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!