1:00pm Fly to Shenzhen
4:0pm Cross border to Hong Kong
5:00pm Ride MTR into the city, get off and search for the Hong Kong Temple (oops… we forgot to print off directions or address!)
6:30pm Finally find Hong Kong Temple
7:30pm Attend Cantonese session (yes, we did eventually find it)
10:00pm Check into hotel
Kiersten: We had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time, knowing that because of time and money constraints, this might be our one big trip while in China. We had spent hours planning and looking up information but somehow we forgot probably the one most important piece of information that we needed- the address to the temple. Aside from renewing my visa, going to the temple was our main reason for even going to Hong Kong. When we stepped out of the subway stop (we at least knew which stop to get off) we all looked at each other and sure enough, no one had thought to write the address down. Well, how hard could it be? We were at least at the right subway stop, right? After wandering for a while and asking people on the street, we knew this was not going to work. Finally, someone did tell us that there was a map posted in the subway station. Feeling discouraged, we made our way back there. But sure enough - there it was! It just happened to be one of the buildings listed. So, in the end we did make it! Definitely a lesson on being prepared, though. I can only imagine our disappointment if we had not been able to find it that evening and missing out on that experience.
Eric: We didn't see much of Hong Kong that first day. Most of it was spent traveling. However, had we already had chance to see all of Hong Kong and everything we later saw in Guilin, I would still pick the same thing as my favorite and most memorable. That is our visit to the Hong Kong Temple. It had been five months since we had been to the temple, and it was five months too long. As I sat in the prayer room prior to our session, I opened the scriptures to D&C 109 and read the first part of the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer. “And that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel thy power, and feel constrained to acknowledge that thou has sanctified it, and that it is thy house, a place of thy holiness.” Those words came strongly to me, as they had in the past, and the feeling in my heart was beyond description. Nothing else in Hong Kong and nothing else in Guilin could compare, and I’m sure from the posts to follow that you’ll see how much I loved those other two. Saturday morning we did another session, this time in English, and the feelings I felt were just as wonderful.
4 comments:
Exciting! Could y'all understand any of the cantonese, or did you wear headphones? It's so wonderful how the church is worldwide at this point and even in China you can go to the temple! The Lord truly has blessed us in these days!
We both had to wear headphones. Eric was able to pick out some of the Cantonese but even he usually used English when we had to talk to people on the streets since Cantonese is so different from Mandarin. Which is too bad because I think Hong Kong would be such a fun place to live. :)
How fun to visit the temple there. I have a goal to visit the temple of a new area I'm in even when traveling so I would have done the same thing on the first day. Glad you guys finally found it :) Erik- I love that scripture and even just reading it makes me remember feelings from the temple. Thanks for sharing that.
Whoops.. Sorry Eric for spelling it with a K. I have a nephew that spells it that way :)
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