Elder Cook's Visit

This week was a busy and very special week with a visit from Elder Quentin L. Cook, Elder Ulisses Soares, and Bishop W. Christopher Waddell for an annual Area Review.

The whole weekend was all about the arrival of Elder’s Cook and Soares and Bishop Waddell. There were lunch and dinner assignments made to all the Senior Couples serving in the Area by Elder and Sister Norman in preparation to feed our guests while they are in Hong Kong.

 All the Church Employees in the area are finishing and putting final touches on Power Point presentations that will be presented to the visiting authorities. Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics are also busy preparing for Stake and Ward meetings that will be visited by the Area Presidency, Area Seventy and one or more of the Authorities from Salt Lake.

The coordination for a visit of multiple General Authorities visiting several countries in a week to participate in leadership training, statistical information reviews, and to preside over several Church meetings a day must be a tour guides nightmare. However, like many other complicated agenda’s undertaken by these special brethren the miracle unfolds day by day as the work is accomplished.

A special moment for Karen and I was to be included in a Missionary group photo with all the young Missionaries in Hong Kong and the visiting Authorities. We were also invited to a special meeting for the Missionaries and heard the testimonies of these special witnesses.

We also were able to get to the Temple this busy week. In addition to all the new experiences we were having outside the Temple I had a first as well in the Temple. I had the opportunity to officiate my very first English session in the Hong Kong Temple.

Between the time the visiting Authorities left Hong Kong to visit seven or eight other countries in the area, and the time they regrouped in Hong Kong, we could get a lot of Public Affairs work done. We were able to have our weekly calls with the other Area Senior Couples, teach institute, place an article in Newsroom for Malaysia, send out a news brief using the new Meltwater software, and interview the Lau’s for an article we plan on writing this next week. Karen also introduced the other Senior Couples serving in other countries to a request from Sharon Goodrich, a friend of Shannon’s. She is in Salt Lake and has been called to serve with The Liahona and Friend Magazines. She is looking for photos of children in Asian Countries for the magazines, so Sister Beckstead suggested on our weekly call ways we might be able to help her in her efforts.

We ended the week on Friday with our monthly birthday luncheon recognizing all the Senior Missionary May birthdays. We feasted on all the leftover food that was not consumed by our visitors during the week. That may not seem like much to you in the U.S. but after eight months of Chinese food it was a treat that measured up to the rest of the week.

We have a new member in our Branch.  Sister Archana Awhad Chavan is from India.   From left to right:  Elder Beckstead, Archana, Elder Kendell, and Elder Jensen.