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!)