Mission Adventures in Hong Kong: Typhoon Mangkhut

Well? It's been an exciting weekend for sure! The pictures that you see in the news are not an exaggeration. A lot of the city sustained a ton of damage. We were safe in our complex because of the direction the typhoon was hitting, but there was a lot of damage very close to us.

People had been warned and told to get prepared. What is interesting is that on Saturday before the typhoon hit, (Sunday) it was as calm and beautiful as could be. There was NO sign of any impending danger or issue. After we got prepared with some extra food on Saturday we actually went with some friends to the other side of the island. It's a place called Stanley where there is a fun market, restaurants, and other shops. Getting over there you pass by several beautiful beaches with sand and all that comes with a beach... lots of people, boats, food, etc. Later it struck me that in less than 12 hours, the beauty and calm turned into it literally feeling like h--- was trying to swallow Hong Kong. How could it change that fast? If felt like there was zero sign of any danger and I have to admit, it wasn't until I looked at the news, seeing how the storm ravaged Guam, then the northern parts of the Philippines and was headed straight for us that it became real to me. Joe had even made the comment, "I don't think it will be as bad as everyone is saying".

Sunday morning when the Typhoon was supposed to hit Hong Kong, we decided to get together with several couples at one of the apartments, make food and hang out until it passed. It sounded like a train was coming through the apartment and at times it looked like it was snowing because the force of the wind had blown windows out in the building next to us and tons of paper had been sucked out. One of the kids of a missionary couple had called and said, "So how is it going? You guys ok"? and the Elder said, "Not much going on, but a palm tree flew past us on the 21st floor!" It was crazy and the most intense part lasted from about 11am-5pm, although it was a total of 15 hours of "storming". Public transportation was not fully operational until Tuesday morning. All the trees and debris in the road and some damage to rail lines had to be taken care of before the city could get completely functional again. Most of the power lines are under ground so while some parts of the city lost power we were ok.

The week before the storm was Mission Tour, which is basically a Zone conference with the young missionaries but the Asia Area Presidency presides, speaks and it is their meeting. They do a lot of teaching and meet with each of the missionaries. We prepared the food for the four days and that was a learning experience for sure. It went really well and the missionaries were fed both spiritually and physically.

Joes flys to Taiwan on Friday just for the day. Elder Meurs (General Authority and in the Asia area Presidency) asked him to go and they will meet with the company who is sponsoring the engineering project using LED lights to purify the air. That should be fun for him.

While he is gone, I will spend the day at the mission office doing an inventory of all the food, spices, and supplies so that I know what is there. The office couple, the Rosekelley's left last Saturday because of serious health issues as I had mentioned in my last post and he is the one who did all the food planning. I will meet with Sister Phillips (Presdient's wife) and come up with a plan.

Our dinner with the YSA's (young single adults 19-29) worked like a charm and we got them talking and opening up! This Saturday night we are having an activity which will be a re-broadcast of the Face to Face with Elder Cook, with dinner and games. It's funny because at the planning meeting, we asked them what they wanted for dinner and they said, "CAFE RIO!" I started laughing and said, "Seriously? Ok, I can do that!" So, you have to picture 11 Chinese young adults asking for Cafe Rio... No they don't have Cafe Rio here, and in general, Chinese people are not into Mexican (ish) food but many of them have been to BYU Hawaii or in Utah so they love it. Today I made 16 pounds of pork for the dinner Saturday night and we will see how it goes. Should be fun!

As I was thinking about the events of the last week, I thought how quickly life can change. From the Rosekelley's thinking they would stay in Hong Kong for another six months to finish their mission and are now are home, to the beautiful beaches, calm waters, and sunshine to life threatening rain and wind. Life is like that. We just don't know what tomorrow brings. It's so important that our focus is on what really matters because at the end of the day that is all we take with us.

Have a good week! Love you all...
Sister Kwan

Luckily the storm went south a tiny bit so the "eye" did not directly go over the city, but it was pretty darn close.

Most major typhoons are about +8 and that is when they shut down all public transportation.

Top of the tree.

Bottom of the tree.

The sheer force of the wind literally blew the windows out and sucked the contents out of the hotel rooms/offices. It depended on where the building was facing with how much damage it sustained, but the pictures do not show how bad it really was all over the city.