Dave and I returned yesterday from celebrating our 30th anniversary on the island of Maui. I will be posting about all of the wonderful times we had there later. But I experienced a couple of things there that really humbled me and I want to record those experiences first.
1. The day after arriving in Maui we went to the 3 hour block of church in Lahaina. It was fast and testimony meeting. A man told about how he had recently attended the temple in Oahu. While he was there a group of people came from a very small island in the South Pacific. I don't remember if he said it was the Marianas or some other similar place. But it is the only time they will be able to attend the temple in their lifetime, due to distance and expense. They were a very humble people and when going into the celestial room they would come in and sit on the floor, not wanting to ruin the beautiful furniture. He met one family who was sealed for eternity there. They have a son serving a mission that was not able to be sealed to them and they will never be able to come back and have the work done in this lifetime. But they were very confident that the Lord would make it right. And I know He will.
The ward we visited is planning a trip to the Oahu temple next week. They have been preparing and saving for a long time to be able to fly to that island. Many of the native Hawaiian people live a very simple lifestyle. In Relief Society the RS President gave the lesson. At the end she spoke about how her husband had just had his job cut back this week to only two days a week. She sobbed as she said that they were going to fly to Oahu anyway next week and just have faith that the Lord will take care of them. What great faith and what a great example this sister is to me.
Many of the people introduced themselves to me and asked where we were from. When I said that we were from Ogden several mentioned that they had heard about the Ogden temple closing. I said yes and they said, "but you have others nearby you can attend, right?" Guiltily I told them we were pretty spoiled in that way. They laughingly agreed.
2. Thursday evening we had just come back to our room from a fun filled day. It was nearly 10pm and Dave turned on the tv. The news reported the horrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Then they announced that the tsunami was headed to Hawaii and would affect all of the islands. We hurried over to the main hotel lobby, as we were staying in one of the little cottages at the resort. The manager was there, surrounded by people asking him what we should do. He told us everyone lower than the sixth floor was to evacuate. Dave and I decided to drive to higher ground rather than go to the evacuation center. We ran back to our room, threw everything into our luggage, including a little food and water we had and drove up to the hillside. The news had reported that the tsunami was traveling 500 mph and would arrive around 3 am. With images of the Japan devastation freshly in our minds we were pretty nervous. We spend the night in the car periodically turning on the radio. As reported, it hit the coast of Maui at 3 am but was only about 6 feet high, causing only minor damage and no loss of lives. We returned to our hotel the next morning around 7 am. The tsunami warning was downgraded to an advisory and things slowly returned to normal.
Another lesson in humilty for me. We had five hours notice to evacuate. The people in Japan had no notice or maybe minutes at the most. Watching the news brings me so much heartache as I see the devastation there. They are constantly in my prayers.
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