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.