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!