Joy and Discipleship

Note: This letter was written last week but never posted due to Dad's late report on our time with MMO&M. This week has been even slower than last week due to the fact that we've both been sick. But tomorrow we head to Thailand, dragging our antibiotics with us. It's the first ever Returned Missionary Temple Seminar this week, so prayers are welcomed as I struggle to pull this together with my foggy head. We have 40 missionaries from all over Asia coming, 14 of them will be receiving their endowments for the first time since they were never able to leave their country during COVID. It promises to be a big week.

Love to you all!

 Dear Family,

It's been a rather slow feeling week with lots of work and lots of recovery from another wild week running around Hong Kong with MMO&M.  

Work continues to be intense as there are several real estate projects for Dad that need to be closed immediately, he's trying to re-register one of the countries with their government so the church can continue to worship there, and he's trying to understand all the different and complex issues with English Connect and the ways for it to be used in several countries that seem to be very concerned (understandably)  that this not compete with local English schools. In other words, it's business as usual in the law office.  

As for me, my time has been split between designing an addition to the church web pages in Asia to help provide information to people who are trying to go to the temple and preparing for the Returned Missionary Seminar for next week. So I'm gathering and organizing phone #s, email addresses, maps, travel instructions etc. for each of the five temples that are used here in Asia -- along with a step by step tutorial on how to use the church website to make a temple appointment. The Temple Appointment page is only translated into the languages of countries that have temples, for everyone else in the world, it's in English. So if you live in Malaysia and you want to make an appointment to got to Bangkok, you have to be able to do it in Thai, or English, but most people in Malaysia don't speak those languages. This this tutorial, which is proving to be the most perplexing job.  As you know, that website is bulky and unwieldy when you can read it in your own language. I'm trying to find a way so a member can navigate the site in English with just minimal side by side translation so they can make an appointment without being able to actually read English. Insert mind blowing emoji here! 

My other big job is finalizing all the details for the upcoming temple seminar for returned missionaries. At this point, all I will say about that is that it must be something that will be really great for these missionaries because we are running into every conceivable roadblock. Everything from countries not wanting their people to travel, to a burst of random holidays throughout Asia making it very difficult to connect with the employees around Asia who we depend on to book tickets, make cruise reservations, and order food. At the same time participants are dropping out due to work or travel, and others are trying to sign up last minute.  Everything feels fluid. Like an exercise in whac-a-mole, where I get one problem solved, only to be presented by another! Cest' la vie!

Outside of work there were several highlight moments.

#1 My Birthday!!!

It was a two cake birthday! The lovely mango cake on the left was made by Leslie, my cake baking friend. Full of mango custard and topped with that amazing mango flower, it was delicious.  The chocolate cake on the left was a surprise from the office and we had an impromptu party with cake for everyone.  
After work Dad took me for a quiet outdoor salmon dinner which topped off a lovely day. 

#2 A field trip to see Sheldon Poon's childhood home.

You might remember Sheldon from an earlier letter a few months ago. He was an early convert here in Hong Kong and was the first District President and then Stake President in Hong Kong back when Dad was serving his first mission. He's only 8 years older than Dad, so that tells you what a young church leader he was. He came from a fairly prominent Hakka family and this childhood home of his is protected by the Hong Kong Historical Society. This week he took us on a private tour. This is a large family complex built by his grandfather that housed 24 people, Sheldon and his aunts and uncles and cousins. This was a common way for the Hakka to live. He was particularly excited to show us this window in the foreground, saying that this is the window where the missionaries stood and taught him his first gospel lessons when he was 17 years old. 

This is a picture with Dad on the right, Sheldon in the center, and on the left is Elder Rob Clark, Dad's MTC companion who is now here as the Area Medical Advisor.

I just LOVED these ceramic tiles that decorate the roofs edge.

Look carefully and you will see a four step boarder that surrounds what was once a pond in their front yard where they would swim and fish for dinner. This must have been a glorious compound in its day. Sheldon says that none of the trees were there when he was young, that it was wide open and surrounded by rice paddies.

 As I listened to him talk and tried to imagine what it looked like when he was little it was so hard, and then I realized it was much like looking out my kitchen window in Draper. When we moved into that house I could watch the traffic at the Point of the Mountain, and by the time we moved I could barely see the sky. I guess time marches on for all of us.

Instead of rice paddies this would be the view out his mother's kitchen window!

#3 Chinese Orchestra Concert with Cindy

Cindy invited us to go to a concert at her University. I admit, we were pretty wary, Asian music can begin to grate on the uninitiated pretty fast, so much squeaking and so many unusual tones. But we're always up for something new and always up to do something with Cindy so we agreed.

Much to our surprise, it was truly beautiful. It had the sound of the Mulan sound track which I'm now convinced was recorded by a Chinese orchestra. It was a rich and fascinating experience. So many different instruments, the cellos and basses were the only thing that was familiar. The flutes were made out of bamboo, the drums and gongs were all different, the "violin" section was actually the erhu section and there was a whole section guitar-ish looking instruments. And we all know how much I love a good conductor, and the young conductor was wonderful!

#4 New Polynesian friends at the temple

Thursday at the temple we met the most remarkable couple. About 20 minutes into a sealing session a large beautiful Polynesian couple, I would guess in their late 40's, walked quietly into the room and joined us. After the session as we walked to the dressing room we discovered that they were from West Jordan and had come to Hong Kong just to see the temple. She works for an airline and so after going to Hawaii to celebrate his mother's 75th birthday they decided they would hop over to Japan and Korea to go to the temple. After their day in Japan they flew to Korea only to discover that the temple was closed for cleaning, so they came to Hong Kong instead....for one day!  As we continued to visit we discovered that this was a second marriage for them as they had both lost their spouses to cancer several years ago. In one of those miraculous stories where after his wife's death the husband moved from Chicago to West Valley and into her ward. They met, got married, and joined their two families to make a family of 15 children! As I expressed amazement that they would do all this traveling just to go to the temple she acknowledged the unusualness of this all, and then she said something I've been thinking about all week. With her giant Polynesian smile she said, "You know, after all we've been through, we just want to find joy and be disciples!" There was no drama or hubris in her voice, it was just a statement of fact from someone who's lived a lot of life. 

Words to live by!

Love Mom and Dad!