Return to SKW / Chai Wan Ward

This past Sunday I went to the Chai Wan Ward and saw many familiar faces. It was a lot of fun. Priesthood opening exercises was quite funny as they playfully made fun of my coming back and that they hoped to not see me again since I’m going to be lawyer. Sum Ka Kit and So Ying Ying are both inactive now so that was disappointing but also not surprising. I took a cool picture with many of the Priesthood leaders I interacted with most. The far left is former Brother, now Bishop Mh. He's a great guy, just very humble and solid (I like that word). To my right is another Brother Mh, who was my correlator the last month or two I was in the area. He took

his calling seriously. We had to be on our toes and prepared because correlation meeting was fast and furious and he didn't take no junk from nobody. To my left is President Lam. He was the Branch President with 5 kids who run

s a translation firm. Being the consumate professional looking for business he hooked me up with his card explaining they translate contracts and other legal documents all the time. Just in case I come back to Hong Kong to practice. He's got seven mouths to feed so I can understand. The next picture is of Lam Hoi Tin and myself. We served together as missionaries and he is a genuinely cool Chinese person. Cool and Chinese don't seem to go together often to me but he pulled it off quite well. The next pic is of myself and Janet Chong. She was a new member when I moved into the area and helped the sister missionaries a lot. She's still going strong and still very nice/helpful. The last picture is of Elder Romney and myself. We walked into the Church building at the same time Sunday and he remembered me from our time together as missionaries in Hong Kong. Mitt's his uncle and he was finishing in internship or something in China.

Shau Kei Wan – My Fifth Area

After four plus months in the Causeway Bay Ward I was moved to the neighboring branch, Shau Kei Wan. It was in the same zone and still on Hong Kong Island just a little more east. It was also one of, if not the smallest area geographically in my mission. I think our area literally was something around 3 square miles I served here for the next six months, the longest time in any one area during my mission. The last month or so the branch was combined with the neighboring Chai Wan Ward so my area greatly expanded and most the local leadership changed.
Shau Kei Wan started out rough but by the time I left I had grown quite fond of the area. Here’s the rundown:
Companions = My first companion in SKW was Elder Colyer. He is from Orem, Utah and a large guy. In high school he played offensive line for the football team and I could see him being a ferocious blocker and yet a fun teammate to play with. He always had a smile on his face and a happy demeanor. We didn’t exactly talk about politics or deep gospel topics during our time together but we got along pretty well.
My second companion here was Elder David, my greenie. He’s from SLC (Holiday) and had worked as a bank teller and attended Salt Lake Community College before his mission. He had an interesting family story and had a great heart. A very powerful memory I have of him was during his Christmas call home encouraging his non-member father to read the Book of Mormon and Elder David bearing his testimony about it and the Church with tears running down his cheeks.
My third companion was Elder Cameron Smith. He was from Boulder, Colorado and a really cool guy. We worked hard and taught a lot. He’s one companion I’d really like to get in touch with again but haven’t been able to find. No picture from mission either.
Members/Ward: I loved the Shau Kei Wan Branch. Attendance was probably only about 40 most Sundays but the small numbers made it easier to establish strong relationships with each member. The Branch President had five kids (unheard of in Hong Kong) and was a really funny guy who spoke great English. Our Ward Mission Leader was a really fun guy who made every correlation meeting both enjoyable and productive. I still remember a story he told about going shopping with his wife and carrying all her bags and it brings smile to my face every time. There were a few other faithful members I got to know well and loved to see regularly.
Missionary Work: Shau Kei Wan was a tiny place but still probably had a couple hundred thousand people. We street contacted here hours every day. We swam through the Blue Ocean like it was a our private pool. But all the finding did pay off with regular discussions. I probably hit my groove while in this area. At times we had five plus investigators and taught 5-10 discussions a week (both pretty good for Chinese companionships). All the finding and teaching didn’t turn into too many baptisms but I loved my time here and felt really blessed. Elder David and I were able to baptize a young man named Sum Ka Kit (Keith) and I taught another young man for a while who wanted to get baptized but his dad wouldn’t let him. I also served as the District Leader here for a while and had the opportunity to conduct a few baptismal interviews. Very nerve wracking the first time but they turned into wonderful, enjoyable spiritual experiences once I turned it into a simple friendly conversation about the gospel.
Memorable Experiences: We went to a ward activity on Christmas Day or Eve out to Sai Kung (rural, jungle country park) and got to see some beautiful country. On the Thursday after the 2002 November elections I told my greenie this was the only time he was going to see me blatantly break the rules. I then proceeded to jump into 7-11 and take a quick look at the headline of the South China Morning Post to see who won the election back in the US. I walked out with a big smile on my face. My last Sunday in the combined ward I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting ½ paying attention when I thought I heard my name and the word stand. Everyone was looking at me so I popped up afraid of what I’d missed. Thinking I was supposed to bear my testimony or something I was about to start moving towards the aisle when Bro. Mh said, “Everyone who can show your appreciate for Elder Layton’s service in our ward, please show your hand.” I guess I was being released from a calling or something. It was bizarre, never seen it before or since but I learned again to pay attention in Sacrament Meeting, especially during ward business. Finally, twice the elevator went out in our complex and we had to hike 20-something flights of stairs any time we went home. Thankfully it was during the winter.
Favorite Meal: I think I ate a lot of PB&Js here. The other one that stands out was the Curry House. It was right downstairs at the bottom of our apartment complex and our zone would go eat there after every zone find in our area. It was strong too.
Favorite Song: “Bring Them In” from EFY 2002. I like the story of the song and it gave me a country music feel, which I did miss while on my mission.

Running Description of Photos: 1) Baptism of So Ying Ying (Yanni) I was the District Leader and conducted the baptismal interview so she chose me for baptism. She had to wait almost three years to be baptized because her parents wouldn't give her permission. Even when she did get baptized at 18 she had to lie about it and going to Church because her dad wouldn't let her out of the house if she was going to a Christian church. She'd leave in jeans and then change at the Church. 2) Baptism of Sum Ka Kit. Elder David and I found him while street contacting, taught him all six discussions, and had the pleasure of baptizing him as well. He was a really good, quiet kid. For our 3rd meeting we showed him the movie "On the Way Home" and he was crying at the end and wasn't really talkative so we finished up with a closing prayer and hoped he'd meet with us again not knowing what was going on. Turns out his dad has passed away a couple years before and the idea of eternal families really hit him hard. He loved it and after feeling the Spirit so strongly was golden from then on. Myself and roommates Elder David, Bethers, and Loutham. I've kept in touch with all since getting home and even played some golf with Elder/Sister Bethers (his favorite saying when someone leaves a putt short). 4) Group on a Preparation Day excursion to Sehk O Beach. We played rugby, football, and whatever else came to mind. Some guy made an amazing catch where he ran into a thigh high brick wall shortly after hauling the ball in. Even held onto it after impact. 5) Elders Miyazaki, Colyer, Chan, and some lazy guy lying on top. 6) Brother Chan and me. He was a member who kind of adopted all the missionaries in Hong Kong. He took almost every missionary to the local amusement park each year in December. Additionally he bought most missionaries an expensive watch before they went home and took 20 or so missionaries out to eat at HardRock, RubyTuesday, TGIFs, or some other great restaurant every preparation day. Guesstimates for his annual spending on missionaries ranged anywhere from 8-15K. One very generous man. And don't say there isn't any money in the toy business, he made his owning 3 stores. 7) Leighton Rd and I. Its actually in CWB area but I got the picture on a zone find while serving in SKW. 8) The Church building in SKW, since sold when the new massive one was built in Wan Chai. I spent a lot of time in that building over six months. We did most of our teaching there and played a lot of ping pong while getting stood up for multiple appointments every week. 9) A view of the main drag in town we walked up and down every day. I think I met Sum Ka Kit right about here. 10) My apartment for six months. If was a descent sized one but not the cleanest. However, our study room had an amazing view of the eastern edge of Victoria Harbor/Kowloon side and I got the massive, cushy chair. Morning study and meal breaks were very enjoyable here. 11) Bakery right below our building that hooked us up with free stuff a few times. 12) SKW bus stop, lots of street contacting here.

Prayer of and for the Children

This week my brother Spencer and his wife Lindsay were blessed with a new baby girl, Grace Day Layton. This has prompted me to think about children lately. Being back in Hong Kong it has also made me think of a child I first met here as a missionary and two brothers which came into her family later. Her name is Deshenie Athukorala and she is the daughter of a man I baptized. His wife later joined the Church and they returned to their homeland of Sri Lanka about the time I left Hong Kong. Later two sons joined the family and David and Shewanthie went about living the gospel and raising a family. These three children are probably the ones I care most about in the whole world outside of my two nieces and four nephews. Deshenie is a beautiful, kind girl who was baptized this past January. Her two brothers are very important to me, not least of all because they were each given one of my names. Last summer on my big trip to Asia I had the chance to visit the Athukoralas in Sri Lanka for over two weeks. It was a joyous time as I played with the kids, attended Church together, and was asked to offer Priesthood blessings. If you want to know more about the family or my time in Sri Lanka look at blog entries from last June.
The combination of being back in my mission and thinking about kids has made me think of a song I first heard while serving in Hong Kong as a missionary. It is called “Prayer of the Children” and was originally written and performed by Kurt Bestor. He served as a missionary in Yugoslavia in the 1970s and was inspired to write the song as a tribute to the children there when war broke out in the 1990s. The song offers a prayer of children in war-torn countries and hopes for a better day. You can listen to it by linking to this page: http://www.poofcat.com/childprayer.html. I loved the song from the first time I heard it and listened to it daily for the six weeks I served in Mui Wo with the companion who owned the CD. In the last year the song has taken on greater significance to me as Sri Lanka has resumed a very heated civil war. Thankfully, Deshenie, Deshaun Hughes, and Chamal Yale live in the capital Colombo and do not face gunfire or daily violence. But there lives are in danger as bombs are detonated in Colombo regularly. One even went off at a market the family shops at less than a mile from their home earlier this year. Whenever I hear this song I think the Athukorala children and countless others across the world who face death, suffering, and pain for no reason and at no fault of their own. I know God loves little children and watches over them. I pray for them and that they will remain safe in this time of difficulty for their country.
The other part of the blog title (Prayer for the Children) comes from a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that I think of occasionally (http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-353-29,00.html). With Grace’s birth it gave me occasion to study the words again and reflect on the gospel, families, and the type of parent I hope to be. The gospel of Jesus Christ and His true Church on the earth mean everything to me. My Savior’s influence and the guidance of His Church have blessed my life in so many ways. I have learned from watching my siblings raise their families that the responsibilities of parenthood are not easy, especially in the crazy world in which we live. My nieces and nephews are wonderful children and their parents are doing a great job. I hope I can do my small part as an uncle to love and encourage, and share my testimony of where true happiness comes from.

I haven't got a picture of Grace yet and hope one will be coming soon (hint, hint). The last picture is the one I have with the greatest combination of nieces/nephews. The youngest two are very much on my mind and loved just as much.

Hong Kong YSAs

Much to my surprise, there is actually a descent collection of English-speaking Young Single Adults here in Hong Kong. They got to Church in the Victoria 1st Branch and often get together for nights out or other activities. Thankfully, they have been very kind and invited me to many of their gathering lately. All together there are probably about 20 of us who are in Hong Kong for work stints of anywhere from a month to two years. They are lots of fun and a bright group of people. This week I joined them for crepes and hanging out one night, making cheesecakes another, and last night we went and saw the new Batman movie. I didn’t get to bed until 2am and felt the effects all day. The combination of an active, late social life with waking up early and long work hours is something I can’t handle well and marvel at anyone who can. With my boss out of town and his encouragement, I’ve invited everyone over for a game night tomorrow. I hope it goes well.

Work Trip to Macao

Tuesday this past week (July 15) I had the pleasure of going to Macao for the first time. Macao was Portugal’s version of Hong Kong, in that they had a history going back hundreds of years living in Macao and had sovereignty over it for over a hundred years. It was the last territory from a foreign power to be handed back to China in 1999. It is about an hour boat ride from Hong Kong via a fast ferry. While Macao was also in my mission, I never had the opportunity to serve there. It had the reputation of being a little slower-paced by Hong Kong, and also kind of spiritually dead as gambling and prostitution were legal. It was also regarded as something of a back-water as it was poorer than Hong Kong and not quite as modern.
Elder Newell and I left the office around 930am and made our way to Sheung Wan and the ferry pier. After the hour boat ride we caught a taxi and went to our lawyer’s office to have a meeting. The meeting was interesting but not too productive as our attorney wasn’t really an expert in the area where our problem is. After lunch we had lunch with the one senior Elder in Macao and he filled us in on how the Church was doing there. The restaurant was really quite good as I ordered a curry chicken meal while the two senior Elders got American food. Also, the restaurant was right across the street from the Church so I got a picture of it.
Macao’s Portuguese history is still visible because many of the colonial buildings are still there and the Portuguese language is much more common than English. While it still has lots of history, Macao is now changing quickly as well. The government decided to end the gambling monopoly of Stanley Ho and has sold licenses to foreign companies/people like MGMGrand, Steve Wynn, Sands, and others. Gambling revenue in Macao has already passed Las Vegas and continues to grow something like 30% annually. If I didn’t have moral qualms doing it, I would totally invest in the stocks of companies with casinos in Macao because Asians love to gamble.
The trip was good and I filled up the last blank page of my passport. It has been a nine-plus year effort but I finally got the job done. When my mom comes to visit we plan on visiting Macao again so I hope they won't hassle me about my passport. I don’t have any future plans for foreign travel after that and will retire this passport with many fond memories attached.
Pictures are of boat to Macao, Sands Casino on the waterfront, Church in Macao, old style Portuegese building, new development in Macao with tons of big cranes (China is growing like this all over; its amazing), and Macao space needle or whatever its called. Sister Newell is trying to find someone to go bungee jumping / zip line thingy with her off of this. Its something like a 500 foot fall. I took a pass.

Return to Causeway Bay

Technically speaking, I'm in the Causeway Bay all the time. Both my apartment and work are in the ward boundaries, but I hadn't been able to see many of the member until last Sunday (the 12th) when I went back to visit the Causeway Bay Ward. It was a nice experience although a lot of the people I knew from my time as a missionary have moved away. My ward mission leader Bro. Sehk is now the Bishop and Annie and Billy were there so I got a picture with us three together. Annie is back in town for her first extended stay since joining the Church and the ward is putting her to use. She gets asked to teach either Relief Society or Sunday School every Sunday and sometimes has to do both. I’m the complete opposite, currently callingless, and in the middle of two months of ward-hopping without attending the same ward twice. Definitely a habit I will not continue when I return home. They meet in the Wan Chai Building too so I ended up going to that building for work/Church things about 12 days straight. Pictures are of Billy, Annie and me; Bishop Sehk and me, and Sister Lai and me (same Chinese name I have).

Causeway Bay - My Fourth Area

After serving the first ten months of my time in Hong Kong in arguably the three most rural areas of the mission I joked with my mission that he was afraid to send a farm boy to the city. He chuckled and then the joke was on me. When the next moves came out I was assigned to the Causeway Bay Ward on Hong Kong Island, probably one of the busiest, most crowded places in the world. I served here 18 weeks and ended up enjoying it a lot. The ward was solid, even if a little less friendly than ones I had served in the past. The area was full of tall buildings and Hong Kong landmarks. We often would street contact at Sogo’s (busiest intersection in the world), Victoria Park, along King’s Road, and at the waterfront. The area also had the Happy Valley horse race track (Hong Kong loves to gamble on horses), the HK Convention Center, the HK Central Library, and some other cool spots.
Here’s a run-down of my time in Causeway Bay (May-Sept 2002):
Companions = Elder Leyman Vang from Sacramento. His parents were Hmong immigrants fleeing the aftermath of the Vietnam War and they eventually made their way to the US after some crazy times in Asia. His family sounded like great people who had overcome very hard trials in their lives. He was my last Senior Companion and also an excellent drawer.
Elder Krueger was from some town outside Chicago. A quiet guy in some ways, but we got along real well as he liked to talk politics and we’d do that all day as we contacted. He was a very hard worker and took his mission seriously. After some difficult companionships since my trainer Elder Krueger was a breath of fresh air and we really put our shoulder to the wheel.
Although they weren’t companions, the four other Elders I lived with in Causeway Bay were some of my favorite missionaries in Hong Kong. Elders Devin Nelson, Spencer Hull, J.D. Masero (also lived with in Yeun Long), and Jason Fuller made our time in the apartment really enjoyable. These guys were hilarious and really fun to go on exchanges.
Members / Ward = Causeway Bay is kind of the Paradise Valley of Hong Kong. It is a very affluent area with lots of accomplished people. Our ward represented the demographics fairly well and I met many remarkable people during my time in CWB. Our ward mission leader (Bro. Sehk) was a great guy and a pleasure to work with. There were also some exciting new members in the ward, notably Annie Wong and Billy Lee. Both would go on to serve mission and remain faithful in the gospel. I even got to meeting Billy last year on his mission when I came through Hong Kong during my Asia trip. He is very humble and obedient. The other member who we interacted with a lot was Millie Lai, the Gospel Essentials and Seminary teacher.
Missionary Work: We taught and baptized Mui Jan Sing (Janson) and had a few other investigators get far in the discussions. We kept a descent teaching pool and I’d have to say Causeway Bay was a pretty good area for me on this front.
Memorable Experiences: I played a lot of tennis with a Filipino member while here (Benji Bolibol, amazing guy!). The Filipina Branch would often invite us to join them for Sunday dinner and the sisters were so kind. Benji would then have the missionaries join him around the piano and would play/sing while we all joined in for hymns and other Church songs. Those were some of the most peaceful, happy hours on my mission. It was also here that a crazy anti-Mormon white guy tried to cast the devil out of me, I’ll try to tell the story later. We had a couple typhoons days while in this area too. On typhoon days you can’t go outside so we would call every former investigator in the area book, every referral we had got for months, and any other thing we could come up with to be productive. Finally, after about eight hours of being locked inside during normal proselyting time I broke down and made a game of Risk on a piece of card board and we played that for a few hours. We had to pull pieces of paper out of a bowl for dice but it worked pretty well.
Most common meal = McDonalds and ParknShop deli. We would rotate between the two for lunch every day. Both were cheap and tasty, even if the first will probably give me a heart attack by 50.
Songs = EFY songs that I listened to a lot in this area are “Growing Young” and “I’ll Be.” Growing Young is still one of my all-time faves. We also listened to a Michael McLean CD that Elder Masero had a bunch.

Pictures are of Victoria Park, the Hong Kong Central Library, Sogos, Risk Game, and the Causeway Bay church building (the three floors towards the bottom). It has been sold since they built the new Wan Chai building. I either lost a roll of film of my time in CWB or just didn't take any pictures. I've got less than 10 from my time there and don't even have a baptismal picture for Janson. Kind of a a bummer.