Last Few Days of Training

Sister DeVictoria writing:  

Our time with our trainers is running out.  They finish their mission in just a few days.  Sometimes we wonder if we will be able to remember everything.  I asked Sis. Croft if I could call her at 3:00 in the morning with questions.  :)  Actually, the secretary before her lives here in Taiwan, so I could always message her if I have problems.  Here in Taiwan they use the "Line" app for everything. It is a communications app similar to "What's App".  Sis. Croft joined me to all of the important groups on "Line" that I need to do my work, so I should be able to contact everyone okay.  I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but she and I served in this mission at the same time when we were young, although we were never companions.

Here is a picture of some orchids that I saw as we were walking one day, a picture of me standing by the door of the apartment I lived in 42 years ago, and a street by us with a view of a full moon.

Our current mission president and his wife finish their mission the end of June.  The new president, Pres. Whitely and his wife will start July 1.  They might have a different way of doing things, so we might still have some things to learn.  Currently the church is renovating the apartment they will live in.  It is on the top two floors of our office building.  It hadn't been renovated for over 40 years. They are also renovating our closets in the office.  They should be done today.  It has been kind of a mess this week while they worked.  All of the contents of the closet are stacked on tables and such.  It has also been a little noisy.  It will look nice when they are done.

We got in two new missionaries today.  We met them while we were still in the MTC.  We will be getting in a good number of missionaries this summer, but it should taper off because the church is trying to keep missions a little bit smaller.

We have been doing a little more cooking at home this week.  It's a temptation to eat out every meal because the food is so good, but there are times we need to eat from home, and it can be cheaper.  But once again, I can't help sharing pictures.  The picture below is from when we went to a nearby night market for dinner.  My dish was spicy potstickers and wontons, and his was chow mein.  He also got a few potstickers and cucumbers which we shared.  There was so much good food there at the night market!  We definitely need to go back some time soon.  Yesterday a member invited us to go out to eat Beef Noodle soup.  We are helping her by taking some things back to the states to give to her son who lives in Orem not far from our house.

.

 

One thing we have started to do this week is study characters.  I took a few classes in college, but I only learned about 300 well, and have forgotten so much.  We have some cards to use to study, so we bought some little notebooks to practice writing in.  Only a couple thousand more to learn....  This first pic is my book.

We have been asked to teach an English Institute class.  They meet every Tuesday night.  I think there could be as many as 8 students, but last time when we attended, there were only 2 regulars and one visitor.  The Chinese Institute class is VERY well attended!  I'm so happy so many young single adults attend!

While I was in the MTC I developed some tendonitis in my knee.  It has been giving me a lot of trouble ever since.  I'm trying to be extra careful when I climb stairs so as not to exacerbate it.  I bought a knee brace, but it is a little bit small so I haven't used it much.  I do have an anti-steroid medicine that I was given by my doctor in the U.S., so I've been trying to use that regularly.  But boy this sure is getting tiresome!

We encourage you to either comment down below or on Facebook.  Sometimes we wonder if anyone is actually reading this blog. lol We don't really get emails from anyone and have only received one comment on this blog although we have seen a few comments on Facebook. So please comment if you are able to let us know someone is reading this!  lol 

 

Elder DeVictoria writing:

 

The picture above should be entitled, "Don't interrupt me while I'm eating."  But seriously, the schedule of living in Taipei is quite a bit different from our home life.  We don't have a car, so everywhere we go we have been walking.  This means we are exploring in each different direction to find what is available to us by foot.  One evening we went to a nearby park, Da An park, and walked one circuit around it.  Very nice, lots of flowers.  But we did see one rat run across the path in front of us, and there were a number of frogs.  The furthest north we walked was to the Dong Men market last Saturday.  The furthest south was to the Shi Da night market.  Our routine is that we wake up early, read scriptures individually, take showers, get dressed, then before leaving we have a study together using the "Preach My Gospel" manual which is really wonderful.  It's quite terse, or direct and to the point, with lots of wonderful scriptures to look up and discuss together.  

We've been going to the office around 9:30.  It's only a 3 minute walk.  We walk right past the church building that is next to the temple.  We take our trash to the dumpster that is in the basement of the church building. This alleviates us from having to carefully sort our trash in to categories like everyone else in Taipei has to do when the trash truck comes around.  A big sign on the door of the mission office has the hours of operation:  10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  We usually take about a one hour lunch break.  We need to be staffing the office from Monday through Friday.  Saturday is our preparation day.  The young missionaries have their preparation day on Monday.  

The internet in our apartment is provided via our cell phones.  It has an unlimited data package.  It is provided by the church.  Before leaving home, I purchased a "travel router" that allows any source of internet (ethernet, cable, dsl, modem or tethered cell phone) and rebroadcast it as a local private wifi.  That's what we're doing with one of our cell phones tethered to it.  It's actually been working great.

It has rained a few days,usually for a short time, maybe thirty minutes or an hour.  The weather has been cool to medium warm.  Not too hot yet.  The heat is coming.  

Another thing that happened this week was that a young sister missionary came to the office early in the morning in tears asking for a Priesthood blessing. Pres. Yang asked me to give her a blessing, which I was glad to do.  This missionary has a sister back home whose baby just died.  This is a deeply sorrowful event

in any family's life.  In the blessing I told her that this is the very reason she is here, to testify and teach these very doctrines that we have that we know that babies who die before the age of accountability go on to eternal glory, and that families who qualify themselves through temple ordinances will be sealed together in the eternities, including babies who die.  This knowledge is the very reason she is here, to teach this to our fellow brothers and sisters in Taiwan.  Nobody else in the world knows this like our religion knows this. 

One of the Doctrinal subjects we studied this week is about baptism.  Baptism is essential in the process of conversion and salvation.  But baptism by water is only half of a baptism.  The second half of this crucial ordinance is the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  The reception of the Holy Ghost is the baptism of fire spoken of in the scriptures.  During this week a local elderly sister who has been a member for many years invited us to lunch.  She related a marvelous event that just occurred in her life.  Her non-member 86 year old husband got very sick and was in the hospital close to death.  He agreed to allow a Priesthood blessing, after which he got better.  This miraculous healing convinced him to become baptized.  His grandson who is currently serving as a missionary in the TaiChung mission was allowed to leave his mission boundaries to come up and baptize his grandfather.  Two of his other grandchildren stood behind him in the water to support him while he was being baptized because he was too feeble to stand up.  The sister showed us a picture of this on her phone.  After he was baptized and confirmed a member of the church, shortly thereafter he passed away, which was about a month ago.  The sister has a lot of faith, and she feels the Lord helped her husband to progress spiritually and now she is looking forward to having additional temple worked vicariously performed and have her family sealed to him. 

 

"The Prophet Joseph taught, 'Baptism by water is but half a baptism, and is good for nothing without the other half--that is, the baptism of the Holy Ghost."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 17-23 In-field Training

 

Sister DeVictoria writing:

This week was a week of training.  We received training in the MTC, but many things are done differently here.  For example, we were trained to use Canva to be able to do newsletters.  But the young Elders in our mission office do the newsletter, so I won’t need to do that.  I’m actually really happy to have their help.  When I was a young missionary, there were no senior missionaries, so young missionaries did all of the office work.

Here is Elder DeVictoria being trained by Elder Croft

 

We spent so much time traveling back and forth to China and staying in all kinds of Air bnbs and hotels that staying here feels much the same.  Our apartment is nice.  I especially love the bed.  It is much firmer than our stupid memory foam mattress back home.  We will probably move to the other senior apartment when the current office couple (the Crofts) return to America.  Everyone says that apartment is better, and since we will be here for 23 months, we might as well take the nicer apartment.  The only draw back to this apartment is that there is a big gym across the street that keeps its lights on until the early morning hours.  We do have curtains, but there is also a lot of noise and traffic from the gym in the middle of the night.  The weather has been wonderfully cool all week.  I’m sure that will not last long. 

We have really been enjoying the food here.  I’ve been inundating my family with pictures of our dinners.  There are several self-serve cafeteria style restaurants in the neighborhood.  There are a wide variety of dishes, including plenty of vegetables.  The food definitely tastes different from the food in mainland China.  Not too much spicy food here, much milder.  I also think the soy sauce has a different flavor.  But we are enjoying it all.  Today (preparation day) we did some shopping at the open-air market so that we can make more food at home, especially for the weekend.  Here is the market, and a very faint Taipei 101 in the background.

 

The mission president has to interview each missionary at least once every 6 weeks.  This week was interview week, so we had an office full of missionaries every day.  They have so much energy!  I wish I could bottle it and take some every day.  We enjoy getting to know the missionaries, they are all really good people.

Sister Croft showed me how to get to the post office, and where to go to apply for the Alien residency card.  I have to apply for each missionary who comes.  After 6 months they are eligible for Taiwan’s national health care.  I will also apply for that for each missionary.  We applied for ours the day after we arrived, and they told us we can pick up our cards this coming Monday.  So, we shouldn’t have any problem traveling back to the States for our son’s wedding on April 7^th.  I’ll probably just be getting over jet lag when we leave for the wedding…..

In the basement of the mission office is a storage area.  (Our own little D.I.)  Many missionaries have put old clothing there.  I was able to get a used set of character cards to study.  As I started going through them, I noticed I already know a lot of them, so I may have to advance to the next set.  I’m still studying German on DuoLingo and have 1425 day streak. 

 Elder DeVictoria writing:

 This has been a full week of training in our mission office duties.  What I learned is that this is a cash-based mission, and a bicycle-based mission.  Every young missionary buys a bicycle upon arrival.  With each transfer, the bicycle must be shipped to the new area. The Church provides the monthly money to each missionary’s credit card, then the missionaries go to an ATM and withdraw it all as cash.  Very few vendors in Taiwan accept credit cards.  Also, this mission has only 5 vehicles;  three associated with the mission office (one for the president and two vans), then there are two senior couples that live in very remote towns that each have cars. 

Each missionary also gets a cell phone that is provided by the Church.  When the missionaries are transferred, the SIM card stays in the area, but the phone goes with the missionaries. The amount of money each missionary receives is 9,000 TWD- Taiwan dollars which is about US$280 per month.  This is for food, travel, and minor personal items.  One of the major tasks of the financial secretary (me) is to supplement each missionary’s monthly allotment with extra money to cover travel expenses for zone conferences, mission conferences, and transfers to new areas.  This can get complicated with about 120 missionaries.  There are 8 zones and 59 areas.  

It's been a pleasure to learn more about how the mission works.  We are just getting started.  

 

 "And we ask thee, Holy Father, that they servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;"  DC 109:22

 

 

 

 March 18, 2024

Sister DeVictoria writing:

What a great last week in the MTC!  On the last day, when we had to have our door cards deactivated, it was very sad to realize that we wouldn’t be coming back to the MTC.  We made such wonderful friends in our MTC district, and had so many uplifting and spiritual moments.  We also enjoyed getting to know many young missionaries, including those who would be following us to our mission. 

I think the MTC teachers especially look for activities to keep the senior missionaries moving.  I think too many of us nod off during our afternoon classes.  Lol  So we often are given assignments that have us go out of the classroom.  One of these activities we were assigned to go with a couple that we had been sharing teaching practice with to go out with them and find some meaningful activities to do together. We found some young missionaries to get to know in the recreation room.  We took advantage of the moment to play a little ping pong together.  Elder DeVictoria also made a video of our activity but it hasn’t been put together yet.

 One highlight of our MTC experience was the Tuesday night devotional.  They keep the guest a secret for security reasons, but as we were leaving the cafeteria we happened to see Elder Quentin L. Cook and his wife getting out of a car.  He gave an AMAZING talk!  I hope it is eventually allowed to be put on Youtube.  He talked about the recent acquisition of the Kirtland temple and the subsequent restoration of the Priesthood keys by Moses, Elijah and Elias.  At the end of the talk he said he wasn’t sure why the Lord gave him this experience, but he testified that he knows the Lord’s voice, and is familiar with His face.  He also shared a video from a previous devotional when two young missionaries taught him and his wife a lesson about the restoration.  Very powerful.  Elder Cook’s example made me want to study the gospel more carefully.

photo from church news.

 

One day as part of our morning devotional in class, we went to look at one of the murals in our building.  It was a picture of Martha standing by some fully set tables with dishes and food.  It occurred to me that when I looked at the pictures, all I saw was the hundreds of things that needed to be done.  I totally understood why she was feeling overwhelmed.  I have felt that way with regards to my secretarial duties.  All of those things needed to be done, but Mary chose the better part.  I have to remember the priority of seeking the Spirit to help me with the tasks I face.

 

We left our house early Saturday morning for our flight to Taiwan.  When we arrived in San Francisco (which was very nostalgic for us, particularly because Elder DeVictoria used to work right near there) we were sitting at the gate waiting when an Elder with a Chinese name tag (Elder Geis) came up and introduced himself.  He was going to our same mission!  It was fun to get to know him and we waited together for our ride to the mission office.  In general, we felt like celebrities in the airports.  People kept coming and thanked us for our service, asked where we were going, and helped us with our luggage. 

 

That was a long flight, which we have experienced many times with our trips to China.  We survived.  The mission president and his wife, as well as the 3 assistants to the president picked us up.  Between the three of us we had a LOT of luggage.  They delivered us safely to our apartment.  We will be able to choose between two different apartments where we want to live.  This one is nice, but everyone says the second one is nicer, so we will have to decide which one we want to take.  

 

The mission home is the same building as it was 40 years ago when I served here.  But they have renovated it, so it looks much different on the inside.  The neighborhood has also changed so much that I don’t really recognize it any more.  We will be staying in this area for the duration of our mission so we will have many opportunities to explore.

Taipei temple view from the mission office balcony

Chapel that is next to the temple.  It houses 5 wards, as well as the church country office

 We have started training in the office. There is a lot to learn

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Sure is great to be back in Taiwan.  The first day in the mission office was great.  Learned a lot already.  The couple who we are replacing will be leaving in two weeks.  Experiencing mild jet lag.  I'm sure we will get over it in a few days.  

8 For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true.  Alma 29:8