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.