Petersen 911: Oh Hawai'i part 2

While Dave was working, he was able to make some great connections. One of them was a kind man who is serving a mission, with his wife, at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). It turns out that he is a retired firefighter from northern California and of course he and Dave ended up talking shop, sharing war stories and getting along famously. Even more ironic is the fact that about a year ago Dave spotted this particular mission on a flyer that came through the Bishops office and he said, "Man, if I was retired, we could go do this". Timing is everything.

Dave spent an entire day there at the PCC, walking around with Elder Newgren, looking at all of the in's and out's of the place, talking about how to improve the safety and security and identifying weak points. This new job that he has is taylor made for him because he gets paid to be paranoid, which is something he does anyway, so he might as well get paid for it, right?

At the end of the day, Elder Newgren really surprised us with an amazing deal. We got to go back a couple of days later and completely enjoy the entire park + eat at the brand new restaurant + see the "Ha, Breath of life" show + go on the Haunted Lagoon, complete with fast passes to get to the front of the line! What a night! We got to have Sarah and Chris along with us too which was incredible. I've learned that Chris is very much "food driven" and it's fun to watch him dive into, and be very grateful for a BUFFET!

Sarah was our tour guide during the day while Chris was at school, so she took us to the favorite "islands", being careful to avoid the more boring "islands". It is impossible to see all of them in one day so we didn't want to waste time on those. I have to say that New Zealand was my favorite. Tahiti was very cool too.