Happy New Year in Hong Kong

Different never stops in Hong Kong.  This couple is from one of the branches here.  They did have a cake,  but the pig is what everyone was excited about!

The Filipino Sisters in our branch will throw a party after Church for any occasion.  These parties always include lots of food,  laughter,  happiness,  and lots of smiles.

This occasion was a heartfelt farewell to Elder White (right) who goes home in a few days.   He has been serving in the Saturday Branch since before we arrived.  The branch had a program to honor him and say goodbye.  The Sister Missionaries,  Elder Aldridge,  and Elder White sang  a special song to the Filipino sisters.  

Elder White is wonderful missionary,  we are all going to miss him.

Celebrating Christmas at the Asia Area Office

All the Senior Missionaries,  Asia Area office employees,  and the Asia Area Presidency

I don't think Lynn liked the food!  Going from left to right -  Elder and Sister Orton (Medical), Us,   Elder and Sister Thong (Auditing),  and Elder and Sister Roberts (Legal)

A slow week of Missionary Work,  but a very busy week of extracurricular activities makes for another great week in Hong Kong.

Saturday we held a special Christmas Sacrament Meeting in our Saturday Branch.  We had been warned by the previous Branch Leaders that the employers of our Branch Members would be keeping many of our members home on Christmas day to work parties for family and friends. So, we moved everything up a week and it turned out great. After Sacrament Meeting we opened the back of the Chapel which joins the cultural hall, like the Rose Park Chapels at home, and turned the back few rows of chairs around and had a special Family Home Evening with the four different families in our Branch. (Remember that we divide the members of our Branch into four different families).  Each performed a dance or a musical number or both and all had a fun time. At the end, the Branch Presidency participated in a Nativity skit that brought a special spirit to the evening’s activities. It turned out to be a very good night for all of us.

Tuesday morning, all the Senior Missionaries and Area employees were invited to a special Asia Area Presidency Christmas Devotional. Elder Funk presided and spoke to us about the Light of Christ. It’s always a special experience to sit and be taught by the Elders of the Church. After the Devotional, we were invited to the Area Christmas Social and lunch. We ate Chinese food and played games with the employees which are mostly Chinese. I had forgot how funny the Chinese people are but remembered shortly into the first round of a game of charades.  

Wednesday night the Senior Missionaries all went to the movie, Rogue One, a Star Wars Movie. It is so fun to sit in a movie theater that seems to be an exact replica of the old Arcade on 9^th West and watch a modern movie like Rogue One with Chinese subtitles. It gives the experience a lot of character.

Thursday and Friday Karen was sick, probably from something she breathed in at the theater, and I finished some projects that were pending due to lack of their importance. I was also able to do some shopping without Karen knowing about it and broke my promise that neither of us would buy a present for the other because our Mission was present enough for the two of us.

Saturday, we had a very small attendance at our Sacrament Meeting. After the short block, Karen and I were able to attend a Christmas Concert featuring the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. It was very good; the talent was as good as any Orchestra we have ever had the opportunity to experience. The hall, the Christmas decorations and the Christmas music performed created an ambiance of reverence worthy of the season.

Our first Christmas Day as Missionaries was a day of calls to the family and the viewing of many digital photos of grandchildren busy with Christmas. So, thank you for sharing much of your Christmas with us, but Christmas is not like Christmas when you are not with your family, so we would have to say it was not an easy day. We missed being home with those we love on Christmas Day.

However, in an unexplainable way it was also a special day for Grandma and Grandpa to be in a faraway place, involved with faraway people doing what we know we should be doing on this year"s very special Christmas day.

We love you all,

Elder and Sister Beckstead

Asia Area Missionaries 

More News from Hong Kong

Hello family and friends, we had another wonderful week here in Hong Kong.

This was our third week attending a block of Sunday church meetings on Saturday with the Filipino members.  It is an adjustment to get used to.  We are in Church meetings all day Saturday.  Besides regular meeting and classes,   we have extra meetings associated with assignments,  and after all of that we divide in to FHE groups and have activities and some times lessons.   So we are at the Church from 10:00 a.m.  until 6:30 or later. Sometimes as late as 8:30p.m.  Then on Sunday morning we get up and go to Church again at 9:00 a.m.   We missionary couples who serve in branches other than Sunday (there are branches Tuesday through Saturday),   we have been asked by the Asia Area Presidency to still attend Church on Sunday,   So we don’t feel comfortable doing anything we would not do on the Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday.  We have been told that Saturday is an assignment and Sunday is our Sabbath, but Saturday still feels very much like the Sabbath to us.   

In addition to the office work that keeps us busy we had additional opportunities in working with members and opinion leaders. We also continue to work with the other Public Affairs Missionaries serving in other countries in the Area. Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia submitted articles for Newsroom. You can find these articles in Mormon Newsroom.com then go to the international publications. 

There were also several Humanitarian Projects approved this last week that will be a great blessing to many of the poor and needy in this part of the world.

The Island and Peninsula are full of lights and Christmas decorations. We spent some time last week visiting some of the more prominent displays in Causeway Bay, Time Square, Admiralty, and Central. It was a lot of fun but seemed a bit odd with so much Christmas décor, yet no snow and temperatures in the mid to high sixties.

This last week, employees and the Area Presidency were working hard trying to tie up year end business because they will be taking vacation soon, so things seem busy almost to the point of chaos. I expect between Christmas and New Year’s Day it will be very slow with so many not coming into the office. This will give the Senior Missionaries an opportunity to spend more time together which is one of the unique blessings of this mission. 

Have a great week and Merry Christmas to all of you!

Christmas with our Saturday Branch

Elder Pett,  Brother June,  and Elder Beckstead

Sister Kendell,  Elder Kendell,  Elder Pett,  Elder Beckstead, and Brother June

For our Saturday Branch the Senior Missionaries,  Brother June,  and the Elders acted out the Nativity for our Filipino members.    They loved it.  

Enjoying a Day Off

We had a day off and thought we would check out Monkey Mountain.  There were monkeys everywhere,  it was fun.  I learned my lesson in Thailand last February with  monkeys -  this time I held on to my phone really tight! 

Shek Lei Pui Reservoir

Hiking up to the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas

Quite a hike up to the Temple.  The entire path is lined with hundreds of Buddha statues,  each one different.  

Documentary and Other Great Highlights

Highlight of our week as the filming of a Television Documentary on the Church is finally completed.   This Documentary has been in the works since we arrived here in Hong Kong.   This reporter and the television station he works for are not affiliated with the Church,  but wanted to do a piece reporting on the "Mormons"  in Hong Kong.   Scheduled airdate is December 26th.  We are really excited about it!

The other night we went to a play about the Book of Mormon put on by one of the Stakes here in Hong Kong.

After the play,  refreshments,   which in Hong Kong means dinner!

We walked past the Living Museum yesterday and noticed the exhibit "The Christmas Snow Chamber".  The entrance sign said wait time was 1 hour.  Lots of  little children with their coats  were anxiously ready and lined up to go inside.    Inside the chamber it's really really cold,  they give the kids a pair of snowshoes,  and off they go walking through the freezing cold and lots of snow.

This week began with not much on our calendars but ended up being one of our most productive weeks here in Hong Kong. The Bairds, Hubbards, Mongolia and the Area Presidency highlight this week. The Bairds serve as senior public affairs missionaries in Indonesia. This is their second mission, they served in the same capacity in Taiwan a few years ago, and were asked by the Area director to return and help in Indonesia.

They are working on an event where the church can present a Community Service Award to a well-deserved ophthalmologist that has dedicated years to helping those with impaired vision in Indonesia. The original plan was a modest dinner with local Priesthood leaders and some of the Doctor's friends and family. The event has morphed into a major event as word of recognizing this wonderful man has gone viral. Government Officials, the media and lifetime friends have all expressed interest in being a part of celebrating the generosity of this doctor.   Sister Beckstead and I become involved when an activity like this crosses the threshold of something small and quaint into something so significant that members of the Asia Area Presidency or other General Authorities are required, either through cultural protocol or an opportunity to increase the exposure of the Church, to participate. 

The Hubbards serve dual roles in India. They are both the Humanitarian couple and the Public Affairs couple. They are experiencing a similar issue as the Bairds. They are working with an orphanage in India and are planning an event to recognize individuals making personal sacrifices for the benefit of the orphanage. In the process, a major Non- Government Organization that is involved worldwide was made aware of what the Hubbard’s are planning and now want to recognize the Church with a service award at this same event. They would be inviting top Government Officials and other dignitaries that would require General Authority participation as well. So, Karen and I became involved with this project as well this week.

Mongolia is one of three countries in our Area that allow a group of professors from BYU to hold public workshops, these workshops are designed to help Mongolian English school teachers learn better teaching skills. The project has been supported and well received in the past few years by the Mongolian Government and hopefully has benefited both the teachers that participated and the students they are teaching. The Area Public Affairs group here in Hong Kong are involved with the logistics of working with the Mission Presidents and Humanitarian Missionaries in Mongolia with this project. We worked with Mongolia and the professors this week because they are the first country in the Area on the professor’s itinerary, but we will also be working with Laos and Viet Nam shortly.

 This week we were  also in the concluding stages of a Television Documentary highlighting Mormon Missionaries in Hong Kong. The documentary is scheduled to air on the 26th of this month and needed some video footage of a sacrament meeting. We searched the Hong Kong video library and found very little so we recruited Salt Lake to see what they could make available. They had more sacrament meeting video footage than what we have here in Hong Kong but the footage did not include a lot of Asian members. So, I had the opportunity this week to sit in front of three General Authorities and their executive secretary and, in a big board room by myself, ask if it would be okay to bring a local television crew into one of our chapels and film a sacrament meeting. As you can imagine it was a bit intimidating, but the meeting yielded a green light on the project with some very good counsel and suggestions.

I am sure that this coming week will be as full as last week and that’s what makes life so great, all the opportunities that are made available to us to be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

We love you all.

Getting Out

We visited the fishing village Aberdeen.  When Lynn served his mission here there were lots of Chinese people living on their fishing boats.    They lived on these boats their entire lives.  Back then they were called  "Boat People"  Things have changed now,   not as many people  still live on their boats.  

We took the tram  up to  "Victoria Peak"

We had the perfect day to go to Victoria Peak.  It was beautiful.  Last March we went with Shan and Dave, and Jill and Kyle,  it was so foggy we couldn't see anything!   Some of the missionaries went the other day and it was cloudy and rainy,  they couldn't see anything.    We really lucked out!

We took this picture from Stanley.  It was really beautiful there.

Getting out

Monday, after two months of watching the world spin around us we took a day off. We decided to get more acquainted with Hong Kong so we took the "Big Bus Tour".   This tour runs buses every twenty minutes and has multiple stops on both the Peninsula and the Island. The buses are double decker’s that are open on the top deck and enclosed with air-conditioning in the bottom deck. The tour allows you to get off at any stop, explore the area of the stop, and then get back on another buss without waiting for more than twenty minutes.

We started on the Island in the Central District and followed the route to the Peak Tram. We took the tram to the top of the mountain that overlooks Hong Kong, and took some photos from the peak. We jumped back on a bus and went through a tunnel to the other side of the Island to Deep Water Bay, Repulse Bay and got off the bus in Stanley. We had a nice lunch in Stanley overlooking the harbor at an Italian Restaurant, ( pizza and lasagna).

We hated to leave but finally caught another bus and went to Aberdeen. Aberdeen was a fishing village populated with numerous fisherman that lived with their families on boats back in seventy-three when I was here serving a mission. Today it is very different with towering residential apartments and condominiums. We took a Sampan ride around the inlet and noticed a few boat people and had our picture taken in front of the old floating Jumbo Restaurant.

The next day we were back at work and Sister Beckstead published her first article in News Room. It was part of her learning experience with the software we use here to write, illustrate and publish church stories. Granted Annie wrote the story and I inserted the pictures, video and hyperlink, Karen is the one who cut and pasted it to the software and whose name is on it if you viewed it from the software. You can find the article if you go to Mormonnewsroom.org, click international and then click Hong Kong. It’s at the top of the page, - Church Launches “Light the World” Christmas Initiative.

We had another opportunity this week to see a number of Humanitarian Projects being considered for the area as well as newly completed projects that are helping thousands of lives in the Asia Area. I think it's  wonderful that in this highly politicalized world, the Church chooses to quietly invest in Government and Non-Government Entities all over the world improving the lives of millions of people and not make it a public issue.

Thank all of you for your support, we love and care about all of you. Hope you all have a good week we know we will.

The Ivory carvings are beautiful,   but I have to tell myself that these elephants died of natural causes before they lost their tusks!  While in Africa a couple of years ago,   we saw first hand the tragedy of poachers,  it was really sad.

We received a new Branch assignment

A Month of Sacrament Meetings in a Week

Hong Kong is a very wealthy city and it is very common for a Hong Kong household to employ a “Domestic Helper”. A Domestic Helper is a maid, nanny, cook, housekeeper, and anything else the employer needs help with around the house.

Most of these employees are woman from the Philippines although we have met some that are from Indonesia. 

They come here because they can make more money in a week here than they can in several weeks of work in the Philippines. This sounds good on the surface because it increases the quality of life for their families at home but because there is no preplanned means of leaving they create for themselves a difficult situation to return. Either their families encourage them to stay and send the money so that the beneficiaries can maintain their improved life style, or because of their ability to make a lot more money they go into deep debt that will take years to pay off. What starts out as a short term plan ends up as a very long term stay, most of these workers end up staying twenty years or more.

Hong Kong Labor Laws restrict the employer to six days a week and so to make it difficult on their employees the employer won’t allow them in the house on their off day. Unfortunately, the Domestic Helper who is far away from home and family has nowhere to go on their day off, so you will see these groups of immigrants hanging out in public areas as homeless people, mostly on the weekends but you can find them every day of the week depending on which day is their off day.

The Church has become a sanctuary for many of these sisters, who are members, by holding a block of Church Meetings every day of the week. Karen and I were invited to the Every-Day Branch this week to speak. This means that we attended church every day this week to partake of the Sacrament and speak. It was a great experience; the Sisters are mostly Pilipino and are so humble and lovable. They always make a dinner after the block of meetings to eat and visit together until they are able to go back to the homes of their respective employers.

Friday was our last day to speak and after the meeting one of the Counselors in the District Presidency came up to the tenth floor and called us to serve in the Saturday Branch.  So from now on we will go to Church on Saturdays. I have been called to serve as a Counselor in the Branch Presidency.   We are very excited about this opportunity, not only because of how wonderful the Pilipino Sisters are ,but also because we will be working with the Petts, Judy and Stan, a career Navy Officer, and Ross and Nancy Kendell, former president of Key Bank,  both of whom we love and respect.

This week also provided us the opportunity to do more work on the Light the World campaign, we are working with the translation of the Advent Calendars and Pass along Cards for the various countries. The Church pushes a lot of the translation work out to the countries rather than to have a centralized translation location. The challenge we have here is that there are a few countries in our area that have not been able to develop the resources necessary to keep all this translation work in house. So, we are outsourcing the work with multiple entities and it becomes a bit of a coordination problem. But if we can keep the translations at least one day ahead of publishing, it appears to the world that we know what we are doing.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving,  we are looking forward to Christmas!!!

We were given a  very traditional gift from the Area Asia Presidency's  wives.   It's a pillow box with little gifts inside.  For hundreds of years, many Chinese stored treasures in pillow boxes so that if danger arose during the night, the treasures were close at hand,  and should the owner have to flee,  he could readily take his valuables with him.  They actually used them for pillows.  I've noticed in some old paintings it depicts Chinese people sleeping on their pillow box.

In times past,  Chinese couples were given a set of chopsticks on their  wedding day,  representing two people working together in marriage to accomplish their goals.

The porcelain derives it's beauty and strength from the quality of the clay from which it is formed, the skill of the master craftsman,  and the great temperature at which it is fired - about 1,300 degrees Celsius ( 2,372  degrees Fahrenheit)  for the finest wares.  In Isaiah 64:8 we read, "O Lord, thou are our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand."  (In the Master's hands, and with His help through fiery trials, we too become strong and beautiful.)

The Wisemen of China:

Fu, risked his life to save people from suffering,  is often depicted carrying a child and represents Blessings or Prosperity.  (To remind us of our children and grandchildren we are blessed with).

Lu, an ancient and noble government official, represents Success.  (To remind us of all we contribute to the success in building the Lord's kingdom.)

Shou,  who is believed to control the life spans of mortals, represents Longevity.  (To remind us of the eternal joy we receive as we "wear out our lives" in the service of others.)

Getting in to the Holidays

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner with the other Senior Missionaries.  Elder Roberts and Elder Chandler got the honors of carving the turkeys.

It seems different seeing all the sights and sounds of Christmas in the sweltering heat! 

We love associating with the local members here

We  attended a Stake Relief Society Talent Show with the Yans and the Stevens  the other night.  This was really fun to visit a Stake with so many wonderful members.  Each Ward Relief Society had a talent to share,  and it was a great activity.  It felt so good to be around so many families enjoying their relationships with ward and stake members.  I love how the Church really is the same everywhere.  The Spirit feels the same everywhere,   as well as the feeling of love the members have for one another.

Our Office in the Asia Area Office Building (referred to as the "Wan Chai" building)

We have been really busy working on the Church World Wide Christmas Campaign for 2016 -  "Light the World,  25 Ways over 25 Days"    Here we are in a meeting identifying where we are at in regards to translations needed,  adaptations necessary for culture differences,  and so on,  and so on.

I guess I could call this our home away from home,  which is also away from home!  This is my half,  well,  three quarters of our office!

Lynn's  half (quarter).  It's obvious who choose their space first!  I told him he can share my space when he needs more room!

Lynn with Elder Yan contemplating a dilemma.

Deck the Halls!  This was a lot of fun,  we all worked together,   Church full time employees,  young Elder and Sisters,  and Senior Missionary Couples. 

Our Nativity is what people see from the sidewalk.    The entrance to our building is all glass doors and this is right inside the door.  We're not allowed to put anything outside of the building (the Church's agreement with the Government).  But it is open to the public and last year they had some walk-ins who were curious and came in to take a look,   we hope that happens this year.  The Welcome Center  (we can't call it a Visitor's Center),   is just behind the nativity.  Sometimes people walk in and like to look at the chapels in our building.  The public can look around the building from the ground floor up to the 6th floor where it is all chapels,  classrooms,  Baptismal font,   Primary rooms,  nursery and so on.    Only Church employees and missionaries have elevator access to floors 7-10.

Today we are walking up to Big Buddha

This is actually our first "sight seeing" day.  We've seen lots and lots of awesome sights because they are everywhere we go.  But  Big Buddha is an out of the way sight.

Inside is a gallery of Chinese art.  There were some really old paintings painted with the artists blood.  This was a way the artist  showed their devotion to the receiver of painting.  They reminded me of sketches with pastels or charcoal -  but done in blood.

I took this picture  of the Monastery from Big Buddha

It is absolutely beautiful up here!

One of the rooms inside has 10,000 Buddhas.  Appropriately named "The Room of Ten Thousand Buddhas".    They are very tiny and cover all the walls.  Photos aren't allowed inside any of these sights or I would show you pictures.

A week of firsts. 

This week was a lot of fun because we have been here for several weeks and are still having first time experiences. Early in the week we joined the other Senior Couples for our first Family Home Evening with the group and participated in some “get to know you better” activities. It was interesting to find out more about the Senior Missionaries that are serving here. There is so much talent, ability and experience gathered here that it’s hard to imagine the work that we will be involved with over the next year and a half. 

This week we also had our first visit and dinner with a member at their home. We were invited to Bishop Jimmy Chan’s home and spent the evening enjoying a wonderful Chinese meal while sharing stories and getting to know each other better. Both Jimmy and his wife are first generation members, yet their family and home is no different than a family in Salt Lake that has evolved over multiple generations of activity in the Church. It’s a testimony to me that once you have received the blessings promised to Abraham's posterity there is an immediate adoption into the House of Israel and the blessings of the Covenant. 

During the middle of the week we were invited to Elder Evan’s home with three other Couples for lunch. They live on the eleventh floor and have a giant picture window overlooking the harbor which is spectacular. Both President Funk and his wife as well as Elder Wong joined us and three other new Couples to “officially welcome us to Hong Kong”. (It would be an understatement to say this was a first.) We had a nice meal and received a loving message from Elder Funk expressing his appreciation for us coming to Hong Kong as Senior Missionaries serving in the Asia Area. Sister Funk then gave each of the new Sisters a special gift as a token of appreciation for coming over to serve. 

The last day of the work week, at three o’clock, we all met on different floors in the building to decorate for Christmas. We were assigned different locations throughout the building. Employees were fetching and delivering boxes of decorations out of storage while Missionaries were sorting, fluffing, placing and hanging wreaths, holly, bells and poinsettias in what I would describe as organized chaos. After we emptied the boxes that were delivered to our assigned locations, (we were assigned to help in the Lobby),  everyone gathered down in the lobby and joined with others doing the same to decorate the big Christmas Tree and enjoy cookies, banana bread, and brownies.  

It is also a first for us, to begin a week set aside for recognizing all the blessings in life that we receive, a week of Thanksgiving.   We pray that we will all be blessed with blessings that are beyond our ability to comprehend,  and beyond our ability to express enough gratitude for. 

Happy Thanksgiving!