After we ate we took blankets out in the sand and laid down and star glazed for a while.  Really, really pretty.  I can't see the Big Dipper here though or any of the constellations I am used to seeing, something with the earth spinning ya know... There was no moon, but then all of the sudden out over the ocean the moon started to rise and it was orange!  Orange orange.  It was a gorgeous site to watch it rise over the ocean.  Oh and they caught a crab, but I think the shock of it being held made it die because it didn't move when they sat it back down.

If you look close to the bottom left you can see the moon.

Nate and Steve have an avocado tree in the yard and a bread fruit tree too.  They are huge too!  We tried the bread fruit one night, we just boiled it and ate it with Spam--as usual.  It tasted like a potato again.

The other night we were in the library and a dog came in.  It was having a hay day running everywhere.  And no one was getting up to stop it.  So finally Steve, me, and Kayli cornered it out the front door.  It was really funny.

Then this weekend we had General Conference!  Friday I was sick with a cold so I went to bed at like 9pm.  But that was good because I woke up at 5:30am to go to Nate and Steve's to watch conference live.  It was rather early, but it was fun.  After the first session we made pancakes and eggs + avocados from their avocado tree.  I made banana pancakes and we listened to Jack Johnson's song about banana pancakes while we did that.  Plus Jack Johnson just lives up the road and people see him out surfing a lot.  And his kids take swimming lessons at the BYUH pool. 

After the second session I went out to lunch with a kid named Shane to Kahuku Grill.  It is pretty famous around here.  We got burgers, that had sauteed onions in a delicious sauce, fries that were like potato wedges with spices on them, and then a banana bread sundae!  So good.  Shane also had me try UFO chips from Fiji and a drink called Arizona.  Both of those were two thumbs up too.  Anyway we went out to lunch because he uses my textbook for Volleyball and that was the trade.  (Yeah we have legitimate quizzes in volleyball that we have to study for---not a fan.  Speaking of volleyball my overhand serve just doesn't make it over the net so I stayed after to do some drills and get help from my coach and my forearm is really sore).

I woke up again early today for conference.  We were all dead.  Instead of pancakes we just ate lots of cold cereal :)