It was so fun to welcome our dear friends' cousins, the Dalby's and the Miller's to Hong Kong, today, Sunday, May 22. We left for church services at 8 AM and didn't get home until after 10 PM. No rest for the wicked, on a day of rest. It was a very long day indeed.
President and Sister Aki from the Hong Kong Temple were our speakers at Church today. They brought such a beautiful spirit with them. Sister Aki spoke in Cantonese and Sister Pai was her translator. President Aki spoke in English and President Lin was his translator. We are lucky to be working with them at the Temple. It was so encouraging! One sister came afterwards and asked if Elder Davis and I would be willing to teach her more about temples.
After Church, we were able to do some home teaching and visiting teaching. Since we live so far out, and with our temple working schedule, we opted to do our visiting after church. It was fun as people are not usually rushing home after church like we do in the US. Many people would stay and visit. We met a family from Shenzhen. They were not members of the church, but the son wanted to bring his parents and brother to attend the church services. The young man is a junior at BYU. He loves BYU and begged for his parents to let him go to BYU after attending a university in New York for a semester. He majors in Accounting and already has secured an internship at Wall Street for the summer. He's home for a short visit and brought his parents and his younger brother to church. We also met a couple of young ladies from the Mainland who came to take gospel lessons from the missionaries. They are going to be baptized next Sunday. Elwin visited with a young man who is a junior in college and was baptized a couple of months ago. I visited a young lady who has a 7-year old son. Her story is a very sad story of the struggles young Chinese women who came from Mainland. They are not legal residence of Hong Kong, so not allowed to work, but do have a child born here, so they are stuck in between. We also visited a couple with American husband, Hong Kong wife and a 3-year-old son. We enjoy visiting with them very much.
After the church services and visiting, we went to the Hong Kong Grand Harbor Hotel to meet our new friends. It was pouring down rain and we weren't quite sure why the bus was taking a long time to come, so we took a taxi. This was our 3rd time of taking a taxi in Hong Kong. The hotel is located right by the harbor, hence, the Grand Harbor Hotel. What a beautiful sight with a glass wall looking out to the harbor. There was a wedding party taking pictures. The beautiful bride and the handsome groom had an entourage of 8 bridesmaids and 8 escorts. It was a beautiful sight. The Dalby's and the Millers got there around 4 PM. We were delighted to meet them.
We first took our new friends on the local bus #15 to the Hollywood Mall to have lunch. Then, we walked to Lan Lian Garden. The rain stopped just long enough for us to tour the garden. It was such a serene place, and the noises of cars and trains nearby were quite muted. We were all delighted to be there right after the big rain. The whole garden seemed to be rejuvenated after the hot summer shower.
After the garden, we took the Tsung Wan Line Light Rail and went to Tsim Sha Tsui for the "symphony of Lights" at 8 PM. It was so crowded and the light show was not nearly as pretty as the ones we saw before. It was quite a disappointment. But it was a good day, nonetheless.
The picture below is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hong_Kong_Night_Skyline.jpg if you prefer to see one in full resolution.
Monday morning, we were pleasantly awaken by our young grandchildren on Skype. We then called everyone and got online with the group video call. It was great, except for one video kept on getting dropped. Still, the grandchildren were so happy to see each other online. Poor Johnny strained his shoulder and collar bone and was wearing a sling. Noelle's 2 arms are still in the casts, but should come off the next few days. She's very happy about that, as is her mom.
After we talked to the children and grandchildren, we did a fast P-day clean-up. I think I twitched my nose and the vacuuming was all done. Elwin finished the wash early, so we were able to get out and to meet the Dalby's and the Miller's for our tour today.
We first went to Tsim Sha Tsui and took the Starr Ferry to Wan Chai. At Wan Chai, we took everyone to the a very tall building in Hong Kong, 88-story Two International Finance Centre. We were allowed to go up to the 46th floor and got a great view of the harbor and the buildings around it. We stopped and had lunch at Subway on Jaffe Road in Wan Chai. We then stopped by the Church Headquarter on the corner of Gloucester and Fleming Roads. It's a beautiful building. We went in and immediately felt the peace and tranquility from the outside world.
After the visit to the Church, we took everyone to Johnston Road and picked up the Ding Ding double-decker street car and headed for Central. We went up the hill on the famous Mid-levels travelators and went up the longest escalators in the world to Caine Road where Dr. Sun Yat Sen's Museum was located. A couple of postings on this museum appeared in the previous blogs. It was the Kom Tong Hall, that we referred to before. It was a fun ride going up and our friends enjoyed the tour very much. Elwin and I opted to stay at McDonald's down below since we just visited this place for the second time last week.
We then headed for the jade market. We decided to take the mini bus down to Central to catch the light rail to the jade market. It was a fun excursion. We were all exhausted after touring the jade market, and the Temple Street night market. It was another good day.
Last week was mostly work. But, we celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary a day late, on Saturday after work. We had a wonderful teppanyaki dinner at the Mix C Mall in Shenzhen. Elwin bought me a Joyoung blender for the special occasion. It grinds nuts, makes soybean milk, smoothies, etc. I missed "the blender" so much, now I have a substitute. Great gift!
We look forward to the special days this coming Tuesday and Wednesday when two Apostles of the Lord come to visit Hong Kong.
You guys sound so busy having fun and with all the work you're doing at church and at the temple! I hope the visits with Elder Holland and the others went well this week! Can't wait to hear about it!
ReplyDeleteYou are awesome guides! Love you.
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