We will save the best for last so let’s start with the sadness. We have become very good friends with Elder and Sister Pett. Stanley is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and Judy retired from a Regional Management position with H&R Block. They served their first Mission in San Diego as a Missionary Relations Senior Couple. They then served a second Mission as Service Missionaries at Church Headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City with the Military Relations Department. They are currently serving their third Mission as the Senior Missionary Couple here in the Hong Kong Mission office.
They have completed their Mission and will be leaving next week, so the Sisters in the Filipino Branch hosted a farewell party for them. They had them sit in the middle of the room and honored them in dance and song. They even had two sisters dress up as though they were a young version of the Petts and reenacted some of the Petts life experiences, including their engagement. It was all fun and entertaining for Karen and me until the end when the Sisters began singing God be with you till we meet again. As they began singing the second verse the Sisters reverently began to collect in the middle of the room surrounding the Petts. In an attitude of love and honor they sang with thankful hearts and deep respect for the service rendered by this Senior Couple.
Maybe it was not the emotion of sadness behind all the tears shared by those in the room but for lack of a better term we’ll use the word sadness today.
I mentioned excitement. Before arriving in Hong Kong, we had an expectation that in our Mission Assignment we would be traveling to some of the different Countries in our Area. Upon our arrival, we were told that a travel ban was in place and that our perceived expectation was not realistic. This was of course a disappointment, but like any other disappointment in life you just move forward and that is what we have done. Karen has been working hard on News Briefs and Self-reliance and I have been working hard on the Opinion Leader Data Base and Corus. We have both been busy with a myriad of other assignments we receive daily relating to Public Affairs. We even received a note this week asking us if we would represent the department by attending a funeral, we would never have guessed that part of our assignment would be a funeral.
In our monthly meeting as we were going through the agenda, President Wong, unexpectedly, said to Karen and I, “you need to be traveling to some of these Countries. You need to become familiar with their cultures, and you need to teach them how to make relationships” Karen and I left the meeting a bit confused, asking ourselves if what we think we heard was really what he said. We did not hear any more concerning travel until our bi-weekly call this week with the Senior Missionaries serving in the different various Countries in our Area. After we finished the business concerning the group, Tom asked Elder and Sister Patterson (the Senior Couple in Malaysia) if they would stay on the call. He then informed them that Elder and Sister Beckstead would be coming down to visit them in Malaysia in the next couple of weeks and the four of us should get on skype and work out the details of the visit.
Karen and I are very excited to meet the people in Kuala Lumpur and to become more familiar with the people and culture of Malaysia.
I saved happiness for last.
When I arrived in Hong Kong as a nineteen-year-old Elder, my first apartment was in Shau Kei Wan. My Senior Companion was Elder Adamson and the area we tracked was Wan Chai. A family by the surname of Chan had been found and taught by Elders that proceeded us. I cannot remember if they went home or were just transferred to another area. It was very fortuitous for Elder Adamson and myself because they had done all the “heavy lifting” of finding, teaching, and preparing this family for baptism. We could pick up where they left off and after just a few weeks I could participate in the baptism of an entire family. At the time, I had no idea how unique of an experience this was, in fact I only recall one other family being baptized in the entire mission over the two years I served.
When I returned to Hong Kong as a Senior Missionary, I was hoping that I would be able to find one of the boys from the Chan family. I knew this would be an extraordinary accomplishment especially considering the fact I could not remember his or anyone in his families English name let alone the characters that made up his Chinese name. How do I find a “Brother Chan” in a Country that has so many people with the last name of Chan.
I started asking members as soon as I arrived if anyone knows the Chan family that was baptized in “73” and attended the North Point Branch. It did not take long for me to realize that this was an impossible task after forty-years in an area as transitional as Hong Kong. In the years that have passed, the resettlement areas of my time have been replaced today with nice high rise apartments, and all the residents relocated. The geographical boundaries of the Church’s congregations have changed, a lot of the current church members are not acquainted with the term “Branch”. I have met very few members that are multi-generational especially among those whose baptized grandparents lived in the old resettlement areas. And then there was the massive flight of anyone remotely associated with the West when the lease with Britian expired and Hong Kong was returned to China. I had resolved in my mind after a couple of months of aggressively seeking Brother Chan that finding any of the Chan family was probably not going to happen.
The other night at the Temple I was checking out a card from the Assistant Temple Recorder. When I asked for the Cantonese card he asked me if I had served as a Missionary in Hong Kong. I told him that I had, and that I served here in 1973 through 1975. He then told me that his grandfather had been baptized about that time. Until he said that I was not really paying attention, so at the same time he told me his name I was looking at his name tag and heard and read the name “Chan”. I asked him if he knew where his grandfather was living when he was baptized, and he said that his grandfather had been living in Wan Chai. I told him that I had been involved with a Chan family’s baptism in Wan Chai about that time, and asked him if he had a picture of his grandfather. We were both so excited that he had a hard time working his iPhone. Finally, he was able to find a picture of his grandfather and the picture he showed me was so familiar to me, it was like yesterday that I stood with his family in the Gam Tong at their baptism. I have found the Chan family and am so happy to have found them.
Last P day was really wonderful. We and Sister Nielson, (our Humanitarian missionary whose husband wasn't able to come with us), took the 8 full time sister missionaries (who are from the Philippines), to Disneyland. They were so excited. They had never been to Disneyland before. They kept telling us it was a dream come true, they never believed they would ever in their life time be able to go Disneyland.
Left to right: Sister Labangco, Sister Caluza, Sister Molina, Sister Brojan, Sister Miranda, me, Sister Baluyot, Sister San Juan, Sister Nielson, Sister Arago.
There was a Rugby tournament going on in Hong Kong, we saw several teams in the park that day. When we were walking past the team from New Zealand, the young man in front stopped us after seeing our badges, he was excited to tell us he was a member of the Church. The sisters were so excited for this photo!
After spending a wonderful day at Disneyland with these amazing sister missionaries, I believe it was a dream come true for them, and dad and I were the ones who received the most joy in the day!
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