Thursday, September 7th, 2006

The Fate of the Aloha Spirit

posted by lizzie    « 2 Comments »    tied to Uncategorized   

Some of you know that we have been slightly disappointed in the “Spirit of Aloha” everyone keeps talking about over here on Oahu. We ain’t seen none of it. Well, maybe just a little of it, but it is usually directed at people who are not us. This is the story of how we found out that the Spirit of Aloha does, in fact, exist.

One of our big plans for the Big Island was to go to the Kona temple. We flew in to Hilo on Friday afternoon, and our only chance for the temple was Saturday morning, so we drove around the island and camped at a beach park Friday night. Saturday morning we called the temple to find out how to get there and before we knew it, we were parked in front of the little temple. Kareena was hoping to do baptisms, and it just so happened that a ward had just gotten there to do that very thing. They let her piggyback onto their group which made her happy as a clam at high water. Our session didn’t start until about 45 minutes after Kareena went in, which meant she was finished probably about the time we were getting started in the session. She managed to keep herself busy taking pictures outside for a while, but since the last session started at 11:00, they were locking up right about then and she would have been shut out in the warm for another hour or so. The workers invited her back inside to sit in the waiting room.

Meanwhile, Micah and I were having a grand old time. The lady I was sitting next to struck up a conversation with me like we were old friends and everyone else we ran into acted like we were their long lost cousins. We would have loved to stay and chat with them after the session, but we were a little worried that Kareena would be bored, so we hurried out as quickly as we could afterwards. We needn’t have worried. We found Kareena in the waiting room with a little girl who was just sealed to her parents (and who gave Kareena one of her mint oreos) and three other people who were waiting for a ride home from a previous session. By the time we got there, Kareena had already exchanged phone numbers with them and we had a dinner invitation and a place to stay if we ever go back to the island. Unfortunately, they lived in Waimea, which is the opposite direction from where we were heading so we couldn’t make the dinner date. They also told us where we could go to church on Sunday, which happened to be with the ward that was there doing baptisms. Kareena had exchanged phone numbers with some people in that ward and they seemed pretty intent on adopting us, too. But we had to be on our way so they settled for telling us where some great snorkel spots were and sending us back on our adventure. At church we were again welcomed with open arms and spent half an hour after church talking to our friends the Kirbys and finding out what is cool to do on the Hilo side (besides the volcano). It sounds like if we ever want to go back (which we surely do), we have our pick of places to stay.

We apologize for leading you all to believe that the Aloha Spirit is dead. It’s not. It’s just on the Big Island.

*The temple pictures are on Kareena’s camera, so you’re just going to have to wait to see them

Comments

  1. Jodie says:
    September 7, 2006 at 4:16 am

    I’m glad you were able to find it. I was a little worried…

    great picture, BTW.

  2. Anonymous says:
    September 9, 2006 at 4:12 am

    Maybe it’s just something about the temple. You can’t help but feel a comeraderie with those around you, or in Hawaii, the “Spirit of Aloha.”

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