Guess who I saw last night!
President Hinckley! He came to HK to dedicate our new chapel (it's officially called "The Church Administration Building - Hong Kong". It has all the offices that take care of all of Asia.) Anyway, he's been in Taiwan and I think a few other places, too, taking care of other dedications. Dh and I didn't get tickets to sit in the chapel with him. We ended up being on the 6th floor in a classroom in the back corner. lol. They just crammed people into the building everywhere they could. We watched the dedication on the tv (live feed from the 1st floor chapel) lol. Anyway, the coolest thing... we all had to be in our seats at 6pm. The dedication started at 7pm. At about 6:45pm, everyone in the room suddenly stood up, and I saw this hand wave into the room! President Hinckley was walking around waving to everyone who didn't get tickets to sit in the chapel! Ok, I thought it was cool, lol.
Anyway, the program was very nice. Two members of the Asia Area Presidency and their wives spoke (the President was recently released and reassigned to the administration bldg. in SLC, and as far as I know they haven't called someone new yet) and P.H.'s son Richard Hinckley (1st Quorum of the seventy) was also supposed to speak, but they said he was in an accident and had to go back to the US for medical attention. (Keep him in your prayers!) Anyway, When President Hinckley got up to speak, the feeling in the room just magnified. even though we weren't in the same room with him, we could still feel it. he talked a lot about his experiences in HK, how he bought Kam Tong Hall (the church's headquarters for 45 years prior to this building being built), how he recieved the inspiration for the design of the temple (which has also been used for the new Manhattan temple), and how he was so sad that his wife wasn't there with him because she loved HK so much. He also pleaded with us to live worthy lives to be able to attend the temple and be sealed to our families. He said that is the most wonderful blessing that any of us can recieve and the most important part of the gospel. For several minutes he talked about that, and I know he felt it very strongly. I teared up at the part when he talked about being such a young kid when he first came here 45 years ago, but now he's a foolish old man to even thinking about traveling the world at age 95. He made it very clear that this would be his last trip to HK, and I think we all got the feeling that he probably won't be with us much longer. Anyway, he gave the dedicatory prayer, and it was wonderful. Before he left, he said that he wished he could shake all of our hands and hug all of us, but there was no way, but we should know that he considers all of us his friends. What a wonderful experience to be in the presence of the prophet!!
|
