October and November 2009

Chuan and Choi Chen Kee have become wonderful friends. They come to Hong Kong once a year and always want to spend time with us in the temple. We love these two. They are from Petaling Jaya in Malasia and became friends immediately over a year ago.



The following are our returned missionaries from Mongolia. This group makes 19 returned missionary couples that we worked with in Mongolia while we were there and we have been in Hong Kong for 19 months. This is indeed a tender mercy from Heavenly Father to allow us this blessing.

All four of these kids were in our mission with us in Mongolia and all four were great missionaries. Both of the brethren are branch presidents now. Munkhsukh, on the left is a branch president of the Khailaast branch in UB and Erkhembaatar, on the right, is the branch president in Choibalsan.
Odgerel was one of our missionaries His wife, Batchimeg, served her mission in Australia. They have just got married. Odgerel and his family are from Selenge and were some of the first members baptized in northern Mongolia.
Munkhsukh and Badmaadagi had their little boy with them. He stepped right up to the altar during the sealing and acted like he had rehearsed for weeks. Badmaadagi has a twin sister who served with her who is married to a returned missionary in Erdenet. We are hoping they will come soon, but she is expecting their second child and so I don't think it will happen while we are here.
Khudermagnai served with us. Oyuntuya served her mission in the Ukraine. They live in Shamar and he is the first counselor in the branch presidency in Selenge. They make a real sacrifice to travel to Selenge to attend church. Their little boy took to Kathy and I like we were his grandparents.
Erkhembaatar and Ganchimeg both served with us. She is such a sweetheart and he is as humble as they come. They have very little and the sacrifice to come was a great one for them. They are the kind of people that the branch can rally around and learn about faith in the Lord.
Adiyabold and Tuul came a week before the four couples above. He is the first counselor in the Stake Presidency. They have been sealed for some time, but had a vacation and came to Hong Kong. We were able to spend a couple of days with them and saw some of the sights in Hong Kong. The temple is still their focus.
Altankhuu and Erkhbilguun came in October. He served in Mongolia with us and she served in Washington D.C. They treat us like parents and are easy to love in return. They are on their way to BYU Hawaii in December..
Myagmarjav and Bolortuya were still in High School when we were in Mongolia. We didn't know Boloytuya and she has been converted since we were there, but Myagmarjav was a leader in seminary and never missed a single function. I first met him sitting on the floor in a vacant room with 8 or 10 others in a seminary class. The teacher was sitting on the floor with them--there were no chairs. The room was a rented one 15 kilometers from the city. Yet he was in all of the seminary activities in the Bayanzurkh building. He served his mission in Mongolia.
Gantumur served his mission in Russia and was released while we were in Mongolia. He was faithful and fun to work with. He is an engineer with Boro Gold mining co. now and is doing well. Oyunjargal is a special gal. She left on her mission while we were there and went to Russia. She had graduated from medical school, put her career on hold to serve a mission and now is practicing as a doctor in UB. She is the preference of our other returned missionaries when they have their babies. They came in September and we were able to spend some time with them for a couple of days.

Getting out of the apartment.....
Kathy and I took a walk on a beautiful saturday in November. We first walked to the Muslim cemetery because we had seen the cemeteries from the road and thought we ought to visit them. The Muslim cemetery was large and somewhat different from the Catholic cemetery that we also visited. They are side by side, separated by only a fence.
The St. Paul's Catholic cemetery was very interesting. It covered probably ten to fifteen acres and I think utilized every square inch of ground.
Those who were cremated, received their own plot set in several long walls in the cemetery.
We left the cemeteries--they were located across the street from Happy Valley Racecourse--and walked all the way to Central and went to Hong Kong Park. We had seen most of it before, but hadn't visited the Tai Chia gardens. This tower was in the middle and we walked to the top. Can you see Kathy waving?
This is a close up of the most beautiful woman in Asia. The flowers were beautiful but she made them even more so when she sat among them.
We went to the Botanical and Zoological Gardens after leaving Hong Kong Park. King George reigns over the Gardens. At least his statue is prominently displayed.


.....And getting out of the city. I still do hiking for therapy and exhilaration.
Our last hike was one that Elder Woolsey and I have planned to do for a long time. We did stage nine and ten of the Wilson trail and finished the trail. We have walked from Stanley on the south of Hong Kong island, across the island to the north, and from the south of the New Territories all the way to the border of Mainland China. We started this stage at Hok Tau reservoir on a cloudy morning. We left the apartment early--6:45 and the transportation out took almost two hours.
We knew this was the climax of the Wilson trail and probably the most strenuous stage--and it was. The hikers receive fair warning.
Looking up from the start of the trail toward our destination to finish just stage nine.
We climbed ever higher until the trees were very sporadic and then only bushes. It was beautiful. The day was cool and the only drawback was the low clouds and the ever present Hong Kong haze.
We are on the high ridges of the Pat Sin Leng mountain range. You can see the trail in the back where we have been and we are still climbing upward.
The trail ahead. This is the highest peak on the trail, but not the last one. There were still six more after this one.
The trail went around this peak, but I wasn't about to not go to the top and so I climbed up and stood on the highest mountain in the Pat Sin Leng range. There was a marker that I could set my camera on and took a time-delay picture. The tall grasses prevented a good view of the trail we had just come from.
While this was a high peak--it was actually named Pat Sin Leng--it wasn't as high as the one I had just come down from. Even in the hazy conditions, the views were spectacular.
Looking backward toward the highest peak.
Standing on Pat Sin Leng. We finished stage nine here. It only made sense to do stage ten and finish. The feelings we had here were of reverence and love for God. Elder Woolsey even asked why I thought Moses and Nephi and others went to the mountain tops to get revelation. This was the most rewarding of all of our hikes on the Wilson trail and being on top of the world--so to speak was a great feeling.
Looking back at Pat Sin Leng across the spine of the range. We came to the last peak and then the old truism came into focus loud and clear--what goes up must come down. The climb down was more taxing on the joints than going up was on the lungs. Elder Woolsey began to get a lot of pain in his knees and they began to stiffen up on him to where he could barely move. Gratefully, we broke off from the rocky trail onto a service road. It was steep, but I had him walk backwards and he was able to loosen up his knees by doing that.
Almost down and the jungle opened up long enough for us to get a great view of China across the Starling Inlet of the Pacific. We now had physical evidence that we had walked all of the 78 kilometers from Stanley to China, and most of it had been up and down.
The monument erected in honor of Lord Wilson and the commemoration of the opening of the Wilson trail in 1994.
A lone egret sits as a sentinal at trails end. It was 4:40 when we got off the trail and caught the mini bus back to Fanling for the train ride home. It was our longest, but most satisfying hike together.
Elder Kewish and I hiked stage seven of the MacLehose trail on a Saturday in early November. This was a great hike but nothing too hard. But we saw some beautiful country. Stage seven is in the middle of the New Territories going from east to west.
The one good climb was needle hill. It was a pretty good mountain and a steep climb up.
Here we are on the top of the needle.
Down again, with the needle in the background.
It was a long way out, but some pretty scenery. We walked about 12 kilometers today with the mountains included.
In the middle of October, Brother Dave Berrett and I went on a Saturday and hiked the fourth stage of the MacLehose trail. This stage is supposed to be the most difficult of the MacLehose.
Again, the haze keeps us from seeing things that really would be breath-taking. This is looking over Tolo Harbor and the town of Sai Kung.
This stage features the imposing Ma On Shan mountain range and it was a hard hike but one that was full of beautiful vistas.
At the top of Ma On Shan, we were in the clouds and so we just could not see anything. We could only appreciate what we might have seen had it not been socked in.
When we got off the mountain and were about to the road, we looked back. The clouds had broken a little and we were able to see the whole range where we had been and got an appreciation of the majesty of the mountains.
Each year we have been here in Hong Kong, Jason Lam has wanted us to go to dinner with him in a small fishing village near his home in Po Lam We had a delighful night. We got to select our menu from the tanks and then the cooks net them and take them to the kitchen. We pulled this lobster out, but he wasn't chosen. Below, Kathy is making sure she knows what she will be eating.
Kathy is enjoying the scallops. They were her favorite although getting at them with Chopsticks was a challenge.
THis was the group who went out minus Jason who was taking the picture. It was dark or the bay would have been visible behind the white fence where we were sitting. We had a great meal and a relaxing and fun night.

October and November 2009

Trip to Jakarta

We left Hong Kong on a beautiful day September 17, 2009 for our annual trip to Jakarta.




This picture isn't clear because I took it on the move amidst non-smiling police men. I wanted to get the sign, but didn't want to have the same consequences as the drug traffickers so I kept walking fast as I snapped the "Welcome" message to Indonesia.
On Friday we visited the Taman Safari. We left on Friday, because Saturday was the start of the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of the Ramadan fast and we were told that there would be tremendous crowds at the Safari during the celebrations over the next three days.
On the way to the Safari, we stopped and bought carrots and bananas to feed the animals. As soon as we arrived at the Reserve, the animals saw us coming and they were happy to get right in the car with us and have lunch. We saw a lot of Zebras and other African/Asian jungle animals.
The Elephants were separated from the road by a deep moat. I'm not sure that we would have wanted them with their trunks in the car looking for food.
The Lammas were anxious for thier share.
Hungry, Hungry Hippo
There were more varieties of cattle, deer and African range animals than we could count. It was amazing that they had all of them here at this Reserve.

The giraffe's stayed their distance as well.

This wild boar will blind himself with his tusks if he isn't careful. Pretty fearsome looking.
We entered a gated part of the Reserve and the wildlife officer made sure that we had our windows rolled up. This lion is only one of a large pride that we saw.
We saw many tigers, but the one albino tiger was a novelty. His friends didn't seem to discriminate though.
These Rhino's were larger than our big SUV. They were content and we were happy they didn't charge us.
Cheeta's were only part of the large cats we saw besides the lions and tigers.
Grandma must be getting really lonely for hugs from the grandkids.
On Saturday, we had a self-employment project that the missionaries and the Service Center Manager, Subandriyo had orchestrated. They want to franchise small food carts selling Sloppy Joes. Here is Annie, the wife of the ERS translator/driver/etc. with the Sloppy Joe banner in the background.
The workshop included having the participants prepare the Sloppy Joes from a recipe of Sister Reber's, our ERS missionary.
Many didn't cook, but all enjoyed eating the finished product.
Subandriyo is fully involved as he explains how this will provide jobs for many of the saints. I wish everyone had his passion for the kingdom of God. He is definitely one of the noble and great ones. He presently serves as an Area Seventy.
On Monday, we were taken to another self employment business. We were surprised to see what we did. This was a composting business. But it was located in an area of Jakarta that was so poverty stricken and filthy that it was almost unbelievable. Here we found we had to cross the Bogor river on a cable held raft made out of bamboo poles about three inches in diameter. This villlage was built along the river and the river was used for every purpose you could imagine. It was the place where they washed their clothes, brushed their teeth, plied their wares from their rafts, threw their garbage, dumped all of their sewage, etc., etc. This raft is coming to take us across the river.
There was a narrow place of about two feet wide where there were two layers of bamboo. We were glad to be able to stand on the second layer because the water slopped around the poles on the first layer and no one wanted to step in it. However the locals were completely comfortable with their surroundings. You can notice in the background that the river banks were totally covered with trash.
We visited their small compost business and then left. As we got back on our raft, the children waved. We were novelty to them--and their village was novelty to us.

While we were crossing the river, we noticed the children climb in and out of the village "Outhouse." You can see in the river, just thirty feet or so down river from the outhouse, the women are washing thier clothes. You can also see a boy swimming in the river. He was buck-naked and spitting out water every time he came up from being totally under the water.