THREE Thanksgiving Dinners

You'd think in a place that doesn't even celebrate the American holiday Thanksgiving, that it might go unnoticed. Thursday was a normal business day, but that night we took a taxi over to Andrew & Sandy Lai's house in Repulse Bay to join them and about 25 of their other friends for a traditional turkey dinner. Craig & Andrew served their missions in Hong Kong at the same time, though Andrew is a native. He met Sandy, who's from Idaho, when they were at Ricks (now BYU-Idaho), and they have lived here ever since. It was an enjoyable evening with lots of tasty American foods including pumpkin pie. 
Then on Saturday, all of the missionary couples got together to enjoy turkey, stuffing, and gravy prepared by the wives of the area presidency. All of us couples brought mashed potatoes, string beans, sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top, cranberry sauce, fruit salad, homemade rolls, and apple & pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream on top. It was hard to believe we were still in Hong Kong after that feast!
We thought we had seen the last of the turkey (an expensive, imported item here), but then we attended our new branch, the Peninsula 2nd, which meets in the HoManTin building on Kowloon-side. After the regular meetings, we were treated to a more modest meal which consisted of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, with some sort of tapioca fruit pudding for dessert--our third Thanksgiving dinner for 2010. 

Our very American meal! Kevin & Suzan Nield and Verlin & Pam Lee shared our table.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Tussy was responsible for pulling
together decorating the building

As we've learned, there is quite a tradition associated with decorating the Church Administration building for Christmas each year. The FMG, or Facilities Management Group, an impressively competent group of people, bring the boxes and boxes of decorations over from the rented storage facility. By virtue of Tussy's position as assistant executive secretary, the responsibility for organizing the decorating, specifically getting everyone involved in the different areas, and of course providing refreshments, fell to her. Because everyone was so willing and enthusiastic, the event was a great success! 

The Mysterious Purple Building

One block over from our Church Administration building there is a unique building, which we can see from the stairwell when we run errands from the 10th floor down to the 9th or 8th. It is completely purple, down to the tasteful umbrellas on the two outside patios, which are separated by a purple fence. It doesn't look like a typical Hong Kong building. We haven't seen anyone there so it seems mysterious. As we figure out more about it, we'll let you know!

The Only Revolving Restaurant in Hong Kong

From the elevator as we rode up to the R66 Revolving Restaurant in the Hopewell Center 

(it's on the 64th floor but 66 minutes is about how long it takes to make a complete revolution). 

Along with several of the other missionary couples, we walked over to the R66 restaurant for lunch last week, since it's only 10 minutes from the Church Administration building. As you can see, it provided spectacular views of this part of the city. The buffet  was quite good, (especially the desserts!), and at HK$120 per person was reasonable, though we wouldn't want to spend that much on lunch every day. When the Hopewell Center was completed in 1980 (the year we were married!) at 708 feet/216 meters and 64 stories, it was Hong Kong's tallest building. 

The Changing Coastline of Wan Chai

Craig standing in front of the boulder that the Hung
Shing temple was built around; the incinerator back
there is used to burn paper models of nice items to
somehow send the real things up to ancestors.

Lowell & Susan Bishop, who serve as temple missionaries here, joined us for a walking tour of the fascinating land reclamation that has added valuable space along the harbor coastline, an endeavor that began in 1890 and goes on today. We saw three buildings which were on the original coastline: the 1913 Post Office, the 1872 Blue Building, and the Hung Shing temple which is build against the boulder that had been an altar on the shore in the 1800's. See a map and read about it here:  http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/things-to-do/images/wanchai-ever-changing-landscape.pdf (the Wan Chai police station shows up on this particular map and the building where we serve, the Church Administration building, is next door on the corner of Gloucester and Fleming).

That taxi is driving where water used to be, and this old Post
Office was originally squeezed between the coastline and
the rocky hills behind it. 

One of Hong Kong's oldest structures that has not been
razed to make way for skyscrapers, the Blue Building
is awaiting renovation. Note the original street sign
stuck to the side of the building.

For a simple but cool animation of how the coastline has changed: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Wanchaireclamation.gif

A Couple of Run-Ins with the Police

Well, we didn't have this run-in,
but the poor taxi driver did!

The police have a strong presence here in Hong Kong, which is comforting; the motorcycle officers look like something out of Star Wars and those are very prestigious jobs, kind of like jet pilots, according to Craig. The Wan Chai police station is next door to our Church Administration building, and one of the security guards, James, had been telling us that it would soon be closed down to be turned into a museum. His main concern was the police canteen which he declared had the best authentic Chinese food in Hong Kong; he wanted all of us missionary couples to have the opportunity to eat lunch there before it was too late. So a group of us walked over, along with several full-time staff members, to partake. We had 3 tables of about 8 to 9 people each, and each table was served 9 dishes ranging from sweet and sour pork to fish with their heads still on baked in a delicious tomato sauce. This grand meal cost us HK$50 each, a mere US$6.44, and really was unique and something we won't be able to do again. 

A feast shared with Tony, Leo, Jaymi,
the Whitmans, Elder Paul, and Kevin.

Tussy and Sister Whitman with two of Hong Kong's finest.

The New Handbooks

 

We were in attendance at the Worldwide Leadership training on Saturday, November 13th to hear about the positive changes in how the Lord's Church is administered. Then for our weekly building devotional to senior couples and full-time employees this week, the area president shared with us how he had been privileged, almost 4 years ago, to be asked by the First Presidency to provide input for such an endeavor. Having lived away from Church headquarters for 15 years, he had the unique perspective of how the Church is run in distant countries. The two concerns the First Presidency had were, first, the family: how families were being negatively impacted by the number of meetings and the place the family had to take because of those meetings. In fact if you watched the training you may recall that Elder Bednar wished he could do away with the word "meeting" and in its place refer to them as "revelatory experiences." That is certainly a change of thinking. The second concern was how to relieve overworked bishops by doing such things as engaging the ward council more fully. The result of years of work and inspiration was presented to us as two Handbooks. It's exciting to see these improvements and be part of implementing them. For more information about this, go to http://new.lds.org/church/news/new-handbooks-introduced-during-worldwide-training?lang=eng

Impact of Insight

As we all watched General Conference last month, you might have had the same feeling we did when, during the Saturday afternoon session, Elder Kevin R. Duncan, after relating a moving story of the pioneers in 1848, began outlining the "Fourteen Fundamentals in Following a Prophet," a speech given in 1980 by then-Elder Ezra Taft Benson, at a BYU devotional at which we were in attendance (having been married about one month!). 
"Wait," we all wanted to say to Elder Duncan, "that's already been presented to us, just this morning! Weren't you watching?!" (Elder Claudio R.M. Costa in the Saturday morning session, had also used it)
 In our weekly Institute class on a Friday morning not long after, our teacher, Sister Pratt, assured us that had not been a mistake. Her husband, Elder Carl Pratt, has spoken in General Conference so she knows the routine: the text of the intended speech of each participant invited to speak is required to be sent in some months in advance; once, Elder Pratt was asked to remove a quote he had in his talk, because someone else was also using it.
So we were blessed with hearing President Benson's 14 points twice in one day. Perhaps like you, we pondered what we should do about the significance of that repetition. Tussy once had a college professor who helped the class by pointing out that anything he said more than once would definitely be on the next test. 
So our conclusion has been that as we have been counseled to read from the Book of Mormon daily, and that, as point #2 was "the living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works," we should study the words of the living prophets at least as often as we do the standard works: daily. This practice has brought more insight to our personal study and spiritual growth, and we continue to be enriched by General Conference. 
Oh, the picture at the top doesn't really have anything to do with the topic, but it was recently taken at a couples' FHE; Tussy is listening to Nancy Altadonna Steele, who used to live in New Jersey, and beside her, Pam Hickman Lee---blogs are always more interesting if there's a photo included, right?!
For videos, audios, and text of the recent Conference, go to : http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1298,00.html

Security

Living in a huge city like Hong Kong (7 million people!) it's understandable that safety is a concern, and that is well-addressed at Harmony Mansion, as the photos below detail:

At the entrance to our building, there's a keypad where we
enter a 4-digit code, which unlocks the double doors. There
is a closed-circuit camera, and we can turn our TV to a
channel to see who is there, if we get a call from someone!

Once inside, there is a security guard. This
one, Wilson, is a member of the Church!
The mailboxes and elevators are here, too. 

Next we wait for an elevator. When one finally
comes, we press "12" for our floor. There is
a lot of stainless steel which cleaning ladies
polish throughout the day. 

All of the floors look exactly the same, with
granite walls and floors; there are 14 flats
per floor, some larger than others. 

Our flat has a heavy stainless grille door we
unlock and slide away before unlocking
the actual door to the flat. 

Looking from our door out into the long,
narrow hall where Craig stands in front
of the door to the stairs, which being
12 stories up, we do not take!

Hiking in the City

For a recent group activity, seven of us missionary couples walked about 2 1/2 miles up to a park which provided great views of Hong Kong along the way. As we have said, a nice side-benefit of serving a mission in the setting of the Asia area office is having a built-in social group of extraordinary friends. We serve together in the Church Administration Building during the week, attend the temple, live in the same apartment building, Harmony Mansion, and have FHE twice a month, and we still enjoy getting together informally as well. Except for missing our families and friends, it's a great set-up!

Sister Sackley (her hubby took the photo); the Whitmans; the Gibbs; the Lees; us;
the Linfords; the Pauls.                 

It is a privilege to have a temple nearby--sometimes we forget that this temple
is in China, a place that just a few years ago was hostile towards outside
religions. Not only does this temple serve the people of Hong Kong, but much
of Asia, as well. Groups of Latter-day Saints from Mongolia, India, Singapore,
Cambodia, Malaysia, and other countries travel long hours for the opportunity
to attend the Hong Kong temple.
This temple is special to us because it is where Craig was sealed to his parents
in a sacred ordinance last year about this same time. Craig actually lived on this
spot back in 1975 when the mission home was here.
The ten missionary couples here, along with the Asia area presidency, meet
 once a month for a session, then a testimony meeting afterwards in a
chapel on the ground floor. Our first time joining in was yesterday, and it
was an exceptional experience, where we felt privileged to be able to
participate. To conclude the event, pizza was delivered back at the
office, and as you can guess, in Hong Kong that's quite a treat.