Goodbye to Hong Kong

The hardest part of our mission was saying goodbye. We truly came to love Hong Kong. Not only the city, but the many friends we made during the 17 months we were here. That included the Area Office leaders and staff, the Filipino sisters in the Island II Branch, the couple missionaries serving in the Asia countries that we supervised, and the Hong Kong Temple leaders and workers. They all treated us so very well, and are so devoted in the work they are doing. We had several goodbye "parties". They included dinners, outings, and even goodbye songs that the couples and Filipino sisters wrote for us. We returned home on June 17. There were about twenty family members at the airport about 9:30 p.m. to hug and greet us. Since that time we have had a Smith family reunion with 80 members present, several funerals of loved ones, and trips to other reunions. In some ways it seems we never left Utah. But the 69 blogs attest to the fact that we did. We will never be the same as we have observed firsthand the great need that Heavenly Father's children have in these countries to have clean water and sanitation facilities, wheelchairs, hygiene and school kits, glasses etc. We feel blessed that we could have a small part in making it easier for our brothers and sisters to face each day with renewed hope. We now will look for ways to continue service closer to home in Utah.

The following pictures were some that were taken in the last two months as we continued seeing new sights and as we said goodbye to our friends. We hope you have enjoyed our sharing these 17 months with you. This blog site is now complete. !!!

A branch party at a beach near Stanley on Hong Kong Island.

A group of Island II branch members on the way to the Hong Kong Polytechnic College to hear a choir concert by the Brigham Young University-Hawaii students.


Our new DTA and Island II branch president and his wive: Kevin Nield. He replaced Terry Oakes in April.


A goodbye dinner was hosted by the Area Presidency. Elder and Sister Erickson joined us in saying goodbye while Elder and Sister Taylor were greeted as new area auditors.


One of the very special Filipino Sisters, Trinidad Samuel, was there during the last week with work clothes to help clean the apartment and lots of great food. We will miss this special "daughter" of ours. We continue to hear from her on the phone and by email.


The Asia Area Welfare Office says Happy 78th Birthday to me and goodbye to Sister Smith and me.. Left to right, Floyd Ko, Asia Area Welfare Manager, Stanley Wan, former AWM and now Service Center Manager for China, the birthday boy, Elder and Sister Peter Sackley, our replacements as Asia Area Welfare Specialists, Kevin Nield, our current Area Welfare Manager, and Jaymi Wong, our efficient secretary.


Brother and Sister Santos came to our farewell branch party. Brother Santos served in the Branch Presidency for a year before he took his family to the ex pat family branch so his two children would be with friends. They have a Filipino store in Stanley.



We visited two famous street markets in June: the flower market and the bird market. They were both in Kowloon. You could purchase all kinds of flowers, birds, cages, and other related items.


There were scores of cages with birds of every color and breed.


Orchids were a favorite in many of the stores.



An example of the more than 50 flower shops we passed in the Flower Market.

Visit to Flower Market and Bird Garden in Kowloon

"Markets" are a big thing in Hong Kong. Fresh fruit and meat markets, both outside and under cover, are in almost every neighborhood. One wonders how so many retail shops can sell enough to stay profitable, but they must do so as they stay open and even keep adding new ones. Some markets specialize in certain items. As we prepare to return to Utah, there were two specialized markets in Kowloon, which is across the Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island, that we had not visited: the flower market and the bird garden. Though it was raining on and off, we took a Saturday in late May to visit these special places. We took five different types of transportation to make this trip: We walked, rode a ferry across the harbor, took a taxi to the jade market which we had visited before but which we wanted to visit so we could purchase a couple of items of jade and pearls, took a taxi to the flower market, came home from the flower and bird garden by the train (MTR) underground, and then took the tram or ling ling home. We took many pictures, some if which follow below. We hope you enjoy taking this trip with us through the pictures.

Mong Tok is not too far from the Hong Kong Temple. In fact, the MTR stop for the temple is Mon Tok. Scores of stores were on two full square blocks. People were buying flowers to tske home. Most were cut flowers of all varieties.

Some of the flowers were in small pots like those below.

The price 15 for a bouquet is Hong Dollars, or about $2 USD.

An orchid shop with lots of these beautiful flowers.

A view of the street. The shops extend their store out onto the sidewalk making it more difficult for pedestrians.

The stores are really quite deep making browsing fun.

Wouldn't Great Grandma Smith have enjoyed these pink roses?

More orchids.

On the east side of the Flower Market is the Bird Garden. Here scores of bird are in cages awaiting to be sold. We saw birds, cages and bird feed all being sold in the garden.Following is some of the sights we viewed.

Canary birds A parrot getting ready to say "hello".

These must be "love birds"

Cages are for sale as well as a bird.

Notice the beaks on these colorful birds!!

Several cages had multiple birds. They are fed seeds and other Chinese food.

Visit to Nepal

Nepal (officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal), is a landlocked country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 30 million, Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolitan city.
Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Sagarmatha, known in English as Mount Everest. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized. It contains over 240 peaks more than 20,000 ft (6,096 m) above sea level.
By some measures, Hinduism is practised by a larger majority of people in Nepal than in any other nation. Buddhism, though a minority faith in the country, is linked historically with Nepal as the birthplace of the Buddha. About half of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.
A monarchy throughout most of its history, Nepal was ruled by the Shah dynasty of kings from 1768, when Prithvi Narayan Shah unified its many small kingdoms. In 2006, however, a decade-long People's Revolution by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) along with several weeks of mass protests by all major political parties of Nepal culminated in a peace accord, and the ensuing elections for the constituent assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the abdication of the last Nepali monarch Gyanendra Shah and the establishment of a federal democratic republic in May 28, 2008. Since that time, there have been many struggles between the various political parties to find enough agreement to write a constitution. The first deadline date was May 2010. In anticipation of failure to meet this date, the Maoist party held a mass protest in late April, just after we had our visit. For a week, all activity in the country ceased as the Maoists controlled the roads and cities. The strike was called off after a week, but there are still threats to start the protests again.

The Latter-day Saints Charity has had a presence in Nepal for over 15 years. Two welfare couple missionaries are assigned to Nepal. The Church is not recognized in Nepal and no proselytizing is permitted. We did not wear our missionary tags with the Church name. The couples had badges that just said "Latter-day Saints Charities". We wish we had brought some like theirs with us. The couples both live in Kathmandu, the Nepal capital. The LDS Church has a small congregation in Kathmandu that meets each Saturday for worship services. We went to Nepal on the 21st of April and returned to Hong Kong on the 29th of April. The two current missionary couples are Elder and Sister Borland from Provo, Utah and Elder and Sister Earl from southern Colorado. They planned a very ambitous schedule for us as we visited government officials, NGOs that we partner with for our humanitarian projects, and traveled to visit several of the projects, including a visit to the city of Pokhara with a morning view of the beautiful Himalayan mountains. I have divided our pictures into four blogs. The first one contains general pictures including the missionaries homes, government officials we visited, roadway scenes, attendance at Church, and vists to several historical spots. This will be our last Asia trip. We had 5 trips last year (Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, Taiwan and Laos) and 2 this year (India and Nepal). We have truly loved meeting the people in these diverse Asian cities.

Our flight to Nepal was a direct flight on Dragon Air. We arrived late in the evening and took the hotel van to the Shangri-La Hotel. It was a very nice hotel with a beautiful back yard area and a restaurant that bordered the grass and flowers. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast as part of our hotel reservation.

The hotel hosts events such as weddings and business socials. The weather was warm, but the summer rains had not started. The monsoon season in thse countries is June-October. Because Nepal is higher in elevation than its southern neighbor, India, the weather was cooler than on our India visit in February.

A very peaceful setting for eating.

The breakfast fruit setting includes these beautiful fruit carvings that are recut each morning. The center picture is a watermelon.

A broader view of the breakfast fruit we enjoyed. We had a personal omellete on two of the days. We ate our breakfast outside on the patio overlooking the yard.

Both couples are able to rent large (estate size) homes for a very reaonable price. This is Elder and Sister Earl's home. They have a security man/gardner and a domestic worker that helps with cleaning and preparing meals. They do not have a car, but use taxis to go from place to place. The Earl's live about ten minutes from the Borlands and on the way to the Church.

The Earl's even have space for a small garden.

The three sisters who enjoyed meeting each other and sharing Gospel and family conversations. Sister Smith, Borland and Earl.

The Earl's front room is bigger than our Hong Kong apartment. Their rent for the house is 1/2 of our small apartment rent in Hong Kong.

Our first morning included a breakfast with several key people in Nepal. From left to right clockwise: Elder and Sister Borland, Elder and Sister Smith, Elder and Sister Earl, Mr. Thapa, newspaper editor, Rakesh Hamel, (NGO for NRSD, a rehabiltation center, and Mr Rimal, Director of the Nepal Welfare Social Council and one of the principal architects of the LDSC agreement with the Government of Nepal.

Meeting with Sujarta Koirala, Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal and Director of the Foreign Ministry, in her office. She is also the founder of the Sushma Koirala Trust that is NGO for three LDSC water projects. Elder and Sister Borland, Country Director in Nepal, and Elder and Sister Smith, Asia Area Welfare Specialists from Hong Kong, are also in the picture

Mr. Rimal, Director of the Social Welfare Council in Nepal receiving LDSC acrylic award. Rakesh Hamal expresses delight.

Rakesh Hamal on the left, and a great friend of LDSC.

The rented meeting house for the Church. President and Sister Jackson, Mission President from New Delhi, India, attended church with us on Saturday April 23.

One of families at Church.

A young Nepalese church couple

What colorful dreseses the sisters wore!!!

The youth are the hope for tomorrow in these countries.

Not very old. Sister Smith practicing up for the great grandchildren.

One noticeable street scene was men and women with loads on their back. We even saw a refrigerator being transported this way. They balance the load with a scarf tied around their forehead.

It's hard to see who is under the load

Another load to go to village.

Getting water for her house. She spends many hours each day getting water.

A Hindu temple in the historic ancient area of Bhaktapur, a city east of Kathmandu that we visited after our trip to the water project.

Which ones are the most ferocious?

Elder and Sister Borland are the live ones..

The sacred cows enjoying lunch in the middle of the Ancient City

Another view of the Ancient temple

The taxis in Nepal are white and compact, different from the yellow three wheeled taxis in India

We labeled this cow "patience" as the pigeons swarmed around it and he paid no attention.

This square is known as the Hanuman-dhoka Durbar Square. This is in Kathmandu and contains buildings used by the royalty until their fall from power in 2008. Older royalty buildings are also in the square. We found this large area covered with pigeons. We visited this site just after our visit to the Deputy Prime Minister pictured earlir.

These brightly costumed locals wanted some rupees to let us take their picture. We decided it was worth it.

We saw the building, Kumari-ghar, where the living goddess lives. This is a young girl between 7 and puberty who lives with her parents in this ancient building and who comes out occasionally to bless the people. She is considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Taleju. At puberty, another girl is selected for the honor. The third story window she appears at is surrounded with gold leaf. Most of the buildings were built in the 17th and 18th century

All of the countries we visited in Asia had many fruit and vegetable stands.

On the way back from Pokhara, we stopped at the "Monkey Temple" on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Also known as the Supra Temple, this structure is the oldest temple in Nepal. It was built about 400 BC in honor of the first Buddha who was born in Nepal. We took pictures of several monkeys who were running around the grounds. We bought a small bell souvenier and looked over the city from the top of the hill. They are cleaning the gold leaf tower of the temple, so they had some scaffolding up.

Other buildings in the Temple complex.

We saw about two dozen monkeys running about. We were warned to not get too close or the monkeys might grab the ladies' purses and take off with them.

The cleaning and installation of new gold leaf is shown by the scaffolding.

A breath-taking view of Kathmandu Valley. Over 1.5 million people live in the capital city.

A picture of the three couples as we return from Pokhara. It was a long day, and we were dressed casually for our 8 hour return trip to Kathmandu.