Temple devotional, Christmas and cars

We have a new temple presidency so we attended a really nice devotional in the church across the street from the temple and were able to hear them speak, and afterwards we attended a dinner there. 

This year is also the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Temple.

Monday we went to the World Trade center here in Hong Kong to get our flu shots and saw that they are already busy decorating around Hong Kong for Christmas.

We decided to walk back to our office and along the way we took a few photos of the cars in the car dealerships along Gloucester road.

 

This Lamborghini didn't even come to my waist so it might be a little hard to get in and out of. I don't think Elder Chandler (walking along there) would fit in the car even with a very large shoe horn to get him in.

Rolls Royce anyone?  You see these type of cars everywhere in Hong Kong.  There are no American cars, a few Japanese cars and lots of European cars.  The import tax is 100% on these cars so can imagine what people are paying for them.

 

Just a cheap Bentley.  I think Gary needs one of these.  Of course he would have to be the chauffeur rather than the passenger.

 

The Porsche dealership almost right next to the church and offices.  Not a very good picture--must have been a small earthquake when I took the picture.

Who would want a Mazda in Hong Kong?  Must be for the poor people.  Of course we would be happy with any car but on the other hand there is no place to park.

I think this is a Maserati--probably won't go over 200 MPH.  There are lots of the expensive Tesla models here as well.

 

For Lotus is only for small people who want to go fast.  Good color for Halloween but that's past.

"Lotus" all press on!  Have a great week everyone!
Here's a nice link about the Hong Kong Temple:
Hong Kong Temple

Perfect Life!

Isn't this club great and it's only a couple of blocks away from the office.  I think we all need to get a lifetime membership, don't you?

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween.  The only costumed people we saw were Elder and Sister Thong, although we saw costumes for sale. We hear that Halloween is big here but we must not have known where to look. 




Here's Elder Chandler all ready to go to the grocery store. Does that count for a costume?  (ha ha!) 

Here was tonight's self-reliance class.  The sisters tell us some great stories about their lives and their plans.  They are changing many things in their lives because of the things they are learning in self-reliance.  One of the sisters, Gloria, has decided to finally go home to the Philippines after being abroad for 24 years working as a domestic helper.  She has been with her current employer for 16 years and has raised the employers' children.  Unfortunately, Gloria had to leave her own daughter when the daughter was 2 years old and her daughter is now 22.  Gloria feels bad that she wasn't able to be home to raise her children but she has been somewhat fortunate that her son served a mission and her daughter was married in the temple.  Unfortunately, during this time abroad, Gloria lost her husband, though. 

Here's more of our favorite sisters; this time they are mostly sisters from our Sunday "Education for Better Work self-reliance class.

So you can see that there wasn't a whole lot of photos that we took this week but maybe we'll have more next week.
Here's a few links that you might enjoy reading and seeing more about Hong Kong, etc:

Interesting things about Hong Kong

Dipal Barau

If you saw the link above then you will recognize Brother Dipal Barua and his sweet wife standing in front of the Hong Kong temple.  They were just married this week there, too. We saw him again attending the temple when we were helping there in the temple on Tuesday. He and his sweet bride know the right way to start their nearly "Perfect Life".  If you want to see more about him you can go to facebook and search for Dipal Barua.

We wish you the very best in all that you do, too!

Mid Level- Old Area Office

We had forgotten to upload this little video showing before the typhoon hit the other week so we thought we would add it just to show you a bit of the wind.

Last Saturday we went on the world's largest out door covered escalator system.  You can read more about it if you click here:  MID LEVEL ESCALATORS

We were going to see Sun Yat-Sen museum

You will want to read this link so as to see why we would want to go there: Museum

Why there's Dr Sun Yat himself.  Oh wait, maybe that's Elder Chandler. Several of the "elder" Elders who were with us used this chapel in their missionary days.  We understand that some of them even lived here in the building. There are some unique classrooms here, too.  We forgot to take a photo of one of the rooms which is a walk-in-safe. Elder Thong (pronounced Tong) talked about how he taught a Sunday School class in there. Anyway, this photo is where the chapel  was in the building.  It is really pretty and ornate and even has two fireplaces in this room.

The preserved the baptismal font was a favorite spot among the missionaries.  Sister Thong really likes it because she was baptized here.

This cute couple is Elder and Sister Thong.  

Here's Elder Chandler relaxing on the veranda there.

Here's the view from the veranda.  Don't you just love the colors on the buildings?

There was too much light behind these stained glass windows in the building to get a good photo but we took it anyway.  When our church built our new building, they took some of the designs from this one and recreated them inside our new building. 

This might be a good place to throw in this photo of our office building.  It doesn't show the inside that was mentioned, but it's a great photo of the outside.  We were stuck in traffic on the bus and had this perfect photo opportunity.  It is really unique and beautiful and really stands out from the other high-rise buildings. Because of the unique architecture, people sometimes just walk in from the street to find out what kind of building this is.  The guards in the building usually call Elder and Sister Thong to come and speak to them since they speak the language and then the Thongs usually come and give them a tour and tell them about the church.

Here's another unrelated photo but got thrown in, too, because the table setting is so beautiful.  The Area Presidency had a lunch for the outgoing Hong Kong temple presidency and this is how we decorated the table for them.

Here's one more unrelated photo we took from our office building looking out at the men putting up the bamboo scaffolding across the street from the office building. Don't you think it looks like kind of a dangerous job?  The scaffolding is still growing and getting higher and higher.  We'll have to take another photo of it one of these days.

We've also had several new senior couples come to serve here in the last little while and some of you might recognize this sweet couple.  This sweet couple is Elder Blaine and Sister Kathy Ferguson. They lived in our neighborhood when we lived in Sandy, Utah like forty years ago.  We hadn't kept up with them but have seen them occasionally through the years. We're so happy they have come to serve here as volunteer missionaries in the Asia Area Legal department. Elder Ferguson previously worked as a lawyer at the Utah State attorney General's office.
We wish you all a great week and hope you are planning to serve a mission or a senior mission in the future, too!

Lantau Island and Typhoon Haima

We'll here's another weekly post.  It has been a rainy and stormy week.  But we have a nice comfortable apartment to live in a nice office to work in so we don't mind the rain.

Just as we were leaving our office on Wednesday, our phones signaled Black Rain which is defined as: This signal means: Very heavy rain has fallen or is expected to fall generally over Hong Kong, exceeding 70 millimetres (2.76 inches) in an hour, and is likely to continue. When the BLACK signal (Chinese: 黑色暴雨警告) is issued, Hong Kong will come to a complete standstill.

We were walking in ankle deep water part of the way to get to the bus so we believed the weather warning, too!

Here are some of the photos from the news.

Now we are getting the winds from TYPHOON HAIMA and all flights are cancelled today.

You can see that it is pretty stormy and there are no boats in Victoria Harbor which only happens when a typhoon is coming. You can hear the wind and see some of the waves in the video below but the wind and the waves are getting larger and stronger by the minute.

Here's one more link that I'm adding the day after the typhoon in case you're interested:              After Typhoon Haima

Here's the view from the window as we were departing on the ferry from Central Pier going to Discovery Bay.  The window was pretty dirty as you can see.

Last Friday evening we made a little trip to Discovery Bay by ferry boat with some of  the other senior missionaries.  It is on Lantau Island, about 30 minutes away.  Most of the 20,000 people there are expats and no cars are allowed.  You would think you're in Southern CA.

We ate dinner at the Coyote Grill so here we are (and below) with the other missionaries.  I think it was the most pleasant evening (weather wise) we have had in Hong Kong.  Cool, dry, and we sat outside for a nice Mexican dinner.

The beach at Discovery Bay and some new condos under construction.

These condos look just like you would find along the Southern CA coast--stucco and red tile roofs.  And they are a lot more spacious than living in Hong Kong but also very expensive.

This is the ferry boat we came on from Hong Kong Island.  Since we are seniors our cost was only $2 HK (25 cents US).  The cost for non-seniors is $40 HK which is still very cheap.  We passed right by Disneyland on the way.  Going home in the evening we watched the fireworks.

Here we are enjoying a nice candlelight dinner.  You can see that everyone was happy -- except Elder Chandler doesn't seem to be smiling.

Mango ice cream- delicious!  I think this is a surprise picture.  And Elder Chandler's glasses broke so he can't see anything anyway.  He got his new ones yesterday so he is happier now.

Chuck and Laraine Chamberlain left us last Saturday to return to the US.  Even though they came from the East Coast (New Jersey?) they are going to Rupert, Idaho (that's a big change from Hong Kong) to live with their daughter and then plan to go to China to teach English in a year. We're sad to see them go.

The sunset was beautiful the other night from the train station near where we live.  We walk along here two times every day but usually don't see a nice sunset like this.

This was kind of a weird accident we could see from our apartment window.  The car was turned on its side somehow.  It took the wrecker crews about two hours to figure out how to right it and tow it away.

To end our little blog today, besides wishing you a very good day, we thought you might want to read this heartwarming story:

Good Story