November Highlights

November 29, 2011

The Hong Kong Temple

We are really enjoying our weekly temple assignment and are starting to learn the ropes and feel more comfortable. We have had patrons on our shifts from Mongolia, Thailand, Indonesia, India and mainland China. It is humbling to see the sacrifices they make to come such distances to receive the blessings of the temple. The Church has constructed temple patron housing across the street from the temple which allows these people to stay at very reasonable rates. The senior couples working in the Area Office also have the privilege of attending the temple on the first Thursday of each month with the members of the Area Presidency and their wives, followed by a testimony meeting and a pizza lunch. We attended our first of these sessions in November.

Most Monday mornings there is a 30 minute devotional for all the Church employees in the Area Office as well as the senior missionaries which is a nice way to start each week. There is an opening song and prayer and a staff member or senior missionary is assigned to give a brief spiritual message. One week per month the devotional is held on a Tuesday and a member of the Area Presidency gives the spiritual message. We have attended two of these so far and they have been real highlights. We actually feel quite spoiled to have such close and regular interaction with the members of the Area Presidency, who are all very nice men and very approachable.

For the Area Audit Committee meeting in November, I decided to give a presentation we were given by Church HQ as part of our training materials on the role of the Area Audit Committee. Elder Gong, the member of the Area Presidency who chairs the committee said that would be fine and sat through the presentation and asked a couple of questions at the end. Then a few days later we told someone in the Church Audit Department in Salt Lake that I had given this presentation and he told us that Elder Gong actually wrote it. But Elder Gong never did let on to us that he did - a great example of humility.

Church Administration Building - Hong Kong

The Church Administration Building here in Hong Kong was completed in 2005. It is a multi use facility with the first 7 floors containing 3 chapels, cultural halls and various offices for the wards and branches which attend there. The Asia Area Office is housed on the next three floors and the top two floors have apartments for the Area Presidency. The big round window you can see near the top of the building is Elder and Sister Gong's living room window. We were invited to a welcome dinner in their apartment with the other members of the Area Presidency. Another special highlight.

The Senior Couples also had the pleasure of enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving Feast on the 26th. It was hosted by the Area Presidency and their wives. These people really are nice to us. The Area Presidency brought the Butterball turkeys imported from the USA and the Senior Missionaries provided all the trimmings. It was delightful.

Digging Into The Thanksgiving Feast

M'mm Delicious

We gave our first real live orientation and training to a new Assistant Area Auditor who has recently been called to cover the southern part of India and Sri Lanka. Since India is so far away it was decided it would not be practical to make the trip for a single training session. We did the session using Cisco Meeting Place. Not the most ideal way to do training as you cannot see each other like a video conference but it went OK. We will have a chance to meet face to face when we have the annual training session for all Assistant Area Auditors in the new year.

The Senior Couple activity in November was an open top bus tour of the main areas of Hong Kong Island. The photos below provide an overview of what we saw in the Streets of Hong Kong.

Took the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Central to meet the bus

And here is our bus


Hollywood Road is said to be the first street in Hong Kong


Sleek Skyscrapers Everywhere

Luxury Hotels - Marriott, Conrad Hilton and Shangri La


And Some Not So Sleek and Luxurious




Some Typical Shopping Streets




The Cat Street Antique Market

A Sea of Humanity



These Old Streetcars Date From The 1950's
They Call Them The 'Ding Ding' Because
They Are Constantly Dinging The Bell To Warn
People to Get Out Of The Way

They Use Bamboo Here For Scaffolding
Lashed Together With Twine - Even On
The New Highrises


A Couple Of Buddhist Shrines



The First Christian Cathedral In Hong Kong

Here we are in Hong Kong

November 2, 2011

We started our mission with one day of training in the Church Audit Department in Salt Lake City followed by 5 days in the Provo MTC. The MTC experience was quite intense but very uplifting and spiritual. There were about 20 other senior couples in
our MTC group who were assigned to serve in the four corners of the earth. We were surprised how many of them had already served multiple times and were starting their second, third and fourth missions. The number of senior couples entering the MTC is up about 20% this year as more couples are starting to serve.




We arrived in Hong Kong one month ago today to start this mission adventure. We spent the first week in a hotel because our apartment was not yet ready so it took a little longer to start getting settled into our permanent accommodation which is a fairly pleasant - but small - apartment on the harbourfront on the Kowloon side of the city. The Area office is on Hong Kong island so we take a double-decker bus under the cross harbour tunnel each day to get to work. It takes about 20 minutes to get there.

Street outside Asia Area Office

The most difficult adjustment for us has been what one sister missionary referred to as foraging for food. And while we initially thought the comment was quite funny that is exactly what grocery shopping is like here. Getting to know where the stores/shops are that have the items you want has been a real challenge. You cannot find all that you need/want in one location and if you find something in one store one time you may not find it there the next time you go back. And of course without a vehicle you have to walk to the store and carry everything back home so you are limited as to the amount you can buy on each trip to the store. So you have to pick up a few things on almost a daily basis.

View from our apartment

There are 10 other senior couples serving in various assignments in the Asia Area Office. They have all been so kind to us in helping us get our bearings here and trying to make us feel comfortable. Our Area Audit assignment involves the supervision and ongoing training of 13 Assistant Area Auditors comprised of local members scattered throughout the Asia Area from Mongolia to Indonesia and Taiwan to Pakistan. Our primary purpose while we are here will be to strengthen the local priesthood leaders through our training and coaching and to help them understand the sacred nature of the tithes and offerings of the members for which they are accountable. We are members of the Area Audit Committee which is comprised of a counselor in the Area Presidency, the Area Director of Temporal Affairs and the Area Controller.

We have also been called to serve as temple ordinance workers one evening per week in the Hong Kong Temple which is a new experience for us. Faithful Saints come from all over Asia at great sacrifice in many cases to attend the temple here. It is a small but very beautiful temple. We have also been assigned to work with a Branch, in the Hong Kong International District, comprised of about 150 women from the Philippines who are in Hong Kong working as domestics/nannies/etc. to help support their families back home. There are five of these branches in Hong Kong including one that meets everyday - Tuesday to Saturday for those that have only one of those days off work. The branch we are assigned to has had one or two convert baptisms each week we have been here. It is really quite sad that these women that have left their families - including husbands and children - to come here to work under conditions that in many cases border on slavery. Part of the challenge for the Church here to to try to help these Filipino sisters understand that they should implement a plan in their lives which will enable them to go home and be with their families. Some of them have been here as long as 25 years. So our mission assignment has three very different aspects to it.

Hong Kong really is an amazing bustling metropolis filled with sleek modern skyscrapers and some not so sleek or modern. There are 7 million plus people in this city and one neighborhood known as Mong Kok is said to be the most densely populated area on earth.

P-day at Kowloon Walled City Park