Elder Ioelu, from Tonga, with Lee wearing one of Mark's beautiful Ties! Thanks Mark!!

Laie Zone Conference - May 26, 2010

Wonderful Talks, Beautiful Testimonies and the best Missionaries in the Church!

With President and Sister Peterson at Laie Zone Conference, May 26, 2010. President gave a "General Conference" quality talk to the missionaries - very moving and brought tears to our eyes.

We rarely see our Mission President, President Peterson. Literally he "flies" in and out and is gone - like a whirlwind. So I took the opportunity to walk into his office and as I take his picture ask him if it's o.k., snap and "Thank You President". We have never seen a man who is always on the run and I mean ALWAYS!

Hey Mark! I wanted you to see this darling missionary, Elder Blucker from New Caledonia, wearing one of your beautiful ties. He was so excited. I said to him - "The tie matches your beautiful dark eyes!" and he said: "And my dark skin!" He is just darling and his native tongue is French so he is going to teach French lessons in hopes of trying to find investigators!

Great Snap of Lee swimming along side huge turtle w/head above water!

Lee gathered quite the crowd watching him swim with this one turtle! He said that when he was out snorkeling he saw about 10 turtles!

Some people never cease to amaze me . . . but then what some will do "all in the name of Fashion!" I'm afraid the joke is on this little gal! Now you know the REAL REASON the Missionaries can not come to the Beach!

These Turtles are huge! They can weigh up to 400 lbs! There are about 40 in this area and the volunteers who keep watch over them know them all by name! I spent about an hour visiting with the volunteers and watching them swim around looking for food.

So if ever you want to go watch and swim with the Turtles - we know the perfect spot!

The WIND does wonders??? for Lee's hair!

Standing in front of a statue of some King whose last name is at least 20 letters long~

well o.k. it's only 10 letters long: HAMEHAMEHA

Standing next to the Elders (Blucher and Conner) is Alika. He is 16 years old and just loves to go out tracting with the missionaries. He lives with his grandma because his parents are on drugs. He is a great young man and is very much looking forward to going on a mission in a few years!

This is Sister Suafoa who works in the Mission Office with us. She is a Service Missionary and this is her 4th Mission! She is a wonderful, dedicated lady - always a smile and always a flower in her hair.

APs Elder Medeiros and Elder Hatch literally brought back a flat tire into the Mission Office to Elder Robbins (center) who is in charge of the cars for our mission! It was a funny sight seeing these two Elders rolling this tire down the hallway to our office!

So . . . it's Sunday Afternoon and Lee wants to go for a walk - QUOTE: "It should only take 45 minutes then we can come back and fix Sunday Dinner for the Elders!" I should have had him define "Walk" because it really was more of a Hike that took 45 minutes going up and 30 going down!! He now understands that Hikes are best for Saturdays and Strolls for Sundays!! Look at the size of this single leaf compared to Lee's head!

I was trying to get Lee to snap the Tree so it looked like it was on the palm of my hand; didn't quite work!

Lee is so in his element!

At the start of our "hike" - all the trees are covered in vines!

Lee is just comfortable PERCHED on top of this fallen log.

You know that Lee is just loving this! (And hoping I am too!)

This section of the path required a little tricky FootWORK!

Amazing ROOTS to these trees!

We met this cute little girl coming down the trail and she told us there was NO MUD; (just don't look at her little backside!)

Getting closer to the top - I think!~

At the end of our trek, we did make it to the Manoa Falls!

Miss Josephine loving and taking care of my MAX while we are away! I hope he doesn't forget me, but am grateful for Josie's tender care!

Saturday evening Ward Members when to the Homeless Shelter to feed about 100 people dinner. I guess what bothered me the most were the small children; next time I want to take them a small toy - one little boy had a plastic toy rat; I think we can do better!

Elder Brandon Petersen (on the phone) with his companion in our supply room. Brandon was a neighbor down the street from us in Elk Ridge. Mom Petersen - you can be very proud of your missionary!

I guess they are keeping it simple with the name for their Church:

"The Jesus Christ"!

Amazing PHONE CALL today in the Office. I answered the phone and the lady on the other line said "What do I do to get Baptized into your Church?" Now I ask you how often do people come to you wanting to join the church without even having the lessons taught! She shared with me that her father is Jewish, her mother Catholic and for years she has observed all the churches and believes that the only happy people are the Mormons! She has noticed that the good kids in the High School are the Mormon kids and she wants that for her own children! She asked if she could just show up at Church on Sunday!!! Of course I immediately placed a call to the Elders in her area and they are taking her to Church followed by her first lesson! Like I said: Amazing! Interesting how some people can see this contrast, and yet we have own members in the Church who are less active because they don't appreciate what the Church does in the lives of it's members. We are SOOOO BLESSED to have the influence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives to help us along the way!

Sister Misinale "Brittany" Toki (shorter sister) and Sister Fa'aa'e "Theresa" Lata are true PIONEERS! They are the first Sisters sent to the Christmas Islands and the first American Sisters to serve on the Marshall Islands. Talk about primitive conditions - no one on the island has furniture so they sleep on hard dirt floors, sit and teach on floors, and eat on the floor! Their diet consists of rice, fish and coconut EVERYDAY! We told them we would take them anywhere for dinner and they picked of all places - McDonalds! They were just darling and such great examples to me - so willing to give up everything to serve our Heavenly Father~