We have been so blessed to have had Elder Quinton Cook here with Bishop Waddell and Elder Soarez. They spent a couple of days in Hong Kong, then several days visiting Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore before coming back to Hong Kong for a few more days. Friday we had a group picture taken of the entire Hong Kong Mission and then were treated to a special meeting where each of the visitors and their wives spoke to us. Yes, we are led by men of God. Since the meetings in Hong Kong were held here in the area office, we senior missionaries had the honor of providing meals for them. I am amazed at the details that go into such a task. We all had our assignments of providing certain foods, setting up and cleaning up. It turned out so well and were so blessed to be able to interact on a more personal level with these brethren.
On Wednesday we took Patrick, Vico and Valerie Lai to dinner. They wanted pizza and I was grateful to have a familiar food for a change. Little Valerie is now two months old and very darling. She has born with a full head of hair--nearly ready for a haircut! She is a very beautiful baby and of course, they have taken over 2,000 pictures of her!
One of my responsibilities here is to teach the
church conducting course. Since we only have about 1/2 hour per class I broke the course into 6 lessons, the same lesson given 4 times a week due to the Everyday Branch that is divided into daily families. So I have a different group of people each day. The training includes identifying rhythms, note values, the conducting patterns and a few other things--not including note recognition. After we finished the 6 week course we had one week of review in which I had made a sheet of 20 questions. We went over all the questions in class and
reviewed the conducting patterns. The next week was the testing week in which I gave them the same questions I had given them the previous week, and they had to conduct a hymn of my choice. The 9th week--last week was graduation. Dan and I made nice certificates for each of them and we had refreshments. Certificates are very important to them and they were so proud to receive their certificates! Of course, everyone passed!
Next week we will begin the keyboard class. Do you remember those 12 keyboards that I received
from Salt Lake from the Harmon grant? They will be put to good use since there are about 25 students that want to begin the next class. We will have about 6 students each time. I think that as time progresses some of them will drop out due to the commitment required. Only those who prove that they are truly committed get to keep their keyboards. It would be wonderful to have to ask Salt Lake for more keyboards!
My current student, Perla is doing very well and will be sustained as the Ward Pianist Sunday in the Discovery Bay Ward. She is thrilled! She has now had lessons for 3 months and can play about 6 hymns--1 line per hand, but she'll soon progress to more parts. She has started to teach other people in her ward the keyboard course and the conducting course! That's exactly how it's supposed to work!
On Dan's birthday we went with some other senior missionaries to see West Side Story. It was very well done. Since I had been pushing very hard all week to process my largest to date number of missionary applications, I was very anxious to go. Then Saturday night Julie Lai took us,
Millie Lai and Brother Mann to dinner for Dan's birthday. She loves Dan since he was the one who introduced her late husband, Eddie to the gospel many years ago.
Sheldon Poon and his wife, Eliza arrived in town for a few days, he from Mainland China and she from the States. We were blessed to go to lunch with them and Esther and Zeno Chow. What wonderful people! Sheldon and Esther are working hard on the big music workshop that will be held in July in which Craig Jessop and a few others from USU will be here to conduct music workshops. Craig will be going to China first to conduct workshops, then on to Hong Kong. We are very excited to see Craig!
We were able to meet our new DTA who will be taking over next month. His name is Paul Hansen. He looked very familiar to us and we to him. We finally figured out that we had seen him at BYU basketball games. Also he and his son went on one of our Tabernacle Choir trips with us and he pulled late-night luggage. He will be fun to have here. He is tall and likes basketball so he and Dan will be great additions to the Wednesday night basketball group downstairs.
Tuesday the 30th was another holiday--the dragon boat races. Since it was a holiday the temple opened early to allow for those who work long hours to come, so we went to work in the temple at 7 AM. After one session we left to go see the boat races. Although it was very hot and humid we were able to get semi-close to the front of the pack for a few minutes to watch them race. Eight boats leave the starting line at a time and have a crew of about 24 each and race down to the bridge. It was so fun to see the different colored boats and shirts. However, next time we will watch it on TV. We can say that we went, but it is actually much easier to see on TV--and cooler!
I had been meeting with Elder Wong each Wednesday to go over the missionary applications that I have completed for the week before sending them off to Salt Lake City for the call. Since Elder Wong has just returned to the states to prepare for his mission assignment to Vancouver, BC, I met with Elder Funk and Elder Meurs. I happened to mention that I felt sad about a brother from Taiwan who was so anxious to serve a mission and had only been a member for a year. Since his paperwork got bogged down somewhere in the pipeline he had reached the magic age of 26 before his application arrived on my desk. The cutoff is 26. Even though I fought very hard for him, his application was canceled on the area level. With the blessing of Elder Funk and Elder Meurs we were able to resurrect that paperwork and add a heartfelt plea for him and sent it on to Salt Lake City. Lo and behold, he received a call! I feel that that is the pinnacle of my mission so far. Persistence certainly paid off. His life will be forever changed because of his mission.
We had our quarterly temple morning with the Area Presidency on Thursday the 1st. Afterwards we went across the street to the Kowloon chapel for a testimony meeting. What a neat experience that is! The temple will be closed for 3 weeks now for cleaning so we won't have our regular Tuesday night temple assignment for a while.
On Saturday the 3rd Dan went on a bike ride with Manfred Lai. He was so happy to be on a bicycle again! They were gone for hours enjoying the beauty of the New Territories. He keeps threatening to have his bicycle sent over here. Where would we put it?! He really misses riding his bike. This week is the annual Reno to Salt Lake Huntsman 140 of which he's been hearing reports of snow outside of Reno on Guardsman Pass, I guess if you have to miss a year this would be the one to miss.
Saturday night we came down to the church office building to meet Maizie Keung. She directs the choir in her ward and has had me accompany 'Nephi's Courage' that she has made into a special arrangement. We've gone to her ward for choir for quite a few weeks to help with her her. Saturday she wanted to go over some other ideas for that number. They don't perform it until September so I'm expecting many more blasts of inspiration from her before it's all said and done. After we finished working on it Saturday night we went to dinner with her family. Her husband is one of the Keung family children that Dan tracted out long ago. He is a very talented landscape/scenery artist here in Hong Kong and teaches at one of the universities. We were blown away by his work. He's done quite a bit of work here around Hong Kong.
The ward choir in Tsim Sha Tsui had asked us to help them sing for Stake Conference which will be held next Sunday, so we attended that ward Sunday. We hurried home that afternoon so that we could prepare dinner for Jerry and Georgia James who will be going home in a couple of weeks, and Roy and Priscilla Thong from
Washington. We enjoy getting to know some of these missionaries on a more personal level.
Dan started off this past week by having lunch with Dr. Jones Fok and President (Dr.) Maurice Lam. President Lam is the mission president here and was a classmate of Dr. Fok who has a huge network of medical providers that he is trying to hook up with the missionary program here. When Dr. Fok heard that we like to sing, he promptly set up a dinner appointment with us to join him and his friend to sing karaoke. Whoa! He sings karaoke at his dance 'club' every week! That should be an experience!
On one of Dan's recent Operation Smile trips into China he met some very nice people, a couple of which live here in Hong Kong. Su Wang is an anesthesiologist that he happened to connect with once we arrived here. She and her family took us to dinner Wednesday night at a Thai Restaurant which was an experience. The food was quite strange to us.......and of course the fish was looking right at me with his white eyes! Their family is so nice. They have two boys who are both going to college in the US and one is 6'8" and likes to play basketball (and he's Chinese!) It just so happens that every Wednesday evening there is a group here in this Wan Chai building that get together to play ball. So....maybe Dan will have a young buddy!
Saturday we had a group outing to the Tsz Shan Monastery past Sha Tin. It sits on a hill in a very pastoral setting overlooking the bay. It was built only two years ago for the monks here in Hong Kong and touts the world's second largest statue of Guanyun, a Buddhist goddess at 249' tall! The grounds were absolutely gorgeous! The younger woman in the picture is Sara, Joe Plater's daughter (of Ride From Reno), here doing a short stint as a legal intern.
I went to two cultural events this week! Several of us girls from the office went to a Chinese ballet from China one afternoon. It was beautifully performed and the costumes were out of sight beautiful! The next night we went with another group from the office to the musical "My Fair Lady". It was produced by a local acting company, but the main characters were from Australia. I so much enjoyed it since it brought back many remembrances from my high school days of accompanying that musical on the piano at South Salem High School. It's so nice to be able to attend so many wonderful cultural events here.
We walked one of our interns home after the performance and ran into a woman and her friend who noticed our missionary badges. She wanted to know where our church met. We gave her the information and found that she is from China just visiting in Hong Kong for a few days. Many people come out of China just to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ since there is no preaching in China. Some of them have studied enough on their own to be able to be baptized at the end of their few days, while others take a crash course, go back to China and study the gospel on their own and then come back to Hong Kong to be baptized. There is a baptismal font on the main floor of our building, along with a visitor's center. We learned from the missionaries that this couple came to the building on Saturday. We don't know if they came to church on Sunday. Situations like this are not uncommon and are very rewarding. The church is alive and well in China!
On that note, I'll end this entry with my testimony that I truly believe that we are here doing the Lord's work. We've had so many spiritual experiences and witnesses throughout our lives that we cannot deny the truthfulness of the gospel. We love our family and friends and pray for you each day and thank you for your prayers in our behalf. We love you!
One of my responsibilities here is to teach the church conducting course. Since we only have about 1/2 hour per class I broke the course into 6 lessons, the same lesson given 4 times a week due to the Everyday Branch that is divided into daily families. So I have a different group of people each day. The training includes identifying rhythms, note values, the conducting patterns and a few other things--not including note recognition. After we finished the 6 week course we had one week of review in which I had made a sheet of 20 questions. We went over all the questions in class and
reviewed the conducting patterns. The next week was the testing week in which I gave them the same questions I had given them the previous week, and they had to conduct a hymn of my choice. The 9th week--last week was graduation. Dan and I made nice certificates for each of them and we had refreshments. Certificates are very important to them and they were so proud to receive their certificates! Of course, everyone passed! Next week we will begin the keyboard class. Do you remember those 12 keyboards that I received
My current student, Perla is doing very well and will be sustained as the Ward Pianist Sunday in the Discovery Bay Ward. She is thrilled! She has now had lessons for 3 months and can play about 6 hymns--1 line per hand, but she'll soon progress to more parts. She has started to teach other people in her ward the keyboard course and the conducting course! That's exactly how it's supposed to work!
On Dan's birthday we went with some other senior missionaries to see West Side Story. It was very well done. Since I had been pushing very hard all week to process my largest to date number of missionary applications, I was very anxious to go. Then Saturday night Julie Lai took us,Millie Lai and Brother Mann to dinner for Dan's birthday. She loves Dan since he was the one who introduced her late husband, Eddie to the gospel many years ago.
Sheldon Poon and his wife, Eliza arrived in town for a few days, he from Mainland China and she from the States. We were blessed to go to lunch with them and Esther and Zeno Chow. What wonderful people! Sheldon and Esther are working hard on the big music workshop that will be held in July in which Craig Jessop and a few others from USU will be here to conduct music workshops. Craig will be going to China first to conduct workshops, then on to Hong Kong. We are very excited to see Craig!We were able to meet our new DTA who will be taking over next month. His name is Paul Hansen. He looked very familiar to us and we to him. We finally figured out that we had seen him at BYU basketball games. Also he and his son went on one of our Tabernacle Choir trips with us and he pulled late-night luggage. He will be fun to have here. He is tall and likes basketball so he and Dan will be great additions to the Wednesday night basketball group downstairs.
Tuesday the 30th was another holiday--the dragon boat races. Since it was a holiday the temple opened early to allow for those who work long hours to come, so we went to work in the temple at 7 AM. After one session we left to go see the boat races. Although it was very hot and humid we were able to get semi-close to the front of the pack for a few minutes to watch them race. Eight boats leave the starting line at a time and have a crew of about 24 each and race down to the bridge. It was so fun to see the different colored boats and shirts. However, next time we will watch it on TV. We can say that we went, but it is actually much easier to see on TV--and cooler!I had been meeting with Elder Wong each Wednesday to go over the missionary applications that I have completed for the week before sending them off to Salt Lake City for the call. Since Elder Wong has just returned to the states to prepare for his mission assignment to Vancouver, BC, I met with Elder Funk and Elder Meurs. I happened to mention that I felt sad about a brother from Taiwan who was so anxious to serve a mission and had only been a member for a year. Since his paperwork got bogged down somewhere in the pipeline he had reached the magic age of 26 before his application arrived on my desk. The cutoff is 26. Even though I fought very hard for him, his application was canceled on the area level. With the blessing of Elder Funk and Elder Meurs we were able to resurrect that paperwork and add a heartfelt plea for him and sent it on to Salt Lake City. Lo and behold, he received a call! I feel that that is the pinnacle of my mission so far. Persistence certainly paid off. His life will be forever changed because of his mission.
We had our quarterly temple morning with the Area Presidency on Thursday the 1st. Afterwards we went across the street to the Kowloon chapel for a testimony meeting. What a neat experience that is! The temple will be closed for 3 weeks now for cleaning so we won't have our regular Tuesday night temple assignment for a while.
On Saturday the 3rd Dan went on a bike ride with Manfred Lai. He was so happy to be on a bicycle again! They were gone for hours enjoying the beauty of the New Territories. He keeps threatening to have his bicycle sent over here. Where would we put it?! He really misses riding his bike. This week is the annual Reno to Salt Lake Huntsman 140 of which he's been hearing reports of snow outside of Reno on Guardsman Pass, I guess if you have to miss a year this would be the one to miss. 
The ward choir in Tsim Sha Tsui had asked us to help them sing for Stake Conference which will be held next Sunday, so we attended that ward Sunday. We hurried home that afternoon so that we could prepare dinner for Jerry and Georgia James who will be going home in a couple of weeks, and Roy and Priscilla Thong from Washington. We enjoy getting to know some of these missionaries on a more personal level.
Dan started off this past week by having lunch with Dr. Jones Fok and President (Dr.) Maurice Lam. President Lam is the mission president here and was a classmate of Dr. Fok who has a huge network of medical providers that he is trying to hook up with the missionary program here. When Dr. Fok heard that we like to sing, he promptly set up a dinner appointment with us to join him and his friend to sing karaoke. Whoa! He sings karaoke at his dance 'club' every week! That should be an experience!
On one of Dan's recent Operation Smile trips into China he met some very nice people, a couple of which live here in Hong Kong. Su Wang is an anesthesiologist that he happened to connect with once we arrived here. She and her family took us to dinner Wednesday night at a Thai Restaurant which was an experience. The food was quite strange to us.......and of course the fish was looking right at me with his white eyes! Their family is so nice. They have two boys who are both going to college in the US and one is 6'8" and likes to play basketball (and he's Chinese!) It just so happens that every Wednesday evening there is a group here in this Wan Chai building that get together to play ball. So....maybe Dan will have a young buddy!
I went to two cultural events this week! Several of us girls from the office went to a Chinese ballet from China one afternoon. It was beautifully performed and the costumes were out of sight beautiful! The next night we went with another group from the office to the musical "My Fair Lady". It was produced by a local acting company, but the main characters were from Australia. I so much enjoyed it since it brought back many remembrances from my high school days of accompanying that musical on the piano at South Salem High School. It's so nice to be able to attend so many wonderful cultural events here.
We walked one of our interns home after the performance and ran into a woman and her friend who noticed our missionary badges. She wanted to know where our church met. We gave her the information and found that she is from China just visiting in Hong Kong for a few days. Many people come out of China just to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ since there is no preaching in China. Some of them have studied enough on their own to be able to be baptized at the end of their few days, while others take a crash course, go back to China and study the gospel on their own and then come back to Hong Kong to be baptized. There is a baptismal font on the main floor of our building, along with a visitor's center. We learned from the missionaries that this couple came to the building on Saturday. We don't know if they came to church on Sunday. Situations like this are not uncommon and are very rewarding. The church is alive and well in China!
On that note, I'll end this entry with my testimony that I truly believe that we are here doing the Lord's work. We've had so many spiritual experiences and witnesses throughout our lives that we cannot deny the truthfulness of the gospel. We love our family and friends and pray for you each day and thank you for your prayers in our behalf. We love you!
So many adventures! We enjoy you sharing them with us. I love the story about the brother from Taiwan that you helped get on a mission!
ReplyDeleteLove it Marian!! I'm tied to Hong Kong forever so it is fun to see it through your wonderful eyes. Keep it up :-)
ReplyDeleteWay to keep up on your blog! You look great and your adventures are awesome.
ReplyDeleteWhat incredible experience you are having and how much good you do each day. Bless you! (We love Jerry and Georgia James too!) Way to go getting that missionary through the pipeline!
ReplyDelete