Cave Story

Aloha!

Yes I'm still alive. And yes, I do in fact still write these things and send them sometimes. It's kinda tough to find things to talk about though. Oh yeah. Thanks to everyone who said hi to me on Easter, and a big thanks to those who sent me Easter cards. I got them, and I was really happy I did. Anyway, with Easter now out of the way, this week was by far the most normal week yet here in Hilo. What I mean by that is nobody got overwhelmingly sick this week, except actually that's a lie yes they did. I am convinced that this pad is cursed or something. Either I'm sick or Elder Brooksby is sick and this is a never-ending pattern that has tormented us since I got here, and apparently since before that too. I figured that it's probably because the pad hasn't been deep cleaned in years, so after I recovered from being sick on P-Day (again) and Elder Brooksby started coughing violently the very next day, I decided that it was probably a good idea to do some cleaning, and I started with: The Windows.

The window screens were removed, placed on the ground, and vacuumed. You would not believe what came off of those things. We were breathing through so many layers of dust and lint I was surprised we had any time at all when we weren't sick. I tried to take a picture of the difference between before and after, but the picture wasn't super clear. I had to clean that out too because believe it or not it was actually all the way full before I started and it wouldn't suck anything until I cleaned it up. And if you wish I would have worded that last sentence better, try using English vocabulary to describe being dissatisfied with the function of a vacuum and tell me how I was supposed to word it. Vacuum cleaners suck. When they don't suck it sucks because they are supposed to not suck at sucking things up, and then you have to suck it up and fix the sucker so it can actually suck things up the way it was supposed to suck them up in the first place. Excuse the language.

Anyway, after spending 2 more days in the pad only leaving when we could handle walking around, both of us just decided that sick or no, we work. So now, we work. And sometimes we work while we feel healthy. But only sometimes. The most exciting thing we did this week was exchanges, and during said exchanges one of the zone leaders got sick. It was the one who was with me. And the pad is clean now, so I have no clue. Curse of the mold that grows on the roof that I can't clean, or the indestructible bathroom mold that survived the takasu method. That's all that's left. So anyway. Exchanges though. We found a new guy to teach. His name is Rodney. He looks like IZ. Okay maybe he's not quite as big, but he just has the voice and he's Polynesian. He's actually 7th Day Adventist technically, but he's not practicing currently and he was okay with us coming by to talk to him, he just loves his Bible. We left him with the challenge to read the story of Jonah and tell us what he learned from reading it, which is a challenge I've never left someone with before, but I felt prompted to do it so we'll see how it goes. I promised him that we wouldn't teach him anything contrary to the teaching of the Bible, and that made him a little more comfortable. Next time we meet with him, we're going to compare 3 Nephi with the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. That should be cool. So hopefully he won't be so opposed to the Book of Mormon after that.

On Monday last week we went cave exploring in the lava tubes. It was incredible. Fun fact: Scientists recently found a new species of insect in the lava tubes of Hilo, and they named the beast "the thread legged bug". I would have named it the spider mantis or something, considering what it looks like. But I'll leave it up to you. I didn't find one, thankfully, but it's cool that it's a thing. Those lava tubes are actually really unique because lava, when hardened, is black. Black+Dark Cave=Very Dark Cave. Shout out to Dad for the flashlight he put in my suitcase before I left on my mission. This was the first time I think I had to use it, but it was worth having it with me this whole time just for the chance to explore the cave. The mix of bright and dark and the heat in there kinda did a number on me though, and there was a lot of crawling involved once you got deeper in, but even though I had a headache afterwards I still say it was worth the journey. Now I can kind of understand the characters in Cave Story a little bit more. Anybody remember that game? No? Just me? Okay...

Well folks that just about wraps up this week's email, and don't worry I will try to be a bit more consistent with these, after all, after this one we only have 11 more, and it would be really anti-climactic if we just left it at a boring old update.

Happy Belated Easter everybody!
また来週!

Pictures: We became cave spelunkers for a while. Lava tubes are much smaller inside than they look on the outside, but either way they were bigger than I expected! It was a really cool experience I think. I've always wanted to do lava tube exploration, even back when I was vacationing on Oahu before my mission, so it's really cool to have gotten the experience out here in Hilo.

最近、洞窟物語はとても懐かしい…
帰る時にそのゲームのセカンドプレイスルーをしられるかな〜

Pokémon Yellow Version

Aloha!
So first things first, you're all probably all on the edge of your seats about transfer news. Well let me put any fears you have to rest, along with my own, because I'm staying with Elder Brooksby for another transfer! This marks the end of what we call a 5 Week Transfer. We call it this because it is, in fact, 5 weeks long. Ludicrous, I know. Missionaries have the weirdest terminology for things. But anyway! A 5 week transfer is a rare thing, and in order to correct the flow of time and prevent the 5 week transfer from throwing off all future transfers by one week, this transfer is going to be 7 weeks long to make up for it. I have no idea why that is. But that's the lowdown on transfer news. From now on, Elder Brooksby and I have been marked yet again on the board in the mission office in Honolulu. Each missionary has 17 transfers of time as a missionary. When you have been through 14 transfers your picture in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission HQ is marked with a small green dot sticker. This indicates that you have only 2 transfers remaining at the end of the green dot transfer. Green then changes to yellow. That means that the following transfer, AKA the red dot transfer, is the final transfer. Essentially what I'm telling you is that I come home in 13 weeks. Not months, weeks. That's pretty crazy to think about for me, and for Elder Brooksby. But despite the imminent end of our time in Hawaii looming above us, we are determined to do our best to bring people unto Christ. Our progress on that project will be revealed each week. Things get exciting here, because we're on the home stretch. I for one, expect to see miracles as I continue to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and do my best to serve the great people of Hilo, Hawaii. These people mean the world to me and I am honored to get to serve them. As Ammon, I too would like to dwell among this people, perhaps until the day I die. (That's another missionary terminology thing. Going home is referred to as "dying". Because I'm pretty sure I'm finishing my mission in this place, I shall dwell here until I die.) So that's the dot system for you. I am now a yellow dot.

That leads us to the events of this week. The big adventure was Zone Conference, which was held in Kona. Elders Godly and Andres volunteered to drive us there so we could carpool, and we gladly took them up on the offer. The conference was being held in Waimea, which, to give you an idea, is shown on the map I've included with this week's pictures. One of the ways to get there is the Honomu method. This is a cliffside drive that takes about an hour and a half at 65mph. It runs past an excellent view of Maui. I know, because this is the road we took to the emergency room. Next, there's the method of going right through the middle of the island, which is how we did it this time. The four of us passed through about 3 hours of lava land, which was really cool. You could totally tell that it used to be full of lava and stuff. When molten hot magma reaches the surface it becomes lava, and when lava cools it becomes cold lava. It's the same stuff, just now it looks like obsidian and is equally sharp. It looked like someone got a massive blanket of black and just cloaked the whole entire countryside with it. Cooled lava looks deceptively smooth, but do not for any reason walk on it barefoot. Your feet will thank you for heeding my advice. It is not smooth. We will leave it at that. As we passed Mauna Kea, which is the active volcano and also the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian Islands, I was granted a rare sight: snow. Yes boys and girls, we get snow on this island, at the peak of Mauna Kea. It was a lot of snow too. I could only see it from a distance of multiple hundreds of feet away, but it was the most nostalgic experience to see snow in person again. I haven't seen anything like it in 21 months. But anyway, the lava is mostly overgrown by sagebrush, cactus, and that tall yellow grass stuff that looks like waves when wind blows through it. In addition, there are massive mounds of dirt that looked like mini mountains or something. According to Elder Brooksby, these are vents for the volcano. Occasionally we'd see a little smoke or steam come out of them, it was pretty cool. The road is paved right on top of old lava, and it's like a roller coaster or something. It would go up and down with the hills, it's a lot of fun honestly. I saw some falcons on the way there too. Finally, after a very very very long drive, we arrived in Waimea for Zone Conference. There are two zones on the Big Island, and these two zones meet together at Zone Conference. (Hilo and Kona). The best part about zone conference wasn't even the conference itself. It was the creature I found outside in a tree. Just a regular tree, but one of the leaves had a tongue. I've looked my entire mission for a Jackson Chameleon, and finally the search is over. I got one. And I got pictures. The chameleon moves very slowly, and is naturally very docile and calm. Once you have it on your hand, it will stay there and occasionally crawl around a little. Chameleons have the ability to change color of course, but it's not actually so they can camouflage themselves. It's actually to display the chameleon's mood and to control their temperature. Mine was comfortable with me, but he was a bit cold. Finally, I've found Rango! I was so happy to see one in person that I showed my mission president and his wife. Sister Bekker was only a little creeped out by my incredible discovery.

After Zone Conference, we decided to take the long way home. Again, I'll show you on the map. But essentially at this point, I've seen the entire Big Island and driven around the whole thing. It was awesome. Kona is pretty cool for the dry side. The drive ended up taking something like 5 hours. If you were wondering how big the island really was, now you know. Driving around the entire island of Oahu, for example, takes about an hour and a half to two hours. And that's going around the entire island. Kauai is about the same size and takes about the same amount of time. Maybe a little less time actually. Driving around Big Island is an all-day experience. 8-10 hours if you're going all the way around. Now that's big. Also, I caught a coqui frog. I have a picture of that as well.

That's about all the news for this week, stay tuned for more coming soon. We're nearing the end of this story, and that simply means the beginning of another one. I'm excited to see what comes next. Until next week everyone!

Aloha!
-Elder Rogers

Pictures: 

My chameleon friend made me so happy!!!!

This is the Hilo Zone at Zone Conference. What a bunch of clowns eh?

This is my chef look. I used my George Foreman grill to feed the district because a member gave some of the elders a massive amount of steak. I joked that I looked like a General Authority at a service project, because they always just wear a t shirt over their church clothes.

 

Purple: This is the way we went to the ER. This is probably the fastest way to get to Waimea.
Green: The route we took to zone conference. This was a longer drive, but it was worth it.
Yellow: This is the route we took home from Zone Conference. The island tour was finally complete.

Finally here is a picture without any added colors. This is to show you the roads of the Big Island without having to be limited by my ability to trace over them with my finger.


Also, these came in on Friday. Thank you so much. As you can see, I needed them. Oddly enough the sole on my old ones broke out just one day before they showed up.

General Conference and Moar Boars in the Tour of the Bored Shored Chord Factory (?)

Wow. For a moment there I was completely speechless. I've got a lot to say and not much time to put it all into words because I also need to write to my mission president, which is a weekly requirement in my mission and has been this whole time. On top of everything else going on, this Saturday is transfer news. It's a 5 week transfer, and I'm slightly mad about that. Interviews are this week and I will be doing everything I can to persuade President Bekker to let Elder Brooksby and I stay together for one last transfer. Any extra prayers on my behalf this week would be nice for multiple reasons, mainly just in regards to my health and my ability to perform missionary work. On top of being really sick and having to go to the ER, I just feel like my opportunities were somewhat limited, and I'd really like to get the chance to work with Elder Brooksby for just a bit longer. I know it's very unlikely that Elder Brooksby will stay in Hilo another transfer, but I have hope. Whatever the Lord has planned for me, I'm willing to adapt to it. But with only 2 transfers remaining and less than 100 days in the mission field, I've had a lot to think about.

Speaking of things to think about, let's talk about General Conference for a bit. The problem was that regardless of what happened at General Conference, it was never going to live up to the absolutely massive amount of hype leading up to it. People were talking about them shortening missionary service to 18 months and even more crazy things on top of that, and the typical conference reverence was replaced with the typical internet hype train. Perhaps in spite of this, the messages shared leaned more toward the overall message of "Make your family bonds stronger and more spiritual" and the relentless "Repent Ye" message. I think both were important and that they were inspired. I felt that another important theme was being more reverent, particularly when it comes to sacrament meetings, discussions about the temple, which is the house of the Lord and should be respected as such, and a talk which seemed to be fully focused on getting the brethren off of the couch. For the record it was brought up that there is nothing wrong with playing video games or watching TV, but the point was that no hobby or simple interest should be more time consuming or important to us than our families. I feel it was particularly meant to address young fathers who have not been as involved in family life as they should be. I never really felt that my dad watched too much TV when I was growing up or that he let those kinds of things get in the way of taking care of us. The most I remember is that he rather enjoyed watching 'Lost'. I can't really blame him for that, if I could be watching Lost right now, I'd probably be doing it.

One of the things we did this week was visit a man named David. David owns an orchard and was rather excited when we took interest in it. He ended up giving us a full tour of his property, and that was pretty cool. It started by having us try what David called "The Ice Cream Bean". I had never heard of an Ice Cream Bean before. I thought he must have been talking about a vanilla bean or something, but he actually wasn't. Apparently, there's actually such a thing as an ice cream bean. It looks like a massive pod and grows on a tree looking thing, which apparently grows very quickly, almost annoyingly so according to David. The massive pods contain a fluffy white fuzz that I assume protects the bean and provides a soft moist area for the bean to sprout in. This fluffy white stuff, believe it or not, has the exact flavor and texture of vanilla ice cream. It was surprisingly really good and I'm glad I tried it. It was also probably the strangest bean I'd ever seen, and I wonder why it took me so long to learn what it was. The bean itself isn't for eating, but that white fluff is delicious. I will admit I was nervous to try it out because I didn't want to accidentally get on "all natural drugs" or something. But I tried it and I liked it. I even remembered to snag some pictures of it so you can see for yourself.  He also grew some really interesting looking red pineapples. They are red and yellow on the outside and mostly white on the inside. They are very sweet and some believe them to be the best types of pineapple, however Dole does not grow or sell them because they have a very short shelf life (something like 6 days).

We also met a guy who was working in his garage,and we taught him about the restoration and he seemed really interested. We are going back on Tuesday evening to teach him and his family about the Plan of Salvation. We have some other great people we are teaching and working with so I hope all goes well with them this week. 

Have a great week everyone! Don't waste your time doing something good instead of something better, and remember to keep your hobbies in their times and places. Nothing is more important than your spiritual well being or that of your family. That's something I felt very strongly was a core message of General Conference and I for one was very thankful for it. There was more to it than that, and there were other messages shared, but that really stood out to me this time around.

Until next week! Aloha!
-Elder Rogers

Elder Rogers VS. The World (apparently)

Yep, I'm still alive. This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction. I'm totally still breathing. Hoorah. So, for those of you wondering, just what the heck went down last week?

Well to put it simply, I got sick. I don't really know what else to say about it. Sunday night I started feeling a little sick and coughing a little, by Monday morning I was inches from death. I didn't even email or call home I was so sick. And of course this happens right after the ER incident occurs. You know I really love Hilo but part of me feels like I'll never even get to talk about it because random things will keep coming out of nowhere and trying to kill me. I ended up not leaving my bed for 3 days. Then, during the 2 day recovery process, I decided I was sick of staying inside and so I went to a service project. It was really cool because it was basically us picking weeds and stuff, but while we did that the 4 of us (there were actually 6 elders there but the other two had a different job) decided to make up a game to play to pass the time. And this folks is how the 'Pokémon Alphabet Game' was born. It's pretty simple really. Go through the alphabet and name a Pokémon for each letter. We each took turns naming a Pokémon and moving on to the next guy. It started out really easy, but whenever we got to the end of the alphabet we'd just start over again with no repeats allowed. It got tough quick, but luckily my knowledge of Pokémon names is pretty advanced. I say luckily because I got hit with the letter 'x' twice.  Xearneas and Xatu were my picks. Most of you probably didn't even know those were Pokémon names did you? Anyway, using a recovery day to do manual labor is really not the best idea, but I feel like I did some good anyway. Service! Yeah! 

So just some fun facts about Hilo, so that you know. We live right next to the church building, so occasionally we get glimpses of wifi at the pad. We also live at a 4 man pad, which means that the Keokaha elders also live in the pad with us. You may think it's pretty big if it can fit two sets of elders in it comfortably, and to that I'd ask you to define the word comfortably. If slightly cramped fits the bill, then yes. It's funny because it's actually the exact same layout as the Kekaha pad. It does look slightly different though, as you'll see in the pictures. I think our house looks like a Pizza Hut, so that's the nickname for it. I really don't like Pizza Hut's food, but I still find it funny that it looks like we live in a variant of the hut whom everyone out-pizzas. The other two elders are named Elder Goodwin and Elder Davies, and they're both pretty fun. It can get a little distracting because there are so many people in our house at any given point, so there are a few places we can go to escape 'the Gathering pad' as it's called. One of those places is kind of like a secret fort for missionaries. It's called the musty room because the must thereof is exceedingly great. It's got a special musty smell to it, and it's basically a really old moldy computer lab that we don't even really have a key to anymore. It's on the side of the stake center, which is huge by the way, and is just about a quarter mile walk from our pad. Nobody from the ward has a key either, so the only people who ever use it are the missionaries. We jimmy the door open with subway gift cards and what not. It's really funny actually. The second base is the giant jungle tree right next to our pad. We also have a giant church owned garden thing which we eat lunch in sometimes. It's really awesome. Hilo is nothing like Kekaha. For one thing, it's huge, even though it's technically a small town. The architecture and aesthetic design of the city proper is vibrant and creative, and it reminds me of going to DC with my family before my mission in that it gives off that east coast port town vibe while still being very Hawaiian. There is a bay nearby that's famous for its population of diverse and aggressive shark species, including hammerheads and tiger sharks. Surfers abound here. Way more so than on the other islands it seems. On any given day you can see 10-20 just out there chilling in the water. It's luscious and green, and compared to dry and barren Kekaha I'd consider Big Island more of a garden than the whole island of Kauai. It rains in Hilo at least twice a day. Sunshine is rare, but is a blessing when it comes. There are all sorts of fun places to get local food, my favorite so far is "Kozmic Cones" a burger joint drive through famous for the numerous milkshake and freeze options. They have a root beer shake and it's the best. The people of Hilo are a little slower when it comes to conversion, but they're all very kind and they have a powerful positive spirit about them. The geography here is also very unique. Lava chunks are plentiful, making shoes a valuable resource. The actual volcano is south of where we are, but we may try to visit it in the near future. It was right near the national park that the volcano erupted last year, creating a massive mess for everyone involved. Fun fact: recently a new species was discovered in Hilo. It's called the "thread legged bug" and lives in lava tubes. I'm excited to see some of the lava tubes as well. The work is slow for the moment, but I am doing my best to get that turned around. Things in Hilo are going great aside from the entire world's sicknesses trying to kill me all at the same time. That's kind of lame. But anyways. That's about it for this week. Have a good one and I'll talk to you next week! 

-Elder Rogers

Pictures:
 Me in the big jungle tree outside.
Our little pizza hut that we live in.
The church building has a little drop off thing where you can get out of the car without getting wet. It rains that much I guess. This is the first time I've ever seen something like this at a church. I kind of like it.