Happiness is hugging family!

The very best thing about October was that we got to hug 7 members of our family!  

Tom, Kristin, Ryan, Eliza, Tyler, Olivia and Abby came for a visit!  

What fun we had!!

Tyler, Olivia and Abby arrived first so we celebrated their arrival at a French restaurant in Soho.

When the Monson's joined us we went to the Hong Kong Temple to do baptisms for the dead.

Here we are at the temple with 3 of our Filipina sisters.  Tom was able to baptize Maura in the black shirt for her grandmother and Ryan for her grandfather....a very spiritual experience for all of us.

                                       We took the cable car up to visit Big Buddah.

  Note that we are 12,968 km from NYC!

After climbing the 250 steps to the top, we caught a bus to a small fishing village.

This is Helen, a local Tai O village woman who advised us, "Don't eat the fish!"  She directed us to the place the locals eat....a small family-run Chinese place.  No English menu here, but whatever it was we ate was yummy.

We traveled via Star Ferry, 1st Ferry, subway, bus, taxi, cable car, trolley, shuttle, sampans, escalators and especially our FEET!  We nearly walked our legs off, but there were few complaints!

One of the few times we could see each other over the crowds on the subway!

               A "selfie" on our hotel shuttle bus.

Here we are going down the stairs after taking the longest escalator in the world up to mid-levels.
The escalator only goes up, so there are a million stairs going down.  (Better than the other way!)

Church was also part of our itinerary since we ARE missionaries! 

 Lucky Grandpa getting hugs from these darling granddaughters. 

 Liza and Livi sang a duet (practiced separately in SLC and Vienna, VA) which was a big hit with the Filipina sisters.  It was lovely.

The girls learned how to write Chinese calligraphy characters.

David and I took a class earlier in the month.

We thought of Howard one day at lunch at Tim's Kitchen

Shopping in Hong Kong is always fun!

We took a much needed break from the Big City and spent a couple of days at Chueng Chau Island.

We stayed at our favorite B&B.

Planning our day over breakfast

The harbor here is so interesting!  Always something to catch your eye.

Enjoying the sunset......

Chueng Chau is famous for the big white lotus seed paste buns stamped with a red Chinese character, so we bought some and gave them a try.

Beach day was loved by all!!!

Tom flagged down the owner of this Sampan and we took a ride.

The teenage son was asleep on the floor behind David's arm the whole trip.  

They must have been out fishing all night.

One morning these teenagers got up early to try some Tai Chi on the promanade in front of our house.

Livi planned our next adventure......a trip to Sham Shui Po for some snake soup for lunch!

Ryan had fun playing with his food. Tom and David enjoyed the fried cobra. Abby was not a fan!
The pieces of meat were a little "snakey" but the soup tasted like day-after-Thanksgiving turkey soup.

Liza and Livi ate their entire bowls of snake soup.....with the help of a little $40HK bribe from grandpa!  (They were a little low on spending money!)




Steamed pork buns were the favorite at our favorite Dim Sum restaurant!




We had one more day with the Monsons after Tyler's family left so we went on a boat trip with some Senior missionary couples.

Fishing for BIG fish....they looked like baby sharks...at a fish farm we stopped at was really fun!

We feasted on a big fish caught by Sister Powell.

Everybody had chopstick skills by the end of the trip!

You can tell by our smiles we LOVED having family with us!!!!

The rest of October was full of missionary work.  David was asked by 3 different sisters to perform their baptism.  He was honored to do so.

Sister Edylyn

Sister Veronica

Sister Jessa

We had a bridal shower for Sister Marian and made her a lovely wedding gown of toilet paper.

One of the traditions here is for the bride-to-be to get to dance with the "fathers" of the branch at the wedding shower.

October was a busy and really fun month!

Our Social September

September was certainly a Social Month for us!  It was our turn to host the Senior Family Home Evening and we decided to share a little of Cambodia with our fellow missionaries.  

We had our former Elder Trevor Wright send us copies of the book his father wrote and passed them out with this bookmark inviting everyone to come.

We usually only get about half the people to FHE, but we had everyone there  We even had Elder and Sister Wong (counselor in our Asia Area Presidency) and couples from the Hong Kong Mission and the Temple.

Tom and Zach helped us get our pictures of Cambodia onto our computer here so we could show them as people arrived and during refreshments.  Everyone thought that was really fun to see.

We went to the wet market in Wan Chi in a big rain storm and bought all kinds of Cambodian fruits..... mangoes, papaya, dragon fruit, pineapple, oranges, watermelon, pomelos, mangostiens, dragon fruit, means, rhuambutans (hairy strawberries) finger bananas, star fruit and jackfruit. We even found some tamarinds in the pods!  We were drenched when we came back, but it was really fun to balance umbrellas and our little shopping trolley through the puddles and the throngs of people.    I made several loaves of banana bread to go with the fruit.  Here we are at the fruit market.  I was so busy at the last minute I forgot to take a picture of the serving table.  It looked so pretty.  

Elder and Sister Smith were in charge of the September lunch we have after our monthly temple trip with the Area Presidency.  She did a Back to School theme with sack lunches....so clever!  I did think to take a picture of her table decorations!

For our Senior Missionary Activity this month we attended Cirque de la Symphonie....an amazing circus performance accompanied by the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra!  It was awesome. 

 Our favorite act was "Strongmen - Jarek & Darek"  Check them out on Youtube!

The guy on the bottom was sitting flat on the floor while the other guy balanced on his head, then the one on the floor STOOD UP!!!

Last month we attended The Legend of the Silk Road which we also enjoyed.

Sister Liza is going back to the Philippines to be married.  Wednesday Family planned a Bridal Shower for her.  Note all the decorations!

David got to walk the  blindfolded bride-to-be into the room.  All the "fathers" of the family danced with her. This is Brother Estrellia "cutting in" while she was dancing with David.

Sister Amor, one of my best piano students was terminated.  She was caring for a woman 103 years old.  The family put the grandma in a care center and fired Amor, so she decided to go home to her daughter.  Hooray for her!!!

Saturday Family put on a great Visiting Teaching presentation all about Ants.....

We also had a competition between FHE groups.  Our Heleman Family put on a Filipino folk Dance and won 2nd place.  You can check out the actual performance video on Facebook.

One morning, Sister Shirley, pictured below, spent almost 2 hours trying to find the temple so she could do baptisms for the dead for the first time.  When she found us, we were just leaving, but she wanted a picture of her standing in front of the temple even if she didn't go in.

This is Sister Marlene.  She has this big grin the whole time she is having her piano lesson.  The other day she burst out with "I"m having FUN!!"  What a joy she is to teach!

Here we are with some of our Branch Missionaries practicing a song to perform at a baptism.  I have been helping Sister Jona on the left to prepare her mission papers so she can serve a full time mission.

If anyone arrives with a camera, choir practice dissolves into a photo-op!

Sister Queenie on the left is a professional masseuse.  She taught us how to give real massages.  Sister Smith is her willing patron.

We have great lessons taught by our Sisters.  This is Sister Joy.....it's not hard to remember her name when she always wears that huge smile!

Mid Autumn Festival was enjoyable.  These huge lanterns were alight in many spots of the city.  These are in Victoria Park.

The Mid-Autumn Fireworks were the most amazing we've ever seen!  (Except for the ones in our back yard!!)  They shot them off from 3 barges in the harbour in perfect synchronization.  It lasted 23 minutes without a single pause.

Our whole Branch was invited to "go on vacation" to Cheung Chow Island on a Statutory Holiday. About 140 people showed up and had a great time.

We invited everyone to bring a friend, so we took all the missionaries as well to visit with them.

Jammin' on the beach......

September 30th was a big day for David!  The other Senior couples made a poster for his birthday and gave him a really cute hat!   He kind of looks like Papa Elf....

Wednesday Family surprised him with a birthday cake and a beautiful boutonniere.

The Smith's took us out for Birthday Dinner at Al Dente.....a great little Italian Place we like to frequent.

The manager surprised him with dessert of Terimasu.  Note the chocolate message!

As you can see, we are still smiling.  I like this picture, but can't make it any bigger so this will have to do.