Arrival in Hong Kong

The flight was much less of a challenge than we thought. I'm sure you are all surprised that Kelly feel asleep before the engines began to warm up in LA. Eight hours later life began again. Now on my front, I even slept for a good 6 plus hours. EVA airlines was better than anything you would ever find in North America. We traveled with the Nielson's who were heading to Laos. We left Provo at 4:30 PM Thursday and arrived in HK on Saturday at about 10:00 AM. The Neilsons arrived in Laos at 9:00 PM Saturday. Yikes! As you will recall we were waiting for visas. The plan was that as we got off the plane in HK someone would hand us a visa before we passed customs. It worked without a hiccup. Since we began this journey of going on a mission the story has repeated itself over and over again. It goes something like this:

1. We run into a concern or challenge. In this case a phone call to say we were delayed due to a visa paperwork mistake and would not attend the MTC until July 19.
2. We would check out our options. We looked at flights to Arizona etc. At about 10:30 at night Kelly and I spoke about if we should book a ticket. We both felt the answer was "no". Then Kelly got the impression, you should email the HK group.
3. The Lord in motion. The HK office jumps in and people on both sides of the pond begin to pray for our arrival. The mission department due to a case of pushing by the little people reversed their decision and allowed us to depart on time to the MTC.
4. Things work out. As stated above, not only did we attend the MTC on time but the visa arrived one day in advance of our departure.

We all know who is at work on this project and it's not the Sackleys. I have identified about 20 examples of just such an occurrence since this all began.

So we arrived to the Smiths, who we replace and Joe who drove us to our new home. The bags hit the floor and we were off to check everything out. This is where you shop, eat etc. We arrived back about 3:00 PM at which time we unpacked and Sister Sackley decided to rearrange furniture. I'm sure you are all surprised.

Sunday
We attend the Expat branch that is for all foreign people in HK. Wonderful branch. We met the Area President - Elder Perkins at this meeting. He is Kelly's age and still has teenagers at home. He said that his 15 year old son was attending the world cup in South Africa. If you look at a map it isn't as far away as you would think from HK.
This building we work in has 3 full church meeting houses on the bottom floors, all area offices and housing for the area presidency. Now you may be thinking small church area for meetings. I will take pictures. This is a state of the art meeting house. Every high tech thing you would want. Elder Uchtdorf is here in a couple of weeks and will speak to 2500 people in this building. One of the 3 chapels will seat about 800 people. Our office is brand new and will be great to work in. President Carter would be in heaven reviewing this building.