Week 69--December 9-15, 2013

Our weekly devotional was by a young newly married employee. He started his talk with the following thought, "A lucky woman is one that is married to an archaeologist, because the older she gets the more interesting she is." It is a good thing Tom and Garnalee are both archaeologists.

Today was the Jacksons' Farewell Luncheon. We had a baked potato bar with each sister providing some kind of topping Potatoes are Sister Jackson's favorite food and root beer floats for Elder Jackson. Tom wrote the words to their farewell song. He used the tune of "Did You Think to Pray." It went very well. Hauling all of the stuff for the luncheon from our apartment in our shopping cart was difficult to do but it was worth the extra effort.

We are next to go home so it will be interesting to see who writes our song. Tom approached Sister Lasson about taking over the song writing and she accepted.

Tom has decided to knit himself a sweater so he purchased yarn that he found to be a lot more expensive than yarn he has purchased at Walmart. He paid $184 US for the yarn.

Wednesday was Sister Jackson's birthday so we decided to do a surprise birthday party for her. We decorated with streamers, balloons, and all had party hats to wear. We purchased little cupcakes that are baked in ceramic pots for Sister Jackson and had coconut tarts and donuts for everyone else.

 Elder Watkins and Elder Wilson join in the fun.

Danise, Anna, Catherine, Jennifer, Sister Watkins, and Sister Lasson are ready to party.

Sister Jackson enjoying the cupcakes. She offered us a taste which Garnalee accepted and exclaimed, "They were wonderful! I will have to buy one for myself." A lot of the pastry items in Hong Kong are not as good as at home.







Friday is flight day to Kuching, Malaysia. We spent the morning doing laundry and packing. The airlines in Asia know how to treat their passengers. We had a 4 1/2 hour flight from Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu with a meal being served and then a one hour flight from Kota Kinabalu to Kuching with another meal being served. Elder Moulder met us at the airport and took us the Sheraton Four Points Hotel. We had a wonderful bed to sleep in.The first time in many months.

Saturday we met with Sister Maureen at the Kuching Family History Center.


We then flew to Sibu, Malaysia. We attended the Christmas party for four of the branches. They had a wonderful program of singing, dancing, and a performance of the Nativity. The program was followed by a dinner. Many of the foods were very different and not to our liking. So we ate lightly. When we returned to the hotel Elder Moulder mentioned that they had really good banana splits. So we indulged. They were yummy.

View of the Rajang River in Sibu from our hotel room.

Boat used to transport people and goods on the Rajang River.









On Sunday we attended and spoke in two Sacrament meetings on family history. There is a new tool coming from the Family History Department that is a booklet called "My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together." We feel this well be a real asset in the Asia Area where many of the members don't have computers and the internet is very unreliable. In the afternoon we met with President Chau. He is a very dedicated district president and is desirous for his district to be involved in family history and to be more faithful and stronger in their testimonies. We encouraged him to call a new center director who can help the work of family history

move forward.


After the meetings we went to the home of Elder and Sister Beus, from Othello, Washington, for dinner. They treated us to a wonderful meal.

Going from left to right in the picture are Sister and Elder Marteeny from Malad, Idaho; Elder and Sister Moulder; Sister and Elder Beus; and Tom.

German Chocolate Cake and Ice Cream for dessert.

 Each of the cities in East Malaysia are known for a different symbol that they have around the city. Sibu is known of the swan which reminded the Chinese of home when they settled in Sibu.

Week 68--December 2-8, 2013

We had a fun time in Family Home Evening this playing games with the other senior missionary couples. In one game we each had to put a plate on our head  and follow directions to draw a Christmas picture. We were given points for correctly placing the items described. If you haven't done this it is quite a challenge.

In another game we were each an animal. We clapped our hands in a rhythm and would say the name of an animal. The person who was that animal would have to say their animal name and then the name of another animal to pass it on. This had to be done while keeping the hands going to the rhythm that established. It really boggled the mind.
After the activity we had ice cream sundaes.




We have been asked to write an article for the Liahona magazine based on the Asia Area 2014 Initiatives  in Family History. We will have to get started on that this week.

Lunch with the Area Presidency and Elder Wong

Part of the fireside attendees

Steve Rockwood, Elder  Wilson, President Chun, Elder  Brimhall

We spent Thursday and Friday with Dennis Brimhall, managing director of Family Search; Steve Rockwood, International Director for Family Search; Hashick Hong, Multi-Area Asia Family History Manger; and Steve Tsai, Asia Area Family History Manger. We met with the Hong Kong Temple President and recorder. They shared with us that the patrons provide 90% of the names that are done in the Hong Kong Temple. We had lunch from Crystal Jade with the Area Presidency. We had a wonderful member fireside followed by a meeting for all members who have a family history responsibility. We were afraid there wouldn't be very many at the meetings but there around 160. The message that was delivered was on stories and how stories can turn our hearts to our ancestors. The members were introduced to putting stories and photos on Family Search. Family Search is a great place to store information that will never be lost or destroyed through time.





Friday we had a very productive three hour training with all of the Family History missionaries in the Asia area. Again the message was on how to use stories to help the members turn their hearts. There are only 2% of the membership of the Church doing family history work. The inspiration is that through the sharing of stories and the gathering of living memory that the other 98% will have their hearts turned and will have a desire to do family history. The new "My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together" booklet was introduced to the missionaries and ideas on using it with the members. The idea is that in areas where people don't have computers or don't want to use computers they can still gather the stories in paper form. Then the family history consultant can put the stories on Family Search.

On the ferry heading to TST to Din Tai Fung for dinner.

Front row L to R: Steve Tsai, Garnalee, Tom, Steve Rockwood, Elder Dennis Brimhall
Back row L to R: Hashick Hong and Danny Chin

At the Peak: Dennis Brimhall, Hashick Hong, Steve Rockwood

At the Peak: Steve Tsai and Steve Rockwood.

After visiting the Peak we attended Sacrament meeting in Victoria 2 (the Everyday Branch).

Saturday we went to Disneyland Hong Kong. Mickey was there to great you as you enter the park. We had fun on the rides and enjoying the fireworks. Not near as big as Disneyland in the US but it was a fun day.

Tarzan's Tree House

A beautiful December day in Hong Kong.

Scrabble tiles used to let you know where the toilets are located.

 One of the floats from the parade.

Little girls throughout the park were dressed as Snow White. They all were so adorable.

Week 67--November 25-December 1, 2013

We have a replacement couple for us. They are Dan and Judy Wasson from Washington. They enter the MTC on February 10 and arrive in Hong Kong on February 23. We will overlap with them for two days to do some introductory training with them. We will head for home on February 26. We will travel for a few days into China to Guilan and Xian before heading back to the US.

On Wednesday we did a test call using CISCO Video conferencing and Personal Video Conferencing for our big conference call next week. Everyone was able to join the meeting except the Hollenzers who are in Cambodia.

Tom has been helping pass the Sacrament in the Victoria 2 Branch (the Everyday Branch for the Filipina members) who has no priesthood except for the Branch President and the clerk.

We had a Skype call on Thursday with Holly, Mike, Mason, and Kynlee for our Thanksgiving. It was fun to see them. The kids have really grown. We watched a BYU vs Notre Dame football game during our lunch time so we could have a feel of Thanksgiving.

Garnalee likes to make a cream cheese ball for the Christmas holidays. She made it for the Friday Senior lunch. It was enjoyed by all. We also helped decorate the Church Office Building for Christmas. The senior sister missionaries make cookies or bring candy for all to munch during the decorating. The Chinese men really enjoy the decorating or maybe it is the consuming of the goodies.

We had our Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday with all of the senior missionaries, the Director of Temporal Affairs for Asia, the attorney, a member of the real estate team, and the Area Presidency--basically all of the people from the United States. We had three turkeys with all of the trimmings. There was plenty of food for everyone to take home leftovers.

Elder Ralph and Sister Sheila Aarmeda load their plates with the wonderful offering of food we had.

 Tony Crandall and Jo Carrington getting some of the wonderful food.

 Tom has his plate and is ready to indulge.

 The cranberry salad

 A wonderful lettuce and fruit salad

The table loaded with the bounties of life.

Week 66--November 18-24, 2013

We gained a lot of knowledge about the Big Buddha hike that Tom went on last week. He climbed 3,147 steps. The first 1330 are to the first tower which is the roughest part of the trail.

We assisted Monday evening at the dinner for the Hong Kong Temple presidency by serving and washing the dishes. The dinner came from Coyote Grill which is one of the favorite caterers for dinners at the Church Administration Building.

The branches in our District have been collecting clothes to donate to the Philippines. The sisters in our branch collected three very LARGE, HEAVY bags of clothes weighing about 75 pounds each. We took them to the Wan Chai building for the sorting and packaging by taxi.

We are learning the new system for doing teleconferencing called WebEx. The more we use it the better we will become with it. Learning new things at our age takes longer!

We attended a presentation by Warner Woodworth who teaches at the BYU Marriott Management School. He has started several Non-Governmental Organizations that assist the poor in third world countries to become self-reliant by starting businesses of their own. It was very inspiring and gave us a new focus in our life. We have all we want and more than we need. It was a reminder to us that we have the resources to help lift the poor also.

Sudahkar is in Hong Kong doing an internship with the technology department. He is from Rajamundry, India. He is planning on starting a masters program at Utah State University in January. We hope to see him again when we return home. He served a mission in New Delhi.

 Tom with Warner Woodworth after the presentation. He agreed to send some curriculum materials for teaching the principles of small business start-up and management.








Tom has started working on the next song for the Jacksons who go home in December.

We went to the second installment of the Hunger Games. It was different than what we expected, a good movie. Neither one of us had read the second book.

The Jacksons had us to lunch with the Aardemas as a thank you to us for helping at the dinner on Monday evening.

Tom and Elder Watkins went to Lok Ma Chau which is the last stop on the East Rail Line and where you cross over into Shenzhen, China. They took a couple of pictures and then tried to go back through the turnstiles. It is then they discovered you cannot go back. They had to get the permission of the police officers to return to the MTR station.

The Visiting Teaching Convention was held on Sunday, November 24. This is picture of our Relief Society.

Since this is Thanksgiving Week the sisters asked the missionaries to do a Thanksgiving dinner. We prepared turkey breasts, mashed potatoes with gravy, dressing, broccoli, rolls, cranberries, and pumpkin dump cake. They all loved it. We had plenty of food so some of them took food that would be their breakfast or lunch tomorrow.


After the dinner and cleanup we headed for home. It was pouring rain, and we couldn't get a taxi so we walked to the MTR. We were soaked by the time we got home.

Week 65--November 11-17, 2013

 One of the workers who cleans the streets and sidewalks with a palm tree frond broom. Tom has decided he needs one of these umbrella hats for when he works in the garden.

 A beautiful clear morning that gave a great view of The Peak from the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbour. The Peak is on Hong Kong island.









Tom has been working out every morning before breakfast by climbing 648+ stairs in preparation for his climb from the harbour to the top of Big Buddha mountain which is an elevation of 4000 ft.

We had a great Family Home Evening in which the theme was an "Attitude of Gratitude." To conclude the evening we each had a piece of paper attached to our back and the other attendees were encouraged to write a positive message on the paper to that person.

Tom and Elder Aardema decided to go find the trail head for Big Buddha on Wednesday. Tom had printed off directions from the internet that someone who had walked the trail had posted. The directions were difficult to follow. It took them a couple of hours to find the trail head. It will be helpful for they actually do the hike as it will cut down on the time to get to the trail head. Elder Frandsen wants to do the Big Buddha hike but he goes home on November 22. Everyone was agreeable to moving the hike up to this Saturday. So it will be a couple of weeks earlier than planned.

Garnalee had a Skype call with Steve Tsai to work on the itinerary for our Salt Lake Family History visitors. We are on revision four or five of the itinerary.

We had a group of Mongolian members at the temple this week. One of the escorts was Debbie Armstrong's (she is in our ward in Blackfoot) aunt who is serving in Mongolia. It is a small world. I used to have monthly contact with her when I would email her requesting the monthly family history center report from Choibalson. They are somewhere else in Mongolia now where there isn't a family history computer so I don't get to have that contact any more. It was fun to visit with her for a few minutes.

Elder Phil and Sister Brenda Frandsen had their farewell lunch on Friday. Tom did a great job on their song. He used the tunes "The Day Dawn is Breaking," "Sherry Baby," and "The BYU Cougar Fight Song."









We had a meeting with Elder Wilson, Steve Tsai, and Hashick Hong to go over the itinerary for our Salt Lake visitors, and then a follow up Skype call to add the changes we discussed in the meeting. We have spent major amounts of time this week working on the itinerary.

Dinner with other senior missionaries before we go to the Cossack Russian dance program on Friday evening.

A beautiful Christmas tree in the mall where we ate dinner.

The hikers Saturday morning.
 Back row: Elder Watkins, Elder Sullivan, Elder Cowley, Elder Gregory, and Tom.
Front row: Elder Jackson, Sister Cowley, and Elder Aardema.

 This first set of stairs is about a 70 degree climb. In total to reach the first of five gondola towers we climbed 1330 stairs. Even though it was only about a fourth of the distance the effort to reach the first tower was probably about half of the hike.

This warning sign across the trail was wooden stairs going sharply down into a deep ravine and then up again. Tom was glad there was a hand rail to help pull himself up.

 End of the trail after three hours and 20 minutes. Elder Frandsen, Elder Sullivan, and the Cowleys did the hike in two hours. They are very competitive. Tom was just happy to finish the climb. The trail was built as a rescue trail in case of emergency on the gondola. Therefore the trail is almost always directly below the gondolas. There are no switchbacks. There are three helicopter pads along the trail in case someone had to be air lifted out. Those white flaggy things between the signs are fire beaters.

The shot of the Big Buddha through the town a little past the end of the trail. The group rode the bus back to the MTR station. Many hikers hike both directions on the trail.

Garnalee and several of the sisters went shopping while the others were on the hike. She bought a vest and jacket.




The branches in District are doing clothing and money donations for the Philippines. Fortunately the families of most of the sisters in our branch were not affected by the typhoon. However one our sisters did have family members who lost their home and had family members killed in the storm. The sisters were very generous in donating of their resources for the relief effort.

Week 64--November 4-10, 2013

Tom is planning on climbing the steps that go up to Big Buddha the first part of December. He has started doing some training by climbing the stairs at the end of our complex and the stairs at the office where we work each day. At the end of this week he was climbing 700 steps daily.

We have spent a lot of time this week going over the schedule for when Elder Brimhall and Steve Rockwood come to Hong Kong. We have just about every minute they are here planned out but will have to remain flexible as sometimes things don't go as planned. Also things will probably change after Steve Rockwood, Elder Brimhall, and Elder Allan Packer get the itinerary.

Thursday our day began and ended at the temple. We had our monthly session and devotional with the Area Presidency and then our service in the temple that evening. At the devotional we had the opportunity to hear from the Frandsens and the Jacksons who are going home soon and the Clarks who arrived last month.

On Friday Garnalee gave the message at the senior missionary lunch. Her message was about peace we feel through prayer, scriptures, conference talks, and hymns. She talked about her neck surgery and the peace she finally felt through the hymns that were played at the Sacrament meeting a couple of days before her surgery. The hymns gave her the comfort that she was in the Savior's hands and that everything would be okay.

We practiced the farewell song for the Frandsens that Tom wrote to the tune of "The Day Dawn is Breaking."

Saturday morning we went to the movie "Ender's Game" and lunch with several of the other couples. Tom read the book years ago. The special effects were very good.

We had our District Conference this weekend. The Saturday evening session focused on missionary work. One of the speakers talks wherein he said if we are inviting to come to church with us we are doing all that the Lord expects of us and often there won't be a positive result immediately. But it is our responsibility to invite.

President Tai, the District President, tied the typhoon in the Philippines to the storms we all face in life. He reminded us of the places we can find refuge from the storm.

Week 63--October 28-November 3, 2013

At our weekly devotional a story was told about a boy who had leukemia who wanted to be a fireman. His Mother just wanted to have him be able to sit in the fire engine. However the Fire Chief said, "We can do better than that." So the boy was allowed to spend the day at the day at the fire house, eat with the fireman, and ride in the engine to calls. Each step along the way the Fire Chief always said, "We can do better than that." We were reminded that we can each do a little better than we think we can.

We had the Aardemas and the Bertins to dinner Monday evening. The Aardemas had just gotten back from being in the US for two weeks and the Bertins will be going home early to fulfill their new assignment as mission president.

Tom has written a farewell song for the Bertins to the tune of "I Will Go Where You Want Me to Go."

We had dinner with Elder and Sister Funk on Tuesday. He is the newest member to the Area Presidency. They decided they wanted to have each of the couples to their home so they could get to know them in a relaxed atmosphere.

We had two conference calls with Steve Tsai, the Asia Area Family History Manager, on Wednesday. The first one was to discuss the visit of Elder Alan Packer, Elder Dennis Brimhall and Steve Rockwood. We discussed things they would like to do while here in Hong Kong such as holding member firesides and visiting with the Temple Presidency. The second call was to discuss Asia Area 2014 goals that we help write.

We had our first practice of the song for the Bertins and Tom has some fine tuning to do.

Thursday was Halloween. I made cookies and Sister Aardema had made lemon meringue pies. Yummy treats for us instead of tricks.  Garnalee's hip was bothering her so she didn't go to the Temple. The new Temple Presidency arrived this week and took the opportunity to introduce themselves.

On Friday Tom counted how many days we have left which is 105. The time has flown by and we have been blessed. We had a conference call with Elder Shirley from the Family History Department. They are now giving the family history missionaries an extra week of training before they are sent to their assigned area. The information we provided last January has been a real help to all of the missionaries.

Elder and Sister Bertin at the farewell lunch. They loved their song.

 On Saturday we decided to go see the movie "Captain Phillips." Garnalee had the time wrong so we had some time to wander. We had been told about Kowloon Park so we went exploring. We discovered this beautiful park with a sculpture garden. Tom is standing next to a three faced statue.

Each sculpture had a  name. This one was titled "Figure." Tom thought it should be "Go Figure."

 Elder and Sister Cowley and Tom standing by a tall sculpture.

 "Transition"

This area had many people being lead by an instructor in doing many different types of activities. The people here were walking in a slow circle and they would move their arms from one side to the other.

We enjoyed the movie. It was very intense. Garnalee thinks that Tom Hanks should get an Academy Award for his portrayal.

Tom has finished knitting a sweater vest for Garnalee. He just needs to block it now.

At Church today we had a group of Indonesian members. A group comes to the Temple every year at this time. They attend our Branch because we have a group of Indonesian sisters. They fix Indonesian food for the meal after our block of meetings. Elder Funk attended our meetings because he served a mission to Indonesia in 1971-1973. He knew one of the Indonesian members, Han King Ishar who with two of his friends took seven years to translate the Book of Mormon into Bahasa Indonesian. Elder Funk was able to greet them and visit with them in Indonesian.