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
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.
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