Every Day is interesting in Hong Kong

                                   The Trolley cars here are called the "Ding Ding"

                         It can get crazy just trying to walk anywhere, it's always busy

Different,  but interesting

             This is right outside of our apartment -  it's fun to see the little kiddos running around

                                                     We live in a beautiful place!

In the mornings when we start our walk,  there are always older people who have been out exercising earlier than us.  Always,  and there are lots of them up and down the harbor each morning!

Heading home after a nice walk.   We  walk along the harbor  (known as the Promenade).  This is behind our apartment.   It's  a beautiful way to start the day!  It's a beautiful way to end the way too!

After a long day!

I took this picture when we were taking the ferry home right at dusk.  We live on the Peninsula,  so we cross the harbor every day to Hong Kong Island where the Asia Area Office is.  There are several ways to cross,  but using the Ferry is my favorite.

                                        It's a beautiful commute any time,  day or night

                                                            Happy Halloween!

Yay!  A really yummy hamburger place (The Big Bite) in Hong Kong!  Juicy hamburgers,  french fries,  and root beer floats!   We have made some wonderful friends here!

We had a great week here in Hong Kong as Area Public Affairs Missionaries. Annie gave us our first hour of training on Corus, which is the software package templet used by PA Missionaries to write articles for Mormon Newsroom. Unfortunately for Annie,  it will take some patience on her part, because we will need several more hours of training,  as we are old and technological neophytes!  Fortunately for us this is a good case study of Ether 12: 27, “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. "

We also met with the Area Presidency in a district meeting and were taught by President Funk the many blessings we and our family will receive as we serve missions as outlined in the thirty-first section of the Doctrine and Covenants. It gave a lot of comfort, and was an emotional experience to the Sister Missionaries serving here in Hong Kong.  This section is a great witness that the Lord watches over his Missionaries and their families.

We also had a great video call this week with the Public Affairs Missionaries serving in the Area. Elder and Sister Dowd reported that they had over 600 people attend an open house in Cambodia this week. The Patterson’s were called in to help with the funeral of Elder Chan,  a long time devout member and revered saint in Malaysia. Elder and Sister Pollmann are in Thailand experiencing the mourning of the death of the King. All scheduled church events in Thailand have either been postponed or cancelled as we show respect to the royal family.

We are becoming more familiar with our area and learning our way around.  We had an interesting afternoon at Immigration applying for our Hong Kong I.D. cards.   Mine was hard to get in as much as I was issued one when I served here in 1973.  They won’t  issue a new one,  you have to apply for a replacement,  and that was an experience.  Finally,  after 1 and ½ hours they found a copy of my old card.  Without letting me look at it,  they handed me a paper and wanted me to sign it to verify it was my signature!  This was a challenge,  my signature has been just a scribble for many years!  Then they looked at my old card,  then up at me,  then back at my card,  and informed me that it didn’t look like me!  Ummmmm

We have really enjoyed exploring so many restaurants,  imagine that!  My favorite is the “Big Bite”, Karen’s favorite is the Shanghai 369.     We have found more markets and places to shop for our kitchen at home.   Shopping here is different.  We are approximately a 15 minute walk to a market.  We take a little hand cart with a bag attached,  (looks like a back pack on wheels).  We purchase only what we can fit in the bag for the  hot,  and humid walk home.   Once we have filled it,  we hurry home to get our food in the fridge!  Last week Karen filled our bag and needed more groceries.  She sent me all the way back to our apartment where I emptied the bag,  and met up with her at a different store,  where we finished our shopping and filled up the bag a second time.  I

Getting Settled

Karen and I have been here just over a week and have mostly been acclimating to our new life here in Hong Kong. The flight over from Salt Lake City to Seattle, with a three-hour layover, and then to Hong Kong took 20 hours. We left Salt Lake airport at 11:30 Monday morning on the 10^th of October and arrived in Hong Kong Tuesday night the 11^th at 9:00 pm. The Chamberlains met us at the airport and helped us back to the airport by both train and taxi. Our apartment is in Hung Hon and is bigger and nicer than we had expected. We are a little over a mile away from the Star Ferry Terminal on the Kowloon side  right on the harbor.  We have taken opportunity to walk up and down the harbor promenades several times early in the morning and the views of the harbor are incredible. We live across the harbor from the Wan Chai office building so we can take a bus through the harbor tunnel, the subway, or the ferry to our offices each morning. Each route is a little different and so we made most of our trips this week on the bus.  The buses are really nice.  They have good A.C,  they are  double decker,  clean,  and it’s entertaining to watch all the Chinese commercials on the  TV’s up and down the rows.  The bus is a good choice when it is extremely hot or cold.  It’s about a 10-15 minute walk to the bus from our apartment.     Next week we are doing the ferry all week.  Karen wants to learn all the routes to and from really well so she can make the trips on her own without help.   She has the bus route down now.    Hands down the ferry is our favorite,  and the one we will use the most.  It is so beautiful taking the ferry from where we live on the Peninsula  over to the Island where the Asia Area Office is.  Especially at night!   

The people we have met here have been so helpful and friendly. We first met the Chamberlains whom we are replacing, they gave us our first orientation to the area and lead us to the office the first time. We returned that night with the Chandlers who showed us the way home and had us over for dinner. The next morning the Thongs met us outside our apartment building and helped us to the office. The Orton’s also took us home and then out to dinner. Yan’s picked us up Friday morning and took their turn taking us into the office. After work we all took a ferry out to Lantau Island and had dinner at Discovery Bay. With help from all those mentioned we have been able to locate the markets and restaurants that are convenient to our apartment. I’m sure it will be a couple of weeks before we are comfortably oriented to our new area but we have a lot of support from the other senior missionaries here.

We have met all three of the Asia Area Presidency and their wife’s here in our first week. Elder Sam Wong has direct responsibility for public affairs and in our meeting with him he told us to take a few weeks and get our legs under us as we ease into our responsibilities. We work directly with Annie Wong, a local member, who is going to be great to associate with for the next eighteen months. We have also had the opportunity to meet with some of the other PA missionaries in the area. The Hubbards in India, the Pollmanns in Thailand, the Dowds in Cambodia, the Bairds in Indonesia, and the Pattersons in Maylasia. We had a meeting with the general counsel of the church yesterday and were included in a government affairs discussion that helped us understand some of the political philosophies in the area.

The highlight of our assignment so far happened yesterday, we met Sheldon Poon for lunch.  Sheldon was the District President when I served my mission here.  He became the first Stake President in Hong Kong.    We were able to catch up  and had a wonderful visit with him.     We haven’t  seen Sheldon for  10 years when we were in Begheng.   It was a wonderful reunion.

  

Grocery Shopping in Hong Kong

We ventured out grocery shopping today. What an experience!  I'll start with the "Wet Market" ....

Pigs feet,  chicken feet,  pig heart,  anything you could possible want (or not)

Live Toads and Turtles by the bag,  fresh eel,  and jelled pigs blood (quite the delicacy)

I'll stick with the fresh fruits and veggies!

Dragon Fruit,  Durian (stinky fruit),  and Starfruit

Yay,  there is an American Market!

Page a Day Book of Mormon Challenge

Our grandchildren have taken the Book of Mormon challenge. In addition to their Family Scripture Study  they are reading individually one page a day,  and  will finish at the time we come home from our mission!  Our grandkids are so awesome!  We are missing our 3 youngest in this picture.  It's past bedtime for Tayla,  Jack,  and Cora who are going to listen to mom and dad read to them!

We flew out of Salt Lake City October 10th,  2016.  Here we are with our daughters (left to right),  Jill,  Sarah,  Shannon,  Lisa, and Jessica.

We have been so busy since we arrived.   We have met so many wonderful people from all over the world who serve here in the Asia Area Office.

Here  with Elder and Sister Yan.  The Yans are from Hong Kong.    They raised their family in Seattle.   They are the Communications Specialists for the Asia Area.  They arrived here one week before we did,  so we will work together our entire mission.  We are very excited to be working closely with them in our callings.

Dim Sum with The Chamberlains whom we are replacing. They head home tomorrow.  Also Sister Roberts,  and our new Assistant Area Director of Public Affairs,  Annie Wong.

Missionary Training Center

Our District here at the MTC

From Left to Right:  Elder and Sister Hawkins -  Athens,  Greece.  Elder and Sister Beckstead -  Hong Kong.  Elder and Sister Phelps -  Uganda.   Elder and Sister Steele -  Indonesia


What a wonderful experience this is to be here at the Missionary Training Center.   The Spirit is so strong.  It feels wonderful to be a part of such a great group of people who are as excited to go clear across the world to help spread the Gospel as we are.

Public Affairs

Prior to entering the Mission Field Sister Beckstead and I recently completed a week of training with five other Public Affairs Missionaries. Will and Elizabeth Cottam (Frankfurt), Doug and Marie Hadley (Accra), Walter and Karen Orlowski (Frankfurt), Timothy and Carmen Titus (Los Angeles) and Rick and Marci Romney (DRC Kinshasa). All of whom we grew to love and appreciate as we all prepared for our specific assignments.

The Public Affairs Department had  a full agenda including multiple presentations by Area Managers and Directors from the Church’s Public Affairs Department. Subjects from Social Media to Personal Security were covered in the four days of training.  The concept of “you may feel like you’re getting a drink out of a firehose” was indeed accurate when relayed to us. None the less we are all much better prepared now to enter the field and complete our assignments.

Thanks to all of those involved and to the new friends we now have.