Grand Central Station

Sister DeVictoria writing:

In order to enter our office building the front door needs to be unlocked electronically.  Next to the front door are two call boxes that connect with the mission office.  One of the call boxes calls the phone system in the office.  When the office elders are in the office they answer these calls, but when they are gone, it falls on me to answer.  I can tell by the number of rings if it is a regular phone call or if it is from the call box.  I answer the phone and ask who's there, then I can press a number on my phone to unlock the door.  It's getting to the point that the one day I dread the most is transfer day because the office elders are usually not in the office the whole time and we have missionaries coming and going ALL DAY so I need to let them in, over and over.  The second call box is attached to a separate phone line that is mounted on the wall of the office.  If a visitor presses the button on that call box, and the office elders aren't in, then Elder DeVictoria or I have to get up and walk over to that phone to let them in.  On transfer day it is an all day thing!  I have to confess that sometimes BEFORE I answer the phone I say out loud, "Grand Central Station" but then I obediently answer the phone saying "Mission office" in Chinese.  You could refer to transfer day as "chaos".  We do love to see all the missionaries and their energy is contagious, but it's hard to get anything done with all the noise and activity going on.  Elder DeVictoria brought in a pair of noise cancelling headphones one time.  

That being said, the Elders help me so much.  I feel like I know more about computers than the average person my age, but there are times I just need help to learn how to do something.  One day I asked an Elder for help, but just as he started looking over my shoulder, I saw what I needed to do.  He said, "See, you can do it!"  That actually was a confidence boost.  But I did post this cartoon on the wall of my cubicle.

 

This last transfer day an elder wanted to do a recorded interview using one of our office computers, to apply for a job as a teacher at the MTC.  He will be returning home soon.  We decided to close up the window and door to our inner office area so that he could have some quiet (there is an an automatic sliding glass door with an electric lock that seals in our working desk area from the rest of the mission office).  He did a good job recording his interview clips, I think he will get the job if they have an opening.

Usually by the end of each day and especially by the end of our week we are pretty tired.  Fortunately preparation day for us is Saturday, and Sunday is a wonderful day of rest.  Despite the possibility of chaos, by Sunday evening I'm already looking forward to getting back to work on Monday.  Confession:  I seem to have some attention deficit disorder.  So actually this position is perfect for me because I am not just doing the same thing all day long every day.  I have many different tasks for which I'm responsible, so it never gets boring.  

More flower pictures.  By the way, the flower that Elder DeVictoria previously said was plastic...I looked at it again and saw that it is REAL!  So many orchids growing outside here!

This week I had to go to the immigration office to register three missionaries for their alien resident card.  I arrived there in the afternoon.  I knew it was a bad sign when I got my queue number which was 252.  Usually I get a number like 78.  When I sat down in the waiting area the sign above said something like "69 people waiting".  I waited for a good two hours.  But I was just getting over being sick from a cold, so actually the rest was nice.  I just surfed Facebook on my cellphone while I waited.

I decided we needed a better way to organize the missionary passport photos so we bought a binder with plastic pages for collecting cards.  This will make it much easier to keep track of all the photos and find them when needed.  We have to submit a photo of each missionary when applying for their alien resident card, and another photo different from the first one a year later when we reapply.  Also we need photos of each missionary when applying for their national health insurance card at 6 months in-country. 

We have a local Taiwanese couple that work as the Housing Coordinators for the mission, Elder and Sister Chen.  They originally were supposed to serve one year, but they just kept going because we had no one else to do it.  Now it's approaching two years of service.  They are amazing.  She has really good negotiation skills, especially with landlords who want to discuss in the Taiwanese language.  He can fix ANYTHING!  Really good people, salt of the earth.  I've been thinking about how we won't have them much longer, so I took this picture to remember her.  Then I saw I could add her as a friend on Facebook!  :)

Elder DeVictoria writing:

This week started off early Monday morning with a surprise fighter jet fly-by right over our apartment at 6:30am.  That kind of freaked me out.  I looked online and couldn't find any warnings about an attack from China.  Later in the day I saw a news item that said there is the presidential inauguration speech coming up next Monday and the military is making some preparations for a show.  Later in the week there were some more early morning fly-bys over Taipei.

There have been more earthquakes too, but so small they are not always noticed.  One earthquake occurred on Monday as I was walking back to the office from the bank, I didn't notice it myself but I heard a shop owner come out and speak to his neighbor saying "did you feel that!".  Yesterday in the office there was another one the I could clearly feel while sitting at my desk, and so did the office elders, but Sister DeVictoria didn't notice it.  It was like a gentle swaying.  Here in Taipei we haven't been near the epicenter of any of these quakes, but with this recent transfer we are sending back in the missionaries to Hualien that has been the epicenter.  However we are trying to change apartments for the senior missionary couple in Hualien who were on the 7th floor, all of their food was spilled out of their cupboards and refrigerator with a lot of the glass bottles broken, and the elevator was damaged during the big one last month.  We're trying to find something different, like in a single or 2-story building that is a little further away from the downtown area, which should be OK for them because they have a car. The couple now serving in Hualien will be completing their mission on June 5 and a new couple is coming from US to replace them around June 18.  We're trying to get a new apartment ready before they arrive.

We're gradually starting to get some exposure to our new mission president who will arrive at the end of June.  The current mission president has a transition checklist that he's working on.  The new mission president and his wife sat in (by Zoom) on the new missionary orientation that I gave to the newly arrived missionaries last Saturday morning.

On Sunday after church there was a baptism of a man originally from India (Drew Aggarwal).  He said he's been searching or the truth for a long time.  Born a Hindu of the Brahmin caste, converted to Islam, started investigating Christianity, finally found us through a Facebook ad in Taiwan and was taught by the Taipei missionaries and decided to get baptized.  I was asked to speak on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and it was my pleasure to do so.

One evening we asked the missionaries serving in this neighborhood for food recommendations.  They said there is a place in the Shida night market that serves excellent hamburgers, it is called 13 Burger.  We decided to go there.  Delores's leg was hurting so we took a taxi although it's not very far away.  The burger was fantastic, and it included a small serving of fries and bottomless sodas (but no ice). Besides playing hard rock music in Mandarin it was great (I guess I wasn't in the mood for hard rock).  But for US$6 each it was a bargain, and delicious.  Will go there again. We walked back home afterwards, about a 15 minute walk.  Good thing it's not closer or we'd be there every other day. 

 "Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." 3 Nephi 27:20

The Tender Mercies of the Lord

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

It's surprising how fast time flies when you are our age.  Our 23 month mission is already down to 21 months.  I keep a chart in my journal that has a square for every month we will serve.  I cross off each month that passes.  I don't do this because I'm anxious to go home, but to remind myself how little time we have left.  I remember when I was a young missionary the first year seemed to crawl by, but the last year flew by.  Before I knew it I was going home.  

I am constantly amazed at the help the Lord gives me in my duties.  He reminds me of things that I have forgotten to do.  For example, this morning I woke up really early and suddenly remembered that I hadn't sent the mission home address to the incoming missionaries.  They will need that to go through immigration at the airport.  Also, He prepares things ahead of time for me.  For example, the other day I was looking at the missionary application of a young missionary who is scheduled to come here.  I have to do this to get the home address to fill out the alien resident application.  I was thinking about our own applications, so decided to pull up ours and just poke around looking at it.  Right then Pres. Yang came in and I asked him about reserving a temple session for the departing missionaries.  He asked me to call the temple right then and make the appointment.  When I talked to the scheduling person at the temple, he asked for my membership record number.  It just so happened that because I had been looking at our missionary application, I had my membership number right there in front of me on the screen.  Another time Elder DeVictoria was talking to me and reached over and clicked on my "Teams" app.  I didn't even know I had that!  And there just happened to be an important message there that had recently arrived!  One more example:  I was looking through my top drawer of my desk to pull out all of the passport photos that were there.  I happened to see a key ring with tons of business card sized cards on it.  I got to looking at it and saw that it had addresses for places like Costco, Beauty shops and barbers, etc. as well as cards with simple phrases like "Where is the bathroom?"  I recognized that it was probably used for the wife of a former mission president.  The next day Pres. Yang came and asked the office Elders to make up a map showing the location of important places around this neighborhood that we could give to the new mission president and his wife, as part of their transition.  I suddenly remembered the cards and brought them out!  This will be a big help to the new mission leaders.  I can't tell you how many times this kind of thing has happened!  If this just happened once I could maybe write it off as coincidence, but this kind of thing has been happening all the time.

We are experiencing a phenomena that we have experienced in our Asia travels before.  You know how people in America say, "All China-men look alike"?  Well that is obviously ridiculous.  But before when we have ever moved to Asia, or visited, there comes a time when we are walking down the street and we suddenly can't tell if the person walking towards us is Chinese or American.  Elder DeVictoria came up with a code for us to use.  Of course we can't tell secrets in Chinese like we do in America, and we can't speak in English because many, many people here speak English.  So we just say to each other "YES or NO"...meaning "is that person a foreigner?"  In addition, we sometimes see a Taiwanese person that looks like someone we know back home!  Their Taiwanese doppelganger if you will.

Health update:  My leg is SO much better!  It's not 100%, but I am almost there.  Thank you for your prayers.  I also developed a skin rash on my arms that is a chronic thing that I usually get in warm weather, now it is also almost completely gone.  I have a cold now, but this too shall pass.  Thanks again for your prayers on our behalf.

Every time we walk to or from the church (about 50 feet from our front door) I see plumeria blossoms on the ground.  I have never seen a plumeria tree before, so didn't know where they were coming from.  Then one day we happened to see blossoms at the very tip top of a tree.  These trees are planted all over the chapel and temple grounds.  My Dad loved plumeria which are used in making leis in Hawaii.  They smell heavenly. A woman I met on the street said in Taiwan they call it the chicken egg flower.  Not sure if it is the shape of the blossoms or the color that remind them of an egg.

I had to go to the immigration office this week.  I saw this tree, but don't know the name of it.  But I thought it was interesting.  Banyan maybe?

Because it had an escalator, I went out a subway exit that I don't normally use.  I had to walk past this old city gate.

I am part of a Facebook group that is for missionaries from my first mission.  This week one of them sent me this picture of when I was a teacher at the MTC.  Paul and I were newly married.  I don't know what the event was that had Paul in attendance, but wow we were young!

And lastly I can't forget my obligatory food pic. :)  This one had Taiwanese popcorn chicken, rice, tofu, broccoli, stir fried cabbage, bean thread noodles, and I ordered a side of stir-fried greens.  And some Coke Zero.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Today (Saturday) is our preparation day but we have some duties to fulfill in the office at 10:30am because yesterday evening 2 new missionaries arrived at the airport, they were picked up by the mission president and his wife and the assistants.  They have stayed overnight in temple patron housing (men stay on 3rd floor and women on 2nd floor, the office is on 4th floor).  This morning they go to a local park to play frisbee with the office elders, and then try some local breakfast items.  Then the new missionaries will receive their "office orientation" that I will give, and Sister DeVictoria also has a form for them to fill out and she will take their passports for safekeeping in the office.  We are allotted 1.5 hrs with them.  I will explain their interface with mission finances and their monthly Missionary Support Fund (MSF) budget; how to get their cash from ATMs; reimbursement procedure for travel and other expenses; the bedding situation, laundry and house cleaning expectations; and bicycle safety.  They are also supposed to pay for their bikes today, in cash.  Later in the day the office elders and assistants will train them on their cell phones, and the area book, and the Line app -- there is a long list of things for them to do today.  Transfer day is on Monday, when they will meet their companions and find out where exactly they are going to start their service; they will take their new bikes with them when they go to their areas. 

Every young missionary in this mission has a bicycle (just as when we served here 42 years ago).  Now the bikes are made-to-order for the missionaries at a bike factory in Taichung.  Here is a picture of our mission bikes storage area (for the new bikes) in the basement of the church building across the street from the office.  The new bikes are made-to-order according to the height of the missionary and cost 9200NTD (~$285USD) and used bikes that are rebuilt by the factory cost 3000NTD (~$93USD).  In this picture it shows there are now about 10 rebuilt bikes, and there are 2 brand new bikes in the front; the women's bikes are on the left side and men's bikes on the right.

FYI the missionaries serving in this mission are mostly from USA (about 80%) and the rest are from other countries like Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, etc and the local Taiwanese missionaries are about 10% of those serving, but of course all these numbers and ratios fluctuate with time.  I think the ratio of elders to sisters serving is about 75%/25% roughly.  There are some large groups of new missionaries scheduled to arrive later this year, up to 14 in a group arriving in September, and another in October.  Sister DeVictoria prints out their pictures with their name and date of arrival and puts it up on the arrival board as they show up in the system each day. It's exciting to see the new missionary calls show up one by one in the system. 

We had a baptism in the Taipei English ward 2 weeks ago, then another last night, and there will be another baptism this Sunday after church.  I have been asked to speak about the Holy Ghost.  The man baptized 2 weeks ago is from Australia, the woman baptized last night is from Myanmar, the brother being baptized tomorrow is (I think) from India.  These are all young adult-age people who are in Taiwan as students.  There is also a steady pace of Taiwanese people joining the church in this mission, I think over 60 since the beginning of the year.  

I attended a zoom meeting devotional for the Asia Area employees of the church, and they invited certain missionaries like me who are involved with finance, to attend.  The presiding bishop Elder Clause spoke.  He made a number of very interesting comments.  Such as: The church is transitioning from a historic practice of frugality and conservative management (to be so very careful to run the church on as little expenses as possible) to a new era where much bigger spending will occur for the sake of growth and for "Spiritual Dividends".  There are 12 big prophetic initiatives that have recently been approved (and budgeted/funded) by the first presidency and quorum of 12 apostles.  The first is obviously Temples.  Others include YSA programs/facilities/events, also FSY events, and a big one is young adult education throughout the world ie. the BYU Pathways program (especially in Africa and the Philippines).  The decision making and management authority for running the church will become more devolved from Salt Lake City to each Area organization, it will become more and more decentralization as time goes on. 

On the lighter side, this week I cut my chin shaving.  I wasn't paying attention (I think I was thinking about something from the Book of Mormon and letting my imagination run wild) and I mistakenly manipulated the razor the wrong way.  So for the last 2 days I didn't shave in order to let that spot heal. I'll shave this morning before going in to the office.  Hope I don't cut myself again.

"We should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord's tender mercies.  The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live...I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us."  Elder David A. Bednar (The Tender mercies of the Lord April conference 2005)

...in his own tongue, and in his own language

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

Another busy week in Taipei.  Once again we feel trepidation as we learn to do our duties, but I have felt the Lord's help each time I faced a difficult situation.  Each time I learn something well, I try to keep a record of what I learned.  I made a book with tabs for each subject.  Actually there is a book in the drawer that someone else had made, but it is so scrambled with no organization and little notes written all over the pages that it's hard for me to make sense of.  I write a step-by-step list or procedure for each thing.  Some tabs have things like: restaurants from which to order food for zone conference, contact info for the temple etc. 

It was the mission president's birthday this week.  He came into his office to find the missionaries had decorated it for him.

The missionaries love him, and from my first day here I could feel his love for them.  They posted the funniest pictures of him on our closed mission group on the Line app, here are a couple examples: 

I found a picture of Elder DeVictoria that I wanted to share.  This is a "Then and now" compilation.  He worked as an office elder for three months during his first mission :)

Then (around January 1983):

Now (April 2024):

We went to the temple with our English ward last night.  I can speak and understand Chinese, but I'm still getting used to the Taiwan accent again so don't always understand everything that is said.  I felt like for my own spiritual strengthening I wanted to attend the English ward.  And we also attended the English endowment session.  The Taiwan temple is so compact!  39 people fit in a session.  It was wonderful to be in the prayer circle and hear the prayer said in English by a Taiwanese temple worker who struggled to speak English.  He did a wonderful job and prayed with the spirit.  I believe that hearing the gospel in your own language brings a deeper meaning to the words.  That is why we strive to teach people in their own language.  We are in the process of being approved to serve in the Taipei Temple as part-time temple workers.  It's going to be a challenge to learn everything in Chinese.

We made our own Facebook ad for the mission this week.  The young missionaries were specifically asked to do that, but I really wanted to participate too.  The mission president was a little surprised we wanted to do it.  I immediately had an idea for what we would do.  But I forgot to include one aspect of the requirement, so I hope to go to the office today to fix that.  If the Church likes the ad, they will pay for it to be promoted on Facebook. :)  (We had to include one still picture, and one outlink.  I forgot to add the outlink).  The young missionaries are so good with technology, I always ask for their help.  Here is the photo we used for the still picture.  We included the text, "Have you ever prayed to God, our Heavenly Father before?" written in Chinese at the bottom of the pic (not shown in this example): 

This experience has made me want to do more videos!  I have been using social media for about 20 years and I'm hooked!  I hear so many people talk in church about the evils of social media.  It all depends on how you use it.  I believe the Lord gave us this technology to help spread the gospel throughout the world.  Anyone with a smart phone can access information about literally anything.  We need to make use of this new tool we have been given.

I can't finish my part of the blog without sharing a food pic.  lol  Out of convenience, Elder DeVictoria and I often eat food from 7-11 that is about 45 yards away from the front door of the office.  Here in Taiwan, 7-11 carries fresh pre-made biendang (bento box) type meals.  They cost around 79 Taiwan Dollars (about US$2.50).  The clerk can heat them up in the microwave for you.  She uses some napkins and a special piece of cardboard to hand it to you so that we don't get burned.  They also have a machine that can toast sandwiches for you.  They also have fresh sandwiches and other specialty bread items.  This biandang was a spicy pork with rice and green beans:

Elder DeVictoria writing:

The two office Elders with whom we work (in their temporary office assignments as "media specialists") reported during our mission-wide prayer meeting online yesterday, that they got a message from church headquarters that our mission Facebook ad campaign is the most successful one in the Asia Area (with the most baptisms resulting from an initial contact through Facebook).  So, what's happening is, people within the Taipei mission area see our ads, they click on the link, our missionaries contact them immediately, and they become friends and the teaching and conversion process begins.  It's quite simple, and genuine.  Yes the Lord is hastening his work through technology, yes it is real.  The church does have to pay Facebook a little bit of money for posting the ads.  But what a pleasure it is to just be a tiny part of it and to see it really happening before our very eyes.  There is actually some rudimentary programming skills required of the Elders, mainly for formatting the ads and for handling the links and referrals management etc. The young missionaries are so smart, and so accustomed to technology, they do a wonderful job.

Here is a pic of the office where we work.  The 2 "media" office elders sit in the desks closest to the front in this photo, and you can see Sis. DeVictoria hunched over her desk in the middle; my desk is opposite hers on the right.  In the background near the photocopier is an Elder who is a service missionary, he and his wife as companion help with the missionary housing, they do a fantastic job.

"For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ."  D.&C. 90:11

You Shake My Nerves and You Rattle My Brain

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

Hello again from the land of earthquakes.  We thought the earthquakes were pretty much over, but woke up at 2:30am this morning to another.  Not as strong as the first big one three weeks ago, but still enough to jolt us awake and out of bed, and it is very unnerving to be jolted out of a sound sleep by an earthquake.  I could hear little feet running on the floor above us...probably to their parent's bedroom.  Somebody said there was an earthquake about the same time the night before, but we slept through that one.  I received a call at the office from a young member girl in Hualian asking if all of the missionaries had left town.  I told her the missionaries were temporarily living in other cities.  She expressed how scared she is.  I told her she could ask one of the Priesthood brothers in her ward to give her a blessing of comfort.  I regret that I didn't think to pray with her right then over the phone.

The temple and the mission office have been going through some maintenance this past couple of weeks.  There was some earthquake-cracked walls that needed to be repaired in both buildings, and also they power-washed the spires of the temple.

Below is a picture of our office building.  This is the same office building as when I was a young missionary here over 40 years ago.  Our office is on the fourth floor.  The new mission president's residence is on the top two floors, this is being renovated by construction workers right now.  Temple patron housing is I think on the first three floors.

While the previous office couple were still here they trained us for 2 weeks.  But I have to admit, that first week my brain was kind of fuzzy because of jet lag.  Now I am finding there are many things that I just don't even remember learning.  This week I was kind of stressed at times, because I just didn't remember how to do certain things.  But I have felt the Spirit help me each time.  Many times I received ideas on who to ask for help.  It made me think of this saying,

“God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”
― Spencer W. Kimball 

Sometimes the promptings have been so subtle, but I recognize it as heavenly help.  I finally figured out most of the tasks I needed to accomplish.  After all I have learned this week, I feel much more able to continue on in this position.

I should remember from when I lived in Taiwan before, but I have been surprised to see so many beautiful orchids growing outside.  I try to take pictures of flowers that I like.

 I was so excited to see this one (the red flowers below) on our way to the post office, until Elder DeVictoria informed me it was plastic.....

 I also snapped a couple of pictures at the store of vegetables and fruits that I am not familiar with.  I think the larger one is Kohlrabi.  I have no idea about the other smaller green things.

Last night we took the subway to the Raohe night market in the Songshan neighborhood of Taipei.  We ate a few foods that are Taiwan specialties.  I had lurou fan which is a braised meat with sauce on rice, and some Taiwanese style pickled cabbage. We also had an oyster omelette which is another famous dish in Taiwan.  I didn't think I would like it, but actually I really enjoyed it. 

Elder DeVictoria had stinky Tofu.  I ate a piece or two, but this kind was very crispy which I wasn't too fond of, and also the stink was pretty strong.  He ate it all. 

Here are a few street scenes we took pictures of this week.  This first one is a tall building being constructed just down the street from our apartment.  I didn't know cranes could be this tall!

Here are some students during their play time at the elementary school.  They are wearing uniforms.

Here is a typical street scene, lots of traffic, lots of people.  With some old lady in the foreground. 

Regarding our apartment:  When we first got here we were told that when the other office couple left for home, we should move into their apartment which is nicer.  However, we are so accustomed to living in Airbnb's in Suzhou that we were fine with this somewhat older and simpler apartment that we started in, it seems just the same as what we're used to.  Also, this one is on the second floor, and the other apartment is on the 3rd floor with very steep steps.  And, since the tendonitis in my knee has still not quite recovered, so we put off moving to that other apartment.  But I have felt all along from the first that someone else would need that other apartment, and that we should not move.  The president has hinted that he likes to use the apartment we are in now to temporarily house missionaries who have to come to Taipei for various reasons.  So we thought, yes alright, eventually we would move, but I have still felt like someone else would need that other apartment.  Now with all the earthquakes centered in Hualian, this week the mission president decided to quietly and temporarily evacuate the missionaries from Hualian, and the senior missionary couple who was serving in Hualian is now staying in that empty apartment here in Taipei.  That couple (originally from Taiwan, but called from Canada) they are reaching the end of their mission and have some family coming to visit this weekend who will stay with them. So, I feel like it's a good thing they can use that place which is nicer for hosting guests.  Also, we were just informed by President Yang that there will be a new senior couple coming to be health missionaries in this mission.  The husband is a doctor, and the wife is Taiwanese.  She will be helpful to navigate the language aspects and he will of course serve as the main mission health resource.  The president said he would like to locate them somewhere a little further away from the office where they can also serve a local ward and provide member-leader support.  I want to make sure they are well situated before we consider moving to that other apartment.  We really do feel at home in this one so we don't mind staying.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

We've been here in Taiwan over a month now, time just flies by!  It's really a pleasure to serve the Lord.  But I am thankful that we as senior missionaries don't have to follow all the young missionary rules and schedule.  It makes things really nice to feel somewhat unconstrained and free to do whatever we need (or want) to do. I love the flexibility, it's very nice. Also the physical demands on us are more appropriate to our age and condition.  There is no way we could do what those young people do, riding their bikes everywhere, constant physical activity.  As it is we do have to climb the stairs up and down to our apartment, and walk back and forth between our apartment and the office (it's only a short block away), and walk within our neighborhood for shopping and to get meals.  For sure it's a lot more walking than we ever did back home, but we're handling it.  But we're usually pretty exhausted by days end.  

Here's a snapshot of a part of the menu at a bing parlor (bing = ice), we shared a mango bing last night at the night market, the first one since we arrived.  Soooooo good.  There is also a couple pictures of the entrance to the night market, and a fresh fruit stand with cold air vapor billowing out.  Night markets are pretty interesting, lots of unusual food items. I actually topped off our night with a watermellon juice drink, and a serving of barbecued steak.  A delicious taste of home.

When we got home, while walking back from the subway station, we found the garbage trucks had arrived.  You can see the people from all around carrying their trash bags to the trucks.  Taipei makes great efforts to recycle, you can see cans set out for different items like bottles, cardboard, etc. You can see our apartment in the background, second floor up, on the right (our windows are just above the yellow truck in this picture).

This afternoon (Saturday, which is our Preparation Day) there was a parade outside our house.  You can see the truck with the speakers and the drums, followed by the dragon dancers.  There were quite a few items in the procession that preceded the truck, it took me a minute to find my phone and snap these shots of the end of the parade, from our balcony. 

"For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand."  

Doctrine and Covenants 88:89

Tacos, Trains, and Talent

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

This has been a crazy busy week.  It started last Saturday (our P-Day) with us going with Pres. and Sis. Yang to Costco to buy food for the mission zone conferences.  We decided to do soft tacos.  Taiwan's Costco is very similar to the U.S. Costco, although they replace most American foods with Taiwanese food.  They did have plenty of cheeses.  We were able to buy flour tortillas to use in the zone conferences lunches.  We also were able to buy salsa and sour cream.  There were so many Asian foods I would like to try, but couldn't do a big shopping because we were buying so much already for the mission.  I did grab some of those tortillas and some cheese.  On Monday we cooked up the meat so that we would only have to warm it up later.  

On Sunday we attended a musical concert put on by the young missionaries.  It was AWESOME!  It was surprising how much talent they have!  They sang and performed with their whole hearts.  I wish we could have recorded it, but the songs were under copyright, so we couldn't.  They have one last concert tomorrow night.

One of the young Elders did not sing in the concert so had to wait for his companion.  I think he used his time well. Young missionaries need all the sleep they can get. :)

 

Earlier in the day we also prepared dinner for them before the concert.  This is me with the mission president's wife, Sis. Yang

 

 

Tuesday morning we drove about 40 minutes to TaoYuan for the first zone conference.  We prepared all the food and ate with the young missionaries.  The American missionaries really liked the soft tacos.  I told someone I think it is an American comfort food.  As soon as all of the meat was gone, the young missionaries kept coming back and making rice and cheese tacos.  Some of those young missionaries have hollow legs I think, they ate a lot!  We planned for 70 people.  

Elder DeVictoria and I left after lunch and took a train and subway back to Taipei.  We both had pressing matters to take care of in the office so wanted to get back.  In the Subway we saw this blind accordionist.  Since I have been learning to play, we appreciated him earning money this way. 

On Wednesday morning we repeated the process of making the food for the Taipei zone conference.  This time we planned for 80 people.  Both times we also had pears, and in Taipei we also had watermelon.  I have to confess that we were exhausted at the end of the day.

On Thursday I had to send some government letters to Salt Lake to the church travel office so that they could apply for visas for the new president's family.  Their names hadn't shown up in the system, so both I and the person over travel had forgotten we needed them.  I quickly got them ready but then had a LOT of trouble trying to get them sent through Fedex.  The online forms were in Chinese, so I used my Google translate camera to go over each line, but still couldn't seem to get it right.  So finally someone suggested I go to the church offices across the street and ask their help.  The man who helped me ALSO had a hard time.  Right then a Fedex delivery man showed up and he tried to help, but even HE had a hard time!  Finally they got it figured out and the delivery man was able to take it right then.  After I got back to the office, I figured out that I could change the online page language to English, so I'm going to try it in English next time. I think a few of my gray hairs went white through this experience!

There is a church member here who seems to be mentally ill.  She is homeless, so hangs out at the chapel most of the time.  The church is usually open during the day because there are church offices there.  (Distribution center, the church's Taiwan country office etc)  She is a wonderful artist and tries to sell her art to make money.  She sold us this picture.

 Elder DeVictoria writing:

Yes it was an exhausting week with the zone conferences.  It was a lot of work for us to assist with preparing and serving all the food. We're not young and strong and agile anymore, we tire easily. The mission president explained that in this mission there are 8 zones and he decided to combine together the 8 zones in to only three larger "zone conferences" per transfer period. Then later each zone holds its own separate zone council meeting run by the zone leaders, once each transfer.  So, the zone conferences are larger than would perhaps be found in other missions.  A lunch is always provided, but it is usually a take-out style meal that is ordered and delivered, such as biandang (bento box), or pizza, etc.  But he tries to make a more enjoyable home-cooked deluxe meal (like the soft tacos) once in awhile, maybe two or three times a year.  The missionaries eat a lot of biandang bento boxes in their daily diet here, so they do get tired of them. They loved the soft tacos! 

Our Biandang bento box lunch today.

 

My regular mission office duties include reimbursing missionaries for various expenses, ordering replacement payment cards, doing the paperwork and computer processes for closing down apartments, etc.  It's not too difficult, the hard part is remembering each step.  These tasks are quite procedural, rule-based, accounting-ish. (Is that a word?)  These kinds of things aren't things I've loved doing in the past, but in retrospect I've done a lot of tasks like this in my old work life.  It is gratifying to serve the other missionaries.  

"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

Mosiah 2:17

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

What a wonderful opportunity we had to return home for our son Daniel's wedding.  We love him and Noel and think they are perfect for each other.  The wedding was absolutely beautiful and was held at a nursery that has a wedding venue.  Flowers and plants everywhere.  Noel looked beautiful!  She had her dress made in Ukraine.  It really suited her.  She is pretty without the fancy clothes, but they just added to the effect.  :)

We felt so blessed and happy to see family and friends who came long distances to attend the wedding. Daniel's friends from California all came to be his best men.  Our two other sons, Joseph and Samuel were also his best men.

Our daughter Teresa was one of the bridesmaids.  She was such a big help to us throughout the weekend.

Two of our grandchildren

Even though it was a quick trip, we feel so blessed that we were able to go to the wedding.

A few hours before our flight back to Taiwan, I decided I should make a trip to instacare and see if they could do anything for my knee.  As I talked to the doctor, he became concerned that maybe I had a blood clot in my leg.  He asked me to go get an ultrasound.  We really didn't have time to do that, but we made time.  Elder DeVictoria went home and grabbed our luggage while I finished with the doctor.  The doctor gave me a steroid shot in the knee and tried to relieve some of fluid on my knee.  We quickly headed to the ultrasound place in American Fork.  I was so relieved when the technician told me she didn't see any clots.  Later the doctor called and confirmed that.  If there had been he would have wanted me to not fly back to Taiwan for a couple of weeks while I went on blood thinners.  Just as I expected, my problem was just tendonitis which I've had before.  The shot has helped though so I'm glad I went, even though we were tense wondering if we would make our flight okay.  We made it with time to spare.  Thank you everyone for your prayers in our behalf!

That is one long flight.....  The flight from SLC to LA was about 2 or 3 hours. Then the flight from LA to Taipei was 14 hours. 

We took the subway back to Taipei.  We sat in priority seating which is available to those who fit the sign below.  I had a knee brace on, so Elder DeVictoria said that I fit the picture with the cast.  He said he fit the picture with the big stomach.  ;)

At another place in the airport they had the following signs.  Elder DeVictoria said The first sign was a face washing station.  The last sign was a tickling station.  I told him the middle one must be a dating game with the host sitting in front and a curtain between the two people.  ;)

We have enjoyed eating at local places near our apartment.  Just down the street are several cafeteria style restaurants.  One is Vegetarian.

Right across the street is another restaurant with a big sign that says, "Eat meat".  Pretty good advertising!  lol

 

 

 We got back to town and rested a little bit then went straight to the office.  I had a matter I was concerned about resolving, and a lot of other things that needed to be done, so we went straight to work.  We have been helping with the food for mission leadership meetings.   We enjoy working in the office.

The young missionaries have been preparing for a special musical fireside that they will be performing in several places throughout the mission.  The concert is called "Love, share, invite".  Some have been given permission to bring musical instruments to the mission, and these are stored in the mission office.  We will get to hear their concert Sunday night here in Taipei.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

What a whirlwind week!  Returning from Taiwan back to Utah for Danny's wedding, then back to Taiwan in 6 days time.  Danny and Noel's wedding was wonderful.  So well prepared and so nice and enjoyable.  We had just enough time to do some errands and the family dinner at Michelle and Kawika's house was great.  Our deepest thanks to everyone who supported us. 

 

Now we've got to perform all of the mission office couple tasks on our own.  It's a little daunting.  I think we will get through it.

It is really nice to back in Taiwan and to enjoy the culture here.  It's wonderful to see the young missionaries working so hard and having such success.  It seems there is a steady stream of baptisms occurring which is wonderful.  With each baptism, the missionaries post on the Line app (local social media) a brief introduction telling about their friend who is joining the church.  Also, the young missionaries are quite friendly towards us, which is nice for us.  

One interesting thing that happened to us during our travels is that a number of Chinese people approached us asking for help.  The Los Angeles airport is so confusing, it's no wonder these people were bewildered!  I think they saw our name tags in chinese, and came to us to ask for help.  For example, one approached us about finding the shuttle to the rental cars.  Another asked us to help her speak with the hotel where they were staying so they could find the transfer bus to take them there.  Another asked how to get to a certain terminal etc.  I think LAX needs to have chinese people stationed there to help all the chinese travelers.  

 

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

 Hebrews 13:2