My First Mission

by George Q. Cannon

I Return to Maui—We Are Visited by the President of the Mission, Who Determines to Go to the Marqueses Islands—Are Not Led to Go With Him—”Poi,” Its Preparation and Peculiarities

The progress I had made in learning the language surprised the Elders at Honolulu. I was able to converse tolerably well with the natives, and understand what they said. When they learned how the Lord had opened our way and aided us in acquiring the language, they felt that it might be wisdom for me to continue my labors there, instead of removing to Honolulu. This, after counseling together, was the decision of the president.

I was much gratified at the privilege of returning to Maui; for, to my view, prospects for accomplishing any great amount of good were not very bright then at Honolulu.

Elder William Farrer sailed with me to Maui, to be a partner to Henry W. Bigler.

We had scarcely reached Lahaina, when Elder Hiram Blackwell called upon us from the Island of Hawaii, where he had been with Elder James Hawkins. He was on his way to Honolulu, and expected, if it was not contrary to counsel, to return home. He was discouraged in trying to learn the language and preach to the natives. He reached Honolulu in time to return with the other Elders.

At this point I may anticipate the order of my narrative by stating that Elder James Hawkins, Brother Blackwell’s partner, remained on Hawaii for some time, striving to acquire the language, and to proclaim the gospel to the people. He afterwards came up to Maui and labored there, and filled a good mission before he returned home.

About three weeks after my return from Honolulu, we were surprised at receiving a visit from the president of the mission. He had concluded to leave the Sandwich Islands and go to the Marquesas Islands; for he thought there was a better field there.

These latter islands, 30° south of where we were then, are inhabited by a race of people whose language is very similar to that spoken by the natives of the Sandwich Islands. They are probably descendants of one common stock. But they are naturally more fierce and savage than the Sandwich Islanders. It is said of some of them, that when they are engaged in war, they have no objections to eating a piece of a roasted man; indeed, they rather relish such a meal at such times, as they think it makes them brave.

Our president’s principal motive in coming to see us was to have us go with him. If prospects were no better on Maui than on the island he had been on, he thought we should accompany him. It was not from any fear that the people of the Marquesas group would eat us, that we did not fall in with his proposal; but because we could not see the propriety of it.

Our position, just then, was a peculiar one. Here was our president, the man who had been appointed to counsel and guide us, proposing to us to leave the field to which we had been appointed, and to take a journey of several hundred miles to another land to labor. What were we to do? How far did the obedience which we owed to him require us to go? This was an important question. To disobey a man in the rightful exercise of authority, was an act from which we naturally recoiled; and an act, too, of which we were not in the least disposed to be guilty. But we felt that it would not be right for us to leave that island then.