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.