I will try to describe the system of the international Hong
Kong District. First, the situation:
There are approximately 400 active Filipino and Indonesian
active members that attend in the Wan Chai chapel (FYI, there are actually four
chapels in this building). These workers have very difficult schedules and only
one day per week off (usually not on Aunday). If I am not mistaken, they are
the only members in the world that are allowed by the first presidency to
change the Sabbath to a different day other than Sunday.
Therefore, we have almost daily worship services (except on Mondays). Because there are almost no priesthood brethren except for the full
time branch presidency for this branch (called Victoria 2nd branch), Elder
Aldridge and I are assigned to administer the sacrament every Sunday. We do not
attend the other meetings that they have. There are then the Victoria 1st and
Island 1st and 2nd branches that meet on Sundays. Island 1 and 2 meet at 1:30
on Sundays, so we can only make it to one every other week to administer the
sacrament to these two sacrament meetings. We rotate with members of other
wards and branches, whichever priesthood brethren are available at the time.
The Victoria 1st ward is all of the people that speak fluent English and are
able to come on Sunday. Because this branch meets at 9 am, there are not too
many Filipino members here. It's mainly other races: American, English,
Russian, French, etc...Mainly white people or American born Chinese people. We
have a couple of African American families as well. I hope this is clear
enough. I am literally super-ultra-active in attending my church meetings.
Don't worry though, I will still attend all of my meetings when I'm done too.
I will probably be finishing here. I didn't know this
before, but I will also be learning Indonesian in addition to Tagalog and RE
learning fluent English. My adaptor is somewhere in the depths of my suitcase
(too busy to unpack fully so far...) so no pictures today. I will only be with Elder Aldridge for five weeks and then he finishes his mission. I will probably
be finishing my mission in this area. That's what has happened to the last ten
or so elders that have been sent here.
Have a great week! GO TO CHURCH! You should feel privileged
to have it so available. These sisters have sacrificed everything. They have
been abandoned by their families, husbands have been unfaithful, and so much
wrong has been done. They come faithfully to church though because the gospel
is literally the only thing that they have working for them!
Notes from Mom: Last week after we heard from Ian I asked more quesitons so he could clarify this week what his assignment is. I was impressed by his faith/hope that he expressed at the end of the last letter. "This is going to be fun!" Considering he added Indonesian to his repertoire, I am impressed and humbled and recognize that I can personally put more effort into what Heavenly Father asks of me. His reply: "I have Tagalog and Indonesian to learn. The details about
the system for the branches will be described in the mass email. I'm not clear
on the date, but probably around late July or early August. Remember that
around this time President Lam will be releasing approximately 33 missionaries.
That's about a quarter of the mission. He doesn't want to do that in one single
flight's worth of missionaries.
The languages are hard. You're right though, I'm
not worried about it. These people's English is actually quite excellent. I
will still do as much as possible to learn these languages though because I
have learned in my experience of Chinese that a communication of love is
infinitely more effective when two things are done. First is always to be done
by the power of the spirit. The other is to actually speak their mother
language."
I also asked to clarify where he lives because it was rumored that they live IN the Wan Chai chapel building. His answer is no. "The missionaries DEFINITELY don't live in the church
building. Those are high-level general authorities that live there. I live
about 15 minutes walk away from the chapel. The Mission President lives in the
temple. I lived across the hall from him for four-ish months." Our friends, the Burns, attend church in that building. Ian said, "I saw her husband
at church, but not her. Brother Burns is SUPER nice though! The entire branch
is."
Ian spoke briefly about his new companion, Elder Aldridge. "Elder Aldridge is awesome. Random
fact, he can solve a seven by seven by seven rubix cube...it's pretty legit."
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