A Visit to Ocean Park - Hong Kong

Ocean Park is interesting, half the park is on one side of the mountain and half is on the other side, a gondola ride gets you from one side of the park to the other. It’s a part amusement park, part zoo, with a little Sea World, and Disneyland all thrown in together. We saw the panda’s first, lazy little critters. Actually we saw the panda’s sleep, except for one that was hiding inside the cave and came out for a brief minute or two then went right back in. But we saw enough to actually say we have seen a panda.

We went across the mountain and found there were escalators to get people around. The park is on a very steep hill. We rode on the Log Ride, and got soaked, which was nice as it kept us cool. We saw the dolphin and seal show, which had an opening act of Mexican Music. How’s that for covering the world?

We visited the frog display, a big aquarium, and then the shark display. They were very good. There are bird shows, and some other shows, but the dolphin and seal show was the best. You get wonderful views of Deep Water Bay on one side and Aberdeen on the other. Fun day out.

Elder and Sister Jones Leaving Hong Kong

Their time in Hong Kong was short and went by all too quickly, but Tarzan and Jane are now off on another adventure. A short time at home in SLC, then it's off to Niageria.

We hope they enjoy Niageria as much as we enjoyed having them in Hong Kong.

Outing to Macau

Oh there's nothing like a Saturday away, a good ferry trip, followed by a tour of Macau. That was the plan, too bad it didn't work out that way. A typhoon warning of 1, which moved to a 3 in two days, shouldn't be a problem. But we forgot to tell Mother Nature about our trip!

The ride over was great, lunch at the Venetian was delightful, but then...in two hours the warning jumped from 3 to 8. Eight is the magic number where everything closes down. No tour, no ferries, not much of anything.

So it was wait, wait, wait and hope for the best. After visiting, joking, walking around and around and around, pitching pennies and every other thing we could think of to entertain ourselves the warning finally fell back to the magic number of 3 at 7:30pm. They asked us to queue up - they needed have worried, we queued up hours before that.

But we finally left about 8, got home at about 9:30pm, one big group of weary seniors. We will try again, but will watch the weather a little more carefully next time!

Repulse Bay on Hong Kong Island

Repulse Bay is a lovely stretch of white sand, bordered on the mountain side with high rise apartments with amazing views. It's one of several swimming beaches in Hong Kong. One of the high rise apartments has a "dragon hole", which is a large open space built into the building. It's purpose? To let the dragon come down from the mountain to the ocean for a drink, what else?

Victoria Harbor in the Fog

A birthday is a good excuse for dinner out and a harbor tour. So it was Fat Angelo's for dinner and a cruise on Victoria Harbor after. It was a slightly foggy night, but the fog was up high, so the tops of the buildings just melted away into nothingness. What a view! Hong Kong lights are wonderful, no matter the season!

Why Serve Another Mission?

Before we left home and while we have been out on this mission we have had a lot of people ask, "why are you serving another mission?" We have thought a lot about this question, and will attempt to answer this difficult question.

Yes, why?

• Why would you want to give up the ball games, birthdays, Christmas, priesthood ordinations and other important occasions with your family?


• Why would anyone what to be away from the people they love dearly – children, grandchildren, and friends?


• Why would you want to abandon parents that are 87 and 85 years of age, not knowing if you will ever see them again?


• When you are retired, why would you want to work longer days that you did while you were employed?


• Why would anyone want to work for no salary or wages and not get a raise each year?


• Why in the world would you want to give up 100 cable channels, and the ability to download from a selection of Pay Per View movies, for two English channels in Hong Kong?


• Why would you want to give up the comfort of a king size bed, for a hard double bed?


• Why would you want to give up the comforts of a large home, for a 600 square feet apartment with a kitchen so narrow, that I need to stand behind Shirley to dry the dishes?


• Again, why would you, after working hard all week and sometimes through the weekends, want to take on another church calling working in one of the local branches, where they start early in the morning and end late at night because everything needs to be done, on that specific Sunday?


• Why would you choose to take taxis, subways, trams, over having a nice car to drive just one block to church?


• Why would you turn your home over to complete strangers and have complete faith that they will take as good of care as you would?


• Why would anyone want to walk to the office each morning trying to memorize two pages of missions, temple, stakes, and districts in the Asia Area? These names are hard to pronounce let alone hard to memorize.


• Why would you want to give up meat and potatoes, for pot noodles and canned soup or anything else that is quick and easy?

Well we will try to answer this and the answers not simple.

• Two days before we left on our mission, we wanted to see as many activities that our grandchildren where involved in as possible. We had two football games and two soccer games to watch. I heard this voice saying Elder Jackson, and I turned around and it was Elder Wayne Peterson who served in the Europe West Area Presidency when we were on our first mission. We got talking and he had eight games to see that Saturday. He served four years in the Europe West Area, and four years in the Europe East Area. So this good brother knows about being away from the comforts of home and family. As we compared notes we found out that he had been called to serve as temple president in the Navuoo Temple and again would be gone for another three years. He asked where we were going, and I told him Hong Kong. He then took me by the hand, looked squarely into my eyes and said, "DeWayne, you know that watching your grandchildren play their games is important, and you know participating in their school activities is very important, but do you realize the greatest blessing you can give your family is to serve a mission. So this is the answer to one of the WHYs. Because I want my family to get the special blessings that missions can bring to them and to us.


• We have received another blessing. We have been blessed with good health and strength. So this is the answer to another of the WHYs. We are blessed, and it’s not luck that we have good health and strength, so we need to do what our Father in Heaven wants us to do, to show thanks for this great gift.


• We have been called to serve in a capacity that we were not comfortable with or qualified for. Neither of us were qualified for this calling, but we have seen our Father in Heaven prepare us on a daily basis. So this is the answer to another one of the WHYs. Because we love seeing the hand of the Lord in this work. Money cannot buy this blessing, only service to our Heavenly Father can.


• We were concerned about having someone come in and take care of our home. Was it by change that Jason and Abbie Richman came into our home and also blessed the Jordan North 6th Ward? Probably not, and this is the answer to another one of the WHYs. Our Father in Heaven knows our needs and concerns and placed us at an appreciation dinner for Church service missionaries where we were asked who was going to stay in our home while serving our mission, which led to Abbie and Jason moving into our home.


• Never in a life time of sticking around the house can you have the kind of experiences you have on a mission. Doing things with people of other cultures, customs, and traditions. To associate with 11 missionary couples and become best of friends. Seeing saints and missionaries waiting just so they can shake the hands of two apostles, and then run down the street to get one more glimpse before the bus departs. So this is the answer to one more of the WHYs. To have experiences such as this that will stay with you forever.


• To become great friends with people you can’t even communicate well with. To find out it takes two American missionaries to explain a simple process to one Chinese worker. One to do the talking and the other to draw the pictures on the whiteboard. So this is the answer to another one of the WHYs. Because you are blessed with the gift of tongues or at least they are.


• And our final WHY? Our Savior gave much more than the few simple sacrifices that we have given. He gave His life, that we might live, that we might repent and some day return to live forever with our loving Heavenly Father.

Elder and Sister Ellyson Leaving Hong Kong

It's happening again! Another couple heading homeward. This time it's Elder and Sister Ellyson heading into the west. They have been here 23 months working with the Philippina sisters, and are discovering it's hard to leave. Our best wishes go with them.

Lunch at the Office

Ashley and Anna, the two secretaries in the office planned a great luncheon last week. Ashley prepared a great appetizer of crackers, cucumbers, tomatoes and tuna, Anna brought sandwiches filled with pork, Alec made a very nice Chinese salad with potatoes, eggs and crab and Shirley brought an American tossed green salad. It was so good. I thing Ashley and Anna are concerned with our eating.

View the video and you will be envious.

Mai Po Nature Reserve

The missionary couples become your family away from home and whenever we get the opportunity we get together for some sort of activity. We caught a bus to Yeun Long which is near the border of mainland China. It was a 45 minute bus ride and then a short cab ride out to Mai Po. The nature reserve is a wet land with thousands of migratory birds. They have a visitor center, a warden’s office with very strict regulations, several hides (sheds you go into to watch the birds), boardwalks, floating boardwalks, mangroves, freshwater ponds with fishermen pulling their catch in, and a floating bird hide. To get to the floating bird hide, you enter gate 107, which takes you into mainland China.

We all took lunches and had a great time and had a great time.