 Hi kakou, and welcome to another episode of Roots Hawai'i. My name is Walter Kauai'i'a, your host for today's episode entitled Discovery Day, a wonderful community event that's open to the public, and it's free. You'll learn to discover a connect with your ancestors. This event is sponsored and hosted by the Honolulu Hawai'i West Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is located at 1723 Beckley Street, right across from Farrington High School. Joining me today are my special guests and two dear friends, Melvin Nakama, and Louise Kealoha. Aloha. Thanks for having us, Walter. Oh, thank you for joining us, both of you. Just so our viewers get to know who these amazing individuals are and why they're here today. I'll start with a brief introduction of Mel Nakama. Mel and I have known each other for, I don't know, about 30-plus years through our involvement in various church positions. Mel was born and raised on the island of Maui. He graduated from Teachers College in Oregon, where he taught in middle school for three years, I think it was, and then returned to the islands. Mel retired last year from Kalawa Middle School as a counselor for 41 years in education. Mel has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 34 years. He has served as a bishop for a little over five years. He currently serves as a counselor to the state president since last October. These ecclesiastical leaders have stewardship over nine wards or congregations. In addition to those areas of responsibility, Mel also oversees the temple and family history work for the entire stake. He is here today in that official capacity representing the stake presidency and the Discovery Day event sponsoring unit. So thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. Thank you, Walter. And we are also very lucky to have joining us today, probably the foremost exponent on hosting and participating in planning and organizing many Discovery Day events. She too is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who hails from Laie, but currently lives in the nation of Waimanalo. Sister Louise Kailoha, as we like to affectionately refer to the women of the Church, is a devout, experienced, and very passionate genealogist and has been for decades. Her wealth of experience and acquired knowledge came through years of dedication in, not only through searching out her own ancestors, but volunteering to help anyone who wanted to discover and connect with their own ancestors. She and her husband have been serving a church service mission at the Remote Operations Center that helps to preserve and make available to the world through one of the oldest and most experienced genealogical research entities on the planet known as FamilySearch, where then Sister Kailoha's lifelong dedication and commitment to this work has proven invaluable and a blessing to many over these years. Thank you for joining us today, Louise. Thank you for having me. You know, I think so that our viewers, I'm sure there are many people watching that know both of you through the community and things that you've been involved with, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't know you. Just for those people, I'm going to give you our viewers just an introduction as to our guests. And I know, Mel, you've worked so many years in middle school and as an education counselor. That's correct. As you've worked in that field, how has there ever been any experiences in your field of work that anything to do with family history or genealogy? Can you think of any experiences that you had while in that profession? Well, the only thing I can think about is working with immigrant families and their ties to their ancestors back home brings to light of things that their children are involved with. Kind of a pleasant experience to work with families and their generations back in their homeland. Oh, that's interesting. I know I kind of heard through the grapevine that Mel, a couple of years ago, had a personal experience that just kind of popped up in him while he was in Japan. And we're going to have Mel share that with us in a second. But I want to ask Sister Kealoha if I might a question. Sister Kealoha, tell our viewers what they might, for those people that have never attended a Discovery Day, what might they expect when they come to one of these events? Well, they could expect a lot of things. And I especially feel that by attending these things, they will learn more about the resources that we have. And they will also learn more about each other because we have displays and we have a lot of things that we put on. And a lot of families that does attend these events find that they are connected to someone within the room. And you know, I've experienced that on many occasions where someone put up their chart and one of the participants who came walked around and in looking at these various charts found that they were connected with this person. Although they didn't know the person personally, they asked if we knew who owned the chart. I certainly pointed out the person that was connected to that chart. And they sat down and talked sorry. And they found that they were related. They had common ancestors that they knew about. And they shared their experiences. And I think that's great for me. It's a very emotional thing when you connect with your family. I think we all share that. Any time any of us can adhere to the counsel that's given in Holy Ritz, where the last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, tells us to turn the hearts to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children. And so to our viewers out there that may not be familiar with that passage in Scripture, what that specifically is talking about is genealogical research. And there isn't one human being on this planet who doesn't have a sense of yearning to connect and discover either with family currently here or with family that have passed on. I mean, we all want to know where we come from and how we connect on the planet. So I'm going to jump back to, we'll come right back. I have a question for you, but I want to ask Mel a question. I'd like, so as the Ecclesiastical Leader representing this, the Honolulu-Hawaii West Stake that's sponsoring this Discovery Day event, maybe I can ask our engineer to throw, there it is, our flyer, our Discovery Day event that's happening on Saturday, July 20th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's located at the Honolulu-Hawaii West Stake Center Cultural Hall. And that's located right across from Farrington High School, 1723 Beckley Street. So as the Ecclesiastical Leader representing this stake, what is the mission? Or what, you know, you as the as the leader along with other members of the stake presidency, what are you hoping to achieve and accomplish within, just within the stake itself, for the nine, you know, congregations or wards that we have in the stake? Well, Walter, we all have a divinely appointed responsibility to seek out our kindred dead and to ultimately enjoy the blessings of eternal families. We're hoping that our members from our wards will come to the event and to learn how to discover their family history, their ancestors, and then to learn how to connect them to themselves and also to learn about different features they can enjoy while doing their family history work. All right. Just to kill, I'll share with us, because I remember you, you talked about a personal story you were sharing with me yesterday about how you, I think it was your son. Your son was working at Zippy, so I'm putting Louise Kelloha on the spot, but she just shared this with me yesterday. I thought it was a great story, because that's the exciting part about when you sincerely are looking to make connection with ancestors. And when we say, you know, ancestors, obviously those that have gone before us, but there are family members that are still present here, and we don't know where they are. And some of us don't even know who they are. And so when we have experiences that we just connect like Louise was sharing, that many of these discovery events, people show up, and then, you know, they see a display and they see a name, and then they ask, and then before you know it, so share with us what you were sharing with me about your own personal experience. Well, for years my son has been working for Zippies, and he met an elderly couple there, and they became very close. And you know how our local children are? Everybody is Auntie and Uncle. And that's how my son got to know these people as Auntie and Uncle, and he would always come home and talk about them. So one day I asked him, I said, what are these people's names, and he said, Auntie and Uncle. And I said, well, that doesn't tell me much, but I happened to go to Zippies one day and they happened to be there. And so my son decided he was going to introduce me to them. And of course, me being the person I am, I asked them what their names were. And when the gentleman told me what his name was, I, a light bulb went off in my head, but I didn't say anything to them because I wanted to go back with my son and talk to him about it. And so when my son came home from work and I said, okay, George, I says, do you know that his last name is Lee, which is my maiden name. And my son was, you know, he was shocked. And I said, yes, you're Auntie and Uncle, their last name is Lee. So he goes back to work and they're there almost every day. And so he goes, Uncle, he says, my mom says your last name is Lee. He says, my name is George Lee. That's my, my grandfather's name. So this uncle tells him, oh, well, who's your grandfather? And so my son mentions the name Manly Lee. And that just about broke the whole thing because it turned out that his father, Vernon Lee is a brother of my great grandfather, Manly Lee. And so when I found that out and I told my son, I says, this people are real families. That's your real Auntie and Uncle. So he goes back and he talks to them. And so we connect. And it was so emotional for me because up until that point, I knew very little about my dad's side of the family. And this opened the door for me. And from that moment on, the Lee family spread very wide. Well, that's really good. I love hearing stories like that. I'm sure the viewers out there, you know, we're all humans. And we all belong to the same family. And so when you hear stories of people, you know, other humans connecting like that, it does touch your heart. I mean, I don't know how you cannot be touched by that. And then you sit back and you think, wow, I really want to go and search out my own ancestors. And you know, when you, when you start down that pathway, you know, we know how to explain it, but to put it in general terms, doors open up. And yes, situations like that occur. And as as unique as you might think that is, Louise would agree with me that happens more often than many of us think with individuals. It's not a public consumption, but it happens more often than not. I want to go back to Mel. What kind of, what are you hoping for, you know, attendance-wise? And, you know, it's obviously members of your stake, you know, will come out and attend. But I'm sure there's a part of you as a ecclesiastical leader that would really like to see many of the community, you know, come out and participate in this event. So what kind of numbers are you hoping to get that day? Well, we're preparing for a conservative number of 200 attendees with hopes that there'll be more. We've directed our bishops to encourage their members to attend the event. And we're hoping that anyone in the community interested in doing genealogy research will come either as a beginner to come and learn how to get started in doing family research or come as active genealogists who have come to a roadblock and needs some answers to overcome these obstacles. You know, for those that are viewing this and have never done genealogy work, it's very easy to get started. You know, it starts with you and then everyone has a mom and everyone has a dad. And then everyone has a grandma and grandpa on mom's side. Everyone has a grandma and grandpa on dad's side. And, you know, we all can call that by names. We don't need to go get that information. And shame on you if you have to, okay? But I want to ask, I want to ask, Mel, share with us, you know, let's reserve that for the second half after we come back from it, because I want to have a special thought in mind. So Sister Kailaha, tell us about your years of experience. What got you started? And I want to know how old you were and what was it, you know, because it's always interesting. I mean, I've had people tell me, gosh, I was 10 years old and I'm like, what 10-year-old gets interested so, you know, you don't have to be 10. But, you know, how did you get all started on this pathway? What was it? My grandmother, she was bedridden. And for a while, I was a little caregiver for her. And I would travel to Waipahu every day. And it is during this time that Tutu would start to tell me her stories. But at the point when you're not interested in family history and you're with your Tutu, you're thinking she's just repeating these stories. Well, the more she repeated the stories and they started to listen, really listen. And once I did that, and once she realized that I was paying attention to her, then she brought out more things. And the more stuff she brought out, then it just grabbed on to me. Because once you learn about your ancestors, there's something that changes inside of you. It's a beginning of where you're going to feel something greater than yourself. You know, it is basically during that profound silence, when you're thinking in the spaces between your thoughts, that you're going to have these people, these ancestors talk to you, their voices you will hear if you pay attention. And what they're going to relate to you is that they love you. And so when you know that, and then you feel the love coming in, you want to give back the love. And with that, you start to really, you know, because genealogy is not just a cold gathering of facts. What genealogy really is, is breathing life into our ancestors, bringing them back and telling their stories. Because honestly, it is our chance to share our family history. It is our reason to celebrate our past. And it is our time to welcome our future as a family. Wow, I couldn't have said it any better. And that, folks, is one of the primary reasons why, if you've never been to one of these Discovery Day events happening on July 20th over at the Honolahoa West Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you should attend. It will be from 8 in the morning till 1pm. And when we come back from break, we'll talk more about specifics that are occurring then. Well, we certainly have a lot more to talk about with our two beautiful guests, Mel Nakama and Louise Kelloha. And learn more about the Discovery Day event coming up on Saturday, July 20th at the Honolahoa West Stake Center, located at 1723 Beckley Street, right across from Farrington High School. My name is Walter Kauai Aia, your host for Roots Hawaii. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Aloha. This is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About, where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Lauren Pear, a host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Aloha, Micah. Go and welcome back to Roots Hawaii. I'm your host, Walter Kawaii. We've been charging with our special guest Mel Nakama and Luis Kealoha. So I want to ask Mel something and he kind of shared this with me last week as we were chatting. So you had an interesting experience and you weren't really searching out anything. You just were in, I think it was Japan? Okinawa. Maybe you might want to show what happened. Sure. So our family took a trip to Japan with a side visit to Okinawa to visit our daughter-in-law's parents. And to my surprise, my daughter-in-law's father did some research and found out that there was a Nakama family living in the town of Kinosa where actually my grandfather is from. And so we took a ride, we found the property, we knocked on the door and out came a man who greeted us and as soon as I saw this man I knew he was a relative because he looked exactly like my dad's brother and come to find out that he was actually my dad's cousin and his father and my grandfather were brothers. Wow. And he was very cordial, he invited us in, he showed us some photos, he even took us to the family gravesite. Wow. Now my grandfather's home has since been rebuilt but Walter you know just having my feet touch the ground when my grandfather played it as a little boy that was so touching. Oh I can imagine. And to kind of wonder when he was 18 years old and he had to make the decision to leave his family to go to a foreign place where the locals didn't share the same language or ate the same food or shared the same culture and to try to earn enough money and to return to Okinawa and to help with the family. But sadly that never happened. He stayed there, he married, raised a family and you know I'm forever grateful for the sacrifices that not only him but all of my grandparents made on our behalf and for the behalf of the generations that follow. You know thank you for sharing that very personal story but while you're talking so I'm thinking you know like this regular person so this is your father's cousin. This is your dad's cousin. Right and I never knew anything about my relatives in Okinawa because my dad very rarely spoke about relatives in Okinawa. Right right and so this is your dad's cousin the man that you met at the house. Right. And the connection was that man at the house, your dad's cousin, his father and your dad's father were brothers. See this is the kind of this is what happens just comment every day occurrence you talk having a conversation with somebody and they share this kind of experience and we all can relate to that that's the beauty about genealogy and family history. Everybody wants to know and you know even though I have no Nakama blood but it excites me because I know another you know human being and of course we're friends is connecting this way and I know it touches your heart touches my heart too because I've had similar experiences and you know that that moment when you said you know standing on the same ground you know Hawaiians have this mana'u and you should try it once in a while you know in this westernized world that we live in we always have something over our feet for practical reasons shoes calipas you know slippers there are times when because I've done this whenever I go to visit any of my relatives at the grave I take off my slippers and I walk on the grass especially when I get to the grave site where my either my mother my grandparents my great grandmother uh my mother's father my grandfather I'm I'm on my feet so I I do that you might think I'm crazy but I do that so I can feel that I'm actually connecting with them you know what I mean all right I don't know if that makes sense you might think I'm crazy anyway sister Kayla getting back to you so let's talk more about the specifics of you know this Discovery Day event that's coming up on July 20th there we go thank you Rob Saturday July 20th from 8 to 1 p.m. that's a Saturday it's being held at the Honolulu Hawai'i West Stake it's in the cultural hall and that is at 1723 Beckley Street right across from Farrington High School so let's talk maybe specifics because I know you attended several of their planning meetings and some of the things now there's a husband and a wife uh brother and sister Nihipali uh Benjamin and Geraldine Nihipali I've never met them you've met them I I know of them we all went to the same high school oh yes off the subject one high school year's way okay never mind let's get right back here stay on the track here yeah yes we all went to the same high school and so I do know them yeah well you know I've heard that name is in in the here in Hawaii in the circles of genealogical research the name Nihipali is well established in terms of genealogical research so I'm probably referring to his grandfather uh that was very well known um so here so for those that are are listening to this and you know contemplating to attend one of these events because you've never done it before um just going over the the agenda of what's occurring that day so we're going to have uh Benjamin Nihipali is going to have a display and he's he's one of he and his wife are are one of the just uh presenters and I think Benjamin is going to talk about the Portuguese the Portuguese ethnic group and then his wife will do the Chinese and then they will do another part where they're going to teach some technology um but there's other people that will be presenters there and I'm sure that whenever you come over there and do the your own research that somebody is going to help you and you know of course this is going to be held in Kalihi but I want the people to know that there are family history centers throughout the island at the Mormon churches throughout the island or the LDS church sorry and um and so anybody is more than willing to help if you come to one of these discovery days or if you need help we do have these library centers to help you yeah she's Louise is talking about the family history centers and so most established state buildings have within the the confines there they have a temple and family history center it's open to the public people can come in and there's always you know people that are there to help and assist um and speaking of technologies and I'm glad that there's that on the agenda because you know over the years um or like I said in my opening monologue um family search originally started over 120 years ago as the genealogical society of Utah and it has always been at the forefront when it comes to the development of both hardware and software and the technological advancements when it comes to genealogical research and um you know so the availability and you know you can count on coming to these family history centers knowing full and well that family search as it is called today has kept up both in their hardware and software developments to make uh you know these records accessible and available in the easiest way possible so if you come to this event I know there's going to be one presenter that's going to be talking about several uh you know applications that you can acquire that right on your smart device you know I mean so we talk about all these kinds of things I'm going to be um well not me but my family has been asked I have a grandson who's 20 years old now but at the age of between age nine and 10 uh he was fortunate to write a book it made it made him till this day the the youngest book author published book author in the united states his book was installed in the library of congress the name of the book is entitled uh koala komo naioli's race to save a king but all of that never would have happened if yours truly did not sit down one day in 1970 at the archives and start to do my own personal family research so you know all of the the opportunities and as mel said blessings that can come to an individual when you sincerely seek out your ancestors are you know can't even put a put a price tag on that it's just invaluable and um we're running out of time perhaps we need to come back and do another show these two people I just say something like what you had just discovered about your 10 seconds but go ahead talk but um it's these kind of stories that can help you find your stories honestly I mean everybody comes across stories like this and listening to whatever brother Walter has said come to this discovery and you'll find out more about his story yes and we'll we can share and and have experiences yes exactly well folks here we are once again we've run out of time but we've had a really enlightening time today speaking with my two guests and dear friends Melna Kama and Louise Kealoha representing the event as the sponsor for the Honolulu Hawaii Steak along with sister Louise Kealoha a timeless exponent and qualified genealogist thank you very much for being here today and good luck with your discovery day event to be held this Saturday July 20th from 8 to 1 p.m parking is limited uh but parking will be across the street at Farringah High School we have uh arrangements with them and uh we'll we'll look forward to seeing all of you there thank you for joining us today here at Think Tech Hawaii I'm your host Walter Kawaii for Roots Hawaii join me next Tuesday for a special episode of Roots Hawaii and my guest will be Mr. Kamakah Peeley from KHON TV until then Allah Allah