Macau August 4, 2015

Our mission will be a mix of Macau and Hong Kong for the time remaining.  With a change in the way Macau issues work visas, we have to exit the country periodically.  So, part of our assignment with be in Hong Kong and the other in Macau.  It certainly offers a variety...we will enjoy both!!

During the past month we had an old mission president (President and Sister Hawks) return home and a new one (President and Sister Lam) come.  We do not know where Our Heavely Father and the Church find these wonderful couples to come and direct 150 missionariies for 3 years.  It is hard work 7 days a week form 6:30AM to 11:00PM at night. (And sometimes they spend the night in the ER with a sick missionary, as the Lam's did the first few days they were here.) These men and their wives are a great blessing to these wonderful young people--the missionaries mature right before your eyes. The mission president's job goes far beyond the missionaries but they are his prime focus.

Holbrook's, Pack's, Lam's and Hawks

President Lam is a 20 year covert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Prior to coming on his mission he was a physcian in southern California.  He has had 2 of his sons serve in this same mission.  Both he and Sister Lam lived in Hong Kong before they went off to university in the USA and stayed.

First Day with President and Sister Lam

We have great young men and young women in Macau as missionaries.  We are the furtherest distance from the Mission Office.  Macau is a different part of China and acts as independent country Our zone has Mandarin speaking missionaries (mainly for the mainlander investigators), Cantonese speaking missionaries (for the Chinese in Macau), and Tagalog speaking missionaries (for the Philippino people). All speak or are learning English. Zone meetings are in English. Many of our missionaries are from Great Britain, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada since their visas let them stay longer in Macau. We also have a good share of American Born Chinese who also can stay longer. We love to see the missionaries learning a new language, and wish that our language skills were growing as fast as theirs. These young men and women are mature far beyond their years.  It is a pleasure working with them. We get quite attached to them and miss them when they are transferred. So we celebrate with ice cream at Dairy Queen. Yes, there is a Dairy Queen in Macau, complete with upside-down Blizzards, banana splits and Dilly Bars.

Macau Zone August 2015

This beautiful lady in the center (Sister Mui) is the person who has been a member the longest in Macau.  She was baptized in 1978.  The church seriously opened Macau in the 1976 timeframe for missionary work. She's a stalwart for the branch.

Sister Mui --a Church member longer than anyone in Macau--1978,

We have been blessed to have this mission experience.  It is hard to believe that we have been married for 44 years this month.  Nevertheless, Joy and I have learned new things about each other as we spend 24X7 together.  I love her more each day.  It is heart-warming to serve others and share our love for Our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We have met some truly amazing people.

Each day we recognize the great bounties we have been blessed with.  May I testify to you that I know God lives and He loves us.  I am so grateful for the Atonement and the sacrifice of Jesus Chirst on my behalf.  I feel unworthy of his the blessings I have recieved.

Hong Kong Temple at Night

Hong Kong / June 2015

We have been in Hong Kong for a month, while we work to get new visas to return to Macau.  The visas has not been granted yet and may continue to take some time.  Nevertheless, we are having a very special experience in Hong Kong.

We have been assigned to work in Discovery Bay.  It is a beautiful part of Hong Kong.  It is a community of mostly expatriates or wealthy Chinese.  We just moved here on the weekend. The other day a Chinese man was explaining why Chinese people are generally well off financially.  He said, "If a Chinese man earns $5, then he tries to live on $1.5-2.  If an American earns $5, then he spends $7."  If a Chinese man gets a raise, he still tries to live on $2, but if an American gets a raise they spend $10.  It was interesting to begin to understand how Chinese accumulate wealth.

View from our apartment in Discovery Bay

We have had the great opportunity to mingle with the Filipino Sisters in the area.  They are sweet and wonderful people.

DB Filipino Sisters 2015

Two weeks ago there was a rally at Victoria Park.  It gathered 100,000 people from all over Hong Kong.  Our apartment was close to the park.  We could hear the people chanting.  It was the commemoration of the instant in Tienanmen Quarter in 1989, when students cried out for their human rights and it was put down with much violence.  Around the boarder of the Park, there was a Police Officer about every 5 feet.  Roads we blocked and the Police carefully directed traffic...it was so orderly.  The chanting went on for about 2 hours.  When the people left the park they picked up there trash and cleaned up around them.  They orderly went home on foot, bus or subway.  We were able to go observe part of it and people were going home.


We had a chance to see a good friend, Brent and Cathy Dover, and the little girl they adopted from China.  It was a special experience.  They have a beautiful little girl and she has a wonderful set of parents.  This was a blessing to both.

Brent and Cathy Dover Family in China for Adoption of Mia 2015

We pleased to be representatives of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is a blessing in our life.

DB Investigators and Missionaries 2015

Macau Update 5/7/2015

It is a beautiful time of year in the Far East.  The day time temperature is in the 80's.  The night time temperature is hot too.  We are already using the air conditioning.  We have moved to short sleeved white shirts, except for Sunday when we still wear suits.

Tap Sac Park Near our Apartment

St Paul's Church Ruins; first Christian Church
in China.  It was build between 1602-1640.  

I did not showed you our official missionary badges.  We have them on everywhere we go.  It is another reminder we are representatives of Jesus Christ.  We see people braking their neck to read the name badges as we pass by.

Elder and Sister Holbrook Missionary Badges

9 year old who plays for Church Services
 and Branch Choir

In the humility note, this 9 year old plays the piano for all the of the church services at one of the branches.  He is fantastic!  I can hardly play the radio.

Sometime we revert back to being a Nerd

In life we tell ourselves we will never do certain things.  For me me it was never wear, tennis shoes with your suit or dress pants.  Well, I sprained my ankle and got Planters Factitious.  You got it!  Below is the result!  Soon I will probably be wearing plastic pocket protectors!


We continue to work with these marvelous Chinese and Filipino people.  They are amazing!!  The Chinese government published that their are 18 million members.  It is expected to grow by upto 5% a year for the next 15 years.  Some project by 2050 China could be the largest Christian nation.  It is amazing.

When I was a missionary in the Southern Far East mission in 1966-1967, we had missionaries in the Philippines we had only a few thousand members and not 48 years later there are 680,000 members in the Philippines.  Christianity is growing in the Far East!!

On May 17th Macau will become a District and hopefully grow to a Stake in a few years!!  We are all excited.  It is wonderful to see the church growing.

 Elder and Sister Holbrook (from Macau)

Sending off a couple as they return to the USA to live

Back to Macau from Hong Kong

Looking over Macau 2015

Due to visa issues, we had to leave Macau for Hong Kong.  The change in requirements made us apply for a new type of Visa.  It required several iteration of applying to get the documents submitted correclty.  We had many helpers assistance from from Hong Kong and Macau.  We were in Hong Kong for a period of 4 weeks will the papers were finalized. It will be great when we get the formal documents.




While in Hong Kong we were able to spend a week working in the Temple.  It is a beautiful building and we had a great experience.

Elder Holbrook at Hong Kong Temple 2015

We did a special study for the China Hong Kong Mission that allowed us to spend time with 1/3 of the missionaries and gather information.  We went to the end of the mission boundaries to visit missionaries and see is our places of worship (chapels).

Kelsey, Scott, Maverick and Grandpa on a Ferry 2015

Joy, Kelsey and Sunnee at the LDS Asia Women's Conference 2015

Dog-on!!  There was no place to stay for use to stay in Hong Kong, so we had to spend most of the month with our daughters (Sunnee and Kelsey) and their families.  It is fantastic getting to spend time with these grandkids that are so far away from us in Utah.  Joy attended an all LDS Asia Women's Conference with her daughters and had a great time.  I got the ultimate treat and got to watch the little grand kids.

The 2015 Chinese New Year is Here

 Chinese New Year has some amazing things to see:  

1. A busy robust town comes to a stop.  Nearly, all the businesses are closed.
2. People go visit family...similar to what we do in Thanksgiving.  It is family oriented holiday.
3. We did not buy much bread and it has taken us 3 days to find bread.
4. It is hard to find medicines.  We walked the streets for over an hour to find one yesterday with no success to help a missionary.  Today, we heard where a pharmacy was open and passed dozens that were closed.
5.  The parks are not full.  People are home with family.
6. Yes.  Missionary work is slow too.  We have been invited to a number of parties and special events.

7. Lots of festivals and colorful decorations.
8. Dragon Dancing...
9. Colorful prades...
10. Do it yourself fireworks--you buy a huge fireworks and a team of people help you set it off.  The fireworks are non-stop from 8PM to 2AM--for 10 days.
 11. It is the time business pay a bonus and they can be sizable.
12.  We even had our two daughter's and their families come and join the festivities from Hong Kong.

We are enjoying the fun and build up of the Chinese New Year.  It certainly is a time to cherish the blessing in life you have been give.  No question families are apart of that great blessing.



We have had some wonderful members help us celebrate the year.  They help us all the time and make us feel of value.  Each has greatly blessed our life.




We have a very special group of missionaries here in Macau that watchover us.



It was a long time ago (48 years), I remember, celebrating the Chinese New Year by eating watermelon seeds, being cold, without our housekeeper/cook and watching a few colorful prades.  This year we are more refined and progress in a beautiful and growing country.  We wish you Good Health and Prosperity for 2015.

Macau--Moving toward Chinese New Year 2015

We had the opportunity to go to the Venetian Hotel to check out their Medical and Dental Clinic.  The place was amazing!!  It has 7500 hotel rooms.  They are planning to have 2500 stores in their mall.  It would knock your socks off!!  They have a full outpatient medical and dental clinic.

When the missionary's get sick they like to have an established set of physicians to seed the missionaries too.  It is plan of Joy's job to establish that network here in Macau.  While the all foreign missionaries are covered by Aetna International.  It is hard to find doctors that really accept the insurance.  These missionaries have little or no money, so getting the medical people to accept the insurance is a big deal.

Macau Venetian Hotel and Casino

The gambling makes this city go...it was the fireworks capital of the world before gambling was made the number one priority.  There a large number of big buildings in Macau.  Some are really lite up.  The city is building everywhere.

 The cobblestone streets in some areas remind you of Europe.  It is an amazing place to be and see the mix of the cultures.  We have many new adventures each week.

Cobblestone Streets in many Places

Chinese New Year is 3 weeks away.  We have all types of preparation occurring.  The building are decorated inside and outside.  It is beautiful and colorful.

2014 Macau Chinese New Year Preparation

Most families decorate their door and throughout the house. It is time to prep for the coming New Year.  It is the year of the goat.

2014 is the Year of the Goat

We are blessed to be part of helping the church growing opportunity.  We are happy and involved!!  We continue to be humbled by the language and sweet giving people.

Scott and Joy with one of the beautiful Filipino Sisters

Sister Joy Holbrook

Elder Scott Holbrook

v

Macau and the Wonderful People We Work With

We have a super fantastic mission president and his equally impressive wife, President Val and Julie Hawks.  They direct the efforts of 150 missionaries in Hong Kong and Macau.  We only have 2 senior couples assigned to the mission president.  One works in the mission office and we are in Macau.  There are other missionaries that work at the temple, other district and area assignments, but we have limited contact with them.  Macau is the place we expect to spend for about 18 months.

The people are wonderful.  They are so giving and generous.  My heart is softened each week as I see the sacrifices these people make to provide for their families.  Many of these Filipino sisters come here to work without their families and sending the money back to provide for their families.  They labor here for years in support of the their children (who is usually raised by grandparents) and their father who also working.  

One of these Sister Missionaries was a helper in Hong Kong.  She joined the church and is now serving a mission here in the China Hong Kong Mission.  The other has limited family support but had a burning desire to serve the Lord and is here with much sacrifice.  Can you imagine the faith of these wonderful people?  It touches me to the very soul.

Sister Holbrook is supporting the missionaries with medical issues.  While these missionaries are young they still have stomach problems, colds, bumps and bruises.  Plus, some much more complicated issues.  This week one missionary had some emergency surgery--it was very rough week for the missionary and Sister Holbrook was right by her side all the way. She is really involved.

We live down a beautiful, cobbled street.  See the pieces carefully laid into place for 1/3 of a mile.  It is like some of the streets of Europe.  It is fun to walk down, but it can get slippery.

We are very fortunate to be by all these high committed young missionaries and good people you live here.  Their energy and excitement for the gospel is never ending.  We are proud to be representatives of Jesus Christ!