It's May already - May 1st - Labor Day (in Macau, anyway). It's a BEAUTIFUL day - I can see blue sky and white clouds, the temperature is just about perfect, and the humidity - well, we won't talk about the humidity...
We've had some good experiences the past few weeks - two trips to Hong Kong - one for a Branch temple trip, and one for a Multi-Zone Conference. The temple trip was wonderful; one of our sweet sisters from the Philippines, Jean Berido, received her endowment--and others went who hadn't been able to go for a long time. The trip for zone conference makes for a very long day when we have to be on the 6 a.m. ferry, but it's well-worth the effort. Thank goodness the sea was calm for both trips, and thank goodness I brought a supply of Dramamine!
We had a wonderful Branch Family Home Evening activity - "Missionary Night". All of the branch members received a mission call assigning them to "foreign" missions, and were to report to the Macau Mini-MTC at the appointed time. They participated in classes to learn how to "find", to "fellowship", to "contact" (we actually had a little call center), and they learned phrases and words in their "mission language" - Cantonese, Indonesian, Mandarin, or French. Roland cooked up a special missionary meal of boxed macaroni and cheese (YES, we found some at the US Mart!), hotdogs, and floats. Most of the people here had never had a float, and didn't know what it was - but they liked them!
We mourned with the people of China for those who lost their lives and were devastated by the earthquake which struck the Yushu region of the Qinghai province on April 14. The National Day of Mourning was April 21. It was especially heart-wrenching to hear about so many children who lost their lives because their schools collapsed; I'd love to tell the grieving parents about eternal families.Now for some REALLY good news! There is a Dairy Queen in Macau! It just opened this week - and we've been there already. It's not "quite" the same, but we'll get over it. Of course we may not ever try the green tea-and-mango or green tea-and-chocolate blizzards, OR the red bean-strawberry, red bean-lemon, or red bean-mint lemon slushes, OR the jelly-grapefruit, orange-carrot, or apple-carrot fruit drinks. THAT just doesn't say "Dairy Queen" to us! We may have to tell them what a hot-fudge sundae is one of these days.
We've been doing some actual teaching - both temple preparation, and missionary discussions, and feel productive most of the time. It's great to be here!
TurboJet - High-speed ferry between Macau and Hong Kong
Missionaries in the rain
DQ - Packing them in!
Tunneling under Macau!
Guia Hill and Lighthouse
Macau - Looking Southeast from our window.
Chinese library on the Rua do Campo
Sounds like you are having some great success in the branch and with your missionary efforts. I've seen the missionary night done for youth groups before, but doing it for the entire branch was a great idea.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the DQ! Tell us more about the tunnel under Macau, and the Playful Clay figurines. (I wish those pictures would enlarge so I could get a closer look!)
Enjoy the nice weather while you can! Our prayers are with you.....as always!
Dick & Louise