i belong to...

i do. (and we were singing that primary song for quite a bit of the trip.) i am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And i have never been so grateful for the actual, physical buildings of the church than i was when i was in Hong Kong. We visited a few different church sites as the main reason we even went to Hong Kong was to revisit some of Ryan's old mission areas, etc. Now, Hong Kong in August is HOT and HUMID and SMELLY and STINKY and DIRTY and lots of other adjectives. But, every time we saw a church building, it was like this breath of fresh air. We knew we could walk in, probably find a missionary who spoke English, go to the bathroom on a real toilet rather than a squatty potty, and get a drink of (usually) cold, clean, drinkable water. it was a-ma-zing.

this is us at the church building in tuen mun...ryan's first mission apartment in mui wo...you'll have to ask him how a puppy fell off the roof there. missionaries are mean, sometimes...this is also in mui wo. apparently, it's where the church building used to be? i guess it moved. this is a sign in front of the kam tong, a building the church previously owned. it was a beautiful building. they have modeled the bottom front part of this, the new buildling, after it. this buildling houses apartments for the area presidency and others. there are something like 6 chapels??? they hold church here every day so the philippinas who only have one day off a week can all go to church, whenever their day off happens to be. it was a beautiful building! we also attended church here at the ex-pat ward...it was in english. :)the temple is also beautiful. it's amazing to see the temple right in the middle of a city street! the grounds are small, but beautiful and well taken care of. we tried to go to a session the wednesday the typhoon hit. we had no idea it was a typhoon until we got to the temple and it was closed. the mission home elders let us come inside to the chapel where julia and i played the organ (no, i DON'T play the organ) and we sat and relaxed for awhile. we were then able to go up to the mission office and meet the current mission president, President Van Dam. And we saw the plaque for President and Sister Lowe, our current stake president and his wife. They were so sweet to have ryan and i over for dinner before we left and told us all the great places to go in hong kong!we were finally able to attend the temple later in the week when the typhoon settled down.