Happy Mother's Day

 What a wonderful surprise when the Louis's, Kunane and the Young's showed up at our welcome home and brought ku lua pork, chicken long rice, and lomi lomi salmon for a luau lunch. They killed the "peeg" in Hawaii, cooked it, froze it, and brought it over as a special offering of aloha for us.  We had no idea they were doing such a wonderful thing.  Do we feel loved? Our family, neighbors and friends were amazed by that amazing gift.

 Irwin and Ui Wright's daughters came and did the hula for everyone.  What a wonderful treat.  We have never seen them dance all together and it was just beautiful.  Everyone was in awe of the beauty of it.

Kunane is a great musician and plays piano, ukulele and everything else by ear.  He asked Wally to play a song with him.  It was a treat for everyone.  Wally was nervous but there will never be another "white Hawaiian like he is"!

So ends a fabulous year and a half  for us as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.  We will never be the same.  Our hearts have been changed forever. 

HOMECOMING

 Can you imagine the joy we felt as we stepped on the top of the escalator to come down and collect our luggage and there was all our family.  All of them.  Holding signs saying aloha and welcome home. We could hardly wait to put our arms around them and hug them like they have never been hugged before!  If this is what it will be like meeting loved ones in heaven we are all for it!

Look at this group.  Aren't they wonderful? My how they have grown since we've been gone. It is  so good to be home and we haven't even left the airport yet! We have seen other families meeting grandparents in the airport.  It has been so touching to watch.  Now it is happening to us. So glad Families Can Be Together Forever!

Hawaii Aloha and Aloha Oe

What a beautiful Sunday!  It has been bitter sweet actually. We will  be going home on Tuesday and we are anxious to see our family.  At the same time we are torn leaving our friends and family here in Kekaha.  Today in church at the close of the meeting the Bishop called us up to the front of the chapel and the congregation sang to us.  It is the custom when people are leaving to sing "Aloha Oe" but they chose to sing our favorite "Hawaii Aloha" also.  Oh my, there wasn't a dry eye anywhere in the room.  We cried and cried because we have come to love these wonderful people as our own family.  Even after all the beautiful lei's from Friday night they brought us more and more today as well as  gifts from the heart.  How can we ever leave and be the same?  Our hearts will be here forever.  They have truly left footprints on our hearts.

Allerton Gardens.

We slept in until 8:00 o'clock this morning.  We know that this will be our last few days here.  We will be going home early Tues. We decided to see some things we hadn't seen before and first went to the Allerton Botanical Gardens.  They were absolutely lovely.  There are several trees here with roots winding around the ground.  These were used in the movie Jurasic Park.  It is where the dinosaur egg was found in resin.  Anyway we thought we better have our picture taken in this famous place. We still can't get over the wonderful ward party from last night and still talk about what a surprise everyone pulled over on us.  After the gardens we had a late lunch at the Poi Pu Bay Golf Course Grill.  Wally didn't golf here but it helps to make him feel better by eating yummy food and looking out over the beautiful greens.  We came home in the afternoon and did some more packing and sent some boxes home. Robert (the clerk at the Post Office) is getting to know us really well.  We also took lots of things to the Salvation Army.  President and Sister Dalton surprised us with and good bye call.  They wanted to have us stay at the mission home before we left but they were called to the mainland for a conference.  It was nice to have one last chat and to say thanks for the opportunity to serve here on this gorgeous island.

King and Queen of the May Day Celebration.

I wasn't feeling too well today and decided not to go to the ward May Day Celebration. I didn't want to make anyone sick.  The Sister Missionaries came over in the afternoon and when I told them I wasn't going to go they said, "Maybe you should at least make an appearance and then come home and lay down."  I put on my new muu muu and tried to smile.  Wally looked handsome in his new aloha shirt and off we went.  When we got there the recreation hall was decorated beautifully and lots of yummy food was laid out to eat.  We sat down for a few minutes and the MC said now it is time to crown the King and Queen of May Day.  Wally and I both looked at each other and were talking about who we thought it could be when they called out..... Elder and Sister Fairbanks.  That's right it was us! We couldn't believe it.  We were so surprised. We had many gorgeous leis placed around our necks along with hugs and kisses.  The ward payed many tributes to us in song and dance. Some written just for tonight. It was absolutely beautiful.  We cried and laughed and hugged everyone.  What a wonderful gift this mission and these lovely people have been in our lives.

Portuguese Bean Soup.

Lois and Vince have promised us Portuguese Bean Soup before we we go home so tonight is the night! Yum!!!  We wondered if we would be able to have our final evening together because Vince's dad is in the hospital.  Wally and Vince administered to him and he has been doing better but we still did not want to take them away from family or feel like they had to spend the evening with us.  They were glad to have us come.  We had such a wonderful visit.  They also invited Bishop and Maxine and we had a lot of fun together. When you talk story and laugh and share with each other it helps to take our minds of things sometimes. The soup was so fabulous. Lois is a really good cook. We had 3 kinds of fresh baked bread and a luscious green salad to go with the soup.  Then Lois pulled out all the stops and for dessert she had her famous jello cheese cake.  It was to die for! Bishop brought an apple pie and we all had a piece of that too.  You can imagine how happy and full we were when the evening was over.  Here I go again but how we are going to miss these wonderful friends when we fly away home. How dear they are to us.  

An Afternoon With Colleen.

One of the sweetest ladies I have ever met is Colleen.  We have become really good friends in a short amount of time.  We have talked at church and said hello here and there but never have done much together since we have been here. A couple months ago she was standing outside the Relief Society Room and invited Maxine and me over to see her new craft room.  She didn't have to ask me twice, you know.  We went over and spent a wonderful afternoon learning to make lei's and of course talked story.  We had a delicious lunch and had the best time. While we were there we felt a real connection and both of us asked, "why has it taken us so long to find this out?"  Anyway, long story short, we have had some wonderful work sessions at her house and at Relief Society work meeting on Friday mornings. Our Friday work meetings are on the 2nd and 4th Fridays.  The second week we always do personal projects and on the forth week we do service projects.  Here Colleen is showing a bag we will be making to send to children at the Shriner's Hospital.  Colleen has so many talents and creative ideas it blows my mind.  She has taught me a few good tricks and I will share them in later posts.  Love you Colleen!  Think what we could have done if only we had the chance to really know each other longer.