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.