5 Things We Love About Elder Gong

Today I am delighted to share a family video: 5 Things We Love About Elder Gong.

This has been an ongoing family project for over a month.
I read everything I could find about Elder Gong, from his conference talks to his writer profile on Goodreads,* each biographical sketch the Ensign ever published, an old interview in The Friend as well as the fun biographical sketches shared in the New Era and Friend this year.
I noticed my children most connected with the "fun" stories we found about him.

1. We love Elder Gong's family. His grandparents immigrated from China. His parents were married three times: a Chinese ceremony for family, an American ceremony for friends, and later, when Gerrit Gong was a young child, they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
2. We love that he has traveled all over the world. How many people do you know who have visited all seven continents? Elder Gong has. He has traveled the world for diplomacy, spreading the gospel, and family trips. Antarctica? I guess that was just for fun.
3. We love his sense of fun. Once, he asked cheerleaders to perform silent cheers for the chess team. Another time, when he was filling out an application to become a Rhodes Scholar, he listed tree climbing as an athletic ability. 
4. Elder Gong is smart. Not only did he attend Oxford University, but as a Boy Scout, he learned morse code. When he was a missionary in Taiwan, he felt inspired to write a note to an investigator in morse code. It turned out the investigator was a radio operator, and was delighted to receive the personalized message.
5. We love that he sang in conference. Some people barely have the courage to speak in public. In the April 2018 conference, Elder Gong didn't just speak with confidence and courage, he sang.

REFERENCES

• Elder Gong shared his family's story in his October 2010 conference talk, "Temple Mirrors of Eternity: A Testimony of Family."
• As a seventy, Elder Gong shared his memory of being sealed to his parents in an article in The Friend magazine.
• A photograph of Elder Gong with penguins in Antarctica (and another of him serving ice cream to missionaries) is in the August 2018 New Era.
• On the final page of that issue, there was a biographical infographic of Elder Gong.
• The morse code story is found in a biographical sketch the Ensign published when he was called to the Presidency of the Seventy. 
• He sang on Easter Sunday in the April 2018 LDS General Conference

*His published works appear to be of a professional and philosophical nature on the topic of diplomacy.