Happy Chinese New Year 2018

We love Hong Kong,  it has become our home, it is where we live.

 We share a five hundred square foot apartment with one couch, one chair, four cereal bowls, two rice bowls,  and barely enough silver ware to set our small table. We take turns washing dishes after each meal usually consisting of a bowl of rice, a bowl of noodles or peanut butter and jam sandwich. Karen washes our clothes daily in a small machine made in Italy that both washes and dries up to three shirts at a time. The small oven provided is affectionately referred to as our “easy bake oven” and has the energy capacity and space to bake up to 8 cookies at a time at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius in twenty to thirty minutes. The shower nozzle, with barely enough water pressure to force water up the pipe and out the nozzle, is aimed about four inches above my belly button. A height that makes a shower more of a gymnastic exercise for me but is just about right for Karen. We have one small bedroom measuring eight feet by twelve feet that Karen uses for her office and if I want to stay out of trouble, I never go in. Our master bedroom is just large enough for a queen size bed and a small wardrobe.  To get between the bed and the wall,  one has to stand with their back to the wall,  and do a side step across the width of the bed.

This humble abode is apartment 1615 in the “C” building at the Harborfront apartments in Hung Hom on the peninsula side of Hong Kong. Our daily schedule includes a walk on the promenade, personal and companion study, reading the Book of Mormon each morning together, and prayer before we head out. Each morning we walk several hundred meters to the bus stop, catch the #104 double-decker which takes us under the harbor through a tunnel and drops us off in front of the old Wan Chai police station next to the Church’s Asia Area Administration building. We office on the tenth floor which is the executive office floor with all the Area Presidency offices on the same floor.  We have 4 attorneys on the 10th floor also.   Everyone on the floor with exception of the us and the Yans are in nice offices, we on the other hand have deluxe cubicles. Karen and I share a cubicle; two thirds and the window for her,  leaving one third for me.

This week we went to Victoria park to the Chinese New Year Festival. It was crowded with people buying flowers, trees, bamboo, and pussy willows in preparation for the weekend of Chinese New Year. It is fun to share in another culture's holiday and observe traditions that have been practiced for centuries.

 After the park Karen and I split up with her attending a hot pot dinner with the other missionaries and me meeting up with Edward Lai and Jerry Yu for dinner in Fan Ling. Karen and the other missionaries met the Wrights who are new arrivals at dinner and said goodbye to the Thongs who were leaving the next morning. I was able to meet the Wrights at lunch the next day. We will miss Roy and Pricilla Thong here in Hong Kong but look forward to a continued relationship with them going forward.

Rebekah and David Stringham arrived this week and we were able to spend some time with them. We spent the better part of a day showing them around both the Island and the Peninsula. It was fun seeing Bekah happily married and full of life.

We  had a wonderful dinner with the Asia Area Missionaries and the Area Presidency the second night of the New Year. Sister Funk hosted it and went all out on the decorations and food. It was originally intended that after dinner we would watch the fireworks from the Funk’s patio on the top of the building,  but because of a terrible tragedy killing nineteen people in a bus crash this week the fireworks were canceled.

The third day of the New Year we were invited out to the Fan Ling Ward for a special baptism. Ethan Chan, the great grandson of a man I helped baptize forty plus years ago, was being baptized. Ethan is the fourth generation to receive baptism in his family. It was a wonderful blessing for me to be included in the circle when he was confirmed a member of the Church. It is surreal to me that something I was involved with so long ago could come back into my life after so many years of not even being aware of what was going on in this wonderful family. And to be able to share it with Karen and have her participate in this experience has sealed our Mission with a real sense of purpose. She will return now with a feeling of fulfillment and honor in the title of a returned missionary. She is a firsthand witness of the power and change associated with conversion and her involvement in helping four generations experience the love of God. I would have never served a mission if I had not met Karen, therefore I would have never met grandpa Chan.

Although Hong Kong has been our home for the last seventeen months we are ready to relocate back to a home near our children and grandchildren, our real home.

We are beginning to tie things up here and hopefully prepare a soft landing for the next couple that will be taking our place. The Mortenson’s from Houston will be arriving shortly after we leave. We have talked to them on the phone and believe they will accomplish things here that we have never even thought of.

Happy Chinese New Year 2018

Elder and Sister Chiu are Temple Missionaries here.  They are wonderful friends!

Saying goodbye to Elder and Sister Thong was hard.  They finished their mission,  we are really going to miss them!

Lynn's assistant from his days at Security National,  Bekah,  and her husband David.  We enjoyed getting to see them while they were here in Hong Kong

One of our favorite things we do here in Hong Kong,  taking the missionaries to lunch!  Front left - Elder Larsen.  Back right - Elder Cabrae,   middle -  Elder Earls, and front Elder Parker.

Baptism for Ethan Chan.  In 1973 Lynn baptized Ethan's grandfather and great-grandfather.  What a blessing to be gathered with their family,  4 generations now living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Brother and Sister Wong live here in Hong Kong.  They serve in the Temple on Wednesday nights with us.