Living on an island, we find ourselves a bit limited on certain things. We don't have a temple on Maui, but there are two temples in the islands. There's one on O'ahu, and one on the Big Island of Hawaii. Our ward apparently plans temple trips on occasion, so I managed to join in on the trip last November 9-12th. The only way to go from Maui to the Big Island is by flying, so I jumped onto this tiny little plane.
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| The tiny little plane we flew in. It was a 9-passanger little thing. Honestly, I was a little bit scared. |
I flew over Friday night after work, then we went to a church dance. We stayed at the home of some members, which was a bit of an adventure since they weren't there when we showed up. Luckily they showed up right as we were leaving! It was fun because we ended up eating doughnuts, staying up chatting, then the next morning the sweet lady made us delicious breakfast. We all met up at the temple that morning, and we had a great experience doing baptisms for the dead.
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| The group from Maui in front of the Kona temple. |
Our group kinda split up after that. Several people headed back to Maui, but a couple of us decided to stick around and explore the island since we were already over there. We drove around Kona for the rest of the night, and enjoyed all the fun things they have on their island that we don't have on Maui. For instance, we went bowling, and shopping at Target! I also got to rent this super awesome truck for the weekend!
That night we drove two hours around the island to Hilo where we stayed for the rest of the trip since it was close to Volcano national park. I was really excited to go to the Big Island because it's the only island with an active volcano. I was hoping to get a glimpse of some lava, but apparently it's a bit difficult to see flowing lava unless you go out at night and hike across lava fields, and stuff. Apparently it's a bit risky, and none of the people we went with were exactly up to it.
Sunday we got up for church, then we went for some lunch at this random little sports bar called Cronies. I had the most delicious BBQ chicken sandwich with grilled pineapple. Also, there were some totally rando old guys at the bar who tried to make friends with us.
Anyway, we spent the rest of the day out driving around the Volcano National Park. It was kinda crazy to see fields and fields of lava rock.
We drove to an overlook, and saw this huge crater which you can actually hike down into. This is Devastation Trail, which was the site of major fallout from the 1959 Kilaue Iki eruption.
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| Photo of the 1959 eruption. |
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| I thought this sign was funny. If you look closely, it says it's closed due to "volcanic hazards." How weird is that? |
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| I'm standing in one of the steam vents. It was nice and warm! |
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| This is a picture of Kilauea crater, and the steam in the center is the Halema'uma'u Crater. |
The Halema'uma'u Crater is the heart of the current eruption. This is about the closest I got to lava, so enjoy!
One of the many things I love about Hawaiians are all their beautiful legends about gods and goddesses. Many of their legends has to do with the goddess Pele, the volcano goddess. One particular legend is about the 'Ohi'a tree. 'Ohi'a was a handsome chief who was courting a girl named Lehua. Pele became enamored with 'Ohi'a, and wanted him to be her husband. She appeared to 'Ohi'a and asked him to be her husband, but he turned her down because he loved Lehua. Pele (who is known for her temper) became angry and turned him into a gnarled tree. When the other gods saw what Pele had done, they tried to reverse it, but failed. They best they could do was reunite 'Ohi'a and Lehua by turning her into a beautiful blossom on the same tree. To this day, it is said that if you pick a Lehua blossom, it will rain. These are tears from heaven for separated lovers everywhere.
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| This is an 'Ohi'a tree with Lehua blossoms. |
We finished the rest of the day off by getting more yummy local food, ice cream, and going to see Pitch Perfect in the theater. It was an awesome day!
