Youth Conference in Hong Kong

 One advantage of being an online branch is that little to no money is ever expended on organizational activities.  So, the entire budget can be spent flying the youth to Hong Kong for youth conference.  Youth from all over China (our branch+Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou branches), and from the English speaking branches in Hong Kong and Taiwan met up.  The girls were quite hesitant to go, but they had the very best time.  I am still amazed at how good this experience was for them.  Online church has been so very difficult for them.  (I will just say that I have been so grateful for Come, Follow Me to keep them engaged in the gospel this past year.)  Meeting and connecting to people in real life changed everything for them.    

Tom and I also flew to Hong Kong with them, but then we went and did our own thing.  (Two reasons:  I didn't feel comfortable letting my girls fly to Hong Kong by themselves and *I* wanted to go to the temple too!)  A girl in our branch who isn't 14 until later in the year couldn't fly by herself, so we adopted her.  That ended up being the best thing too.  

The youth conference wasn't starting until Friday evening, but the cheapest flight for us was early Friday morning. We were just planning on taking the girls to Victoria Peak during the day.  However, a few days before, we got word that the Taiwan group was arriving about the same time as us and were going to Hong Kong Disney and our girls were invited to join them.  What?  (Three major theme parks in three months is NOT how we've raised our children! I mean, they had only been to Disney one other time in their life and that was before back before they could hardly remember... maybe all of that quarantining is paying off!)  

Upon arrival in Hong Kong, we got them to Disney, paid for luggage storage and got them in the gate and then we walked the other way.  That felt really weird.  They had the contacts for the Taiwan group, but the group was on a ride and unable to meet them at the gate when they arrived.  And as it turned out, one ride led to another so the first time they met up with Taiwan it was quite late in the day.  But some great bonding happened between the three girls and that was awesome for them.  A real life English speaking friend in China!!  A first!

Interestingly enough, this trip marked two anniversaries.   1) A 19 year anniversary of my trip to Hong Kong in 2004.  That trip was absolutely instrumental in bringing us to China all these years later.  While there, we crossed the border into China and visited some factories where my heart changed forever.  Seeing the longing in those faces, my compassion for all of these dear people who make so many of our US comforts sky rocketed.  We live so plushly because they don't have much. It is what propelled me forward on this move to China when every other part of me screamed NO WAY!  The other miraculous thing about my Hong Kong trip was that it moved things forward in my relationship with Tom. It was while watching fireworks on the Avenue of Stars that I knew it needed to move forward.  I specifically felt that as amazing as it was to be there--fireworks and all, my relationship with Tom would be more amazing.  (It has.) So that trip was so pivotal in my life in so many ways.  2) It was also our one year anniversary of arriving in China. So it was amazing to be in Hong Kong at that specific time.  Quite divinely orchestrated in my book. 

After dropping the girls off, Tom and I went and checked into our hotel and set off on our own adventures.  We went to Victoria Peak, which I went to in 2004 by car--that was amazing driving up the winding street to Hong Kong's highest peak. I got to see a part of Hong Kong that the average tourist doesn't see.  This time we took the tram, which was another awesome experience because of the sharp angle the tram travels.  In this picture, I was holding the camera straight and you can see the angle, but somehow the picture doesn't do the experience justice.

Chinese people LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their posed photos.  

We also went to dinner.  There are lots of Michelin star rated restaurants in HK.  But we had not planned ahead, and wished we would have.  So we had to go to one that didn't require reservations.  It was Chinese food with very good and unique flavors.  Other than the textures being too similar  (and one item mentioned below) it was great.  We love to experience different foods so it was fun.  We ordered the 6 course menu.  It included Bird's Nest.  A delicacy.  Bird spit--supposedly its very healthy.  Like eating unflavored jelly served in thickened broth.  A small amount would have been ample. But think of how much healthier I am now that I ate a quarter cup of it! Don't be jealous.  

We also took a ferry across the bay, walked along the Avenue of Stars and walked up to the Temple Street night market.  It was so interesting to contrast the effects of a free market on Chinese culture and to be able to compare the differences. (Maybe that's a post for another day....)

Tom being Chinese and posing for a picture.  

But the highlights of the trip were attending church in person and going to the temple!  Words cannot express my gratitude for that temple experience.  It was very tender to go through the veil where one side was spoken in Mandarin Chinese and my side in English. I cried.  We also saw Tessa in the temple so that was awesome.  (Greta was in a different group.) 

The girls' only requirement for going to Hong Kong was to take a selfie at the temple.

We have heard that the downtown Hong Kong church property is the Church's most expensive property.  It's a pretty cool building.  English chapel on the 1st floor(which is actually the 2nd floor) and other languages in other chapels on subsequent floors--at least 6 different languages.  There are also apartments on the upper floors for a few members. To our surprise and delight, the youth conference group was also attending church at the same time and place.  Elder Tai and Elder Johnson from the Seventy were also both present.  Pretty cool church experience that day, in more ways than one!

The youth conference group in the English speaking chapel. (These pictures were sent to us later.)

This is all of the people from our Branch that attended the conference.

Along with baptisms at the temple, the youth conference had classes, a dance and a service project (on Global Youth Service Day).  While Hong Kong has some of the richest people in the world, there are more than 40,000 starving people.  The girls helped put food packets together for them. They really really loved this part.

Tessa attends seminary at 6:00am M-Th on Zoom.  It is not her favorite.  However, while at YC, they requested to have seminary in person --the teachers joined them online from Beijing.  This is another thing that had a perspective shift since the conference.  (yay!)

After seminary, a few students decided to take advantage of the rock climbing wall at the YMCA.  They weren't really supposed to since it wasn't part of their package there (and they weren't harnessed...), but it was a bonding time for them and they only did it for a few minutes.

The girls had such a great great time the whole weekend, and I'm so thankful they had that experience.  Even though this experience was a few weeks back, I still find myself thanking Heavenly Father in my prayers for the blessings that are still coming from that experience for them.  I am so thankful for this wonderful gift in our lives. Now Hong Kong holds an even more special place in my heart.

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To end, two interesting tidbits about Hong Kong.  

First: A skyscraper is defined as a building with more than 40 floors.  Hong Kong has 553 skyscrapers.  (The city with the 2nd most is Shenzhen, China with 367.  Hardly a comparison.)   Here are a few pictures to show just a little bit of the scope of the high-rises in Hong Kong.

The white building in the center of the photo with the purple top is the Bank of America building.  It only has 38 floors, that gives you a little idea of how crazy the 553 skyscrapers are.

From our hotel window, which was on the 56th floor. Of course, these are built on mountain terrain so some of the tall ones aren't really *that* tall.

This is the Methodist Church's building.  It only has 21 floors.  I found it fascinating that it is triangular shaped and has streets running on all 3 sides.  Don't waste an inch of precious land!

Second:  There are these amazing trees in Hong Kong.  They have this tenacious root system that crawls everywhere.  Those roots seem to do anything to get to water, and in small and simple ways, they break through tough barriers to get to water and to grow and expand.  A powerful bloom-where-you-are-planted analogy.

This tree is growing on top of a column that is part of a fence.  The root system has sent down shoots while the trunk holds up the tree on top of the column.  In hindsight, I wished I would have taken one farther back so you could see the column without a tree too, but this is what I've got..

Here is another set where the roots are sent everywhere to try to get water so the tree can thrive.

However, the more we looked at these trees in a forested area we could also see how they are tenacious in a destructive way.  We saw these same trees in city areas where they were manicured and beautiful, but without some guidance the forest ones grew just as much, but not in the same beautiful ways.  This was something that we didn't realize until later in our trip so I only have one picture of the manicured trees.  

But that is another powerful analogy.  Our craving as individuals is to grow and progress, but without guidance, teachings, manicuring, we are left to ourselves and often create unwanted damage. Left alone, we don't end up as beautiful as our potential.

In the center of this picture you can see this tree swallowed a chain link fence.

In the center of this picture you can see a cement piece that the tree forced away from the barrier this tree covered.

We are all stronger and more capable than we know we are.  If we follow divine laws and allow ourselves to be pruned and manicured, our strength can be used for beauty instead of destruction.