Big Island

On Friday, June 12th, Adam and I had the opportunity to go to the Big Island for the first time. The main purpose of our trip was to go to the Kona Temple. We haven't been to the temple for more than 6 months because the La'ie Temple is closed for a year and a half for major renovations. We left at 4am to get to the airport by 5am, and our flight left at 5:52, so we were pretty tired the entire time, but it was well worth it. After a 40-45 minute flight, we arrived on the Big Island, rented a car and headed to the Kona Temple. We went through 2 sessions, at 9 and 11, with the other 13 people from the ward who came. We had been looking forward to going to the temple for a long time, so it was awesome to finally be able to go. It may not be for another year (when the La'ie Temple reopens) until we can go back again.



Oh, and just across a wall to the temple grounds, there were 3 horses, so we petted them and fed one of them a piece of banana.



Having such a great experience at the temple, we went with Erik from our ward to Kahalu'u Beach to go snorkeling. I had read online that it had great snorkeling there, but I didn't realize it would be so amazing. The fish were twice as big and numerous as I had ever seen on Oahu, there were so many brightly colored corals and we got to hang out with some sea turtles that weren't afraid to get close.



After snorkeling, we went to eat at the Big Island Grill, right by the temple. I got a Hawaiian plate, which consisted of lau lau, poke, macaroni salad and rice. It was all pretty good. If you're ever in the area, I'd recommend it. After finally being able to attend the temple after so long and having the best snorkeling experience ever, I hope we can go back to the Big Island soon, but it probably won't happen since we had to sacrifice a little to make it there this time.