Hey Mamma!!!!
>
> Yeah I finally found an opportunity to write! We've been so busy and I've caught a small cold but DON'T WORRY. I'm ok, I have the the necessary meds and great people in my group who have been super nice to me. So don't worry about me, ok? Alright, I want to catch you up on all my goings on since I left Texas. The flight to L.A. was good. I sat next to this really nice grandpa dude named Bob and we chatted the whole time about me going to China and about the time he was stationed in Italy as a young soldier. When I got to L.A., I had a three hour layover. Yuck. I did use my time wisely however, and ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The last Mexican food I'll eat for FOUR MONTHS! : ( I then flew to San Fran where I met my group at the terminal for our flight to Hong Kong. The flight to HK was 13 hours, which I think I've already told you...along with what I did during the commencement of those hours. So we got to Hong Kong in the early morning and went to go eat jiaozi (gee-ow-zh)--dumplings for breakfast. YUM!!! Spent the day trying to figure out the flight situation, slept on the floor that night. In the morning, a few friends and I snuck out of the airport and found a little beach. I even collected some shells for the nephews!!! When we got back, they brought us our suitcases and we caught a bus for the Hong Kong temple. We were so lucky to be able to stay in the patron housing next door. Usually they only let people who are doing temple work stay there--they made an exception for us owing to the circumstances. There were at least 4 other families (some, even from mainland China...WOW) staying there too and I had so much fun trying to communicate with them in my really bad Chinese. Oh and they had the cutest little Chinese kids!!!!! One of them gave me a new Chinese name: Huang Pei Pei (h-wang-pay-pay). It means yellow flower bud. How cute is that? Those few days alone were enough time for me to fall in love with the Chinese people. They are sooo friendly and full of fun...and I think I've decided I want to take a Chinese kid home in my pocket. They are SOOOOO cute! The Saturday we arrived at the Patron Housing, we got to go down and ride the subway to this awesome grocery store in a mall. It was HUGE and they had they craziest Asian food. I bought some cooked duck meat. WAY good...kinda tastes like turkey. Later, we took the star ferry out to Hong Kong Island and just walked around the city for a bit. Sunday morning we got to attend church at the ward that meets in the Hong Kong temple. It was so great. They translated sacrament meeting and relief society into English for us and we had Sunday school with the area authority who speaks English fluently. Brother Wan (the area authority) told us all the history behind the Hong Kong temple. He is deeply connected to it's construction because he was the one called to find a sight for it in Hong Kong. Just a little back history (which you probably already know),HK was British owned ever since the opium wars. Later, England agreed to a hundred year lease after which the city would be turned back to the Chinese. This lease began in 1897. As the date for the handover approached, the church decided that they had better put a temple in the city so that when it was Chinese owned again, there would be a temple in China. In 1992 Brother Wan was called to find a place for the temple. For 6 months he and his colleagues worked, trying to find different sights they thought appropriate for a temple. Finally they found a one. All the stake presidents and the other misc. church leaders from the area prayed and felt like it was the right place. Now they could present to President Hinckley, sights for the Hong Kong temple. President Hinckley came...and he rejected every sight Brother Wan took him took. Can you imagine? He felt awful...like a failure. All those months of work down the drain. So they took President Hinckley back to his hotel for the night and decided to reconvene the next day to see what could be done. In the morning president Hinckley showed up with a full sketch of where the temple should be and how it should look. He had had a vision in the night! The new Hong Kong temple was supposed to be at the sight of the current mission home and offices. Of course, Brother Wan had not thought about this place because of the existence of buildings already on it. He and the other Chinese church leaders had many concerns about this chosen sight, one of which was the fact that it was located in a red light district. When president Hinckley was told this, He simply replied, "The Lord will find a way." Now, years later, Brother Wan says that one by one, all the seedy motels have disappeared to be replaced by schools, homes of the wealthy, and a 7 story mall with a food court (one of the other concerns was where the temple workers could eat...no cafeteria in the HK temple). There is even a subway station super close that connects to all the other routes in the entire city and to the mainland. What a neat story, huh? At the end of church, one of the members handed out hard-boiled eggs died red..it's a Chinese tradition to do this whenever anyone has a baby. For dinner, we were invited to eat with the temple president couple and the mission president couple. We also got to tour the inside of the mission office, which is in the temple. How lucky am I? Tell Dad I went to Victoria Peak as well when I was in HK...I think he suggested I go there. We arrived in Changsha Monday around lunch time. Lani (a nice little Chinese lady who tells me I'm beautiful whenever I see her), who is the China side of China Horizons, took us out to eat for lunch and dinner both Monday and Tuesday. Chinese hospitality is amazing. I'm getting settled into my apartment now and school starts next Monday (I think). For the next couple of days, I'll be on a trip to Yangshou to see the Chinese countryside. I'm doing well besides my cold and I'm so excited to be in China. Feel free to pass this e-mail on to the fam if you want. I don't think I'll have time to keep up with my blog. I love and miss you mucho!
>
> Love,
>
> Haylee
>
> PS I probably will need you to send me an adaptor but I don't know my address yet. I'll let you know when I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment