Visits, Service, and More

Another great week in Hong Kong!

This week we had visitors from the States. The Founders Group of Entrepreneurship & Technology from BYU,  the same group  we traveled to Africa with a few years ago.  They arrived on Saturday night and left on the following Saturday morning.   Among others that we knew, Lanny and Carla Smith, our neighbors from Alpine, were in the group visiting. We joined them all for dinner Sunday night in Wan Chai which for us was a fun reunion.

Monday, after leaving Karen still in bed I caught the bus over to Wan Chai to watch the first half of the Super Bowl with the Cory’s and Hansen’s in the Executive Conference room on the tenth floor.   I then left Wan Chai and caught a taxi up to the Peak and showed the Founders Group the rock with the date 7/14/49 scratched in it. It is the site that Mathew Cowley dedicated Hong Kong for the preaching of the Gospel. I then hustled back to Hung Hum to meet Karen and the Chatterton’s for lunch and a movie.

We were in the Temple early morning Tuesday and officiated a special morning session for the Founders Group. What a great opportunity for us to be able to participate in this manner with our friends visiting from the states. We spent the rest of the day in the office taking care of this week’s business because we knew that we would be spending more time this week with our friends.

The next day we met Lanny and Carla at their hotel in the morning and took them first to Mei Ho House. We wanted them to see a H-Block housing building,  and to familiarize them with the history of how the British responded to the huge migration of Chinese in the late sixties and early seventies.

We then went to Hung Hum and the wet market. This is a must stop tourist site that is guaranteed to make you gag. We then crossed the harbor and met Annie for a wonderful Thai lunch. Probably the best meal the Smith’s ate while in Hong Kong. After that we came back to Hung Hum to our apartment and visited until they needed to get back and meet their group for dinner. It was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with Lanny and Carla, they have been good friends to us for years.

Thursday, we took all six of the Filipino Sister missionaries out to lunch at Triple O’s. This has become quite the monthly tradition for us and we are going to miss this experience a lot. We insist that in addition to a burger and fries that each Sister order a milk shake with their meal. This is one of our favorite activities here in Hong Kong, spoiling the Filipino Sister Missionaries. Needless to say, we are one of their favorite Senior Missionary Couples.

Karen and Annie helped supervise a Missionary service project on Friday with a Charity here, Food-Link. This is a Charity sponsored by Wendy Gwok who is a very influential person here in Hong Kong that we have been developing a relationship with for most of our Mission. It was a big step and the beginning of a great new relationship.

Learned something interesting this week that we want to share. While in a meeting this week one of the Senior Couple Missionaries shared with the group that a Missionary Couple replacement for Cambodia will not be coming. Apparently while processing their Missionary application they failed the health exam. The doctor found a cancerous tumor on the Brother’s thyroid. Elder Evans commented that he has seen a lot of members lives prolonged  because they had committed to serve a Mission, and in the process of getting a call, a health issue was revealed that would otherwise not have been discovered in time for treatment. He mentioned that he has witnessed many members that  have had decades of years added to their lives to enjoy their posterity because of the medical exams during preparation to serve missions.

It was so nice having our friends Lanny and Carla Smith here.

Elder and Sister's service project bagging rice for the needy.