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Elder and Sister Groberg talk with a student after devotional on Dec. 6

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struggling with thoughts of suicide or giving assistance to friends and families are now able to access the new “Preventing Suicide” webpage launched by the Church. “The fact that the church has put out a website about suicide shows that it is relevant to us and that we should learn more about it,” said Leilani Auna, director of the Counseling and Disability Services at BYU-Hawaii. Auna said she believes it’s important for young adults to understand the topic of suicide. “Some people may tell you to keep their thoughts of suicide a secret and young adults are unsure of how to act and how to help. So I think this is a great website by the Church,” said Auna.Suicide is the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States and the seventh leading cause among men and boys, according to Deseret News. A person dies by suicide somewhere in the world every 40 seconds, and more than 800,000 people die by suicide every year, according to the Word Health Organization. Ephraim Insigne, an accounting freshman from the Philippines, said, “This webpage is like a prophetic counsel given by the Church to help us handle this sensitive situation. We don’t know who we can help with this information.”The new website provides information and resources for people struggling with suicidal thoughts, family and friends who are concerned about someone at risk and those who have lost someone to suicide, according to Mormonnewsroom.org. It also includes links to other websites listing warning signs and to crisis helplines around the world.“I’ve seen the website before, and it is cool because it shows the Church cares,” said Daniel LeBaron, a sophomore from Utah studying international cultural studies. He said the new website featured a video called “Sitting on the Bench: Thoughts on Suicide Prevention,” which helped him understand the kinds of thoughts that can lead to suicidal thoughts. He said the video also talks about how others can help someone find hope. “When we understand these kind of people, we will know how to help them,” said LeBaron.The new webpage was announced on Thursday, Sept. 8. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, September 2016 is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.A notice has been sent to church leaders to notify them of the new suicide prevention resources. More information can be found on preventingsuicide.lds.org.

The Ko'olauloa Children's Choir performing in Italy

Disney released the teaser trailer for the live action remake of “Beauty and the Beast” on May 23, and BYU-Hawaii students said they are excited to see the movie. Students were also surprised by Disney’s announcement of 12 new live action remakes to be released between now and 2019.“I’m so excited for ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” said junior Ethan Roberts, a computer science major from California. “The trailer was awesome. I think the music in the trailer sounded really good, just like the original cartoon.”Set for release on March 17, 2017, “Beauty and the Beast” stars Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast. A host of celebrities will make up the cast of the castle’s magic furniture, including Emma Thompson, Ian McKellen, and Ewan McGregor.Marley Wilson, a freshman from Florida studying English and Psychology, said, “I’m just really excited that Emma Watson is in it. I think she will play the part perfectly.”Daniel LeBaron, a senior from Utah studying ICS, said that while he wants to go see “Beauty and the Beast,” he wasn’t wowed by the trailer. “The trailer was just a bunch of random pictures and the audio was hearkening back to lines you’ve heard before... All that trailer did was say ‘we’re doing a remake.’ But I already knew that. So I think it was just there to get people hyped up.”In a press release on April 26, Disney announced 12 new live action remakes that would be released between now and 2019. The movies are: “Alice through the Looking Glass,” “Pete’s Dragon,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cruella,” “Dumbo,” “Mary Poppins,” “Maleficent 2,” “The Jungle Book 2,” “Tinker Bell,” and three unnamed live action remakes.Natalie Powell, a sophomore from Texas studying social work, said, “Remakes have had a positive reaction so far and they’re pretty good, so it would make sense that they’re making so many. I guess they’re cash cows.” Esther Xavier, a sophomore from Malaysia studying EXS, said, “It’s fine that they’re making so many remakes because we don’t really watch the classics anymore. So it’s like a refresher. And full of nostalgia.” LeBaron said he wondered why Disney can’t come up with something new rather than redoing old movies.Of the live action movies coming up, Powell and Xavier said they would both be interested to see “Cruella,” which will star Emma Stone and is currently in development. LeBaron said he would like to see “Pete’s Dragon” since he always watched the cartoon as a child.Wilson said she would love to see “Dumbo” because she remembered only a little bit from the original movie. “I wish they would make a Jasmine one. Since everything in that movie is from an Aladdin standpoint, I would love to switch it around and see it with Jasmine.”Disney has already released four live action remakes: “Alice in Wonderland,” “Maleficent,” “Cinderella” and “The Jungle Book.” Powell said she liked the remakes she’d seen, but that “they can’t be compared to the originals, because the originals are the ones I grew up with.”Wilson said, “I don’t like them because they take away from the originals. Growing up I really enjoyed those movies, and so for them to totally twist it, I have a really hard time with that.” She said she appreciates what Disney is trying to do but at the same time she likes to hold on to the classic movies. Concerning “Maleficent,” the 2014 remake of the 1959 “Sleeping Beauty” cartoon movie, Xavier said, “If it was supposed to be a remake of the child’s movie, it was a bit too violent and vivid. If Disney aimed to make it scary, then it was good. But it could cause nightmares.” Powell added that she thinks the live action movies are more interesting for older audiences and are scarier than the cartoons. “I think the movies will be better if they stop trying to hide the actual storyline beneath all the special effects,” Wilson said. “Movies nowadays are full of action but there’s no gray matter or supporting material.”

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Esther Candari spent her summer touring across Europe, dancing and teaching about the Hawaiian culture to thousands of folk festival attendees as part of a larger festival organization. Candari, an art major from Kaneohe, was the only BYU-Hawaii student in her dance team of four, but one of the members, James Ahuna, is a former Kaneohe branch president of Candari’s. The group’s three-week adventure took the members from Germany to Portugal and everywhere in between, Candari shared. Almost every day, she and her three compatriots taught basic hula and Hawaiian songs to locals at festival-sponsored workshops before dancing in front of 100-700 people on stage. They also performed in parades with an excess of 20,000 spectators, meaning they danced for a population bigger than all of Laie, Kahuku, Hau‘ula, and Ka‘a‘awa combined, according to Google demographics. When describing the festivals, Candari said, “Everyone would share their music, their dances, and their food. It was like no borders existed.” Cristina Collazos, a BYU grad from California, was a performing member in Candari’s troupe and said, “I really think that music and dance really speaks to people’s hearts and breaks down any language barrier. It’s truly beautiful.” Candari said the festivals would go on until 11 p.m., only to be followed by all of the performers gathering together for food and dance parties. “We didn’t usually get back until 2 or 3 in the morning, but we didn’t usually have to go anywhere until noon the next day, so it was fine,” Candari recalled. The organization that hosted this melting pot of culture was the International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts, or CIOFF for short. Candari explained the organization’s members cover all the attending CIOFF members’ room and board, transportation, give them a local tour guide, and provide a small amount of spending money each day. The only cost to the dancers is their airfare and the costumes they bring with them. Though sharing her heritage with European locals was her primary objective, Candari said her favorite aspect of the tour was getting to interact with all the other performers from around the world. “In Holland, we got really close to the mariachi band,” Candari explained. “It was really cool because somebody would start playing music, one of us would start playing ukulele, and everybody else would just join in. We would have Croatians, Mexicans, Bulgarians, and they would all bring their instruments over and we would have these massive jam sessions all the time.” Another group Candari’s band of Hawaiian/American representatives grew close to was the Russian group from Kamchatka, who Candari described as “Russian Eskimos.” She said, “They looked Korean, spoke Russian, but dressed like Native Americans. It was really confusing.” “We could really only communicate with them using Google translate,” Candari said. A humorous misunderstanding happened when the two groups were trying to trade contact information. “One of the guys came up to Cristina and I, and said, ‘After dinner, you, me, undress.’ What he was trying to say was, ‘after dinner, can we trade addresses?” Sam Alva, one of the members of Candari’s crew, shared his favorite memory from the trip: “The human connection you felt with people from all over the world was amazing. An example being when this really awesome Portuguese teenager came over excitedly after our performance to say how much he liked the Hawaiian group. “I ended up talking with him for most of the rest of the show and we became instant friends. I had to run to perform in the finale and left in a hurry but regretted that I hadn’t left any contact info or anything. Much to my joy, our friend, Luis, found us again at our last show and we made sure to become Facebook friends and take a picture before I left, which he even made his profile picture,” said Alva. “This is just one of many similar interactions we had with new friends from all over the world. There was this sense of treasuring the time we had together. When that connection is made, it is one of the best feelings in the world.” Alva is a recent music and dance theatre BYU graduate from Texas, and has worked with James Ahuna in his “Living Legends” touring group. Candari said she and her team generally had one or two days per week when they weren’t dancing or running workshops where they could go sight-seeing and play tourist. She said her favorite place she visited was the Portuguese town of Porto. “It was my favorite because it was super picturesque. It looked like something out of a movie,” Candari explained. “Everywhere you turned was a gorgeous view. It wasn’t where you walk down the main street and that’s all that’s pretty; here you can walk down the side streets and it’s still pretty. Everything was just gorgeous.” Another town Candari highlighted was Barcelos, Portugal, which built a stage overtop a flowing river for the jubilee’s arrival.