Seminary Success

We feel extremely blessed to serve as seminary teachers. It's not something we've done before, and it's really hard to get up early in the morning prepared to enlighten and inspire teenagers day after day. We have wonderful examples in our stake like Auntie Nette Makua (who's been teaching seminary for 26 years) to follow that offer to help us, but we feel like we still have so much to learn as we try to motivate our kids to read the scriptures, participate in class, and do the online assignments. When we have days like Monday, it feels like it's all worth it! We have eleven junior and senior students, typically around 8 or 9 each morning. Sometimes we only have 2 or 3 there when we have an opening prayer, song and devotional at 6 am, but within a few minutes most of the class is there. We were talking about the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5, and gradually our hearts overflowed with joy each time we had to keep adding more chairs - because all of the class showed up, a first for us!!! We promised them a party if we ever got 100% attendance. On Friday we had a scavenger hunt to help reinforce the doctrines they are learning in their mastery scriptures and shared a nice breakfast with them afterwards. Elder Mundell made fried rice for the first time ever, and everyone loved it. Our family members were puzzled why we put Spam in the recipe, but it's definitely a Hawaiian thing to do. Dan's family got used to adding spam to rice living on Guam for so many years. Like most aspects in life, it's the difficult things we do that give us the deepest sense of love and gratitude. We know it's not easy for our students, it's a big ask to include seminary along with everything else going on in their young lives, so we love and appreciate all their efforts, their bright and cheerful spirits, and applaud their parents for what they're doing at home to help them grow and mature in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our wonderful, amazing seminary class! 100% Attendance Day!
Porter, Ava, Lia, Tasi, Carley, Braden, Nanue, Kekoa, Eden, Kia'i and Kupa'a 

Hawaiian fried rice, a staple of island breakfasts

Every Thursday we talk to a small group of people at a detox facility in Honolulu who are trying to clean up their lives and overcome additions to drugs and alcohol. They voluntarily come in, usually off the street, agree to strict rules about what they are allowed to do, and given a few days to sober up. In many cases they go through serious withdrawal pains the first couple of days. They are only there for about a week or so before moving on to another treatment facility, so as a result we rarely see any of them more than once. Our purpose is to teach socialization and coping skills, helping them learn to recognize and avoid things that trigger a desire to relapse into addictive substances and behaviors. We don't get to teach religion, but we are allowed to share principles about how we should live that Christ taught, like having faith, showing kindness and compassion for others, and ways to be better by doing good. Sister Mundell is able to draw on her background in therapy to guide them making better choices for their future, and Elder Mundell is her trusty sidekick that agrees with everything she says. We're only a small part of what gets done there, but they really love having us provide a different perspective, and our missionary assignment gives us credibility in their eyes. We love having the opportunity to serve. We've seen so many different people there, the entire spectrum from those who've given up, are bitter and unresponsive and aren't willing to really change, to the tender souls who are so humble and desperate to get out of the cycle of addition that they are finally ready to do whatever it takes to become and stay clean. We never know what to expect when we walk in the door, but we keep trying, and we keep loving them in spite of who they are and what they've done. It breaks our heart to hear their experiences as they share what brought them there. It's all part of being a senior missionary.