Hawaii - Day 8

Monday 11/23/09 - The beautiful Na Pali coast of Kauai.  Thank you Hawaiian Airlines for saving me from a 4 hour / $200 boat tour to see this area of the island....it was much better to just fly over it.

Day 7

Sunday 11/22/09 - Another wonderful day...we can't believe it's over already. Met lots and lots of interesting people. This couple was from Queensland, Australia. They have a ranch with cattle, horses, kangaroos and koala bears! I hope there is a convention in Sydney in 5 years!





This brother had a very touching coming into the truth story. He grew up across the street from the kingdom hall and his father was a witness. He was never baptized and ended up becoming a professional basketball in Spain but was later injured. In a newspaper interview he mentioned that he wanted to focus on healing and rebuilding his relationship with God. A sister read the article and traveled 2 hours by train and went to his door and started a study. He was baptized in 2000 and returned to Hawaii to live a simple yet fulfilling life. He mentioned that he was never happy despite all the fame and fortune of being a professional basketball player but he was happy now.

The end of the convention was very touching. The different language groups were all in different rooms of the convention center. Brother Lett gave the final talk and then informed us that all the language groups would gather in the main auditorium and we would sing the final song together and have a closing prayer together. 6,000 delegates from 41 other lands gathered with 9,000 English speaking delegates. Lots of waving, clapping, hugging, crying and picture and video taking. The sound of 15,000 voices singing to Jehovah in unison was beautiful. We're already saving for the next International Convention, if there is one...

Day 6

Saturday - 11/21/09 - Another wonderful day at the International Convention! The highlight of the day was Brother Lett's talk "Learn Watchfulness from Jesus Apostles" which was the talk that they release the new Bearing Witness book.

It's a small world...the sister on the left knows Janice Parker (went to Edgewood) and knew Henry Willis when he was a teenager =)


We met people from Alaska, Australia and more from Japan. The brother made a great effort in trying to pronounce my last name. His wife giggled and clapped when I said "sayonara" (goodbye).






This couple was from Michigan City and knew the Ekhators from our congregation! Small world...

Day 5

Friday - 11/20/09 - An interesting day. Before the convention we found out that our house was broken into. Linda's daughter is checking on the house and saw that the back door was broken into. All our electronics are gone (tvs, stereos, computer, etc). So we missed the convention and packed up and headed home...NOT! It's just stuff. We still managed to have a really good day. 

 

We met people from all the way from Japan to as close as Plainfield, Indiana. The couple from Plainfield are in the same congregation as Mark and Becky Steffen.

Day 4

Thursday - 11/19/09 - WOW!!! Where do I begin?? There were 15,076 in attendance on the first day. The convention was given in 5 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Cantonese and Korean. It was amazing to experience the love of the brothers and sisters and see it in action. We met so many people from so many different places (Australia, Finland, Japan, Korea, Mexico and all over from South and Central America) . Language was not a barrier.


Everyone smiled, hugged, took pictures and exchanged contact information via cards and postcards despite not speaking each other's language. Particularly funny was watching Linda interact with the Japanese...they bow, she tries to hug them, they bow again, she bows, I bow, everyone is bowing and smiling...LOL!




We started the day with the big group breakfast then walked the .7 miles to the convention center. The weather was perfect to and from the center. We got there around 9 but forgot that the Thursday session doesn't start until 1:20pm. So we walked around and socialized with all the many friends. Lunch was provided at the top of the Hawaii Convention Center which is open air. It was amazing to see lunch provided to 15,000 people at once with perfect organization and no problems whatsoever. Only Jehovah's people.

The local Hawaiian congregations put on the convention. All of the speakers were awesome, especially Brother Lett, who gave the keynote address and ripped Christendom up pretty good. I was recording it but the battery in my mp3 player (fm recorder) died...grrr...but they said we can't distribute anything we record anyway but...grrr...nonetheless. Linda has talked for years about his facial expressions, so I finally got to experience it. Linda was telling the couple in front of us that Brother Lett used to be our CO. They were from North Carolina and he was their CO also, at one time! It's a small world.

Heading to a large Hawaiian group dinner at our hotel sponsored by the travel agency...yum!

Day 3

Wednesday - 11/18/09

Dole Plantation...








Mililani Assembly Hall...

Kualoa Ranch movie tour and then 2 hour horseback ride through Kualoa valley...need to sleep now...first day of the convention tomorrow! Will post pics to facebook and more details later.

Day 2

Tuesday - 11/17/09 - Woke up at 3am of course...8am Indiana time...sigh. Tried to go back to sleep....free breakfast buffet as part of package didn't start until 6am. As you can see in the pic, the buffet table was huge! Fruit, salad, roast beef, turkey, cheese, sausage, bacon, eggs, waffles, oatmeal, etc, etc...the highlight though was the Kona coffee...WOW...I had no idea. The buffet and dining room was witness only and you actually had to show your badge to get in.

After breakfast we walked down to Waikiki beach and took some pics and enjoyed the breezy 70 degrees as I called around to get a shuttle (taxis were a complete ripoff) to take us back to the airport to pick up our rental car. Yes it's a Jeep...a green one even...yay! We then drove east and then north around the island...intending on going to Kualoa Ranch which is where they film Lost and a bunch of other movies such as Jurassic Park, 50 first dates, etc. The movie tour and the horseback ride were booked for tuesday so we're doing that on wednesday. Linda wanted to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center so we rounded Kailua and headed west.
We stopped at the Byodo-In Temple which is where a bunch of Lost footage was shot: Sun/Jin married, the polar bear bamboo attack, etc. We stopped at a little hole in the wall restaurant that a bunch of locals were eating at called Kahuku Grill. They claimed "world famous coconut shrimp" so we ordered that and some garlic lovers shrimp. Both were excellent.

We pulled over wherever possible and took almost 200 pictures on Day 2. I'll post them to Facebook and Picasa when I get a chance.
This picture is one of my favorites from the north shore. If anyone doesn't think Oahu is beautiful, they need only to drive to the east / north shore. Shortly after taking this picture we arrived at the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was interesting from a historical perspective and this is where we attended our 1 and only Luau...glad to get that out of the way, now where's the sushi?!?! We did have an opportunity to witness to a Mormon couple from Utah at Luau (they sat across from us). We talked about how we go in the ministry all our lives compared to...as they mentioned, just young men at age 19 for two years. They commended us and said that they should do that too. Just plantin' seeds...

Overall the best part of the day was meeting brothers and sisters everywhere we went. A swarm of locusts has taken over Oahu!

Day 1

Monday 11/16/09 - Alarm @ 5am in Indy. Hotel Shuttle to the Indy Airport. Indy to Atlanta then a butt numbing 9 hour non-stop flight from Atlanta to Honolulu. Good flights...landing alive and in one piece, constitutes a good flight.

When we arrived in Atlanta we headed for our connecting flight. As we approached our gate we were shocked to see that close to 50% of the passengers were all witnesses. All were wearing district convention badges, carrying international convention bags and smiling and hugging other witnesses despite being complete strangers. Very cool. Everyone was exchanging vistaprint made address cards or post cards with contact information and family pictures. We received 10 address cards in less than 2 minutes. Our post card has a picture of the North congregation waving (from CO visit).

A young spanish sister walked around the plane giving every witness a little bag with chocolates and a card with her favorite scriptures en espanol.

4 movies, 2 magazines, 1 game of bejewelled, 1 hot meal, 1 sandwich and 5 beverage services later we arrived in HNL at approx 3:30pm Hawaii time (8:30 Indiana). We and everyone else took a wrong turn trying to go to baggage claim but we eventually found the right area....and our luggage intact. As soon as we entered the baggage area there were brothers and sisters from the local congregations to greet us.

There was also a representative from Four Ambassodors (the travel agency) to direct us to the bus that would take us to the hotel. We boarded the bus along with 40 or so witnesses from El Salvador, Columbia, Mississippi, Ohio, Florida and Georgia.

Arrived at the Hawaii Prince Hotel about 5pm Hawaii time and got checked in. Our room had two full size beds instead of a king size bed and was a little musty. The line was still pretty long so we decided to grab something to eat. Witnessed to the waitress a bit (she asked about our badges and why half the restaurant had the same badges)....told her we were taking over the island for the next two weeks =) Got back to the hotel at 7pm / midnight and got the room straightened out. Time for bed!

Day 0

Sunday 11/15/09 - Drove to Indy and stayed at the Crowne Plaza next to the Indy Airport. Went downtown to Circle Center mall. Ate at Buca Di Beppo...yum! Had an hour wait thanks to the colts game...9 out of 10 people were wearing a colts jersey. Tried to go to bed early but anticipation made sleeping difficult.