Mid-Autumn Festival Begins

Dear Family,

It's an interesting thing to sit down once a week and make an accounting for what you've done during the past seven days. I always start off fretting that I won't have anything to write about because it has seemed like just a normal, uneventful week, but by the time I look at a few pictures and add it all up I realize that there is more than enough to pass on. Maybe even more than you care to hear about, so I'll skip telling you all about being able to participate in the remarkable program that is done by all FSY participants all over the world. We got to do it for our Monthly FHE with the seniors, and although I was skeptical, and went into it with a very unclear picture of what the purpose was, very quickly was pulled into its universal truths.  It's enough to say that I'm thrilled all my older grandchildren will be able to also be participants! 

Program script. I won't tell you what a remarkable powerful 34 minute program it is, you'll just have to do your best to participate in it if given the chance.

So Monday was a regular meeting day that ended with the the wonderful program. Tuesday also started as a very normal day, in fact, Readeo was the highlight of the day for me. It was night that got more interesting. 

Tuesday is ping pong night and we got there just after 8 P.M. Grandpa got playing in a doubles game with three of the other men. Grandpa's getting pretty good at ping pong so I didn't think anything of it when he backed way up to return a wicked hit from the opposing team. But then suddenly his feet stuttered on the carpet and he last his balance slamming into the back wall. It made a loud noise and you could see all the young guys looking very alarmed that the old man was down! And when Grandpa came up holding on to his right hand, we all looked alarmed. I thought maybe he had slammed it into the wall such that he'd broken it, but then the blood started! One look at his hand and we knew we were done for the night! Gratefully for us, the Asia Area Medical Missionary just happens to be a hand surgeon, and Dad's friend. So we headed for their apartment.

Dan and Dad were missionaries together in Hong Kong on their first missions, so they've been having fun these last months, sharing stories and experiences. Here they are, casually discussing what their options were at 9 o'clock at night. Much to Dan's amazement, he didn't have any sutures at his apartment, so there was extended conversation figuring out what to do to avoid spending hours in a Hong Kong ER where germs run rampant.

Thankfully, he did have some numbing medicine so he shot Dad's hand full of long acting meds which numbed the pain and stopped the bleeding. In the end, we got on a train and traveled to the New Territories where a generous member of the church has her own medical practice. She was VERY gracious in offering to meet us there at 10:40 P.M.

I knew that there would be those who would be mad if I didn't have a picture of the wound, so here it is!  

The L shaped cut perfectly matches the metal floor flashing Dad crashed into with his hand.
(The picture is a little funky because the wall to the right is a mirror) When he hit the little corner and reached out to catch himself he landed on this jagged corner.

This is Millicent, the doctor who cheerfully greeted us at her office and not only gave us sutures, but held the flashlight so Dan could see well enough to get the job done. 

And here's what sutures by a hand surgeon look like! Dr. Dan was kind enough to actually try and make us believe that he was excited to sew something up after so many months of doing desk medicine, and he acted like it was a normal thing to be going to bed at 12:30 a.m.
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Gratefully, the hand has not bothered Grandpa much and he's been able to do all his normal activities--except the dishes!

So that was Tuesday. Wednesday brought the beginning of Mid-Autumn Festival. This is one of Hong Kong biggest holidays. Near as we can tell it is akin to our Thanksgiving. It's a time full of legends and cultural stories, special food, big family dinners, games, and parades. Wednesday was the office building celebration. Everyone gathered on the 6th floor of the building for food and games.

By games, I mean riddles, apparently one of the most traditional activities in families centers on the parents giving riddles to their kids to solve. I was fascinated to see how all Chinese adults were totally into it. It was obviously something they were accustomed to doing. These riddles were posted in the cultural hall and everyone spent 40 minutes working on them and there were prizes for those who got the most right. 

Grandpa and I did fine on the riddles, but we were really there for the treats and boy do they put on a spread! Fruit, veggies, nuts, candy, and moon cakes. Too bad moon cakes are actually not very good, since they are the truly traditional food of the festival, but we happily filled up on everything else. It was very clear that this is one of their favorite times of year and there will be more activities to come.

This would be a very random picture, just another boat on the harbor, except that his particular boat has has been going up and down the harbor, multiple times everyday. It has a giant blowup Ironman arm on it and no one seems to be able to explain why it keeps showing up. We're all assuming it's a marketing stunt of some kind, we just can't figure out what their selling!

I'll skip Thursday, Friday, Saturday and we'll jump to tonight, Sunday. This wonderful family had us over for dinner and it was so fun. They are from our ward and have been so kind to us. This is Barry on the left and his son Dennis on the right. Dennis does all the side by side translation for Dad when he teaches Sunday School.

Here we all are getting ready to eat...

....all this delicious food!

This was by far the best part! The Mango Pudding at the end. Sister Lau made this special for Dad after realizing after one of the ward parties that he was such a fan! It's even better than it looks. 

The night ended with a hilarious tutorial on how to use chopsticks the Chinese way. We were pretty much failures at it, but we laughed a real lot and I have a movie I can study. 

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So here's my brain dump paragraph!  

I've been thinking a lot this week and wondering why we always talk about temple work, and not so much about temple worship. I started down this road after taking Cindy to the temple last week and trying to explain to her why we were there, why it was important, what it could do for her and her family. I realize now that we were aiming the proverbial firehose at her and nearly drowning her with information even though we were trying to make it simple. (Side note: working with Cindy has made me incredibly aware of how much we as lifetime members just know. When you learn it starting in childhood you amass millions of details that you don't even know you have. Converting to this church, especially when even Jesus Christ is new information, is not for the faint of heart. SO SO much to learn!) Anyway, we went on and on.  I'm honestly not really sure what all we told her, but I realized that we hadn't done it right when she asked that, since this was a place of quiet study, could she bring her computer and do her homework there? In the way she honestly asked the question it was obvious she had essentially missed the whole point, that this was a sacred place of worship and learning. As I revisited the vocabulary we had been using I could sort of see how we had failed her. We were so focused on what you DO at the temple, that we failed to talk about connecting to God. We forgot to say that the temple is the place where you come to meet God. She just came away thinking it was a beautiful, quiet place; a place where she could come to work and do quiet things.

It's made me think a lot about what it means to worship.  I love this discussion of worshipping: to worship is when we "fix our eyes on God...Worshipping teaches us to submit and surrender all our cares to God-our priorities, plans, hopes, dreams, and even our fears..it is a time to take the attention off ourselves, and completely and wholeheartedly focus on God." "It will definitely help change and direct our hearts and perspective in life towards God." 

We are all really good doers in our family. I'm realizing I need to  up my game and be better at being worshipers ! Sacrament and temple are easy places to start.

We loved all the pictures of bike rides and dances. You never send too many pictures so keep them coming!

Have a great week,

Love Grandma and Grandpa

PS Very grateful that neither Dad or Jenni's cut's were more serious this week! Either of these could have been worse!

PPS In the spirit of family history and I am adding a pps here o note that AJ also opened his leg trying to avoid going over a guardrail on his bike this week. He "failed" to tell me this till after LOTAGA so I wouldn't worry so this comes 3 weeks late, but how grateful I am that none of our family injuries were worse, each one of them could very easily have done much more serious damage.