KE’ANAE, Hawaii — While tourists zigzag their way along the windy and famous mountain road to Hana on the island of Maui, a turnoff about halfway to Hana leads to a rutted, grassy lane and a secluded spot among the thick Hawaiian trees.
Here lives a resilient, tough, strong, loving, friendly and faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Meiling Akuna — known to friends as Aunty Meiling — lives in a repurposed shipping container on her ancestral land. She is proud to tell her visitors that she turns 85 years old this year and that she joined the Church in 1987 and never looked back.
Cooking lunch for her visitors on a single butane stove — she has no electricity — Akuna invited everyone to sit close at the table together and handed them bottles of water.
“Drink your water, I talk story,” she teased.
Learning self-reliance on Hawaii’s Ke‘anae Peninsula
Akuna grew up on this land in a family of 10 girls and six boys. She learned self-reliance from her father, who taught his children to hunt, run, fish, patch nets, grow taro plants, use the land and learn everything they could about the world. He emphasized learning English besides the Hawaiian language they spoke in the home.
“We realized we had it really good,” she said.
They used the mountain for gathering and the ocean for fishing. “Today there isn’t anything left, it’s all gone,” Akuna observed about the rich resources of the past.
In her years, she has seen many changes on Maui through the era of plantation owners, World War II and U.S. statehood for Hawaii.
Her father almost died in a crash with someone else behind the wheel. But in a series of miracles, a U.S. Army surgeon happened to be on their side of the island and safely amputated his left arm.
Her mother prayed for her father to pass the test he needed to continue driving a truck to provide for their family. For years he drove a manual transmission truck up and down and around the narrow mountain road successfully with one arm. Akuna learned about the power of prayer and miracles from her parents’ example.
Her four children and five grandchildren live off the island, and she tried to teach them the same resilience and Hawaiian culture that her parents taught her. All of her grandchildren are college graduates, including one who she said is getting his law degree and wants to return to Hawaii and look into ancestral land issues to help her and the other kapunas — elderly leaders — of the area.
Finding the gospel and serving in the Hana Branch
Akuna was raised Catholic, and her children were grown when she and her husband learned about the Church of Jesus Christ.
“The only two sister missionaries to ever serve a mission in Hana Branch taught us,” she said, adding that she and her husband were baptized in the ocean. “You go in so scared, and you walk out like you could walk on water.”
Right after her baptism, she was asked to teach the gospel to others by serving as a Sunday School teacher in the branch.
“I can’t be teaching Sunday School,” she remembered thinking. “They know more than me.” But she ended up teaching for 10 years.
She spoke of the many people she knew who lived in the Ke’anae Valley. She met older members of the Church on Maui who were examples to her.
“That kept me to stay. … Something must be very good about this Church,” she told herself then. She added “They are all gone now, all these wonderful, faithful members of the Church.”
A Church building had been in her valley in the early 1900s but is gone now. The drive from her home to the Hana Branch building is about 1 ½ hours each way.
Currently she is the first counselor in the branch Relief Society presidency and loves her calling. Before his death, her husband served as second counselor in the branch presidency.
She was proud to speak of his Church service and even prouder to talk about how she helped teach the gospel to her brother, who was baptized soon after her own baptism.
In October 2023 general conference, a temple was announced for Maui.
“When that was announced, that was a mighty blessing to my ear. I can’t wait to go there,” Akuna said.
After pressing her guests to eat more food — she has no refrigerator — Akuna was happy to show them her Taro patch where she grows plants that she makes into poi (a mashed side dish), and then walked down the path to a rocky opening in the cliffs. Standing by the ocean, she shared more memories of her childhood.
She remains in good cheer, even through challenges she has faced.
Missionary service and friendship on Maui
Akuna’s lunch guests included Elder Bradley Nielsen and Sister Kellie Nielsen. They are member and leader support missionaries in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission and currently are assigned to the Hana Branch on the east side of the island of Maui. They spend a lot of their time driving the windy, mountainous Hana Highway, visiting widows and doing community service.
Before having lunch with Akuna — “Aunty Meiling” — that day, they helped a woman set up decorations, stopped to serve another aunty whose washing machine had stopped working and were hoping to check in on an uncle. The terms of “aunty” and “uncle” are considered respectful to the older population in Hawaii.
In their vehicle the missionaries always have deliveries and any items that might be needed by their often-isolated, elderly friends.
Michael and Margaret Summerhays were the MLS missionaries before the Nielsens and joined the group for lunch at Akuna’s home. Before they were released, the Summerhays fixed her rainwater collection system and built a shaded, wraparound porch or lanai.
A series of small miracles helped them with the materials and construction of the porch to make it larger and sturdier than Akuna imagined — providing extra living space and allowing a view of a waterfall in the mountains.
While on Akuna’s land, Michael Summerhays and Elder Nielsen checked on a loose water pipe for her and asked if there was anything else she needed.
She mentioned that she takes copies of the Book of Mormon with her on errands and gives them out to people — telling them, “Read my testimony. It will bring you closer to God.” Turning to the missionaries, she asked if she could have more books to give out.
“We’ll bring some to you,” smiled Elder Nielsen.
Correction: The headline was updated to reflect her age as 84.
