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.)