Although church attendance is nothing new for us, attending church in Macau will be a whole new experience. First of all, church starts at 5:00 pm and ends at 8:00 pm. Secondly, we have to take a 30 minutes bus ride to and from church. Plus, often times there are church activities/socials before or immediately following the 3 hour block of meetings. Talk about super long Sundays!
From the bus stop we have a little walk to church. The meetings are not held in a traditional LDS meeting house. They are located in the main floor and basement level of a high rise building. The Hong Kong Mission oversees and maintains the space.
The main floor has a lobby and large room used for Relief Society, Gospel Essentials class, and Sacrament Meeting. Downstairs is the Primary room and large open area used for Gospel Doctrine and other church activities.
We arrived early to church and received a big, warm welcome from about 8-10 missionaries. We observed that each person that entered the building was equally greeted by the missionaries. What a tight-knit church family!
Eventually, everyone divided up into their different classes (Mormon standard time plus the laid back Macau mentality=late starts).
The kids went downstairs to primary for the first 2 hours of church and as you can see our family doubled it's size. The sisters were a little nervous with such a big group and are still trying to figure out how to best organize the primary. Right now, there's a Primary President (the sister on the left), a teacher (sister on the right), and the kids ranging in age from 5 to 10. This Sunday was more of a get-to-know-each-other day. They played games, colored pictures, and ate lots of snacks. My kids loved it! Abby and Ian even sat by the primary teacher during sacrament meeting.
Leah joined me in Relief Society since there's no Nursery and she'd falling asleep on the bus so she was not in a mood to go with any strangers. I really enjoyed Relief Society. The branch consists largely of women, many of whom work as domestic help to support their families in other countries. I felt very welcomed and uplifted by their sweet spirits and testimonies.
Kyle attended Elder's Quorum where we was called to be the President. They wasted no time to get him working in the branch. He's very excited for this calling and looks forward to getting to know the brethren better and especially assisting them to understand and organize a home teaching program. This priesthood assignment was just recently transferred from the missionaries to the branch priesthood holders.
The chapel is not very large. Rows of chairs are set up in a large room with a podium and piano. Our family fits in the middle section and the only row available to accommodate us was the front row. We were so close to the podium that Leah couldn't resist touching it and even tried to climb on it a few times. The meetings are all in English but the kids still had a hard time understanding some of the sacrament talks because of a variety of thick accents.
After church, the branch had their monthly birthday party. They gather in the basement to serve dinner and desserts. Special attention was given to those with August birthdays. They even gave Leah a small gift because she turned 3 this month. After everyone had eaten, it was picture time. Our family was the subject of countless pictures. We felt like celebrities, super stars. Most of the sisters at church wanted a picture with our family as well as individual pictures with each of the kids. With not many kids in the branch and many sisters away from their own families, they're excited and eager to be around kids, especial exotic, blonde kids. You can find a few of their pictures on Facebook because they tagged the pictures with Kyle's name. We were graciously welcomed into this wonderful branch family and are so excited to be a part of it.
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