New Jobs

 Dear Family,

Missionary work is made up of so many pieces, the work, the commuting, the spiritual, and the fun. This week has had it all!

As for "work," I finally have some. After spending these past weeks doing the best I could to be useful without any assignment, I finally have more than enough to do. My vague Government Relations is still being defined but I now have two other very different but interesting jobs. 

The first one is to be the Area Content Editor for the Liahona, and a Translation Coordinator. This means that every month I am responsible to notify the assigned writer and then chase down the lead article for the local section of the Liahona. Every month the Liahona is published worldwide, but in addition to the core issue, in an attempt to meet and address the needs of local cultures and countries, every Liahona outside of the US has a center section that is more relevant for local congregations. My job is to make sure that the lead article by a member of the Area Presidency or one of the Area Seventy's gets written, edited (by me) translated and submitted to all the countries so it can be published with their center section. In addition to that one article I also manage all the random translation projects that arise around Asia. This week I sent the transcript for the worldwide Easter initiative to translators in each country and I'm in the process of shepherding the project through with a 5 day turn around. This takes a remarkable number of past & copy emails!

The second job I've been given is to be the Asia Area RMRT Coordinator. What is the RMRT you ask? It's a new pilot program that was proposed to the First Presidency by the Asia Area Presidency and has been authorized for 1 year to see if it works. RMRT stands for Retuned Missionaries Return to the Temple. I love this project because I believe in it so much. The gist is this, to make sure that every returned missionary in Asia gets back to the temple within the first year after she or he is released. As with every demographic, the church is realizing that temple attendance by all of us, including returned missionaries, is critical to our ability and success in remaining committed to our covenants. This is especially true for missionaries after they go home.  Unless they are from Hong Kong or Taiwan, the missionaries in the Asia Area will have only been to the temple for one, maybe two sessions in their life, and returning to the temple is simply out of reach for them for financial reasons. Because members around the world have so generously funded the TPAF (Temple Patrons Assistance Fund) the church has enough money to help these young people return while they wait for temples to come to their own countries. This will be a huge job, which also includes trying to find all the missionaries here who have served their entire missions and returned home never having gone to the temple because of COVID. They faithfully served without those blessings and we need to find them. We're chasing the one, trying to make sure no one gets lost. 

I love the idea of both of these projects, they both speak to things I love, the written word, temples, and missionaries and that is what will propel me through the amazing number of complicated processes, detailed forms, emails, and video calls that these jobs require. I am currently brain muddled after spending the last week drinking from a firehose trying to learn all the minutia involved. I just keep reminding myself that I'm going to much smarter by the time I get this all figured out! Prayers will be accepted!

We also received a Sunday assignment this week. We have been asked to attend a Cantonese Ward on one of the islands. The wards here in Hong Kong are all struggling to recover from the COVID interruption and so they are looking for help. They have asked Dad to teach Come Follow Me Gospel Doctrine and they've given him two weeks with a translator!  The Stake President keeps declaring that they're sure his Cantonese will be back in a month and he'll be fine on his own!! Dad's certainly giving it his best shot, he's writing down new words all day everyday, he practices with the girls in our office and I hear him talking to himself in Cantonese all the time.  Today when they asked us to bear our testimonies in sacrament meeting he was prepared and did it all in Cantonese. I was very impressed. . He doesn't feel at all ready to teach a whole lesson in Cantonese.  But it's a big ask, so here again, prayers will be accepted. As for me, I'm excited because I've been asked to teach the two young women in the ward, and they speak English. They're sisters and their mom is very happy they will have a teacher and will get to practice their English at the same time. It's a win-win! I will meet them next week.

So much more I could write about, every day is full and we drop in bed exhausted but happy. We hope all of you are living your best life too.

We love you,

Dad and Mom/Pampa and Grandma

Very funny moment yesterday as we were headed out to go to the office and then to the Hong Kong Flower show. As we got half way down the hall of our apartment towards the elevator I realized that Dad had forgotten something. Can you see what it is? 😂

Flower Show

I'm realizing as I post these pictures of the Flower Show that they may not translate real well. This was an incredibly impressive exhibition of flower sculptures like these, and included a large number of exhibited flower art like the pictures above. I could send so many pictures but this is probably one of those situations where you just had to be there! It had the feeling of the State Fair meets Thanksgiving point. 

Look at that peacock all out of flowers. I bet it stood 15 feet high.

I just love this kind of asian craft.

And all the people! As usual, Dad has more fun photographing the people than anything else. He stood at the top of these stairs waiting for the light to change so he could try and capture the swarm. These crowds were not just around the flower show, they were everywhere we went Saturday!

This wall billboard just made me laugh! Apparently it's the name of an international sandwich shop!

Family Home evening with all the couples on Monday night. A slide show and piano "concert."

Wednesday night I helped give a Zoom presentation about Pathways to a group of the Filipino workers. These women come here and live away from their families for years as domestic helpers/slaves and the hope is that educations will eventually allow them to return home to their families. It's a pretty involved undertaking but we have great hopes for them. 

Yes, this is me head banging my keyboard in frustration. Not only am I trying to learn a ridiculous number of systems, formats, and detailed processes, I'm doing it on a computer system that is 90% familiar,  but that 10% PC difference seems to continually get in the way of my ability to execute! Sometimes I just can't cope!