Polynesian Cultural Center: part III

In case you didn't know, the Polynesian Cultural Center is run by the Mormon Church. One of the fun & exciting activities you can do at the Polynesian Cultural Center is a tram tour of the town of Laie. In the brochure the tour is described as "a tour of beautiful Laie with a short stop at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints" or something like that.

Brenden & I were very excited.

 Our tram tour made two stops.  The first was a brief stop at Brigham Young University to look at a mural of a Mormon person who did something:

 The second stop was at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints where we were allowed to get off & enter the visitors center.

If you can't tell from these pictures I felt pretty uncomfortable while Brenden was really excited.

This is the entrance to the visitors center.  Notice the planets....

Anyway, after checking out this statue & Brenden taking one of every brochure, we were taken into a screening room to watch a video on "why temples are important to us." The video didn't work and the missionaries who were showing us around couldn't figure out why.  I'm pretty sure the problem was that they didn't look at the screen:

Eventually they moved us to another screening room. We watched a 5 minute video that didn't explain anything about their faith, rather it just showed clips of their various temples & had testimonials by Mormons on how wonderful their temples are.  One of the people in the video stated that without the Mormon Temple in her town (Salt Lake City), her family would have no place to gather together. That actually struck Brenden as rather sad as one would imagine that getting together with family could be done anywhere.

We were given comment cards that not only asked for our information & a good time for the church to contact us, it also asked for information about our friends & family so they could be contacted about joining the church. 

The entire experience at the Polynesian Cultural Center was just one long sales pitch of the Mormon Church.  It seems like a well conceived money making venture used to help fuel the church.  And by the looks of their beautiful temples, they seem to be doing pretty well...  

This concludes our less than enjoyable trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  If you're coming to Oahu on vacation, we'd suggest you save your time & money.