I love to play internet hunt games. My favorite right now is a map game called GeoGuessr. It uses the Street View of Google Maps, and randomly plops you down someplace in the world. You then have to guess where you are on a map, with points awarded for how close you are to the actual locations. You can move and look around like you normally can on Street View. As you move around you look for clues in the area, like street signs, businesses, what language is on the signs, what side of the road they are driving, etc.
I like to play to exactness, and get my guesses to a few feet. I open another screen, and google the business names, street signs, and then open another map to zero in on the location. Some may say this is cheating, but I enjoy it, and like figuring out exactly which street corner in Katowice Poland I’m on.
So I’ve got a puzzle for you this week that has a Mormon connection. This last week I was in Kauai, Hawaii for work. As I was eating breakfast outside Friday morning, this colorful gecko (see photo above and below) crawled up the wall next to me and watched me eat. It stayed several minutes just basking in the sun.
Your puzzle is this: What is the Mormon connection to this gecko?
Hints: It is NOT a salamander, and the connection has nothing to do with a white salamander. Also, it is not a connection a TBM will make as easily as the well read readers of this blog will.
I’ll reveal the answer in a few days if nobody guesses.
Wheat & Tares 
Gold dust day gecko, native to Comoros…
…. They eat crickets amongst other things. …
… gold dust used to be used as currency in Utah…
Just scraping the barrel.., no time to view google street view atm…
I would assume that Bill is referencing the group of Saints centered around Gecko Road in Queen Creek, Arizona back in the late 70s. They were known for extreme views such as concluding that ham was prohibited by the word of wisdom. They also managed to place candles on the sacrament table in a few wards before the General Authorities got wind of it. Essentially, the group was the epitome of the “Holier than Thou” attitude and they went out of their way to show that (in their minds) they were better at living the Gospel than anyone else.
Therapy Gecko!
My first impression if in La’ie, at Temple or Polynesian cultural center ( since you just traveled there).
But then it looks like the Gecko is reading Egyptian characters in the crack of the wood. Then he could be diligently studying at BYU-H as an apologetic in training.
Should we give the Gecko a name ? was he friendly or less friendly ?
The old mormon leper colony, is my real guess since laei is on oahu
No idea really. But do remember seeing geckos all the time in our little branch building in Hanapepe way back >40 years ago. So there is that connection to Mormonism for me.
And that as a very little boy, I was so terrified of a gecko that was between my bed and my bathroom one night that I peed myself rather than go past it. Hard to understand that terror now, but when you are little, crawling things in the night are much more frightening. (Though geckos were still not as frightening as wolf spiders.)
I think you were doing a initial scope for the church to buy that hotel, along with the gecko, to add to LDS hawaii hotel portfolio.
Whats the asking price? The church only has 1×10 to th power in its savings account. Negocaite the price down.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper [it will save the church]
– Gordon Gekko
if you look closely you’ll notice that he is reading hieroglyphics off that piece of wood. Maybe Book of Abe II.
Here’s my train of thought: A Gecko is the mascot of GEICO. And GEICO is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, which is owned by Warren Buffett. There’s an exmo reddit thread about Buffett saying the BofM changed his life. Therefore, GEICO’s success is all because of the BofM. (Although the BofM story isn’t actually true. I think what I’ve mostly done is proved that if you try hard enough / google enough, you can connect just about anything on the internet!)
Markings on the gecko look like the Monster energy drinks logo, so you are referencing the debate over whether energy drinks violate the spirit of the Word of Wisdom.
My daughter had a gecko when she was a teenager. I thought it was so ugly. She kept telling me how beautiful it was. I never saw it. So happy when she got rid of it. She kept telling me I needed to make a paradigm shift. I think the Mormon Church is a lot like that gecko. For some it is a a thing of beauty and delight. I used to look at the Church like that many years ago. For others, it is ugly. Eventually that is how I came to see the Church. It became a toxic place for me. . I made the paradigm shift and so happy to no longer attend. It is about your perspective.
ReTx,
It’s much simpler than that. Mormons buy car insurance. End of story.
Or maybe not. Maybe it has to do with how a gecko can shed its tail and grow a new one. There’s any number of directions Bishop Bill could go with that.
10ac, I can tell you that you didn’t see the same type of gecko that I photographed, as it is not native to the Hawaiian Islands, and was not there 40 years ago. That is a clue!
BTW, I drove through Hanapepe every morning last week on my way to work, and even stopped there for breakfast once (spam, eggs and rice!)
I think the first picture is the gecko stepping across the line, such as no longer reading the scriptures nightly or no longer paying tithing. It is going to be a slippery slope on the other side of that line! 🙂
Perhaps you took a pic of this gecko at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Limahuli on Kauai, where I’m told some of the LDS temple movie scenes were filmed. (Once upon a time there were movies in LDS temples.)
@BishopBill. I can never understand why those who grew up on the mainland don’t seem to appreciate the deliciousness of Spam and rice.
As to your gecko, from the web it looks like it is a Giant Day gecko, native of Madagascar, sold as a pet, and now presumably an invasive species in Hawai’i if you are seeing it there in “the wild”. Kind of like the mongeese that were brought by the sugar cane plantations to some of the islands to kill off the rats. And then the mongeese turned out to be a more invasive problem than the rats.
So the LDS church (or all Christian faiths that send missionaries to the islands in the colonial days) is an invasive species to Hawai’i?
I think John Charity Spring is full of it (and that’s not being charitable), but now I’m curious.
I hate to give my answer, since there have been so many great connections you guys found. Hedgehog got the closest. The gecko in question in my photo is a gold dust day gecko, native of Madagascar and the Comoros Islands. The capital of the Comoros islands is the city of Moroni. Comoros was known for a place where Captain Kidd might have buried gold. Some think that Joseph Smith, and his fascination with treasure digging and lost treasure lore, might have found a map or book that talked about Comoros and Moroni and that was the influence for the names in the BofM. Others think it is just a coincidence Joseph found golden plates in a hill called Cumorah guarded by an angle named Moroni.
No closer to your site. But i am learning more about Hawaii
#9 & #10 are interesting, based on your clues
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/hawaii/hidden-treasure-hi/
With Gecko, save 10% or more of your income by canceling your mormon fire insurance.