Some snaps of life in Hong Kong

It’s been a full and busy week for two Hong Kong missionaries. I wish we could take photos in the temple of all the great new friends we meet there, but a description will have to suffice. One of the families that were at the temple this week was the Tallari famlly. They are from India and were with a son and a daughter with her husband. The young couple had been married just three days before and she still had the traditional ink markings on her hands and feet. All of them received their endowments and the families were sealed together on Tuesday and came to as many sessions as they could throughout the week. Their devotion, humility and reverence for the sacred ordinances were unmatched. Yesterday, as they came for the last time before going back to India, Sister Tallari cried as she hugged and kissed us, the temple missionary sisters, goodbye. We hope to see them again, but the journey from India to Hong Kong is long, difficult and expensive. They may not have the opportunity to come to the temple again for a very long time. These patrons are such an inspiration to me, and help to keep me from becoming too casual about my own temple experiences.

Okay, now for the times we could take photos. Here are some of the things we’ve done this week when we weren’t in the temple:

Tuesday when we came out of the temple, it was so hot and muggy we grabbed a taxi and headed back to our flat. Five minutes later the skies opened up in a mighty thunderstorm. For more than an hour thunder cracked overhead, echoing off of the buildings so that it was continuous and very loud. It was accompanied by constant lightening and sheets of rain. We watched it from our comfortable(?) couch, but some of the missionaries were caught in the storm and had to wait it out in the MTR station.

The clock tower on the Avenue of Stars at TST

A look at Kowloon from the harbor from the Star Ferry.

The Convention Center where they held a book fair followed by Comicon this week. The masses that attended these events were thick and enthusiastic.

Can you spot Elder Ball leaving the ferry? (Report to us when you find him.)

Love and prayers from Hong Kong,
Boakzimwhey (Sister Ball)

Going Home–Someday

This is the last week of their mission for Elder and Sister Watkins. They are serving in the Asia Area Mission as Mental Health missionaries and have been here for 23 months. We serve in the same branch as the Watkins–the Peninsula Three Branch–made up primarily of Philippino sisters. Everyone loves the Watkins! Yesterday was the Watkins last day at the branch.

Elder Ball and I watched the farewell celebrations carefully knowing that someday it will be us saying good-bye to good friends for the last time. The farewells were joyful, poignant and sad at the same time.

A luncheon of delicious Philipino food was prepared by the sisters in the branch and many photos were taken as gifts were exchanges, and tears were shed. Eleven-year-old Shannon sobbed at the prospect of not seeing her friend, Sister Watkins again, perhaps forever, and four-year-old Megan hid her face in Elder Watkins jacket. (You can see her little legs behind everyone’s legs.)

Yep! Someday we’ll be leaving Hong Kong, going home from our wonderful mission and leaving behind great friends and taking with us memories of experiences we would never have had anywhere else  or in any other way. But for right now, we’ll enjoy every moment of our mission and meet new friends every day and make great memories.

I’m convinced that we serve with some of the finest people in the world. Elder and Sister Watkins, you are our gurus! Thanks for being great examples…even though you didn’t mean to be!

Love and prayers from Hong Kong,
Elder and Sister Ball

1600 Pandas

The thing about being a full-time missionary, even if you’re a Senior Couple missionary, is that it’s all about the work–with a little bit of play. We started out the week looking for, and eventually finding, the exhibit of 1600 paper mâché Pandas in the middle of Hong Kong. The problem was that, in the first place it was raining off and on, and the address given for the exhibit was for the exit, not the entrance. We, Elder and Sister Solomon and us, found the address and then had to hike up a very steep hill for two blocks to find the entrance. By the time we found it, we were all wet, hot and sticky–and the display was outside. But the exhibit was almost worth all the effort. YAY!

We could have stood in a long line to await our turn to get a Selfie at the Hug-a-Panda station. Elder Solomon really wanted to get a hug a Panda photo, but we voted him down. (Just kidding, Elder Solomon.)

See if you can find the black and white thing that is Elder Ball. It’s part of our ongoing game with our grandchildren; Where’s Grandpa? We play it on Instagram under the name of boakzimwhey, (Sister Ball in Cantonese).
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The rest of the week was spent in high impact temple work. Two groups of youth and Young Single Adults came to the temple for temple baptisms as well as to participate in other ordinaces. The temple missionaries were in charge of handling the baptisms on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. There were about 40 patrons in each group. On Saturday we had over 650 baptisms–mostly for family file cards. Awesome!

The youth also participated in a Youth Missionary day where they went out with the full time missionaries to do missionary work. During the week, they helped the missionaries teach their friends who came with them, and this resulted in at least two convert baptisms by the end of the week.

Saturday was the commemoration celebration for the 65th Anniversary of Matthew Cowley opening Hong Kong for missionary work. (This event was posted about in an earlier blog.) The celebration consisted of a well-attended meeting in the Wan Chai chapel in Hong Kong. Five Seventies spoke, with the help of interpreters for English. President Wong arranged for the temple missionaries to receive special commemorative pins to mark the event.

The beautiful Wan Chai Chapel in Hong Kong.

65th Anniversary of Hong Kong Mission opening–also of Elder Ball’s birthday.

All in all, it’s been a great–and full week. The church is growing fast in this part of the Kingdom. There are presently about 100,000 Chinese members of the Church throughout the world, and if the youth we met this week continue to be a valiant as they were at the temple, there will soon be many more. They were wonderful, humble and full of the Spirit of God. We met some of them as we left the meeting at Wan Chai and I got a few photos of them.

Love and Prayers to all,
Elder and Sister Ball

(Don’t forget to leave a comment with an update to how you are doing!)

Back to the Routine

It’s been a long, but happy week as we returned to the temple after our two week hiatus during the semi-annual maintenance break. We started off with a bang on July 2 as the temple opened on a Hong Kong Statutory Holiday. Elder Ball and I had been asked by Pres. Wong to be coordinators, along with another temple missionary couple, for the statutory holidays. We had five back-to-back sessions full of patrons, mostly sisters, and over 100 patrons in the baptistry.

We had six sisters come for their own endowment, three sisters from India and three Chinese. These were the scheduled ordinances. In the middle of the morning, we also had two Chinese couples walk in from to receive their endowments and be sealed. It’s not unusual for patrons to come unannounced for live temple ordinances. Sometimes the members have almost no ability to communicate with church leaders from other parts of the world. But we were happy to have them come and they were thrilled to be at the temple.

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This is one of the Indian couples we have worked with here in Hong Kong. The came from Hyderabad and stay for a week at patron housing across the street from the temple. They come to the temple every day and participate in as many ordinances as they can. They are wonderful people, full of the Spirit, grateful for the temple and their families, and humble, sweet and kind. They are the pioneers for Gospel of Christ in their country.

Friday was Independence Day for the USA, and my birthday. Neither event was a big deal here in Hong Kong. We worked in the temple and then my wonderful husband took me to a nice dinner in the Shangri La Hotel.

I had a new temple outfit made for my birthday. Here I am with my tailor, Martin.

All in all, it’s been a wonderful–and HOT, humid week.

More coming later,
Love and prayers from Hong Kong,
Elder and Sister Ball

Trains, Buses and Travelators of Hong Kong

For more than sixty years we have relied on our cars to get us from where we are to where we want to be. At home we currently have a car, a big yellow van, an orange pickup and a sweet little golf car sitting in our garages. But it is an entirely different story in Hong Kong. There are few automobile owners here and they are almost own all high-end cars; Mercedes, BMW, Bentleys…you get the picture.

The rest of us take advantage of the highly developed and widely used public transportation methods; MTR (the train system), buses, light 16 passenger buses, the ferries, taxies, travelators and the occasional tram.

So here are Hong Kong trains, buses and so forth in pictures:

The MRT stands for Mass Transit Railway. There are entrances to the MTR within minutes of almost everywhere in Hong Kong. The MTR terminals are well lit, clean, inexpensive, easy to access and navigate with clear signs pointing you to the direction you wish to go. Plus, surprise! wherever there is a terminal there is also a shopping mall of some size, sometimes two or three.

Or take the bus, usually double-decker if you want to see more of the city or countryside. Sometimes the buses are more efficient and go places where the trains don’t.

For transportation through the smaller neighborhoods, take a 16 seat mini-bus.

That’s how we get to the temple from the Kowloon Tong MTR station when it’s sizzling hot or raining. Otherwise we walk…the other way to get anywhere in Hong Kong.

We always have the option of getting a taxi. Taxis are plentiful, and cheap, but you have to catch them at the right places, in the terminals or at hotels or apartment complexes.

Or if you want to get from the north end of Hong Kong Island to the south, take the travelator, the 1/4 mile long Mid-level escalator. It’s fun and functional, with the ability for travelers to get on and off at will.

Or a nice alternative to get from Kowloon to any of the islands of Hong Kong is to take the ferry, very fast and accomodating.

And on Lantau Island, on the way to see the Big Budda, (more about that later), there’s a great cable car ride to ride on. The scene is breathtaking and the ride is enjoyable.

Okay, now, who’s ready to come and visit us in Hong Kong? Believe me, it’s as much fun and as cool as we imagined it would be when we got our mission call.

Love and prayers to all,
Elder and Sister Ball

*For more fun, got to @boakzimwhey on Instagram to see photos and videos of our Hong Kong adventures.