Anyways, Hong Kong is pretty fetching dope. We got in on Wednesday night (or maybe Tuesday night, hard to tell) and rode a big bus from the airport to a hotel. On the way, we had to pull over for a full fleet of cop cars to whizz past us. We were all looking through the windows as we passed through the city, we saw for a split second down one street a bunch of protestors and tear gas a few blocks away so that was pretty lit. Fortunately, that's the closest we got to any violence. The hotel was nice and had a very nice western breakfast in the morning. The next day, we walked all the way to the mission office by the temple for some new missionary training. We had to take a train to the government offices to apply for our ID cards, which was super long and boring, and then we came back to walk to a dim sum place for lunch with President Philips. Before we walked, we were all told not to take any pictures or anything because we were about to walk through a battle zone. Right on the street where the temple is, there is just so much vandalism and graffiti, it really did look almost like a war zone. The bricks in the sidewalk were all pulled out and lying in the street, street signs and guard rails were pulled out to make barriers, there were spots where things had been burned, glass shards and trash were everywhere. It was crazy. This continued on for multiple blocks getting progressively worse. Apparently this had all taken place just a few days earlier right as we got the green light to go. Honestly though, you really have to be here to understand that even though these things can happen really anywhere and can be really bad, we are in our house waaaaay before it happens and missionaries are far from being targeted by anyone. So I'm not worried at all. It does make it hard for street contacting because everyone seems kind of on edge.
Anyways, the dim sum with president was good, I had chicken feet again which were not my favorite, but they had cinnamon covered BBQ pork buns which were to die for. Then we walked back and did interviews for the rest of the night. We also got the chance to head out with some missionaries to do some street contacting. It was a blast, I can definitely understand and speak Cantonese better than Mandarin so that's a plus of being here. President Philips is a sweet guy, super chill and super concerned about the missionaries' wellbeing.
The next day, we left the hotel with all our luggage, took a train to the office, and met our trainers. My trainer is Elder Finklea from St. George. He's a total stud, he has been out about 10 transfers, three of which he was trained in the area where he is now training me. He's a zone leader and worked in the office for a few transfers so he's pretty familiar with the whole of Hong Kong and how to do the work. It's awesome. Our apartment is tiny which I can deal with (it's like living in a tiny house or something) but it's filthy. Elder Mumford is in the apartment too and he's freaking out. There's trash everywhere, nothing has been cleaned in weeks.
The night we got in to our apartment, Elder Finklea and I cleaned out the office we are going to use to just have one clean space. Today, we are going to hit it hard.
Other than that, Hong Kong is amazing. I'm in Kwai Fung which is kind of on the outskirts of the larger city but it is still packed in tight everywhere you look. It's crazy packed, our apartment is literally attached to the MTR station and separates it from the police station. Apparently it can get exciting down there sometimes late at night. Everything is so conveniently close and food is really cheap. I bought some groceries and got a sack of potatoes, a crate of 24 eggs, some dumplings, broccoli, and some other stuff for 46 Hong Kong dollars. That's like 6 US dollars! It's crazy.
Church was super cool, I bore my testimony in Cantonese and I didn't see too many confused faces when I spoke so I'll take that as a win. The building has the universal carpeted walls that all church buildings have. The members are super nice, on Saturday night, we met one who was cleaning the church and he was just like "hey, come eat with me." He got us some really good curry.
So I'm doing pretty good here in Hong Kong. It's still a bit of an adjustment, everything is so different, but it's really similar to Taiwan. It's really busy, really packed, but I'm just letting that all just float past me. It's hard work, but it's a cool place to be working hard.
-Elder Murray
(He didn't give descriptions with pictures but the first looks like the last with his companion in Canada and the last looks like dim sum in Hong Kong)
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