TEAM TAYLOR TOWERS!

 

 This week we participated in a virtual 5K walk/run with Team Taylor Towers!  This event was to increase Cri du Chat awareness!  Our beautiful granddaughter, Taylor has Cri du Chat Syndrome or 5p- syndrome, a very rare genetic disorder.  This activity was also a fund raiser to benefit the 5p- Society.  It was a big success and so fun to be included while we are here in Hong Kong.

So TAYLOR......These pictures are for you!  Thanks for asking us to be on your team!

 

 

Here is proof that we did the 5K and more...........

 

We began at our Harbour Front Horizon apartment complex in Kowloon......

 

 

.........and walked along the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade a mile and a half

or more to the famous Star Ferry pier.

 

Enroute we enjoyed seeing "The Avenue of the Stars" and  David stopped to put his hands in Jackie Chan's, of course!

 

Then it was on to the ferry pier where we caught the "Night Star" over to Hong Kong Island.

We changed ferries and took the First Ferry to Cheung Chau Island to do some exploring.

 

 The harbor there was full of colorful sampans and fishing boats

The local residents were preparing for the annual Tai Ping Ching Jiu Festival or Bun Festival.  There is a big parade which features "Floating Children".  This man is rigging up this little girl in a high seat with a foot rest and straps around her legs to make sure she won't fall off while "floating" in the parade.

We enjoyed a break in the shade while we munched on the island's favorite cuisine...
fish balls on a stick!

 

After lunch, shopping in the local market, and a walk to the beach, it was time to head back on the ferry.  A few hundred other peole had the same idea!

 

Hey Taylor!  These kids on the ferry are all saying HI to you!!

After getting back to Hong Kong, we ALMOST stopped for fried squid...

But opted for gelato instead!

Do you suppose these guys know each other???

We topped off the walk home along the promenade with dinner at a yummy German Bier Bar and Restaurant.

Home at last!  A fun day and a great way to support our amazing Taylor who teaches us so much about love, and patience, and life!

 

WE LOVE YOU, TAYLOR!!!!!!

 



Derrick.....and BIG Buddha!

We have a 17 year old young man named Derrick who comes to church most days.  He is an orphan who has been on his own since his parents died when he was 11.  How he managed alone in Hong Kong is amazing. The missionaries found him and he joined the church 4 months ago. He is thrilled to have a family.  All the sisters treat him like a son or a brother and he can’t stop smiling.  He goes to school and had a job until a few days ago.  His dream is to become a missionary next year when he turns 18.  Every other week we have Filipina food fixed by the sisters and he never misses a meal.  The rest of the time somebody is always fixing food for whoever stays around after church.  We usually go home about 7 or 8, but they stay until their curfew, whenever that is!  A woman today said she was so upset this week because she had been sick and was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to come to church…..”to come home and be with my family”, as she put it.

Here is a picture of Derrick next to David and some of our "Happy Thursday Family".  They are some of the most thoughtful and kind-hearted women I have ever met!

 

 It has been another Chinese holiday the past few days and since many women are given extra days off, we have had many more people come to church.  Any day they have off, they are here.  Thursday I met a woman who’s day off is Sunday, so she isn’t in our branch.  I told her I was happy to meet her and she said I would meet her again because she would be able to be there Friday and Saturday as well!  We also had an American woman who lives in mainland China and has church via Skype,come here because her son had to come to HK for surgery.  She came to church 3 days in a row and was so excited to be able to take the sacrament.  There is so much we took for granted before we came here.  How much we have learned already about what is really important!

 Hong Kong is a place filled with an amazing array of things to see and do.  Friday we had tickets to hear the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra play Handel's Fireworks and the Water Music Suite among other pieces.  It was a lovely night out!

Today we visited the world's tallest, outdoor, seated bronze Buddha and Po Lin Monastery.  To get there, we took about a 30 minute cable car up the mountain and could see the South China Sea as well as most of Lantau Island. 

 

The Buddha is so big that it's face alone weighs 5 tons.  Can you see him up there behind us on the top of the mountain?  The Sun-brella has UV protection.... It was a beautiful, cool, but sunny day.



 

 

Wherever you go in China, you climb a million stairs to get there!!!

 

 

This time there were only 268 steps but I climbed EVERY ONE of them!

 

 

Up on top, there were many other interesting statues to see.

 

 

As well as many warriors

 

 The Chinese architecture is so amazing.....

 

and ornate.

 

We ended the day with a new treat.....Mango Volcano!

 

 

 

FUN PEOPLE AND PLACES IN HONG KONG

Here in Hong Kong we have eight young sister missionaries and two elders who work with our branch as well as the other Philippine branches that meet on Sunday.  They are all from the Philippines and are really wonderful.  The only problem is that 5 of the sisters and one of the elders go home in two weeks and there is only one sister coming anytime soon. 

 

This is Elder Dugalog and Elder Aranis.  They take care of the sacrament every day.  Sometimes there are other men there to help, but these two are the stalwarts.  I love these two Elders.

 

 

 

The sister missionaries are assigned a certain day to help our Families so we have a different pair every day.  They are so cheerful and happy to be around!  We are sad so many are leaving us!

 

 

From David:



"We nearly always have new investigators (we call them visitors) at church every day.  Today we had three.  Many that attend our branch were baptized here.  It is interesting that many of our sister members have been in HK for many years (some 25+).  Some have worked as maids in the Middle East.  One just left for Toronto, Canada.  One absolutely amazing woman is leaving in two weeks for the Philippines for good I hope.  She has 4 children there.  We will greatly miss her.  Many are separated from husbands who are unfaithful to them.  Divorce is not allowed in the Philippines so they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  And so it goes.  But this is a fruitful place for missionary work. 

 

We were at the temple last week and the Shift Coordinator there, a Brother Lam, saw my name tag and wondered if I knew an Elder Towers who taught him the Gospel in 1962.  I was happy to say that I am his brother!  a sweet experience for me.  I wish Gary was alive to see the progress that has been made here since he was a missionary."

 
Another Relief Society Birthday Party!  Every family has done such an amazing job of preparing and carrying out the celebration!  This Happy Thursday Family even made little corsages for all of us!
The girl right behind David is the one going home to her four children.  She planned the whole evening.

 All these women were so excited to get awards!  They all did the voting so it was fun.

 

Our Saturday Family has about 100 sisters so we are divided up into 4 Family Home Evening groups for our FHE Activities the 4th week.  Our group is the Heleman Group.  Here is a picture of a few of us.

This is a sister who is 32 years old and has four children in the Philippines.  She is so excited about accomplishing goals in Young Women's Personal Progress.  One of her goals has been to learn to play the guitar.  Today she played and sang I Need Thee Every Hour for me so I could sign it off.  As I listened to her heartfelt song, it brought tears to my eyes.

This is Alyana, our one and only Primary member.  Her parents both work here in Hong Kong.  Nancy is not her mom.  She just wanted to be in the picture!

 

This is Labor Day weekend which is when The Chinese honor their ancestors.....it's like our Memorial Day....and it's called Ching Ming.  We went to a temple nearby that houses 3 religions in one....Taos, Confucius and Buddhist.  It was decorated so beautifully.  Many people were there burning incense and worshipping.  

 

 

 

 

After that we visited a really pretty garden right in the middle of the city.  It was filled with unusual bonsai trees, amazing rocks, and Chinese buildings.  We decided to eat lunch at the garden in a beautiful restaurant under a waterfall.    The food was all vegetarian grown by the Nuns in the Nunnery next to the gardens.  We had all kinds of fungus.  I wish I could remember all the mushroom names.  We had mushroom and lychee soup, mushrooms and tofu something, termite mushrooms with fresh baby asparagus and red peppers (so beautiful), deep fried pumpkin wedges with the shell still on,(delicious!) bean curd with bok choy, bean sprout and baby mushroom egg rolls, and to drink…..Fresh Winter Spring… a mix of fresh pineapple, star fruit and guava juice.  Dessert was fresh cantaloupe and slices of a fruit we don't know the name of.

 

This is Elder and Sister Pack who are the office couple for the Hong Kong Mission.  They help us administer our Saturday Group.

 

A BIT OF CULTURE AND A HAPPY SURPRISE

One of the exciting things about living in Hong Kong is that there are so many concerts, plays and cultural events.  The London Gate Theater brought a British troupe over to perform Pride and Prejudice.  We LOVED it!  We also went to Smashed ......a very unusual production by a synchronized juggling team.  Very different!

A most unexpected and happy surprise this week was that two of our beloved Cambodian friends, Heng Sokhom and Sea Samnang came to Hong Kong for some training.  We found out they were here just hours before they left and were able to visit with them.  Elder Heng was one of David's assistants.



This was temple week for our families.  Every day we started church at noon, ended at 2:40 PM and then rushed to catch the bus to the temple with whoever could take the time to go.  The bus takes us within a block of the temple.  When we are late and miss the bus, we have to take the MTR and walk several blocks to get there, so we really try to catch the bus.

This is some of our Thursday family leaving for the temple.

Jennifer was determined not to let me get lost since I had never been that way before!

Everyone takes lots of pictures wherever they are....such as waiting for the MTR......

 ......or riding on the MTR

Friday family celebrated the Relief Society Birthday with a little hula dancing in handmade grass skirts and leis....

Of course we had to join the fun.  Our sisters loved David doing the hula.

 

BUSY AND HAPPY

We have had a BUSY week……for example, on Thursday we caught a 7:30 taxi to go to the temple for a session with the area Presidency followed by a testimony meeting at the temple.  Then we walked to the MTR, caught the train, transferred to the bus and arrived at the WanChai building for lunch with the office couples.  We had to hurry through lunch because RS starts at 1.  Then SS, followed by church where we were the speakers.  At 4:30 we began our RS activity night which was learning to make folded paper flowers and butterflies for the upcoming District Art Festival.  This was followed by dinner prepared by the “Happy Thursday Family” sisters.  At 7 we had the opening fireside of the Asia Women’s conference.  Elder and Sister Gong were the speakers and talked about their trip last week to Cambodia!  I loved hearing about it.  David and Elder Smith went home because they weren’t involved in the Conference.  By the time Sister Smith and I caught the bus and then walked home from the bus station, it was almost 10pm.  A long, interesting day.

This is Thursday Family learning how to make folded paper flowers and butterflies for the District Art Show that is coming up.  Notice the paper swan made by one of the women to display.

 

Here is an example of another day...... We left home at 7:15 to get to the office by 8.  I had to teach RS because one of our teachers couldn’t get off, so I had to type and print the points I wanted to use in my lesson.  I couldn’t do it at home because I realized I didn’t have a marker or paper!!!  It is amazing the things you take for granted!  Anyway, I got my preparations done, then attended two 1 hour sessions of Women's conference.

While Myrna was at the Asia Area Women's conference (there were hundreds of women from all over Asia in attendance, mostly expats including John Lear's sister who lives here in Hong Kong (Rosecrest Ward folks know John) and a woman from Hanoi that we knew from our mission to Cambodia) I went out finding with the branch and full time missionaries.  I got to go with Sister Amai and Sister Renci.  It was Sister Renci's first time and she was a little timid but Sister Amai was amazing.  She is the perfect missionary.  She talks to everyone.  The first park we went to we didn't have much success so we jumped on the Ding Ding (the little rail tram here in Hong Kong) and went to the park with the "black man" statue.  That is how the Philippinas refer to that park.  There we had a fun time and met a young woman that not only agreed to come to church that day but actually showed up that afternoon.  The missionaries taught her that evening and we hope for great progress.  What joy that was for me.  Sister Amai is fun to be with and we hope to get her on a full time mission soon. 

We had Branch Presidency meeting at 11:45.  We were late getting out, so I gulped down a PB&J sandwich from home about 10 minutes to one and ran upstairs to teach RS.  When I got there, someone else was using my room I had set up, so I had to move all my pictures and signs to another room.  Anyway, I taught my lesson and it went OK.  I relaxed during SS while someone else taught, and then we had to speak in church again.  After church we had the celebration of the RS birthday…..a pretty amazing presentation done completely by the sisters.  I only had to speak for about 5 minutes at this one.  We had a Philippine dinner again afterward and headed home on the ferry. 

These are the sisters who were in charge of the RS Birthday celebration.  Those letters were drawn by hand and cut out separately.  No such thing as a stencil in these women's life! 

 

 

 

 During the second week of every month we have a Relief Society activity.  Last Tuesday we learned how to frost fancy cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

Wednesday family wanted to learn how to make spring rolls.  Here we are, just getting ready to begin.  I wish I had a picture of the yummy finished product!



Late nights are not so bad when you get views like this on the ferry going home!