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.