I'm Famous and, more importantly, Mom's in Town!

As part of her assignments for the public affairs department, my co-worker Annie puts together news releases related to articles in the recent Ensigns. This month she did one on sharing the gospel through electronic means and decided to use me and my blog as her introduction. She even made me take a picture at home one night. Her news release got approved and is currently the lead item on the Church’s website for Hong Kong. Here’s the link: http://www.lds.org.hk/english/ Bonus points to whoever is the first to find the difference between the photo on my blog and the one used for the Church article.
Late last night my Mom and her boyfriend Don flew into Hong Kong! I was really excited for their arrival. By the time we got them checked in, took a quick look at Victoria Harbor, grabbed some ice cream, and returned to their hotel it was after 1am. I’ll post more later about our activities but it has been great so far. I love having them here and am very thankful they decided to visit.

Victoria II Branch

One of the completely unique things about Hong Kong is the Victoria 2nd Branch. It meets Tuesday through Saturday, offering a full block of meetings every day, but not on Sunday. This is totally outside of Church Handbook guidance but got First Presidency approval due to extenuating circumstances. Basically, the branch members are maids here in Hong Kong and don’t get to pick their day off. Their boss just randomly picks whatever day of the week they want and often it isn’t Sunday. To accommodate their needs, the Church decided to have a unit meet every day and encourage the sisters to make whatever day they have off their Sabbath that week. Tuesday there is probably only ten members that come but by Saturday the attendance pushes 100. It is a really unique experience and two senior couples are called specifically to run the branch and the younger missionaries help out with the Sacrament, giving talks, musical numbers, etc. when needed.
Due to this branch and the many units that meet in the Wan Chai building on Sunday you could easily take the Sacrament seven times a week and attend a full block of meetings each time. If you just went to Sacrament Meeting you could push it to nine times in a week. Last year on my travels throughout Asia there were areas with no Church so we just planned to drop by the Wednesday services in Hong Kong to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Very unique and a blessing to the members here.

Ko Family

The Ko Family is a great story. I am pictured with the three sons, but there are also three wives, numerous grandchildren, and a great set of grandparents. Grandma joined the Church about 25-30 years ago with the two oldest sons when they were 10 and 12. Grandma took the boys to Church herself and taught them the gospel. All three are active (rare in Hong Kong), married in the Temple (rarer in Hong Kong), university-educated (even rarer in Hong Kong), and now work in the Church offices. Each had great jobs in the private sector but decided to take less money to help build the kingdom and have be able to actually see their children grow up (people over here work insane hours). As a missionary Tino (far right) was my branch mission leader for five months in Shau Kei Wan and the other two were helpful members during my stay in Causeway Bay (Alec, far left and Floyd next to me). So finally after 20 or so years of Grandpa Ko holding out because he was too busy (he was really high in government) he got baptized a couple weeks after retiring. Within a few years he and his wife were called to serve as a counselor and assistant matron in the China Hong Kong Temple. It has to be one of the shortest stints from new member to sealing power in Church history! They are all wonderful people and exactly what the Church needs more of in Hong Kong and throughout the world. Generations of faithfulness and families sealed in the gospel.
The other picture is of me and Leo Marcello. I ran into him today at the Victoria II Branch and we caught up. He was a new member during my time in Discovery Bay and he has been fire ever since. Served a mission in his native Philippines and is now attending BYU-Idaho. Great guy and amazingly capable. He has already and will continue to help the Church marvelously.

Housecleaning and Final Area

While I need to do some literal house cleaning (my boss gets back to HK tomorrow) the title refers more to other matters. I want to thank everyone who has read or just taken a quick look at my blog. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the number of people who check it out and am very appreciative. My entries are much too long, self-centered, and rambling so please forgive my verbosity. In a way this has turned into my journal for my trip to Hong Kong and also an addendum to my mission journals. The opportunity to be back in Hong Kong and relive the people/places where I spent two years (and look at all my old photos) is something I have loved very much and am thankful I will have a record of it (even if it is too detailed and lacking focus). I would fail law school if I wrote like this!
My last area as a missionary was the Peninsula II Branch. It is a unit with roughly a hundred Filipina sisters who worked in Hong Kong as maids and no Priesthood. The leadership was taken from senior couples and ex-patriot members. Doing international work (anybody who doesn’t speak Cantonese as native tongue) was a really unique experience for me as it is totally different than Chinese work. We spent most of our time working with Filipina sisters and had great success. The style most missionaries use is to be friendly/flirty and talk like a 5th grader as these seem to produce great results. For those of you who know me well, these two characteristics aren’t my best. I still can’t flirt too successfully with a girl even when I want to (and abhorred the idea of doing it as a missionary) and often end up sounding like an old man when I talk who uses weird words. Needless to say I wasn’t the best international missionary. Thankfully I had Burkley Jensen (yes, both of us had college names) as my junior companion and he was an amazing missionary. He worked crazy hard and was very effective without being too flirty or ridiculous (although I did kind of get embarrassed when he’d chase the Filipinas as they would run away from us). I could tell by my second week in international that he should be in charge and basically just let him make the decisions and lead the way. We baptized a few sisters in our time together and taught another ton who eventually got baptized. We only spent six weeks together before I went home in the middle of the SARS virus (with a cold that dropped me down to 145lbs, my mom about cried when I got off the plane with anxiety for my health). I enjoyed my time in Pen II but it was definitely different than Chinese work.
I don’t have any photos of this time so I pulled out one from my departure at the airport that I’ve always loved. Four generations of women and me. The other is a shot of the Black Man where we did lots of finding and a cool shot of Victoria Harbor.

Return to Lantau

Yesterday for Church I went to the Tung Chung and Discovery Bay Branches. The Mui Wo branch was closed a few years back and the members now have to travel well over an hour to the nearest Church building in Tsing Yi. At Church I was able to see the Ho and Lee families again which was very nice. Ho Jing was the eight year old boy I baptized and he is now a lot more grown up and mature. His mom is still doing great and taking him plus two little sisters to Church every week. Bless her heart! The Lee family I remembered well because their dad served as a counselor in the Branch Presidency and our branch mission leader. They surprisingly remembered me and we reminisced about some good times. Their son was an absolute terror six years ago, running all over the Church, making all kinds of noise during Sacrament meeting, and just generally being a handful. Now he’s almost as tall as me and a really cool teenager. He was humble, funny, and seems like he is very capable. I really hope he goes on a mission because he’d be a great missionary. I took a picture with me and the two boys and told them they should both be on missions in five years. They were non-committal. We took group photos and caught up on old times, they asked about why I’m not married and requested a picture when I get married. I’ve gotten that request a lot the last few weeks. As they walked away from the Church building I was so impressed by the families’ faith and sacrifice. They had their local Church building taken away (ten minutes from their houses) because attendance wasn’t high enough and are now asked to take an uncomfortable hour bus ride followed by another 30 minutes of riding the train and walking to Church, and then do the same on the way home. They weren’t bitter and faithfully met the challenge.
After meeting with the Tung Chung Branch I attended Church with the Discovery Bay Branch (currently the two meet in the same building). There were only three families still there but it was fun nevertheless. The Sloans, Maks, and Suzukis were there when I was and they filled me in on all the developments about the branch, Discovery Bay, and the families who moved away. After Church Brother Sloan invited me over to his place to his place for dinner and offered to drive me around Discovery Bay in their golf cart to see all the changes. Dinner and visiting at their place was lots of fun as they have 4 kids under eight who are all a delight. It was like playing with my own nieces and nephews except with New Zealand accents. The same family had had Elder Newman and myself over six plus years, three kids, four apartments, and a few other things previously. It was wonderful to be back and feel their warmth all over again. They are an awesome family!
All in all the day was really great. I got to see some of the families I loved most from my mission and one of my favorite areas. Discovery Bay had grown/changed a lot but still felt like a resort compared to the rest of Hong Kong. That is the last unit I planned to visit on my Sundays in Hong Kong so I’m not real sure what to do with myself next week.
Photos LS 1) Lee's son and Ho Jing (on my right) 2 & 3) Discovery Bay International School = where we had Church and Discovery Bay's private beach 4)Lee family 5) Ho family, plus a few other kids mixed in RS 1) Brothers Sloan and Suzuki 2 & 3) Waterfront at DB and DB Plaza

Lantau Island - My Third and Probably Favorite Area

After seven months in the northern reaches of the mission (Yeun Long and Sheung Shui) I was transferred to the SW corner of Hong Kong. I served on Lantau Island (the biggest one in Hong Kong actually) and loved my time there. We lived in a town called Mui Wo and served in a small Chinese branch and a medium-sized English speaking branch called Discovery Bay. This are was completely different than the rest of Hong Kong. There were way fewer people and it was a much slower pace to life. When I was told about the move my mission president described it as the one place in the mission where you should feel free to sit down with a guy at a park and play a game of chess, just making friends, and not stressing over time. Compared to the rest of Hong Kong, this was a revelation. The scenery and lifestyle on Lantau was so peaceful and beautiful. Additionally, since the real estate was much cheaper here we had a large apartment for just my companion and me. It was the only time on my mission I lived with just one other Elder. Finally, the area was huge and yet so underdeveloped by Hong Kong standards. There pretty much was only one road on the south side of the island (where we spent all our time) with just a handful of villages. Trying to study Chinese while riding around on a bumpy bus was a sure recipe for a headache.
Companions = Elder Newman was my companion here for the first six weeks. He was a great missionary and one of my favorite companions. We worked hard but also had a lot of fun doing it. His Chinese was really good and he kept our companionship humming. I remember moving to the area and walking into the apartment to see one wall covered with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups cereal boxes. I guess the local grocery store had had some close-out sale and Elder Newman bought over 50 boxes. He had that cereal at least two meals a day for the first month I lived with him. Pretty entertaining.
My second companion on Lantau was Elder Law. He was my only native Chinese companion during my mission. I haven’t been able to track him down since getting home though.
Members/Area = I loved both branches we served in the members in both. The Mui Wo branch met in a rented facility about a 5 minute walk from where we lived but only had about a dozen active members (half of which were children) so we became tight with everyone. Each Sunday we would bless and pass the Sacrament which was a unique experience on my mission. Trying to get the sounds and tones just right for the Sacrament prayer s was very nerve wracking. I think the Branch President might have used a lot of mercy in allowing some of my efforts to pass. The Ho family had a son who was approaching the age 8 so they had us come over and teach him the discussions. It was a nice chance to visit each week and say hello. Since the father was inactive they asked me to baptize him which was really nice.
The Discovery Bay Branch is where I would most likely live if I come back to Hong Kong full-time in the next ten years. There were lots of young families with another dozen or so Filipina sisters working in Hong Kong as domestic helpers. We would meet in the local international school and Church was very enjoyable. The families were all very accomplished, with the fathers working as lawyers and bankers and the wives staying at home raising families. It was in a way the prototypical ward on a small scale. Our branch mission leader was a good guy who’d served his mission in Taiwan and was back working for Merrill Lynch. His wife was younger than me so that was a little strange. Finally, a different member family would have us over every Sunday for dinner and serve us the most amazing home-cooked meals. It was like being back in America.
Missionary Work = This is another reason while I loved this area so much. I was able to meet and teach two wonderful people who were baptized. The first was David Athukorala and the second was Jasmine Lee. David was a golden investigator who we couldn’t baptize fast enough. Jasmine took a little bit longer but was real pleasure to teach. Teaching her was also different than normal because she was from mainland China and her native tongue was Mandarin. She also spoke good Cantonese and a little English but lived in Discovery Bay so she wanted to join the English speaking branch. To teach her we needed to women to fellowship so we’d get two of the wives in the ward to help. One was Sister Ou from China who would re-teach/clarify everything in Mandarin for us. It was really funny listening to Sister Ou take over and explain concepts like the law of chastity, tithing, etc in another language and then after her and Jasmine talking uninterrupted for five minutes we would simply ask, “Any questions?” The other members who helped us out was Sister Combs from Oklahoma. She didn’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin so she’d just sit in the room and knit during the whole discussion but we appreciated her presence as she made us legal according to the missionary handbook.
Memorable Experiences = This area offered my first opportunity to baptize and my only time living in a building other than a skyscraper. Also, since the members all worked at big companies they would have access to yachts and such. One time they invited us and we got permission from the mission president to go if we took an investigator or two along for fellowshipping purposes. We called every person we’d taught in the last six months and eventually got two to come with us. It was a fun day cruising on the boat, eating great food, and listening to non-Church music. We had a great story to tell at the next mission conference and make all the other missionaries jealous. Also, since the island was so big and isolated we would take big hikes out through tiny villages and talk to random people who had rarely seen white people, let alone ones who could speak Cantonese. We went and visited Big Buddha, the world’s largest outdoor bronze Buddha. Had my year out mission party here. It was a great area.
Favorite Song = “Prayer of the Children,” see blog entry.
Favorite Meal = Home-cooked meals by American families.

Running Description of Photos: Left side 1) Athukoralas = pride and joy of my mission 2) Jasmine's baptism = I loved how we got to baptize in streams and rock pools in this area. It was so unusual and yet beautiful. Almost all the branch would come out to support the new member and it was so almost re-enacting the Water of Mormon. 3) The Baptismal Cart = In Discvoery Bay no cars are allowed so people rent golf carts for their transportation (or walk everywhere, it really is like living in a resort). For baptisms we'd all walk or golf cart a half mile or so up the mountain to the pool/stream. 4) Group trip to Big Buddha 5) Elder Newman and I out on the Linklaters company boat. We had to wear proselyting clothes while the other 15 people were in water attire but we didn't care. Cruising on the ocean with the wind whipping through your hair was not a usual missionary feeling. Right side 1) Me in Tai O. A small village on the SW corner of Lantau with lots of buildings built on stilts over the water. 2) The rented Church facility in Mui Wo 3) Silvermine Bay - Our apartment is just out of view to the left of the hotel seen in the picture. Every morning we'd wake up and look out the window to the sight of a beautiful beach / bay. It was amazing! 4) Party with my fellow MTCers at our year mark. Sports on the beach and tacos.

Recent Happenings

Work has been good lately. I have been working on a binder project that is more clerical than legal but very interesting. I review all of our emails, documents, etc for a country and decide what is legal advice / important and then place in a categorized binder. The fun part is learning about the Church’s growth / legal problems throughout Asia over the last 5-10 years. So far I’ve done Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Cambodia (which also included Vietnam). Lets just say the work moves in mysterious ways.
On the social front I went to the beach with the YSAs on Saturday. Swimming in the ocean in HK still kind of feels like I’m breaking a rule a rule or something. Whether that’s due to the nastiness of the water or the lingering effects of the Missionary Handbook I’m not certain but its strange. We had a nice time but I had to bail early to go home and do laundry and another couple errands. I invited everyone over in the evening though to watch a movie so they let me depart in peace.
Friday night I took a trip down memory lane. I pulled out my Missionary Weekly Reports (letters to mission president) from my mission and read through all of them. I had never done this and it was a lot of fun. It brought back so many memories of places, investigators, companions, etc. After reading them I wonder if my mission president debated whether I was retarded at times, but I did get a few good jokes in. Even made myself laugh seven years after writing them. I don’t know how it was for other people on missions, but I usually struggled what to write in these.
All in all, life has been good lately and I’m excited for my mom’s arrival in just over 24 hours.
The two pictures are of the beach and a cemetery I passed on the drive back to town. It’s a good illustration of how real estate in at a premium in HK. You can’t even get a good-sized piece of land to be buried in. In fact, I’ve even heard that now it is mandatory that every gets cremated in Hong Kong.

Sheung Shui - My Second Area

After 18 weeks in Yeun Long and not teaching a discussion the last seven I was ready for a transfer. I was sent to the area Sheung Shui. It is located just to the east of Yeun Long but in the next stake/zone over. Also, it borders China for its entire northern boundary and was a continuation of the rural, less crazy part of Hong Kong. We lived in the next area over (Fanling) and would walk a half hour every day from our apartment to our area. Can’t think of much else to say for general description of the area.
Companion = Elder Tang, an American-born-Chinese (ABC). He was from Philadelphia and very American in some ways (English much better than Cantonese), but also Chinese in many ways. We had our struggles at times but I think we both learned a lot from each other. He went back to Utah post-mission and married a girl from Asia. We’ve kept in touch some and sounds like he’s doing well. I lived with two other Elders here that were lots of fun. Elder Wayne Ott from Tropic, UT and Elder Solan from Orem. Ott used to write “Mom,” his zip code, and USA on his letters home and it would work fine. His mom was the postmaster so that helped. Elder Solan won a bet with me he would still be single when I got home from mission (he left when I had 15 months left) and is still single to this day. I still owe him a steak dinner too.
Members/Ward = We served in the Sheung Shui Ward. It had a fair amount of young families and a solid core, but only numbered around 60. Our ward mission leader was a good guy but didn’t really have a good handle on things. One night he did have us over to his house for dinner and I left in a slightly worse off condition. His three year old son got really interested in something on the other side of the table and decided to logically take the shortest course to his destination. In his journey over the table he knocked a bowl of hot soup over and right into my lap. It got my shirt, tie, and pants all soaked. It was quite funny after the fact. Another cool member was an elderly lady named Lai Mommy. She was a doctor and had an office in town that didn’t get much business but served as a HQ for the missionaries teaching efforts. She’d have the whole district over for lunch once a week on top of letting us use her office to teach. A wonderful lady! I actually visited her last year on one of my layovers during my Asia trip. Lastly, the Church building was beautiful but in the middle of nowhere. If you walked from our apartment it was about 45 minutes out of town. Usually we’d take a minibus. The benefit of being out of town was that it was a free-standing chapel that looked more American than any in Hong Kong.
Missionary Work = We had some slow times here, but also some success at times (12 weeks in area). The definite highlight was teaching Chan Bo Sing. He was a 17 year old young man who we randomly met while waiting to catch a bus. He looked like a total ‘Feijai’ (punk) with spiked, colored hair, earrings, and an attitude. However, as we met with and taught him over 8 weeks he changed completely in appearance and attitude. As the junior companion it was my job to call him nightly and share a scripture and check up on him and I really grew close to him. Sadly I was transferred the week of his baptism so I missed the wonderful occasion. The last Sunday I was there I thanked him for letting me teach him the gospel and he replied that he should be thanking us. He then bore his testimony about how he didn’t know God before meeting us and now had a relationship with his Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ. It still brings joy/happiness whenever I think about it. He will always hold a special place in my heart as he was the first person I taught who got baptized (a good seven months after arriving in Hong Kong and almost 10 months after leaving on my mission).
Memorable Experiences = First baptism, soup on lap, long doctrinal conversation with English dude, and a few others. We did ‘Sports Finds’ here with the members every Saturday morning which largely consisted of the entire zone’s Elders playing soccer against the local Chinese members and a few non-members they’d recruit to their team. It was lots of fun but not too effective for missionary work. That was especially the case because the Elders insisted on winning and running over the competition (Asians don’t play sports as rough as Americans). I would go home disillusioned every Saturday thinking, “I thought the point of missionary work is to get people to like/listen to us, not dislike/speak ill of us.” Seriously, what’s the deal with guys and sports?! One day Elder Tang and I took a hike out towards China and climbed this really big hill northwest of town. It was awesome as it had an abandoned observation post where the British troops used to monitor the border and offered a great view into Shenzhen (when it wasn’t too cloudy/foggy). We got some great pictures and talked/dreamed about going into China as missionaries.
Favorite Meal = This was another area where we ate a lot of McDonalds. The members took us out to a couple good YumCha (kind of Chinese buffet) places.
Favorite Song = I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but “Her Garden” from EFY 2000. It just stuck with me and helped me to understand the importance of women and their divine role in God’s plan.

Running Descpription of Photos: Left Side 1) Chan Bo Sing and me. I've talked to him on the phone so far but he's proving difficult to schedule. 2) The entrance to the Restricted Area. Technically you had to have a special permit to go into this area. We felt a need to proclaim to the souls within. OK, maybe we actually just wanted to climb the mountain and get some good pictures of China. 3) The countryside and our town all in one. I loved the contrast between the two. On the same day we could tract people in 20-story public housing blocks and small shacks next to a field less than a mile away. 4) Spent my first Christmas in the area. The first 30 minutes of the call was spent on hellos, love yas, how's the work, etc., then I talked with my dad until the phone card ran out about sports, politics, world affairs, and everything I'd missed for the last seven months. 5) Fanling Church building. Right side 1 & 4) Visting Buddhist Temple in Shatin 2) The first of two pairs of shoes I walked through on my mission. Those were mighty comfy but weren't made for walking. 3) Mainland China is in the background. I like the mists of darkness, appropriate for a land that restricts the freedom of the gospel. 5) Public square in Sheung Shui where we would go contacting a lot.

Immovable Objection - And Rest of Week

Last Saturday after visiting with So Ying Ying I decided to walk all over two of my old areas. I went all over Shau Kei Wan and then made my way to Causeway Bay. As I was walking near the Sogos intersection in Causeway Bay I thought I’d look for the mother of an investigator we had, Derrick Tse. He heard about four discussions and really wanted to be baptized but his mother was completely opposed and wouldn’t let it happen. She didn’t like our Church or the fact that it would take time away from her son’s studies.
Fast forward six years and guess what, it is the same thing. She runs a newspaper stand (hard work that doesn’t pay great) and sits there all day selling stuff to passer-bys. I found where I thought her stand was (we’d visited a few times as missionaries and I thought I recognized her) and asked if she knew the guy I had taught. At first she denied knowing him but then when some nice lady stepped in to help translate she admitted it was her son. We chatted for a bit and I explained that I was back in town visiting and would love to see her son again. She was totally opposed and wouldn’t give me any contact information for him. I negotiated away any chance to share the gospel with him, saying all I want to do is grab a meal and catch up, and she still wouldn’t budge. Eventually she told me to come back on Monday morning and we’d go talk to someone.
So I showed up Monday and she didn’t have anyone for us to go visit so instead we sat/stood there together for 80 minutes as I begged/pleaded/befriended/did everything I could to get her to give me her son’s contact information. She again wouldn’t budge. She is literally scared to death of our Church. Thinks it is a total cult or something. I don’t know who brainwashed her but all my explaining didn’t do any good. I tried using every missionary skill I could still employ, all to no effect (It doesn’t help that the name of the Book of Mormon in Chinese sounds like Devil’s Door Scripture and our Church’s Chinese translation of Mormon Church sounds like Devil’s Door Church. The devil character is written different than the Moses character but sounds the same and the Church used the Moses one for the Church name and Book of Mormon. And our official Church name over here used to be ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of End of the World Saints.’ Thankfully ‘end of the world’ has been changed to ‘last generation.’ Sorry back to the discussion. Derrick’s mom even tried to buy me off. She gave me an envelope with 500HKD in it (like 65USD) and said thanks for visiting and caring about her son but I don’t want him to see you. I wouldn’t take the money (she was ticked) but seriously it was depressing. All I want to do is say hi to the kid, catch up on life (he’s awesome, in medical school now), get his email, and restart our friendship but his mom is adamantly opposed. She used the school excuse again that he has no time and said to come back in two years. I was like, I don’t know if I’ll be back in Hong Kong for 30 years, and I already waited six years because he was too busy with school. How much longer do I have to wait? So yeah, I got shot down. I’ll go visit again another time before I leave and leave my contact information if she won’t give me his. Such is missionary work in Hong Kong.

I took the rest of Monday off, walked a ton, bought a suit (65USD, but worried the color might be too light), visited the Temple, and hosted the YSAs for a game night. The rest of my week has gone well with the usual busy days at work. Today was very special. We had a nice Pioneer Day service and I got my new contact. Hurray!!!

Pictures are of: 1) Derrick's mom and I. We were pretty good friends by the time I left. I think I'd shared everything I knew how to say in Cantonese about myself and my family, all to no avail. 2) A three-story golf driving range I walked past. 3) The no-so-express express mail delivery of my contact. But its great to see again and be able to use my right eye.

Day of Miracles & A Never-ending Responsibility

Last Saturday I sat down at my computer and started calling people from my mission that I want to see while here in Hong Kong (thank you Skype). I’d tried to reach some before but didn’t have much success and didn’t have the highest hopes for some of the others. I was calling people I hadn’t talked to in five or six years who now have no contact with the Church, all the while speaking broken Cantonese. In the space of an hour I was able to get a hold of four people and even get one of them to meet with me that afternoon.
The one who I scheduled to meet is named SoYing Ying (Yanny) and I had the honor of baptizing her as the District Leader after the Sisters taught her. I called at 10:40am on a Saturday but still managed to wake her up (woops). She was totally sleepy when she picked up the phone and I’m sitting there trying to explain who I am. “Hello, this is Brother Lai, I was a missionary in Shau Kei Wan six years ago, I’m from America, I helped baptize you.” It all just sounds so weird. What would you do if somebody called saying such things and you hadn’t seen the real person in years?
Much to my surprise she said she was free that afternoon and we could meet to grab some food. We met up at the subway station and walked to a local restaurant. Our conversation was very relaxed and we caught up easily. She spent a year in England so that helped things whenever my Cantonese came up short. She’s working in Central now for a fashion design house, has a good job, boyfriend, her family is doing well, etc. She said she quit going to Church about a year after her baptism and hasn’t been back since. It wasn’t a surprise but it was disappointing. I invited her over for a get together I’m going to throw with all my Chinese friends and she said she’d come so that was nice. We exchanged contact information, walked over to the old Church building and took pictures.
It was great to see her again. She was one of the people I hadn’t communicated with at all since my mission and wasn’t too hopeful of tracking down. Thankfully her cell phone number hadn’t changed since she was baptized and she was amazingly willing to meet some foreign stranger. I’ll be sure to keep in contact with her from now on and encourage her in the gospel.
The other people I talked with are Sum Ka Kit, Ho Jing’s mother, and Chan Bo Sing. I have talked to Sum a few times since finishing my mission and seen him once (in 2004) so I had hope for tracking him down. He’s way busy now with work and other things in life and has slipped into inactivity but still had his happy voice and kind words. We just have to find some time in his busy schedule to meet. Ho Jing was an eight year old boy in a member family who the parents asked us to teach the discussions to and then baptize because the father was inactive. We hadn’t talked in over six years but they were nice and I should be seeing Ho Jing and his mom at Church this coming Sunday. Chan Bo Sing was another miraculous connection. I haven’t talked with him since 2004 and could have sworn his phone number had changed. I tried calling him last year while in town and the number didn’t work but this year I got a hold of him. He’s a cop now up in the New Territories so I’m going to have to make a long trip to see him but will gladly do it if he’ll give me the time.
President Hinckley shared a story from his life in the 1997 April Priesthood Session to help illustrate his teachings on retention. I love it and would commend it to any returned missionary or person leaving on a mission. It reads:
“To illustrate, I think I would like to share with you one of my failures. I suppose some people think I have never experienced failure. I have. Let me tell you of one such instance.
Sixty-three years ago, while serving as a missionary in the British Isles, my companion and I taught, and it was my pleasure to baptize, a young man. He was well educated. He was refined. He was studious. I was so proud of this gifted young man who had come into the Church. I felt he had all of the qualifications someday to become a leader among our people.
He was in the course of making the big adjustment from convert to member. For a short period before I was released, mine was the opportunity to be his friend. Then I was released to return home. He was given a small responsibility in the branch in London. He knew nothing of what was expected of him. He made a mistake. The head of the organization where he served was a man I can best describe as being short on love and strong on criticism. In a rather unmerciful way, he went after my friend who had made the simple mistake.
The young man left our rented hall that night smarting and hurt by his superior officer. He said to himself, "If that is the kind of people they are, then I am not going back."
He drifted into inactivity. The years passed. The war came on, and he served in the British forces. His first wife died. After the war he married a woman whose father was a Protestant minister. That did not help his belief.
When I was in England, I tried desperately to find him. His file contained no record of a current address. I came home and finally, after a long search, was able to track him down.
I wrote to him. He responded but with no mention of the gospel.
When next I was in London, I again searched for him. The day I was to leave, I found him. I called him, and we met in the underground station. He threw his arms around me as I did around him. I had very little time before I had to catch my plane, but we talked briefly and with what I think was a true regard for one another. He gave me another embrace before I left. I determined that I would never lose track of him again. Through the years I wrote to him, letters that I hoped would give encouragement and incentive to return to the Church. He wrote in reply without mentioning the Church.
The years passed. I grew older as did he. He retired from his work and moved to Switzerland. On one occasion when I was in Switzerland, I went out of my way to find the village where he lived. We spent the better part of a day together--he, his wife, my wife, and myself. We had a wonderful time, but it was evident that the fire of faith had long since died. I tried every way I knew, but I could not find a way to rekindle it. I continued my correspondence. I sent him books, magazines, recordings of the Tabernacle Choir, and other things for which he expressed appreciation.
He died a few months ago. His wife wrote me to inform me of this. She said, "You were the best friend he ever had."
Tears coursed my cheeks when I read that letter. I knew I had failed. Perhaps if I had been there to pick him up when he was first knocked down, he might have made a different thing of his life. I think I could have helped him then. I think I could have dressed the wound from which he suffered. I have only one comfort: I tried. I have only one sorrow: I failed.
The challenge now is greater than it has ever been because the number of converts is greater than we have ever before known. A program for retaining and strengthening the convert will soon go out to all the Church. I plead with you, brethren; I ask of you, each of you, to become a part of this great effort. Every convert is precious. Every convert is a son or daughter of God. Every convert is a great and serious responsibility.”

Interspersed are pictures of people I helped teach or baptize. Lately one of the Brethren spoke about how your responsibility to those you teach and baptize as a missionary doesn’t end when you leave your mission but extends throughout your life. I haven’t done the best job of this in the past but am trying now and will keep trying. Pictures going down the left side: 1) David Athukorala's baptism 2) David baptizing his wife Shewanthie a couple months later 3) Elder Krueger, myself, Janson (who we taught and baptized), and Janson's friend 4) So Ying Ying's baptism 5) Chan Bo Sing and I 6) Sum Ga Git, Elder David and myself On the right side: 1) Athukorala family 2) Elder Newman, Marcellos, and myself. Their son was already a member and they would join later. 3) So Ying Ying and I from last Saturday 4) Jasmine Lee's baptism 5) Jasmine and I at at Farewell Fireside.