A Week in the Life of Sister Beckstead

Karen will be spotlighted in this week’s blog.

On Monday, Sister Beckstead volunteered us to help Annie Wong’s Stake set up an Art Exhibit at the Exhibit Hall in TST. Annie was feeling a bit overwhelmed Sunday night because of a Hong Kong area wide project that was pushing her professional  abilities to the limit. The Stake had rented prime space in a plush venue in order to show case the artistic talents of members from all the Stakes in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. Thirty-five pieces of wonderful artwork were submitted including a few pieces from members from Cambodia and Taiwan. Annie had many of the pieces in her office and was working on the logistics of transporting them to the site and exhibiting them in a professional manner. Never setting up an art exhibit  before was causing her some anxiety, sensing this, Sister Beckstead steps in and assures Annie all will be well and we will help her.   Monday morning,  we,  along with the  Jensens,   the Yans,  and  four Elders,  met Annie and a few other volunteers from her Stake and were able to miraculously uncrate, unwrap, hang-up and label the artwork like we had done it a hundred times before. It was a lot of work and took most of the day,  but it turned out to be a wonderful project that was displayed all week and was visited by many admirers of art here in Hong Kong.

Tuesday, Sister Beckstead attended a planning meeting with the Area Director and Assistant Area Director. Karen’s “News Brief” assignment was discussed and she was able to give a report of how she was coming with Meltwater.   Meltwater is the software that she uses to help her gather, catalogue, and distribute information to the Area Presidency and other selected leaders in the mission. She searches numerous publications in all the countries in our Area that would be relevant by predetermined topics. Then she selects four or five articles out of hundreds,  places them in a preselected format and emails them to the proper individuals every other day.

Sister Beckstead always starts Wednesday attending institute with the other Sisters in the office, including the wives of the Area Presidency. They are studying the New Testament and they rotate giving the lesson.  Wednesday is always a short day in the office because of our assignment in the Temple later in the day. This week was a special Temple day because Sister Beckstead was assigned in the Ordinance room and participated in a live endowment session. The policy in the Hong Kong Temple is that when a person attends for their own endowment the session is conducted in that person’s native language. This particular patron was from Thailand,  so the session was conducted in Thai.  She has also been in 2 sessions in Cantonese.   

Every other Thursday morning she participates in a multi-country Senior Missionary Public Affairs call. This week the main topics were General Conference and the Easter Campaign, “Prince of Peace.” Issues and action items discussed mostly have to do with translations. The missionary department sends information and videos out to all of the public affairs offices worldwide in English.  In Public Affairs  we work with the Seventies assigned to geographic areas in determining what they would like to have translated.

Friday starts out with a meeting with the Humanitarian group here.  This meeting   is always a highlight of her week.  The meeting starts off with a report on finished projects and pictures and or videos of some of the beneficiaries of the projects. Most of the work we do in the Church does not offer an opportunity for us to see the results of our efforts right away. This weekly meeting is an exception to that concept and it is such a blessing every week to see the lives of so many beneficiaries of the Church’s resources.  The rest of the day is usually a catch up day for everyone in the office so she worked hard on her “Newsbrief” assignment,  then  visited with some of the other Sisters until it was time to head over and take down the Art Exhibit.

Saturday is the day she attends the Saturday Branch.   This week she was involved with her Self Reliance project. It’s a weird day because sometimes she needs to shop on Saturday and it doesn’t feel right to buy groceries after Sacrament Meeting. She also attends Sacrament meeting on Sunday and is mindful of observing the Sabbath on Sunday.