Elder & Sister Mundell

We finally were able to leave our apartment and resume our missionary duties this week after testing positive for COVID. We talked to several people about it, and apparently this latest mutation of the virus has been very contagious, it spread like wildfire in Hawaii, but the symptoms were relatively mild. Elder Mundell tested positive the longest, but he never had any symptoms. We're happy to start sharing the gospel again, and host more of our family members. Cathy's daughter Keilah and her wonderful fiance Anthony are visiting us this week, and we are showing them some of the sights on this beautiful island. They are amazed at how green everything is. We love having them here! Keilah captured her mother on video having one of her infamous hiccups, and we will post that video on Dan's Facebook, ElderSister Mundell. Keilah Meyer and Anthony Young  President and Sister Andersen recently returned from new mission leader training at the MTC in Provo, and they shared with us h...

This week was the lowest point of our mission. Sister Mundell felt like the symptoms she was experiencing were the same as when she had COVID a few years ago, so we saw the doctor and both of us tested positive for the virus. As a result, we cancelled all of our scheduled appointments for the rest of the week and remained isolated in our apartment. Elder Mundell continued to walk several miles every morning, but that was about the extent of our excursions outside. We were able to do a couple of things that didn't involve interacting with other people, but for the most part we stayed in bed because we felt so tired. We were able to see how restrictive it must have been for the elders and sisters who served during the height of the pandemic. So we have absolutely ZERO to write home about this week. Dan's positive COVID test is on the left, Cathy's is on the right Father's Day swag bags we put together to hand out last Sunday.

Most of our usual missionary activities were paused this week so we could spend time with Linda, Elder Mundell's sister who was visiting us from Oregon. The really cool thing about the past week is we were able to visit some places we'd never been to before. These included the botanical gardens, Dole plantation, Bellows beach, a star show at the planetarium, and best of all ... Oahu was hosting FestPAC and we had a chance to see several island groups from around the Pacific performing dances and demonstrating their cultural arts.  Sister & Elder Mundell with Linda, learning ukulele.  Our visit to the planetarium at Windward Community College reminded us just how vast and infinite the universe really is, and how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. There's a verse in Moses that says "Worlds without number have I created", and It's mind blowing to look at the stars and realize that what we're seeing is their light from many years ago that ...

With Father's Day coming up, we were asked to speak about the lessons we learned from our fathers at Sacrament Meeting for the Waimanalo ward. Sister Mundell loved and admired her father. It would be easy to talk about him because of all the fine qualities and good memories she has of him. However Elder Mundell knew this was going to be a difficult topic for him to talk about. While he loved his dad and he was a good decent man who loved his family, he didn't feel close to him and couldn't cite a lot of inspirational examples about his father.  Cathy asked all of her siblings "What lessons did you learn from our father?" and these were some of the responses from her sisters: "He said don't think you're better than anyone else, but don't let someone think they are better than you. He loved us no matter where we were in our lives. He never judged. He had a lot of compassion for others." "Unconditional love. Never discouraged, only encourag...

Dan's sister Linda is visiting us this week from his hometown of Grants Pass, Oregon. She was supposed to arrive Tuesday evening, but her flight was delayed several hours and she had to stay the night in Seattle. That allowed us to squeeze in an extra morning serving at the Pantry with our missionary zone. The really special thing about that was the other two senior missionary couples in our zone were also there, so we had a rare chance to socialize with them. It's funny how our assignments are nearly identical but don't overlap and as a result we don't ever see each other unless it's at a zone conference or we make plans to meet together for lunch. This is Linda's first visit ever to Hawaii, and she is eager to see all the sights and take in all the many things to do here. Linda has even gone with us to a couple of church and service activities we do every week, which is really nice of her!  Our Saturday plans included a visit to the Ho'omaluhia Botanical G...

Most of our free time this week was devoted to serving at The Pantry, by Feeding Hawaii Together. This is their website thepantry.org if you want to learn about this organization and what we do. We volunteer there five hours each Friday, and last week Jen Roberts, who manages the volunteer program, said they needed extra help to bag tons of produce and shop for an unusually large number of food orders. We have a good relationship with all of the staff, and she can count on us to help out when needed. We extended the invitation to all of the other senior missionaries on Oahu to answer the call for more service this week. We did two hours of shopping and placing orders on shelves Tuesday, then came back the next day for five hours of bagging carrots and oranges (which can be back-breaking work if you're not careful) in addition to our usual shift on Friday. It was hard, but when the day is over, it's the kind of work that you can look back on with a smile on your face, knowing t...