June Hong Kong Branch and Asia Area Actvities

We spent a week in Taiwan in June. (see following four blogs). But other things also happened in our Island II Church Branch and in the Asia Area Office. This blog captures some of these events that happene to us in June.

Elder Smith Turns 77 years old


Elder Smith's birthday was on Sunday, June 14. In the branch, a group home teaching lesson is given after the block meeting on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month. June 14 was the 2nd Sunday, so after Elder and Sister Smith gave the home teaching lesson on prayer, the group members sprung a birthday party on him. These pictures show the fun these wonderful sisters and one brother provided for the occasion.

Eight wonderful sisters try to take the place of five wonderful daughters, at least for one day. Back row, l to r: Sisters Dioneta, Paz, Luz,Violeta,Trinidad. Front row: Sisters Sally, Julie and Gloria T.

Our one Elder, Brother Noel, has a great voice. The group prepared a song for Elder Smith sung by Noel with vocal accompaniment from the sisters. "You Lift Me Up".


Sister Trinidad baked this delicious German Chocolate cake. It went fast. They also had fried chicken pieces and ice cream to go with the cake.



Elder Smith tried to get the cake for himself, but that didn't work.

Happy Birthday sung Philippine style. The candles were in the shape of two "7"s

Sister Smith caught the group in this great picture.

Goodbye to Asia Area President Hallstrom and Sister Hallstrom

This month we said farewell to our Area President, Elder Donald Hallstrom. He was called to be one of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy at the April General Conference and moved with his wife back to Utah in June. We had several events to say goodbye including a Devotional, a lunch at the building for all of the staff and missionaries in the Asia Area Administration Building (about 100), a Temple day with the full time missionaries and a Chinese dinner with the missionaries that evening in a wonderful restaurant across the harbor in Kowloon.

This is a picture of the Area Presidency (Elder and Sister Hallstrom are in the middle of the first row) and the Welfare Services Division including three couple missionaries (Smith, Woolsey, Gibbons), Stanley Wan, the Area Welfare Manager, and Jaymi Wong, the Welfare Secretary. Asia Area 1st Counselor, Elder Perkins on the left of the front row, will be our new Asia Area President. On the right of the Hallstroms are Elder and Sister Watson, 2nd Counselor, and Brother and Sister Terry Oakes, the Asia Area Director of Temporal Affairs. Brother Oakes is also the President of the Island II branch in which Elder Smith serves as the 2nd Counselor.

This is a picture of the Area Presidency with the full time missionary couples in the Asia Administrationi Building (10 couples) plus Elder and Sister Kau from the Taiwan Mission office and Sister Van Dam, Mission Mother. President Val Dam was not present for the picture.

UPS Delivery Hong Kong style

Every morning the sidewalk on the street adjacent to our office building is full of UPS and FedEx deliveries for the Wan Chai Hong Kong area. The wonderful thing is that the boxes get to their proper destination!! Our daughter, Cindy, has sent several boxes to us while we've been here. The record time for the mail was a box mailed on Friday US time arriving at our office on Monday Hong Kong time. It's hard to do that well from one US destination to another.

Is our box there???

Victoria Harbor Laser Light Show

Every night at 8 p.m. the buildings on both sides of the Victoria Harbor are lit up to the accompaniment of an orchestra background that is broadcast on both the Hong Kong Island Central Harbor and the Kowloon Harbor. Viewers line the shore on both sides of the harbor to view the show, but a more spectacular view can be had on a boat in the harbor itself. The mission couples took such a trip in June. I really neeeded a video clip to show this, but a few still pictures will have to do. Several buildings have flashing lights placed on the building exterior that go on an off with the music. The tall building with the triangular white stripes light up in interesting sequences. The stripes are really lights that turn on and off in sections as the music is played. In addition, strobe laser lights are flashed across the water. It is about a 15 minute dsiplay. We were impressed.

The Hong Kong Island skyline with the Central Piers in the foreground.

A full moon evening. Even without the show, many of the buildings have blazing lights with the building names in lights. A very colorful city.

Family Home Evening Break the Fast Dinner in June.

Every Fast Sunday, the five branch home teaching groups hold a group Family Home Evening followed by a "Break the Fast" dinner. The various groups take turns fixing a dinner for 100 people. June was again our group's turn.

The menu for today was chicken ala king. Most of the sisters are great cooks because that is their job as domestic servants. They prepare this dinner both before and after the block meetings.

They fixed a lot of food. There was even some left over!!

The tables and chairs ae up ready to be used.

We even provided some entertainment with the help of our two guitarist brothers Noel and Isisdro. These are very popular Elders.

Preach my Gospel Bowl for District Branches

Under the direction of Mission President Van Dam, each of the nine units in the International District in Hong Kong held a Preach My Gospel Bowl. Each unit has four participants. They draw questions about the Preach My Gospel missionary book and have one minute to answer it correctly. Points were awarded if the correct answer was given. Questions were true-false, multiple choice, or completion. The completion were the most difficult.

This was the group from Island II branch. They did well, but out of the five rounds they misse two difficult completion questions so they did not win.

The white boards were use to keep track of the scores for the six branches represented,

The eventual winners were these four sisters from the Macau Island branch. They were very excited about their win as you can tell from the photo. They went on to Mission-wide competition. I am not sure how they did.