Nora Koot—Hong Kong

Sharing the restored gospel gives a young woman purpose in Hong Kong

Bringing the Church Back to Hong Kong

“Tell him to send the Church back.”

The quiet, urgent voice surprised and confused sixteen-year-old Nora Siu Yuen Koot. “What?” she said.

“Tell him to send the Church back.”

Photograph of Nora Koot, 1957. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Again Nora heard the message clearly. It was as if someone had whispered it in her right ear. But there was no one nearby. She was standing alone outside a hotel in Hong Kong in September 1954. A few visitors from the United States had just boarded a bus to the airport, and she was waving goodbye to them.

The visitors were leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveling through East Asia. More than a billion people lived in that part of the world, but only about a thousand of them had embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church had not had an official presence in Hong Kong for several years, not since social unrest in China and a war in nearby Korea had led Church leaders to close the mission in 1951. But now the conflict was over, and the visitors had come to check on Nora and the eighteen other Saints living in the city.

Leading the group was Elder Harold B. Lee, a senior member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Nora could tell he was important, but she didn’t know enough about Church administration to say why. Still, she knew the whispered message was for him.

Without another thought, she stretched out her hand toward the bus, hoping it would not drive away. “Apostle Lee,” she said.

Elder Lee reached his hand out an open window, and Nora took it. “Please send the Church back,” she cried. “We Saints without the Church are like people without food. We need to be fed spiritually.”

The apostle’s eyes filled with tears. “It is not for me to decide,” he said, “but I will report to the brethren.” He told Nora to pray and keep the faith, assuring her that as long as there were faithful Saints like her, the Church was in Hong Kong.

The bus then shifted into gear and lumbered away.

Month after month passed, and Nora heard nothing from the Church. She sometimes wondered if she ever would. Latter-day Saint missionaries had always struggled in Hong Kong. Elders had first preached there in the 1850s, but illness, religious and cultural differences, poverty, and a language barrier had led them to abandon the mission after only a few months and no baptisms. The next group of missionaries came in 1949, but that mission had lasted only two years.

During that time, Nora and her two younger sisters became the first Chinese people to join the Church in Hong Kong. Their family was among the hundreds of thousands of refugees who had come to the British colony to escape the unrest in mainland China. The mission headquarters had been located on the street where they lived, and Nora’s stepmother sent them there every morning, hoping they would learn English and whatever else the missionaries were teaching.

Nora could still remember the Bible lessons she received from Sister Sai Lang Aki, a Hawaiian missionary of Chinese descent, who helped her learn English. Nora received a witness of the restored gospel at that time. Her testimony helped her stay strong after the mission closed, when it seemed like the sun had set on Hong Kong. Even in the absence of priesthood ordinances, sacrament meetings, meetinghouses, and Church literature in Chinese, she clung fiercely to her faith in Jesus Christ.

In August 1955, nearly a year after Elder Lee’s visit, a tall, blond-haired young man approached Nora at the movie theater where she worked. All at once she recognized Grant Heaton, who had served as a missionary in Hong Kong before the mission closed. He and his wife, Luana, had just arrived in Hong Kong to open the newly created Southern Far East Mission.

Nora was overjoyed. As she’d hoped, Elder Lee had spoken with Church leaders about the Saints in Hong Kong. In fact, soon after returning to the United States, he had recommended reopening the mission and even told Nora’s story at the Church’s general conference. Church president David O. McKay had then called Grant to lead the new mission, which covered Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam, and other places in the region.

“The sun is rising,” Nora thought. “Morning has returned to the Saints in Hong Kong!”

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Dreaming of a Temple

In 1957, the Southern Far East Mission was in dire need of a new missionary. One of the four women serving in Hong Kong had just returned to the United States for health reasons, leaving an unexpected vacancy in the mission. President Grant Heaton knew the remaining sisters needed help immediately, so he called Nora Koot as a local full-time missionary.

During the past two years, Nora had become indispensable to the mission. When the Heatons first arrived in Hong Kong, they enlisted her to contact all the Saints in the area, and the mission headquarters had become like her second home. Sometimes she babysat the Heatons’ children. Other times she tutored missionaries in the Cantonese and Mandarin languages. Together with Luana Heaton, she taught Bible stories in a Sunday school class for children in the city.

Grant and Luana Heaton with their baby son, circa 1956.

Nora readily accepted the mission call. One other local Saint, an elder named Lee Nai Ken, had served a short-term mission in Hong Kong, and President Heaton was enthusiastic about calling more local Saints as missionaries. The North American missionaries often struggled to learn the Chinese language and local culture. Many people in the city were suspicious of foreigners and sometimes confused the elders with agents of the United States government.

Nora and other Chinese Saints, however, already understood the local culture and did not have to worry about the language barrier. Also, they often related better with the people they taught. As a refugee from mainland China, Nora knew what it was like to start life over in a crowded city, where housing and employment were in short supply.

Many Church members and prospective Saints in Hong Kong were refugees, and President Heaton sought ways to provide for their spiritual well-being. In 1952, the Church had introduced seven lessons, or discussions, to help potential converts prepare for Church membership. Adapting to local needs, President Heaton and his missionaries developed seventeen gospel lessons to appeal to the many people in Hong Kong who were not Christian or had only a basic understanding of Christian beliefs. These lessons addressed such topics as the Godhead, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, and the Restoration. Once baptized, converts received an additional twenty lessons for new members.

On the night before she was set apart as a missionary, Nora had a vivid dream. She was standing on a busy street, surrounded by chaos and commotion, when she noticed a beautiful building. She walked inside and immediately felt peace and calm. People inside the building were dressed in white, and Nora recognized some of them as the missionaries currently serving in Hong Kong.

When Nora reported to the mission home the next day, she told the elders about her dream. They were astonished. How did she know what a temple looked like? She had never visited one before.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

The First Church Dance in Hong Kong

Early in 1959, Sister Nora Koot and her mission companion, Elaine Thurman, boarded a train with a group of Latter-day Saint youth from Tai Po, a rural district in northeast Hong Kong. There was a Church dance that evening at a rented hall in the city, and the youth were nervous about attending. They were all new members of the Church, and none of them had spent much time in the city. They did not know what to expect.

Nora did not really know what to expect either. The dance was the Church’s first Gold and Green Ball in Hong Kong. The Gold and Green Ball, which took its name from the official colors of the Church’s Mutual Improvement Associations, had been a popular annual event for Latter-day Saint youth since the 1920s, especially in areas where Young Men’s and Young Women’s MIAs were well established. The dances provided a good opportunity for young people to meet other Church members, and the American missionaries wanted to introduce the tradition to the Chinese Saints. Over the past year, after all, the Church in Hong Kong had grown by more than nine hundred people.

Street view of Hong Kong, circa 1956. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by Stanley Simiskey.)

The train ride to the city took about an hour. When Nora, Elaine, and the Tai Po youth arrived at the dance, they found that the mission’s MIA board—composed wholly of American missionaries—had done everything possible to make the dance like a Gold and Green Ball in the United States. Gold and green streamers arched down from the ceiling, and five hundred balloons hung high above the dance floor, ready to be loosed with the pull of a string at the end of the evening. For refreshments, there were cookies and punch.

But once the ball got underway, something seemed off. There was a loudspeaker rigged up to a record player, and the missionaries were playing popular American dance music. The organizers had set up only a few chairs in the room, hoping a lack of seating would coax the young people onto the dance floor. But the ploy wasn’t working. Hardly anyone was dancing.

After a while, a few Hong Kong Saints started playing the kind of music they liked, and everything changed. The missionaries, it seemed, had not considered local tastes. They had been playing instrumental tunes when what the Chinese Saints wanted were songs with vocals. The Saints also preferred to dance to slow waltzes, cha-chas, and mambos, which the missionaries weren’t playing. Once the music changed, everyone in the room crowded onto the floor and danced.

Despite its rocky start, the Gold and Green Ball was a success. A little before the dance was supposed to end, though, someone released the balloons overhead, sending them tumbling down onto the crowd below. Thinking the ball was over, the Chinese Saints quickly headed for the door. The missionaries tried to call them back so they could at least have a closing prayer, but it was too late. Most everybody was gone.

All evening, Nora had enjoyed watching the Saints from Tai Po mingle with the other young people from the region. Working in Tai Po had been one of the highlights of her mission so far, and the time she spent there had strengthened her testimony.

But a few months after the Gold and Green Ball, she found out it was time to move on. President Heaton was sending her to Taiwan, an island four hundred miles to the east.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Teatime with Madame Pi

Nora Koot arrived in Taiwan in late July 1959, about three years after President Heaton had sent the first group of Latter-day Saint missionaries to the island. With a membership of fewer than three hundred Saints, the Church in Taiwan was neither as large nor as organized as the Church in Hong Kong. Still, the missionaries were finding people to teach among the island’s large population of Chinese refugees, who mainly spoke Mandarin, which Nora also spoke.

Dezzie Clegg and Nora Koot, circa 1959. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

After settling into her new area, Nora and her companion, Dezzie Clegg, called on Madam Pi Yi-shu, a member of Taiwan’s chief lawmaking body. Madam Pi had attended school with Nora’s stepmother, who had given Nora a letter of introduction to her old friend. Nora was eager to help Madam Pi see the blessings the Church had to offer the people of Taiwan.

At their meeting, Nora and Dezzie showed Madam Pi the letter of introduction, and she invited them to sit down. A server brought out a beautiful tea set, and Madam Pi offered some Earl Grey tea to her guests.

Although drinking that kind of tea was against the Word of Wisdom, Nora knew it was offensive in her culture to openly refuse tea from her host. But over the years, missionaries and members had devised polite ways to avoid drinking tea when it was offered. For instance, Konyil Chan, a Chinese Saint in Hong Kong who was well versed in social etiquette, had recommended that missionaries simply accept the tea and then discreetly set it aside. “The Chinese people will never force their friends to drink tea,” he had assured them.

Nora and Dezzie graciously declined the tea and explained to Madam Pi that they had come to Taiwan to teach people to be obedient and be good members of their community. Madam Pi, though, kept inviting them to have some tea.

“Begging your pardon, Madam,” Nora finally said, “we don’t drink tea.”

Madam Pi seemed shocked. “Why not?” she asked.

“The Church teaches us to follow a principle called the Word of Wisdom to keep our bodies healthy and our minds clear,” Nora replied. She then explained that Church members did not drink coffee, tea, or alcohol and did not use tobacco or drugs like opium. Church leaders and publications at this time also cautioned against any other drink that contained habit-forming substances.

Madam Pi pondered this for a moment. “Well, what can you drink?” she asked.

“Lots of things,” Nora said. “Milk, water, orange juice, 7 Up, soda.”

Madam Pi asked her server to remove the tea set and bring the missionaries some cold milk. She then gave them her blessing as they taught the people of Taiwan. “I want our people to be better community citizens, to be healthier and more obedient,” she said.

In the days and weeks that followed, Nora shared the restored gospel with many people. Chinese Christians showed the most interest in the Church, but some Buddhists and Taoists were drawn to it as well. Some people in Taiwan were atheists and showed little interest in Christianity or the Church. For others, not having the Book of Mormon or other Church literature in Chinese was an obstacle.

Growth was slow in Taiwan, but the people who joined the Church firmly grasped the importance of the covenants they made at baptism. Before becoming Latter-day Saints, they had to receive all the missionary discussions, attend Sunday School and sacrament meetings regularly, obey the Word of Wisdom and the law of tithing for at least two months, and commit to keeping other commandments. By the time they set a date for baptism, many people meeting with the missionaries in Taiwan were already actively participating in their branches.

One of Nora’s primary responsibilities on the island was to strengthen the Relief Society. Until recently, American elders had led all Relief Societies in Taiwan. This changed in early 1959 when President Heaton sent a missionary named Betty Johnson to set up Relief Societies and train female leaders in Taipei and other cities on the island. Now Nora and her fellow sister missionaries carried on Betty’s work, traveling from branch to branch to give the Relief Society any support it needed.

Nora’s mission ended on October 1, 1959. During her service, she had gained a greater understanding of the gospel and felt her faith increase. For her, the Church’s growth in Hong Kong and Taiwan was a fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s dream.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Temple Dreams Come True

When the Hong Kong Temple was announced in October 1992, Nora Koot Jue was overjoyed. More than thirty years had passed since her service in the Southern Far East Mission. In that time, she had emigrated to the United States, married a Chinese American named Raymond Jue, and raised four children. But her experiences as an early Chinese convert to the Church in Hong Kong had never left her. They were the stories she had told her children at bedtime.

Raymond thought the entire family should go to the temple dedication.

“No,” Nora said. “That’s a lot of money.”

Raymond insisted. “We have to go,” he said.

The family began saving money. The children were now adults, and they knew how important the house of the Lord was to their mother. When she emigrated to the United States in 1963, she had stopped first in Hawaii to receive her endowment in the temple in Laie. Later, she and Raymond were sealed in the Los Angeles Temple, and a short time after that, the Oakland Temple was dedicated near their home in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Nora and Raymond had eventually become temple workers there, giving Nora the opportunity to administer temple ordinances in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hmong, and other languages.

After the Hong Kong Temple was finished in May 1996, the Church held a two-week open house. Nora and her family arrived in the city on the evening of May 23, three days before the temple dedication. When they stepped out of the airport, Nora felt the warm, humid air surround her.

“Welcome to Hong Kong,” she told her family with a smile.

Over the next few days, Nora took her family on a tour of the city. Her oldest daughter, Lorine, had also served a mission in Hong Kong, and they enjoyed revisiting the area together. As Nora showed her children the streets and buildings she once knew, the stories they had heard as children came alive. One of the first places she took them was the temple, built on the site of the old mission home where she had spent so much time as a young woman. Nora could not be happier to see the location put to such a sacred purpose.

On the morning of Sunday, May 26, the family attended a special sacrament meeting with Nora’s mission president, Grant Heaton, and other former missionaries from the Southern Far East Mission. During the meeting, President Heaton and the missionaries bore testimony. When Nora’s turn came, she stood up. “The Spirit is burning within me,” she testified. “I am a product of this land and of this mission. And I am grateful.”

The next morning, Nora and her family sat together in the celestial room of the Hong Kong Temple. Nora’s face was bright and smiling as President Thomas S. Monson opened the meeting and Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke. She felt as if her life had come full circle. Forty-two years earlier, she had pleaded with Elder Harold B. Lee to send the Church back to Hong Kong. There were only a handful of Saints in the city at that time. Now Hong Kong had a house of the Lord, and she was there with her husband and children.

At the close of the meeting, President Thomas S. Monson read the dedicatory prayer. “Thy Church has grown and blessed the lives of many of Thy sons and daughters in this place,” he prayed. “We thank Thee for all who have accepted the gospel and who have remained true and faithful to covenants made with Thee. Thy Church in this area now comes to full maturity with the dedication of this sacred temple.”

Tears streamed down Nora’s face as everyone sang “The Spirit of God.” When the benediction was over, she gathered her husband and children in her arms and embraced them. Her heart was full.

That evening, the family attended a mission reunion. They arrived a little late and found everyone already chatting together in a room. The crowd quieted when Nora entered, and her family watched in awe as person after person greeted her with honor and respect.

While Nora chatted with old friends, an old man tapped her on the shoulder. “Do you remember me?” he asked.

Nora looked at him, and a flash of recognition crossed her face. It was Harold Smith, one of the first missionaries she had met as a young girl. She introduced him to her children.

“I didn’t think I made a difference,” he told her. He couldn’t believe she remembered him.

“You don’t forget people who save you,” Nora said.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.