Forty pound mission

Saturday morning, I was happy to help the Easter Bunny at the nearby Gunstock Ranch. She needed  some adult volunteers to spread out the eggs she dropped off; about 10,000 eggs in all. Children from all over Oahu were invited and came.

The next part of the day, my roommates and I drove to Haleiwa to  get some Brazilian foods at the food truck. It was soooooooo good.

Feta Cheese and spinach Pastel

Later that night, I ate again.............

Damon, from Fiji, Sister Card, and Derek, from Hong Kong

Lots of food fit for honored guests!

Derek, Elder and Sister Card, and Damon

It seems that the love of food (and hospitality) are the most important ingredients as we serve as senior missionaries at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We can experience lots of ethnic foods, but mostly from food trucks around the island. Rare is the opportunity to have home-cooked ethnic food, but this weekend I was fortunate to get an invitation for two such rarities. On Saturday(yesterday) Damon, my young good friend who lives in my YSA ward and also works for BYU-H  Security invited me and few other Senior Missionaries to dinner. Damon loves to cook and share his delicious Indian/Fijian foods with others. He also shared his conversion story with us.
Growing up Hindu, he was taught to follow those teachings by his father. Damon's grandparents where brought to Fiji by the British to work in the sugar cane industry and so stayed in Fiji.  They continued their traditions in Fiji. I found out that Fiji is about 50% Eastern Indian. Most of them continue to practice traditional Hinduism. His mother is full Fijian, so Damon is 50 % Fijian and Indian.
His maternal grandmother is LDS and a convert and gave the Book of Mormon to his mom. She would read it secretly and taught many of its teaching to her children. Damon told us that he learned early that praying to the Hindu Gods " didn't do any good," so he began praying to Heavenly Father while pretending to pray to the Hindu Gods. :) His father would not allow them to join the Church, but after Damon's father passed away, Damon was baptized at 22, about four years ago. He served a mission the next year, and after serving his mission, he came to BYU-H.

Easter Sunday

Ping, Sister Bright, Lucy, and Meling in the Hale (Hawaiian for "dorm")

Today, Easter Sunday, I was invited to have Chinese food with Ping, who is from Mainland China. She invited three other girls, two: Chinese, one: Korean. We had tofu, fish, cabbage, asparagus, eggs and cucumber mixture, and, of course, rice. It was delicious and we had a lot of fun laughing and getting know each other. They each told me their conversion stories. The Chinese law is that if you learn to Gospel, but no one in your family is LDS, you must go to Hong Kong to be baptized. Two of the girls have family who are LDS, so they were able to be baptized in China. Meling told me that they can meet together as long as you follow the laws. Presently they meet in an apartment for church, but cannot meet with expats (foreigners).
The highlight of this mission is knowing and loving the students I have met. They are so strong and valiant and are such examples to me. I gain so much more from them than I give to them. They are great leaders already.