Big Buddha

This week we met lots of the dear sisters from the Philippines who come here to work and send their money back to their families. They often stay 10-20 years.  We will be doing a lot of work with them to help them and their families achieve better work or start their own businesses in the Philippines so they can go home. Today is Saturday so we took the opportunity to do some site seeing with two other senior missionary couples.  There are many great things to see and do in Hong Kong. On our little trip we met church members from San Diego and London.  I guess we stick out a little bit.  We talked to a nice man from Hong Kong who once lived in Beijing.  He said he used to send his son to the LDS Church Sunday School there because it was the only nearby Christian Church.  He thought very highly of what all of the missionaries are doing throughout the world.  We left our apartment and took the subway to the end of red line which is actually near the airport.

Here we are getting ready to board a bus to go to see Big Buddha which is really Tian Tan Buddha located on Lantau Island. Many people took the gondola to get there but the line was so long that we took the bus.

 

As we traveled, for some reason, there were quite a few small cows on and about the roadway. The bus driver didn't slow down so maybe this is an everyday occurrence.

Here is Big Buddha.  It is bronze statue 112 feet tall and weights 250 tons. A person walks 268 steps up to get to the base of the statue. It was built in 1993.

Here are some of the many little shops there.

There were twelve of these warrior statues perhaps to symbolically protect Big Buddha.

We also visited the Po Lin monastery which is close by the Buddha.  Po Lin means precious Lotus. There are almost 300 monasteries on Lantau island.  Most of them are tiny monasteries hidden in the mountains.

Here are some of the gold statues in the monastery.

Here are some of the monks there.

Have you ever seen such large incense sticks? These are about 4" in diameter and  4 feet long.

Here are more of the little shops there. Pick your favorite chopsticks here.

Here's one of several small villages on the way to the Big Buddha.

We rode the ferry back from Lantau island to Hong Kong island. Then we took the ferry from Hong Kong island to Kowloon where we live.  This is a great little fish and chips place along the way where we stopped to eat.

Here's a new 63 story hotel under construction near where we live. While there is lots to see and do here we are really here to invite people to Christ and to help members become more self-reliant. Those two things go hand-in-hand.  The Lord expects us to be self-reliant both spiritually and temporally.  Once we achieve that we can better help all of our brothers and sisters in the world.  That's what Heavenly Father and his Son expect of us.

Our office

Welcome to our commute to work.  We walk for about ten minutes to get to the bus station and then we ride a pretty crowded bus twenty to twenty-five minutes to get to the Church office building or we can walk to the ferry for about 20 to 25 minutes, then wait for the ferry, and then it takes about 10 minutes to cross Victoria Harbor on the ferry, and then we walk 10 minutes to get to our office.  In this photo we are on a bus in the tunnel under Victoria Harbor traveling to the Hong Kong Island side.

There is a lot of traffic and a lot of buses.  We sat in the top of a double-decked bus the other day and we really enjoyed the view.

Here is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints office building in Hong Kong where we do our self-reliance work.

Here's the entrance to the office.

There is a nice slide show going on all of the time just inside the office in the lobby.  Sometimes the missionaries will bring people in to see it and talk to them about the Church.

Here is the foyer of the building on the main floor.

                                             

This is Sunny who is one of the security people at the front desk.

Here's Elder Chandler waiting for the elevator.

Here we are with Jayme who is a secretary on our 8th floor.

Here's a map that we have in our office; notice, it shows some of the most important parts of the world. About half of the world's population is in the Asia Area.

There are many great pictures that are displayed on our floor.

Anybody recognize this family?  We wish we had a more current photo of all of us, but this one has quite a few members of our family so we have it in our office.

Here are some of the principles that are taught in Self-Reliance: The Lord has declared, “It is my purpose to provide for my saints"(D&C 104:15). This revelation is a promise that the Lord will provide temporal blessings and open the door of self-reliance. He has also declared that “it must needs be done in [His] way" (DC 104:16). To receive the blessings of self-reliance, we must accept and live the principles of self-reliance, which include the following:
Exercise Faith in Jesus Christ 
Use Time Wisely 
Be Obedient 
Manage Money 
Work: Take Responsibility 
Solve Problems 
Become One, Work Together 
Become One, Work Together 
Persevere 
Show Integrity 
Seek Learning and Education 
Stay On Task, Receive Ordinances 

If you would like to learn more about self-reliance go to: https://www.lds.org, then click on "Families and Individuals", then in the drop down menu, click on "self-reliance".  You can check out the manuals and videos and everything in this area.  We think you will really enjoy reading about self-reliance.

You might also enjoy seeing this link which features some Philippino sisters who have taken self-reliance courses:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5vCgTrePwg

Here we are with our "boss", Leon Au.  He is really wonderful and he is helping us so much to learn our responsibilities.

This is a blurry photo of Elder and Sister Nielsen who help with welfare in the office next to ours. Elder Gary Nielsen is from Springville, too, and he even mentioned Cragun Market which was my family's little grocery store there in Springville. He was a great basketball player on the Springville Red Devil team, too!

Here are some photos of the self-reliance couples who serve in the Asia Area.

This is Sister Orton and she is the Area Medical Doctor's wife. Elder Orton's office is behind the door there.  She is very busy and one of her responsibilities is that she enters the missionary applications into the missionary-on-line system.  I appreciate her hard work because I (Carol) used to do that in the Asia North Area.

Here's Elder Chandler in our office.

Here's the view from the window behind Elder Chandler.

Isn't this great counsel from one of our latter-day prophets, President Ezra Taft Benson, which we have posted in our office?  We hope you all have a very happy day!