Many Changes, Lots of Work

This has been one of the busiest weeks of our Mission life!

We started the week attending a wonderful Devotional with the other Senior Missionaries and employees presided by the Area Presidency (Elder’s Funk, Evans and Meurs). Each took a turn at the pulpit and shared personal experiences with President Nelson and then bore their individual testimonies of the process concerning the succession of the President and First Presidency of the Church. They pointed out the professional and academic accomplishments of President Nelson and his two Counselors; President Oaks and President Eyring, and specifically their work in our part of the world. It’s such a special experience as a Missionary to be taught by members of the Quorum of the Seventy, and we have had the privilege and blessing of multiple opportunities here in Hong Kong.

We thought that we had finished the work on the Country Fact Sheets last week but were informed early this week that the numbers provided us by the Humanitarian Group were inaccurate, so we need to start over.  It is a bit strange that we have not experienced much frustration with the obvious inefficiency of this event, but “like water off of a duck’s back” we just make it all work with a positive attitude.

 I had a personal experience at the Temple this week in the first session while working the veil. I had an overwhelming feeling of peace, love, and confidence come over me when I recognized Karen’s hand, heard her voice, and felt her spirit assisting a patron on the other side. It was “a tender mercy” I am sure that could only be received in a Temple. I am also confident that the opportunities we have in front of us are beyond our comprehension.

Tomorrow is another Sunday opening of the Temple and we will be involved with Sealings, Initiatory, and Baptisms. This will be our last Sunday Temple Session for a while unless they start opening Temples on Sunday in the U.S. of A. We are glad that we have been able to participate in these sessions and be a part of the Temple experience with so many Sisters that can not come on any other day.

We helped  Elder and Sister Yan with the English Class they teach every week. This was the last week of the class and we helped give the students their oral  exams.  They are working to pass a test qualifying them for acceptance to an American University.

Most of our week was spent on updating all the Church literature and dealing with a multitude of issues arising with the changes announced this week. It seems like everything in the closet (we share a closet with the legal department) became obsolete after the Press Conference, which started a race for information worldwide. Karen was busy scouring hundreds of  online newspaper articles (here in Asia),  for information being published by the press that she could share with the Area Presidency.  They like to be aware of what the press in the  different countries are saying about the Church.

I was coordinating with Salt Lake and posting the latest updates on Newsroom. It’s interesting that with all the changes in leadership announced this week photos are still unavailable of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as now constituted. If you were to go to Mormon Newsroom Hong Kong under leadership you would find current information with current photos of all but the Quorum of the Twelve. The names are updated with Acting President Ballard and Elder Uchtdorf but the picture is noticeably not accurate.

We are now officially trunky with such a short time left to serve.   We received our return home flight itineraries, so we realize that we need to start preparing to wind down.

We are so looking forward to Ryan and Lisa coming this next week so that we can share Hong Kong with them! There coming was a milestone that not long ago seemed so far in the future, but one that marked an event that we realized was toward the tail end of this experience. We can’t think of a better way to bring our Mission to a close than with members of our family.

Having lunch together before Elder and Sister Norman go home next week.  Left to right:  Elder Norman,  Lynn,  Elder Sellers,  Sister Sellers,  Karen,  Sister Norman.  We will really miss the Normans.

This happens every once in awhile.  I'll order a sandwich and it will come out on black bread.  The bread has absolutely no flavor at all!  The chicken mango inside of it was really good!  

A Great Week

We started this week by meeting several of the Temple Missionaries in the central lobby here at Harbor Front on Monday, walked down to the North Point  ferry, and crossed the harbor. We enjoyed a lunch buffet on the Hong Kong side at the Rosedale Hotel in Causeway Bay. The buffet was mostly Chinese food but had an automatic pancake making machine that was nifty. You pushed a button indicating how many pancakes you wanted then held your plate up to a shute and after about sixty seconds pancakes would start dropping on your plate.

 After lunch the group went across the road to the food market,  except for the two of us. It looked like rain, so we headed back to the apartment and sure enough it began to rain and they all got wet and cold.

Tuesday morning, we worked feverishly on updating a Vietnam Country Fact Sheet for the Area Presidency that reconciled with a Power Point presentation being developed by the Humanitarian Missionaries. The Power Point and Fact Sheets were part of a bundle of information needed for President Funk and Elder Evans before they left that afternoon for Vietnam.

Wednesday, Karen taught Institute in the morning,  afterwards we  met with Annie to coordinate the weeks workload. We  were in the office for a few hours then went to the Temple for our weekly assignment there. It was a fairly busy night with a number of patrons from the Mainland attending.

Thursday, we had a wonderful video call with the Pollmanns. They have family coming at the end of the month and then will be going home to Alpine, Utah the first week of February. They will be taking their five children and spouses up to Chiang Mai to ride elephants and see tigers. Then down to Phuket and the sunny beaches for a few days. We have never seen Sister Pollmann so happy as she was this week!

We attended the Welfare Meeting in the early afternoon and were able to review some projects with the committee. This is always a great opportunity to participate and become aware of the temporal assistance offered to those in need by the Church.

After our meeting we hooked up with Annie and the Montagues for dinner. We went to the Crystal Jade, a higher end Chinese restaurant just up the street from our office.

On Friday after spending the morning in the office we met the Montagues at the Temple where they had just attended two sessions. We brought them back to the office for an hour or so, and then took them to their hotel where they could change clothes. We wanted to show them Victoria Peak, so we arranged for dinner at Bubba Gump’s at Victoria Station. It was a beautiful night, we ate shrimp and clam chowder, and were able to get to know each other better. They are from Saint George Utah and have six children, four boys and two girls. Karen was an answer to prayer when Sister Montague inquired as to whether the time of Karen’s mission went fast, and Karen told her, “yes,  that it went very fast”.  The Sister Missionaries miss their children and grandchildren from the minute they get on the plane. Yet they are all willing to serve for the blessings received by those they miss so much.

It was a very busy week and I should not leave out mentioning the work associated in the passing of President Monson. His passing is news to every country in our mission and in every language. He will have a lot to talk to the Prophet Joseph about.

Transfer week.  Sister Arago leaves tomorrow to serve in Macau.  We love these sisters.  We really miss them when they get transferred to other areas.  Left to right:  Sister Rodriegez, Sister Arago, Me, Sister Labangco, Sister Salangad, Sister Romero, and Sister Bautista.

We had visitors this week from Malaysia coming to attend the Temple.  Elder and Sister Montague are our Public Affairs missionaries in Malaysia.   Our good friend Carol Ng came too.  Elder and Sister Coleman are the Humanitarian missionaries (Elder Coleman is taking the picture).    The group consisted of around 20 Malaysians who are staying in Patron Housing for a couple of days while they do Temple Work.  Montagues are standing next to us in this picture.  This is just a small handful of the group.

Happy New Year

This week brought in the new year and more celebrating.  Also our 42nd Anniversary!  

New Year’s Eve the Senior Missionaries met at Elder and Sister Cory’s apartment, which has the best view of the harbor, to eat waffles and watch the fireworks. The fireworks were spectacular and being able to view them from inside the comfortable confines of the Cory’s apartment was terrific.

The morning after the latest night of our Mission we were able to drag ourselves out of bed on the  morning of our latest sleep-in of our Mission,  and head over to the Jade Market with the Chatterton’s. We wanted to find something for our forty-second Wedding Anniversary that would be small and light enough to take home, that would create sentiment towards our time here, and would not be too expensive. We were hoping to find something Jade because of the cultural value it has here in Hong Kong. After searching and haggling for most of the morning, we settled on some Jade carvings in the shape of multiple layers of balls and a Chinese Christmas Nativity where each piece is hand carved and painted out of some kind of nut.   We also bought some Chinese Christmas tree ornaments.  We left the market and went to lunch, my favorite part of the day.

Tuesday, the day of our Anniversary we spent the morning in the office and the afternoon at the Cheese Cake Factory and a movie. It’s our second Anniversary celebration here in Hong Kong and probably our last. We have really enjoyed our time together here,  it will always be a special place for us but we probably will never be back.

This week we attended the Temple with the Area Presidency and met for lunch after. The Area President, Elder Funk took the opportunity to share with us some personal experiences he had with President Monson. He told us about a Tabernacle Choir visit at Red Rock, an amphitheater outside of Denver, that President Monson attended and that after the concert he stayed and shook as many hands as he could. He also gave his card to a woman in need so that she could call him personally at her convenience when they could talk without interruption.

Our Welfare Correlation Meeting was held this week,  (after not meeting the last few weeks while the Area Presidency and Department Managers were traveling for the holidays).  This is one of our favorite assignments because we are exposed to all the wonderful ways the Church is helping those in need in this part of the world. 

Because we have not met for a couple of weeks there was a back log of projects that were reviewed and a longer than normal meeting. All of the Senior Humanitarian Couples in the numerous countries in the area keep churning away and finding projects that require funding. It doesn’t take attending many of these meetings that it becomes apparent that there will never be enough money to solve all the problems of the earth’s poor and needy. The challenges will only truly be met with the Priesthood being properly magnified after being properly authorized throughout the world.

We spent several hours this week tying up loose ends and preparing for the launch and training of the CRM project that we have been working on for most of the Mission. The work we have done is now live on the site and we are now organizing the data into business units by country and national directors. I think we will finish up about the time we are replaced. Good Luck Elder and Sister Mortenson!

We celebrated NYE  at the Cory's enjoying waffles and watching the fireworks (they have a great view of the habor).  We have made so many wonderful friends here on our mission.

Elder Beckstead is chief waffle maker

Happy New Year in Hong Kong 2018

We enjoyed walking around the street on New Year's Day.  

One of the many interesting things we see at the street markets.  Dried lizards on a stick!  You just can't believe the things they eat here.  They eat every part of every living,  swimming, creeping, crawling thing!  They dry it,  fry it,  or eat it raw!