Wihng, Gwai yu ji gol jan Sahn.

Dear Family!

Merry Christmas from Hong Kong. 
This view through the front doors of the church office building is possibly my favorite Christmas picture this year. In a world where Christ is conspicuously missing from the celebration, this is a quiet reminder of what we're really trying to focus on. 

I love that this is what everyone walking by will see. There are so many of them in Utah, but this is the only nativity I've seen in the whole city.

Monday night for the seniors FHE we actually did our own version of the nativity. We're really a bunch of lonely grandparents longing for our family traditions I think, but in the end it was a nice evening. The verses from Luke ring true in every environment. 

The second part of the evening was singing Christmas carols, and Dad found a fellow belter! He and Elder Brown had a grand time!!

Later in the week there was a building wide devotional and lunch. We were all asked to bring our favorite Christmas dessert. Can you find the chocolate mousse? What's Christmas without chocolate mousse, right?

Next event was on Friday, a nativity display with cookies hosted by the area presidency. I was helping my friend Terri get things set up when literally the roof caved in! All the nativities were set up and we were getting ready to set out cookies. As we walked in the conference room with platters and cookies we discovered a steady drip coming from the ceiling right on to the two paper creches. I bolted around the table to rescue them and just as I scooped them to the side the ceiling literally fell onto the table with a huge gush of water that drenched me and the table! But I saved the Vietnamese and Cambodian nativities! For someone looking for a good laugh before going to the hospital, it was perfect!!


It's a rough segue from falling ceilings to priesthood blessings, but that's how Friday went. All through the week dad received multiple gentle volunteers from missionaries and others in the office to make sure that he could receive a blessing before his surgery. In the end he invited the other attorneys in the office to administer to him. These men are all incredibly different but the spirit is sweet unifier.

Then we were off to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital. We weren't particularly nervous about this, but the language issues and new medical environment did add an element of the unknown. This is Dad sitting waiting to be checked in. 

All over the hospital walls were scriptures and declarations of faith in Jesus to heal, calm, comfort and protect. At one point Dad smiled at me and admitted that indeed, the reminders were bringing an element of peace.

As you all know, the surgery went better than expected. Neither Dad nor I had held out hope that they would be able to do the surgery laparoscopicaly due to the major surgeries of the past. It seemed too much to hope that there wasn't massive scaring in his abdomen that would get in the way of the tools and would necessitate a larger incision and much longer recovery. In fact, the Dr. did say that the surgery was more interesting than the routine hernia, but he was successful. Tonight Dad is feeling amazingly well. He voluntarily did the dishes, is walking around with only a very little extra effort. We are feeling so very blessed.

I wasn't allowed to stay the night at the hospital, in fact I wasn't welcomed in the morning until 10. In another of the small blessings, the hospital is two blocks away from the temple and the next door chapel and this morning found me sitting on the back row of a 9:00 a.m. Cantonese sacrament meeting. Sacrament meetings after hospital weeks have always been a blessing to me, and today was no different. I didn't know anyone there and I didn't understand a single word of the meeting, but the beauty of hymns is that I don't need them translated. Chinese saints have beautiful voices and they sing with gusto and confidence. As an intermediate hymn we stood and sang Angels We Have Heard on High. They knew all the words and the music was glorious to my slightly tired heart. Chinese is not latin based so the translations are not even lightly similar to English, but "Wihng, Gwai ju ji gol jan Sahn," rang out in such a beautiful song of celebration and praise of all that is good in life. 
May you all feel the joy as you sing,"Gloria in excess, Deo!"

Love to you all this Christmas week

Love Grandma and Pampa

PS. 

Things Hong Kong gets right about Christmas: the poinsettias! I couldn't really get a picture that does them justice, but poinsettias have popped up all over the city in large swaths of red color!! Consider yourselves warned that I will probably be talking about them every Christmas for the rest of my life!

Things Hong Kong gets wrong. Among other things, they just don't seem to understand Santa! I affectionately call this The Invasion of the Santa Clause's!  Chinese don't understand that you can only have one Santa on a project; and that while Santa ends up on the roof, he doesn't do it by scaling the wall. In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen any reindeer anywhere! It's all in the details.  I just find this display slightly disturbing, and I can see it all day, right out my office window!