2014 年 4 月 18日 (APR 18, 2014)
APRIL 2014. We had to go to Hong Kong to convert our Type-Z Visa to a Tourist Visa because the company I worked for did not extend the 1 year contract to 2 years, as per our original agreement. So we were faced with a crisis of legal residency in China.
I believe that one of the major reasons we had to go to Hong Kong at this time was to make a visit to the House of the Lord there in China. For more than a year we had no privilege to go to the temple. Sure we had to get a visa, but it could have worked out that we stayed in ChongQing, and merely converted our residence permit to a new company with an updated Type-Z Visa.
I chose not to do that with just ANY company. It matters which company you join up with. We might not have had to leave at all. But the Lord is reminding us what is important with this trip.
We visited the temple.
We have been in China for a year now, and have not had the privilege of attending the temple yet, because
1) it requires a lot of money to make that trip to Hong Kong, http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/hongkong/
2) some knowledge of how the trip is made, and so we have not made this happen because of procrastination,
3) because of realistic worries about how it fits into our budget, etc. But with an expiring VISA, now there's a motivation to get things into action!
Turns out this trip was very expensive, after all of the lost plane fares, additional hotel fees, enormous VISA costs for six people in each case, which was not in our budget. But after all was said and done, we count this trip as a blessing! We had a most wonderful experience at the Hong Kong Temple. We met wonderful saints in Hong Kong as well. It is a memory we will not forget. It is special to us.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountainof the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us goup to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.