Beautiful Moments

 Dear Family,

This has been a week of lots of work sprinkled with some highlight moments. Dad's work continues to be never-ending; real estate contracts, filing documents with different national ministries, going to the Pakistani consulate for POA's (Power of Attorney documents for a mission leader), hours spent trying to determine if using English Connect (the churches English curriculum) is legal in a communist country. Everyday is interesting on his side of the office.  And things are picking up on my side of the office.  I've just been put in charge of putting together a temple focused seminar for returned missionaries.  Instead of just sending random groups of returned missionaries to the temple, we've decided, with the blessing of the Area Presidency, to send larger, pre-arranged groups to Bangkok to not only have the opportunity to go to the temple, but we it will expand into a weekend with workshops, devotionals, temple attendance and social activities. This is going to be a lot of fun and I'm pretty excited to be involved. I've also had plenty of Newsroom translation management projects and we officially launched our Book of Mormon project with the revised reading chart and cover page. It's pretty wild to see things you helped write, edit, and assemble be sent to a graphic artist and then be translated into all these asian languages with weird alphabets. 

This is the cover page to the entire project, this and all other materials such as the reading chart I already sent have been translated and distributed in simplified and traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Malay, Thai, Khmer, Urdu, Indonesian, as well as English

Beautiful Moment #1
Last week, just before church began we were handed this envelope that was full of these handwritten sheets. Dennis, in the bishopric, explained that Sister Lee was going to be the speaker at church and that she had translated her talk for us and written it out. That's 6 pages of handwritten translation! We were so surprised, we didn't know her and had never interacted with her before.

After the meeting I went right up to her to say thank you, happy to know that I had found someone else who spoke English, only to find out that her English was choppy at best. We discovered that she had called her son at BYU-I so he could help her get a good translation. It must have taken hours. It makes me teary just writing this, some people's kindness is so overwhelming. It's a beautiful talk on the Book of Mormon, but it's a much more powerful sermon on loving your neighbor.

Beautiful Moment #2.
This selfie doesn't do justice to this beautiful buffet restaurant lunch that was gifted to us  this week. Polly, one of the paralegals came into our office this week whispering and handed us a restaurant reservation receipt. She and her friend had scheduled and prepaid for a lunch at the Hyatt Regency Chinese New Year buffet, but her friend got covid, and Polly had a bad cold and they couldn't go. She very quietly told me that she wanted us to take the reservation and have lunch, but please don't tell anyone else in the office she had given it to us. The buffet was spectacular, the two story windows provided a stunning view of Hong Kong, and the live piano music was the perfect background. It was just so lovely in every way!


Beautiful Moment #3
This is Lily, she is the hospital chaplain at Baptist hospital where Dad had his surgery this week. We hadn't been checked in too long when she came to into our room. She introduced herself and asked Dad how he was doing. She had this very gentle, and genuinely caring manner that made her very easy to visit with. We chatted for a few minutes asking her as many questions as she asked us. We discovered she was a former competitive body-builder who had been a personal trainer before she "received a call" to the ministry one night while listening to another chaplain speak. She felt the call so clearly that she enrolled in a Seminary program for 3 years and she was now doing her internship at Baptist Hospital. Our badges made it very clear that we were christian also and after visiting for a few minutes she asked if she could pray for us. We all bowed our heads and she offered a sweet, articulate prayer in Dad's behalf, asking God to bless him, to bless the doctors, and to bless his healing process. We all felt wrapped in the spirit as she finished. We continued to visit and she shared some scriptures from the New Testament, and in a very natural way Dad said, "you know, we have some additional scripture about Christ that you would really like. There are stories of Him healing the sick just like He did in Jerusalem." She was intrigued and had never heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sometimes these conversations are a little weird and awkward, but this one was easy and natural. We promised we would get a copy of the Book of Mormon and leave it at the nurses station for her since she didn't work again till Monday. Then Dad asked if we could pray for her, and we again bowed our head and Dad prayed for her, thanking Heavenly Father for the blessing of her visit, and asking Him to bless her in her service to Gods children. Again, the spirit was real, and sweet. 
Thankfully, the mission office was literally around the corner, so soon after she left, I took off and went to get an English and Chinese BoM since we still had two hours till Dad's surgery.


Beautiful Moment(s) #4
I just love this hospital. They are a christian hospital and they are full on missionaries for His love and goodness. 


I've done my fair share of hospitals, walking down the hall with someone I love on a gurney, but never have I been so surrounded by reminders that I'm not actually alone while I wait. Here's what surrounded Dad in the elevator as they wheeled him to the operating room. I'm telling you, these signs work! You just can't help but smile and soak up the calmness. Every scripture, every poster hits home.


Beautiful Moment #5
There is no picture, but today I went to church in the building that is around the corner from the hospital. It's a Cantonese speaking ward, but the sacrament and the spirit are the same. I slipped into my seat just as the meeting started. After the sacrament, a woman across the isle came over to my bench and asked if I could understand the meeting. When I told no, she just slid in beside me and translated the entire fast and testimony portion, and then after the closing song she hopped up and gave the closing prayer.  I didn't even figure out her name until after the meeting when I found her again to say thank you.
Thank you Ivy for a beautiful gift.



Beautiful Moment # 6
Dad striding through the mall after riding the train home from the hospital. He is feeling great, and is resigned to the fact that we will go to work tomorrow without even taking one day off!

Beautiful Moment #7
The sunrise on my morning walk this week

I'm praying that with school, work, and all the thousands of things you all do every week, that you too will have your share of beautiful moments.

We love you, we love our mission, and thank you for your support,

Love 

Mom and Dad