Maui Part Two

Our first stop in Lahaina was at Bubba Gump's Shrimp for two orders of "Shrimp Heaven". This dish consists of four different kinds of shrimp with four different sauces--boiled shrimp served cold with cocktail sauce, coconut shrimp served with sweet and sour sauce, fried shrimp served with I can't remember what sauce and tempura shrimp served with teriyaki sauce. Yum!!!


Lahaina was the royal capital of Hawaii when it was a kingdom. So, when missionaries went to the Sandwich Islands, this is where they usually landed. This was interesting to David because he participated in compiling the "Teachings of Lorenzo Snow" and he remembered several stories from President Snow's mission to the Sandwich Islands. One of them involved the harbor at Lahaina, which is where we visited. There is no natural harbor there, so big ships (it was a whaling port) had to anchor offshore, then ferry passengers in smaller rowboats to shore.

When Lorenzo Snow and his companion, Joseph F. Smith arrived along with two other elders, there was a storm, but the passengers attempted to go ashore anyway. Lorenzo Snow and the others got in the smaller boat, but Joseph refused, saying he didn't feel good about it. Lorenzo insisted, but Joseph refused, until finally he told Lorenzo, "I'll only get in the boat if you command me by the power of the priesthood." (Joseph was only 15 years old at the time.) Lorenzo, of course, couldn't do that, so Joseph remained in the larger vessel.

As the rowboat was going ashore, a huge wave swamped it and all aboard were thrown into the sea. No one could find President Snow for awhile, and when they did, he had quit breathing. The missionaries felt impressed to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a procedure unknown at that time and President Snow was revived.

Lahaina was also the setting for movie, "Hawaii", which starred Julie Andrews. We rented the DVD while we were there and watched it. But we wanted to strangle the main character, a preacher, for being such a jerk. There are a lot of historical sites in Lahaina, many of them related to missionary work there (although none of them Mormon). One of them is a restored mansion for one of the missionaries. One of the guides related to us that the preachers in the movie were patterned after some real people who came as missionaries to the islands. She said that the people loved one of them, because he was a doctor and he helped the people, but hated the other because all he did was condemn what they did and tell them they were going to burn in hell. We thought it was an interesting perspective to have and that the movie would be a good one for missionaries to watch before going out on their missions. (Although the bare-breasted native women in the opening scenes may have to be edited out.)

One of the interesting things we saw right off the shore was a royal birthing chair--it was a rock in the ocean that the queen would be carried down to in order to give birth.

We watched the sunset from the harbor. Beautiful.

Across the bay, you could see an island--Lanai. Lanai is where President Snow and the other elders excommunicated the self-appointed Hawaiian mission president, Walter Murray Gibson, for organizing a new church, selling priesthood offices to men and women, and usurping Church property.
There was a historical walk through the town of Lahaina, which we followed the last day we were on Maui. Very interesting. More about that later.