Thanksgiving and Christmas- Hong Kong Style

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approached, we were concerned about being so far away from home and family. But we found that in addition to our regular missionary work, we were involved in many festive dinners, activities, conferences and devotionals; all designed to help us remember to be grateful for our many blessings, to celebrate the birth of our Savior and to bring harmony and unity to everyone here. The couples all joined for a turkey Thanksgiving dinner on the Saturday afternoon following Thanksgiving Day. Of course, no one in Hong Kong celebrated Thanksgiving except the ex pats. Sister Smith contributed a delicious cranberry salad based on Deb's wonderful recipe. No one asked me to make dressing, and I must say, the one they purchased here was pretty dry. Maybe someone in the family will let me make dressing for next Thanksgiving.

Our branch had its normal share of weekly group activities during November and December that included some birthdays. Our lone brother, Brother Noel, had his birthday and the sisters in our group had a big meal that included a cake. The branch choir performed a beautiful concert on the Sunday before Christmas with narration from a sister and Elder Linford, our 80 yeear-old beautiful bass voiced medical missionary. On Christmas afternoon, the branch had its annual social with games, skits, singing, and dinner. We had over 140 in attendance. Our normal Sunday attendance is about 120. The four senior missionary couples in the branch: Arnold, Linford, Paul and Smith, performed "The Friendly Beasts". I played the sheep and got the "b-a-a-a" down pretty good. The five group skits were dances from Africa. The sisters had lots of fun making up their faces and creating costumes for their dances. The music was authentic. President Oakes and the wives of the couple missionaries were the judges. There were five categories for prizes, and diplomatically, every group got a prize. Our group was especially good with Brother Noel leading the sisters in their courting dance. We received the "best performance" award.

The Area Administrative Office staff, under the direction of the Area Presidency, decorated the entire building for Christmas. The building has a large glass entrance way on the ground floor that opens onto Gloucester Road. In the foyer behind the entrance they placed a beautiful life-sized nativity set. Passerbys would pause, look at the scene, listen to Christmas music, and feel the spirit of the season. This was the only large nativity display we observed in the downtown area. Lots of lights and displays on the buildings, but nothing about Christ. Each of the ten floors had wreaths, balls, bells, nativity sets, trees and festive colors. All 100 employees and missionaries put the decorations up right after Thanksgiving under the direction of Sister Arnold, wife of the Area Executive Secretary. On Monday, January 4, 2010, all of us assembled to put everything away for another year.

Our Christmas activities included a Christmas devotional with our Area President, Elder Perkins speaking, special missionary couple music, group pictures, and a delicous buffet lunch. Earlier in the month the 12 senior missionary couples were all invited to Elder and Sister Watson's 11th floor apartment for a Christmas party with food, music, and white elephant gifts. Our Hong Kong Senior Missionary Conference (including temple, missionary office, and senior sister misionaries) was held in early December. We were taught beautifully by the Area Presidency with slides and testimony, had a delicious lunch, and then went on an outing to the Hong Kong botanical and zoological gardens in nearby Central Hong Kong The temperature was in the 70's. What a delight. The Hong Kong Temple even had a party for all temple workers in the large garage basement of the temple. With the temple president's wife doing the catering, we had a delicious dinner with entertainment after by Sister Elia and Kau, two missionaries with Hawaiian pedigrees. They even had many of us doing the hula with them.

There were even other events that some of the couples enjoyed such as a Chinese acrobatic opera, Christmas choral concerts, symphony concerts, New Year's Eve fireworks etc. Because part of December Sister Smith and I were overcoming colds, we didn't join in all of them. In the midst of these our missionary partners and trainers, Elder and Sister Woolsey, completed their missions and returned home. Elder and Sister Dodson replaced them. They are from Provo as well. We also were surprised when our Area Welfare Manager, Stanley Wan, was assigned to Beijing, China for 12 to 18 montths to be the China Service Center Manager. In his place, a member of the finance deparment and management trainee, Floyd Ko, will guide our work. So things are set for 2010. Our mission is going too quickly. Just over 5 months, and we will be on our way back to family in Provo. But these 2009 holiday events will long be remembered.



Our home teaching group with food furnished by Sister Trinidad. l to r: Elder Noel, Sisters Violeta, Gloria, Trinidad, Elder Smith, Sisters Gloria, Dioneta, Paz, Sally, Luz.

Thanksgiving dinner was of high quality and quantity.

We sat at the table with Elder Watson.

Senior Missionary outing with Sister Kewish, Sister Smith, Elder and Sister Halvorsen and Elder Kewish. The Filipino domestic servant is in Sister Halvorsen's branch. She is watching her employer's baby.

The botanical gardens were beautiful. This dainty flower caught my eye.

Beautiful fountains at the front of the gardens.

These beautiful orchids make a delicate picture.

These Gibbon monkets were very noisy. They talked by blowing up their throat sacs and tried to outdo each other with their shrieking calls. You could hear them all over the park.

Elder Noel's birthday party. He is 50 years old today.

Another group picture. We had a good turnout today.

The happy Elders. We are truly in the minority in this branch

Hawaaian entertainment at the Temple social. Sister Kau and Elia, Hong Kong Mission office missionaries, were very graceful.

Sister Smith and her dear friend, Sister Trinidad. She has become another daughter to us.

Sisters Kau and Elia lead the lessons taught

Elder and Sister Elia enjoying lunch.

Elder and Sister Poon, missionaries from Canada.

The beautiful life-sized nativity set was a hit with the passer-bys who took time to look at it.

We pose before one of 3 trees decorated on the first 6 floors.

Two of our favorite security guards, James and Sunny. They greet us warmly each day they are on duty.

A Mongolian creche. Note the yak and the Mongolian faces. This belongs to Elder and Sister Gibbons.

Elder and Sister Woolsey say goodbye. Back to Bakersfield, California. We have truly enjoyed them.

Elder and Sister Dodson from Provo enter their new apartment as they replace the Woolseys.

A Chinese creche in Elder Watson's apartment.

A missionary quartet entertain during our dinner in Elder Watson's apartment. Elder Perkins, our Area President, looks on. Sisters Erickson and Kewish, Elders Kewish and Gibbons are the singers.

The Christensen family entgertain us. He is a counselor in our District Presidency.

The white elephant gift exchange was fun. We ended with the three Chinese Wisemen: Longlife, Happiness and Prosperity.

The theme for the skits at our Branch Christmas Social was African Dances


A typical costume complete with face painting.


President Oakes gets ready to be the chief judge.

Sister Angel gets to look like a handsome cowboy (Not sure how Africa fits in)

This was our group of Kenya dancers. Elder Noel is dressed all in black.

This three floor size tree was in the atrium of the Festival Walk mall near the Temple. We walked to it after our temple holiday service on December 31.

The mall has its own ice skating rink-- The Glacier

We watched this junk take or tourists and then roll up the three sails. The wind immediately pushed it along.

The flowers in this fountain near our office are poinsettias for the season.

s We have our own Times Square mall near our apartment. They had a big New Year's Eve gathering. The large flower balls are part of the New Year decorations.

Laos and Myanmar Visitors

In November and early December we had the privilege of hosting visitors from two of our countries; Laos and Myanmar. Our Laos visitors were Branch President Khamphee and his wife, Boualay. We had met them in July when we visited their country. President Khamphee is also the driver for our two missionary couples, so we had many hours together as we visited English classes, wheelchair and prosthesis factories, and ceremonies for a school clean water project. (See our August blog). The main purpose of their visit was to attend the Hong Kong Temple to receive their special endowment ordinances and to be sealed together as husband and wife eternally. This was a long anticipated journey. They have been church members since 2004 and this was their first visit to Hong Kong. The following letter was sent back to our couple missionaries in Laos, Elder and Sister Riser and Elder and Sister Fountaine. They in turn forwarded it to several couples who had served in Laos during the past five years. To our surprise, one of these couples was Cecil Clark and his wife, our dear friends from Stanford and Provo times. It is a small world.

"We have a had a delightful time this week with Khamphee and his wife. I'm sure they will want to share the week with you and other members of the branch when they return. We thought we'd give you a brief account of how things went, and send a few pictures. They took many on their camera. We met them at the airport on Monday with no problem. The arrival area at the Hong Kong airport is very nice. It is spacious and thus it is very easy to spot your people. They were pretty tired. They slept some in the Bangkok airport Sunday night, and dozed on the bus from Laos to Bangkok Saturday night. They did receive their patriarchal blessings in Bangkok and enjoyed District Conference. We took them to the temple on an airport bus and although it was a Monday, President Goo, temple president, was there to greet them and take them in his car to the patron housing apartment about 3/4 of a mile away. We left them to rest and explore the area. They walked to the temple each morning and returned at night. They could have taken a bus that goes very close, but they chose to walk.

On Tuesday, we accompanied them on their endowment session. I was able to assist in the initiatory for President Khamphee. They listened intently and seemed to be impressed with everything. As a sealer, I was able to seal them for eternity. They then fed us lunch. They took their food each day to the Temple and ate in the basement eating area. We returned to some meetings in our office and they went on another sesson. They did the baptisms for their families on Wednesday and inititiatories. They also did 2 endowment sessions.

On Thursday, we were in the temple with the other missionary couples and the Area Presidency for our monthly temple activity. Khamphee and Buoalay joined our session. I did one of his male names as well. After the session, the couples and Area Presidency held a testimony meeting in the adjoining ward meeting house while President Khamphee and his wife did another endowment session. After that session, I officiated at the rest of their sealings including their two deceased sons, each of them to their parents, and some of her additional sealings. We finished all but two male that needed the endowments finished before ther sealing. They will do those tomorrow. We then did some sightseeing. We took the MTR train with its three tranfers to Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island and dazzled them with the tall buildings and traffic. We took them to our area administration building and they met with Stanley Wan and Terry Oakes who remembered them from earlier contacts. We showed them the building and went to the tram that takes visitors to the Peak, a prominent hill overlooking Hong Kong. The view is spectaculor, day or night. After supper at Burger King, we went by ferry back to Kowloon and then a doubler decker bus ride back to the temple. They sat on top deck in the front seats so they had a great view. It was 9 p.m. when we got them back, so we were all tired. We said goodbye and felt the warmth of their thanks. They are sure they can get to the airport tomorrow morning okay without us. The airport bus stops very close to the apartment.

Thank you for helping us share Hong Kong with this special couple. We will remember this week forever. Elder and Sister Smith

We greet them at the airport. They are tired but they are still smiling. President Khamohee speaks good English but his wife only a little. The smile communicates greatly.

In front of the Temple fountain.

We enjoyed so much our time with them.

In front of the Area Administration Building in Wan Chai.

We went to the Peak at night time.

This was our first visit to the Peak at night. The lights of the city are beautiful.

Our second couple to visit was Elder and Sister Loughmiller on their way back to Texas at the end of their 21 month mission to Myanmar. Because we were unable to visit Myanmar this summer because of visa restrictions, this was the first opportunity we had to visit them in person. We met them at the airport and they stayed at a hotel, South Pacific, just behind our apartment. Because we were very busy with our Asia office Senior Missionary Conference and many new projects to get approved, we let them take a couple of tours on their own. We did take them on a boat to see the night light show and we took them to see the Temple. It was closed for winter renovation which was disappointing, but they still loved to be on the grounds and get to see the building. We visited the mission offices on the 2nd floor and Elder Kau, Mission Secretary, showed them the first floor chapel and classrooms.

We met the Loughmillers at 6 p.m. on December 2 and walked over to the ferry. The ride wasn’t real crowded. The weather was cool, but we enjoyed seeing the lights. Many of the buildings were decorated with Christmas designs. That was different from what we saw earlier in the year when we took the ride with the couples. We stopped at KFC for a little bit to eat on the way home. They seemed to have enjoyed the day. We stopped to buy some jewelry from a handicapped sister in a wheelchair that was on the crossover bridge. Her name was Nikita Tam. She spoke good English and said she had made the items. Jeanie bought two pendants and the Loughmiller’s bought 5 bracelets and two pendants.

The Hong Kong Temple.