Chinese New Year Continues...

Chinese New Year continues…..

We had a nice day Sunday starting with Church in the morning,   then  we enjoyed a quiet afternoon at home catching up on some rest until evening. We then met up with the Chandlers and Sister Orton at the Wan Chai building and devoured some Chicken tortilla  soup that Elder Chandler had spent the afternoon perfecting. At about 6:30 the main road that leads to the harbor, just south of our building  closed in preparation for the fireworks. Elder and Sister Orton had learned the previous year that the police will let pedestrians walk down to the harbor on this road once it is closed and the cars are cleared. So we walked down to the harbor and had a front row, unobstructed view of the firework show.

The fireworks were coming from five barges out in the harbor and it lasted for twenty-three minutes without ever stopping. I am sure we saw more fireworks in the first five minutes here than we ever saw in the previous sixty years of all the firework shows combined growing up in Utah.

Monday and Tuesday the office was closed because of the holiday so we decided to take a little diversion and went to Ocean Park, Home | Ocean Park Hong Kong, a theme park here in Hong Kong. We saw a magical show that we and a roomful of Chinese were convinced that the lady hanging in the air levitating was real, as well as a variety of other illusions. We then moved to another area of the park and saw a Sea Lion show that was fun. It began to rain and we were close to the Jelly Fish exhibit so we ducked in to keep from getting wet. The room was dark with multiple cylinder like aquariums about three feet in diameter beginning on the floor and extending to the ceiling. Each individual liquid shape was lit up with different colored soft lights, red, green, blue, and yellow, with different sizes and shapes of Jelly Fish. It was both an eerie and beautiful sight to see these sponge like creatures with transparent domed tops expanding and contracting their tissue like bodies up and down while these colored lights penetrated through them.

During the week while sitting in our cubicle, a group of unmarried employees approached us giggling, chanting, and exclaiming a happy and prosperous new year while at the same time offering us a tray of Chinese candy and cookies. Sister Beckstead, following the holiday tradition, presented not one but two red envelopes to each of them, “you never give gifts in odd numbers because it’s unlucky”, thus per Sister Beckstead two is an even and lucky number.

http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/festivals/red-envelop.htm

We were able to get some work done this week despite the holiday. Tuesday, we went to the Temple to help out and spent most of the day working in different areas of the Temple. A lot of the missionaries helped that day because the Chinese workers are all still involved with different holiday commitments. It was a good day and like whenever you do a good thing you personally benefit the most.

We were back in the Temple Thursday morning with the Area Presidency for our monthly trip with them, unfortunately we missed the testimony meeting after the session, because of a scheduling conflict. We spent a couple of hours in the office in the afternoon and then went back to the Temple to begin our weekly Thursday night shift. Again, we had the opportunity to serve in multiple capacities and experience multiple languages while doing so.

This next week we expect most of the celebration to be behind us and for us as well as the Chinese people to begin the new year with a renewed emphasis and commitment to do the things that will bring happiness into our lives. We have learned a lot in the last four months as missionaries and we think it would be inappropriate not to recognize the effort that this culture puts into annually committing to a better tomorrow. We hope that we will follow the example the Chinese people set for us not only this year but in all the years to come and would invite all of you to do the same.

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