Dim Sum and all caught up--June 17-23, 2013

On our way  back to Hong Kong we flew through the Singapore Airport. This art piece has 1216 computer driven raindrops. The raindrops were programmed to raise and fall which created beautiful geometric images.

 As we stood and watched the display it changed from a rain storm to birds flying to a flying carpet. We were mesmerized.

 We arrived back in Hong Kong  early on the morning of June 12. We had 4 hours of sleep and then accompanied our branch to the beach for a branch activity as it was a holiday in Hong Kong (Dragon Boat Festival).

 The Filippina sisters love to Bar-B-Q. The corn is yummy!

 Anyone for fish balls?

 A big thumbs up for all the yummy food--fish, chicken kabobs and wings, and pork steak. Along with watermelon, grapes, apples, kiwis, and a salad.

Ready to head for the water.

 Saturday, June 15, was our monthly senior activity. We took a harbor junk boat cruise. This is an original junk boat that has been restored. A junk boat was used by Chinese traders. It was a rainy day.

In spite of the rain the view from the boat was beautiful.

 Picture of our apartment complex from the far side of the harbor.

<--Our apartment if right there.

This pirate ship can be chartered for $10,000 HK. We thought it would be fun but a little out of our price range.

After the cruise we went to a famous dim sum restaurant. The traditional way to serve dim sum is by cart. As the carts would come by our table, they would stop to see if we wanted any of the dim sum they had. Sister Watkins and Elder Frandsen are trying to decide what might be good.

 A cart full of wonderful desserts. After a selection is made they would stamp your meal ticket which was totaled and paid at the end of your meal.

The Bertins and Cowleys enjoyed the food.

The Treasures and Gregorys strike a pose.











Tom has been put into the Branch Presidency as the 1st counselor. He conducted for the first time and started off "Good Morning, Sisters and Brothers" and everyone immediately responded with "Good Afternoon!" Our church begins at 1 PM.

When we arrived back at the office from our trip to India and Malaysia, we found an e-mail requesting that we do an hour Power Point presentation to the new Area Presidency about what we do. We thought we had until the end of the month to get it together but then found out it had to be done by June 21. So we spent most of the week working on that. We developed 23 slides and sent it to Patrick Cheuk. He e-mailed us back and asked us to shorten it to 20 slides which we did.

Elder Gong would like us to generate a booklet identifying some of the notable sites visible from the 46th floor of the Central Plaza Building. He asked us to include some obscure facts that most Hong Kongers would not know.

We're also editing a missionary English training course for Asia that Sister Gong has been working on for a couple of months. She wants to get it out to missionaries in Hong Kong to test out before the Mission Presidents' Seminar in September.

 Elder Barry and Sister Diane Treasure are heading home. Tom helped put together another farewell song. This one was to "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from "Oklahoma." Hopefully they can give Roy and Blanche a big hug from us as they live in the same ward. This is their third mission to Asia.

This photo shows how they created  relatively still water for the Dragon Boat Carnival races held on Saturday, June 22. Fourteen barges were parked end to end to create a lagoon. The dragon boats were paddled by a crew of 10 or 18.

The gun shot went off and the race began.

Each boat has a drummer in the front (bow) and a steerman in the back (stern). The drummer's job is to beat out the stroking rhythm to keep the paddlers synchronized. The steerman's job is  to keep the boat in his designated lane.

India and Malaysia Pictures--June 2-June 16, 2013

Picture before the baptism of the 78-year old husband, father, and grandfather in Hyderabad. Tom was one of the witnesses.

 Dinner after the fireside on Saturday, June 1, at the Paradise with Brother and Sister Pulla.

 Posing with Sister Pulla, the District Presidency, and Naresh Godi, the Family History Country Adviser for India.

 At the first birthday party of Alivia Godi with her mother and father. The first birthday in India is a big event for the child. The family gathers together to celebrate.We suspect the celebration is held because formally, infant mortality rate in India was so high that reaching a first birthday was a milestone.

 Charminar. Char means four and minar means minaret. It was built in 1591 by Muhammad Quil Qutb Shah of the region to memorialize the 4000 who died of a plague including his wife. This structure is as well known in southern India as the Taj Mahal is in northern India.

 Travel in Hyderabad is by 2-wheeled, 3-wheeled, or 4-wheeled vehicles as seen in this picture.

Photo from the top of Charminar with our guide. We had a private tour and got to go to areas where the general public is not allowed. We were approached at Charminar by many locals to have their picture taken with us.

This elegant and immense structure is the tomb for a single person, Hayat Baksh Begum. See the next picture to learn more about her.She is the only woman in the tomb area of the Shahs.

 The Golconda (Shepherd's Hill) Fort had a circumference of seven kilometers and was an impregnable fortress.  It is a ruined city formerly the capital of the ancient kingdom of Golconda built in the 13th century. At the outermost wall can be experienced the fantastic acoustical effects in which a hand clap at a certain point under the dome can be clearly heard at the uppermost pavilion almost a kilometer away. This acted as a warning note to residents in case of danger.

A pot of Biryani prepared by the Pullas for our dinner. 

 A group of Saints that had gathered at the beginning of the Ipoh Family History Open House.

 Chris Liew and Garnalee at the Open House. Chris was kind enough to take us site seeing on Monday, June 10.

 An example of one of the many displays at the Ipoh Open House.

Elder and Sister Harrington's fan charts. This was a reminder to the visitors at the Open House that you don't need to be a genealogist to begin your tree. The important thing is TO GET STARTED.

 At the Open House the youth performed two sketches. This one was an unhappy family who found happiness through listening to the missionaries, accepting the Gospel, and going to the temple to be sealed as "A Forever Family."

This sketch was about a boy who was a striving to be a commandment keeper. We loved this sketch because the little 5-year old boy on the right was acting as the "bishop" during the interviewing of the "Mother."

 The theme of the Open House was, "The Branches of the Future are Rooted in the Past...."

 This shows several recent converts and their family trees.

 A list of the videos that were shown at the Open House.








These banners were hung up around the city.

Another one of the displays.

 

Above is the monastery on the inside of the caves.

At the caves there was a pool and feeding area for a huge group of turtles. We fed them tomatoes. We knew some of the turtles must be quite old because of their huge size.

 Chris took our picture with the god of love.

Our picture with the dragon at the entrance to the cave.

Photo with Shirley Chong in front of the god of mercy who performed so many great works during his life that he came back to life as a woman.

Ipoh, Malaysia is known for its huge limestone caves. This is a view from inside the cave looking out. One of the caves we didn't get to visit was large enough for the Japanese army to hide in during their occupation of Malaysia in World War II.

This was our Titanic pose just to show how large the cave is.

The entrance to the cave.

Lunch with Shirley Chong, Sister Seow, and Chris Liew on our last day in Malaysia at a Chinese restaurant.

India, no pictures--May 26-June 1, 2013

We pretty much spent the whole week fine tuning our presentations and getting ready for the trip to India and Malaysia.  Garnalee packed everything over the couple of days prior to departure so Tom stayed out of the way.  Tom is coming down with a cold just in time for the trip. :-(

Garnalee did some training with Anna Poon from Singapore.  She is the FHC director there.  She had prepared a nice PowerPoint to train consultants that she shared with us.  Danny Chin, records acquisition manager for Asia, came by too.  He showed Tom the Family Search Wiki page that has some helpful tips on doing research in Asia.

Rather than spread Tom's cold to everyone in the Temple on Thursday night, he went home and went to bed early.

At the senior luncheon Friday Elder Heaps and Elder Frandsen made a presentation on the take-aways from the recent meetings with Elder Neil Anderson and Elder L. Whitney Clayton who were here last week.  During the lunch time, Elder and Sister Bertin shared about 15 different fruits commonly available here that we may not have tried.  They included star fruit, Lychee, wax apple, guava, dragon fruit, mangosteen, and others.  Some were very good, others were just for the experience.

We left for the airport at 8 PM Friday night.  The flight was non-stop from HK to Hyderabad.  In the airport we met a young Indian couple from Rajahmundry who had just gotten married in the HK temple.  We also met the MLS senior missionary couple, the Allisons from Calgary, Canada and know the Whiteheads who just went home.  The Allisons were escorting the couple to the Temple.

We arrived at Hyderabad 3:30 AM Honk Kong time (1:00 AM local time).  We were glad to have the extra 2 1/2 hours to try to get some sleep before our long Saturday.

At 2 PM Brother and Sister Pulla, Stake Family History Consultants, picked us up to take us to the Church where we would be doing a Stake Priesthood leadership training at 5:30 PM.  Right after the training, we began a fireside with several Young Single Adults joining the group.  Several members bore their testimony of the importance of FH work and then we were given an opportunity to add some remarks.  Garnalee spoke about some of the stories she remembers about her father and mother.  One of the great new features of Family Tree is to be able to upload stories.  She intends to do that soon.

On the way to the church we saw a procession of musicians (drums and horns) who accompanies a group that was carrying the body of a deceased ancestor to be cremated.  The body was carried on a stretcher and was covered with a white cloth.  It was adorned with flowers.  There were about a dozen pall bearers who carried the stretcher at about shoulder height along the uneven street.

After the presentations were over, everyone wanted to have a picture taken with us.  It was after 9 PM before we left the church.  Brother and Sister Pulla took us, along with a niece and nephew, to a restaurant called Paradise, for dinner.  On the way to the restaurant we passed another procession of drummers and horn players.  We immediately thought it was another funeral, but it was a wedding.  These music accompanied processions celebrate all of the major events in a person's life.

The famous dish in Hyderabad is called Biriyani.  It's a flavored rice dish with mutton or chicken.  We had both.  There were several sauces to put over the top.  One sauce was a milky color made with yogurt, cilantro, and carrots.  The other sauce looked kind of a creme chicken gravy made with green chillis.  It was very spicy.  I think the Pullas were a little offended that we didn't eat more, but we ate all we could.  We arrived back to our hotel at about 11:30 PM.  Long, but rewarding day.

We discovered that our adapter to load photos from our SD camera card to the computer, is still at home in HK.  We'll have to add photos when we return home from Malaysia.

General Authorities Visit Hong Kong--May 20-26, 2013

Tom has been made first councilor in our Branch Presidency. So his first experience was to attend presidency meeting and to be asked by the Branch President to be the concluding speaker in Sacrament meeting that would start in 20 minutes. He gave a wonderful talk. He can think quickly under pressure.

We have passed our nine month mark and we are what is referred to by missionaries as "over the hump." We can't believe that our mission is half done.

We have been preparing training for our trip to India and Malaysia. We will give presentations at two firesides in Hyderabad, India. We will then travel to Ipoh, Malaysia, where we will help with the two day Family History Open House and then speak in Sacrament meeting. Then after church we will catch a train to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to give a training and then back to Ipoh that night.

Tom has been practicing Chinese calligraphy. He wants to make a gift for each of the senior couples that says "Families Can Be Together Forever."

We woke up Wednesday morning to discover horrible weather conditions. There were five different advisories issued by the Hong Kong Observatory. A Black Storm Warning for heavy rain exceeding 70 mm per hour and strong winds and advises people to stay indoors, we received 8 inches of rain that day. There was also a Thunderstorm Warning, Flooding Announcement, Landslide Special Special Announcement, and Special Weather Tips. We stayed home until the Black Storm Warning was lifted at 10 AM. We then went to the eye doctor for follow-up on Tom's surgery last week.

Tom got to use his Spanish this week. The mission president received a letter from the parents of a Latin American missionary who will arrive soon be in Hong Kong. He was able to translate the letter for the mission president.

 Elder and Sister Treasure with a couple they met several years ago in Nepal, and they have become like family to them and they have adopted them.The young boy, Samuel, who is nine was born later and is like a grandson to the.







We had a special event this week. Elder Neil L. Anderson, of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of the Presidency of the Seventy, have been traveling throughout Asia. They started in Thailand, then traveled to India, on to Beijing, China, and finished up here in Hong Kong before returning home to Utah. They spoke to all the missionaries in Hong Kong on Friday morning. He spoke about as you gain a greater understanding of the Atonement then your faith and desire to serve will increase.

The Castletons and Frandsens received a beautiful Edible Bouquet from "Beyond 5." Beyond 5 is  five LDS young men that have formed a band and will be traveling throughout Asia in August. The organizer of the band is one of the Castleton sons who also composes songs. The Area Presidency wants the youth of Asia to be exposed to contemporary uplifting music.  The Castletons and the Frandsens have been helping with all of the organizing.



All enjoying the Edible Bouquet.










Saturday Garnalee helped with the refreshments that were provided for the Priesthood training that was given by Elder Anderson and Elder Clayton. There were 70 local leaders trained in one session and 30 local unit leaders from mainland China in the other session.

It rained really hard for several hours on Saturday again. We have seen an increase in the rain and the temperature over the last couple of weeks. Hotter and more humid!

We had the opportunity to hear Elder Anderson speak again on Sunday at a special conference for the China Hong Kong (English) International District and the China Hong Kong Stake. He spoke on Hong Kong being the gateway to all Asia and how the Gospel will spread from here. The Lord doesn't care about position. He cares about discipleship--the keeping of covenants, love, magnifying your calling, service, etc.