The Trials of Travel

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

This week started off our last few days of training before the previous office couple returned home from their mission.  It is a scary thought to not have them there to answer questions.  But we will just trust in the Lord to help us along the way.

Early in the week, the assistants to the president asked us if we would be able to take a Taiwanese sister to the train station that evening.  She was finishing her mission and was headed home to Kaohsiung.  We did get our international drivers licenses before going to Taiwan, so Elder DeVictoria agreed we would drive here there in the mission van.  We mapped out a route to the train station, but as we drove, we found that the map didn't account for one way streets!  We may have gotten a traffic ticket in the process; they have cameras at all intersections.  They would send it in the mail.  We struggled to even find where to park.  She had two heavy suitcases and we knew it would be difficult for her to get those to the train alone.  We finally found underground parking, but we still had to walk quite a ways to the train station.  We ended up getting her there late.  But she was told her ticket would still be good on another train if there was room.  We had trouble getting her suitcases to the gate, so she missed two more trains, but finally got on the last one.  Trains come every 10 minutes.  When she arrived in Kaohsiung, there were about 25 family members waiting for her!  Then Elder DeVictoria and I had a hard time finding our way back to the mission home, but finally were able to get our bearings.  We had to hustle because we were asked to start teaching the English Institute classes.  We were able to get back in time to get a quick dinner before heading to the chapel.  We prepared a lesson with a power point, but sadly no students showed up.  We will teach on Tuesday nights.

One of my favorite things to do in the office is prepare official documents to be used in registering missionaries with the government.  I get to use the official stamp on the letters.  Small thing, but it makes me happy.  lol  

On Wednesday morning Elder DeVictoria woke up at about 3:30 a.m.  He had some business to do with regards to financial affairs in the U.S. so he got up and made some calls.  He got showered, but then got drowsy so laid down to take a nap.  About that same time I got up and got myself ready for the day.  At 8:00, we suddenly felt an earthquake start!  Elder DeVictoria woke up from a sound sleep and yelled out, "Earthquake!"  I immediately went to the door frame and steadied myself there.  We were really rocking!  After the quake stopped, we quickly got ourselves ready and left the apartment.  Our apartment didn't suffer any damage, but I did hear a crash of metal during the quake.  Down the street from our apartment is a construction site that has a huge crane on top of the building.  I was afraid it had fallen, but it didn't.  But something fell because we saw emergency crews come to that site.  It turned out that in Taipei, it was a 4.4 earthquake, but at the epicenter in HuaLien it was a 7.4.  They sustained serious damage including two buildings that toppled, and a landslide.  On this map, Taipei is the top area circled, and HuaLien is the bottom circled area.  

Thankfully, none of the missionaries were harmed and only minor damage to their apartments.  One senior couple who are stationed in HuaLien had left early in the morning to come to Taipei to take care of some business.  As they arrived and parked their car, the earthquake started.  If they had delayed their trip, they could have been killed.  

Before we went to the MTC, our son told us they had scheduled their wedding for April 7th.  We told him that if he could arrange to have it before we left for Taiwan, we would give him the money we would have spent on airfare to come home from Taiwan for the wedding.  He said that this was the only time they could get the venue that they wanted.  I felt the Spirit tell me to just go with it, that everything would work out.  We were quite concerned because we needed to get our Alien Resident Card ARC before leaving Taiwan or we would have to reapply for a new visa.  Our scheduled flight was on Thursday, and we got the cards on Monday by the skin of our teeth.  

We left Thursday morning and took the subway to the airport.  We only had carryons, so it was actually a very convenient way to get to the airport.  We flew to Korea and had a layover there.

A woman came up to us in the airport and told us she is a member of the church.  We had a nice chat with her.  Then on the plane, we met her three sisters who were traveling on a tour with her.  We sat by a young man from Salt Lake who with his girlfriend had quit their jobs a year and a half previously and had been traveling all over Asia.  They were headed to Houston to watch the eclipse, then they planned to return to SLC and get jobs.  We also met a young man who told us he is a member.  We asked him if he had served a mission.  He said he is still trying to decide whether or not to do so.  I didn't want to pressure him, so just told him how fun it is to serve.  But later I wished I had expressed to him what an honor it is to serve the Lord and wear His name on our name tag.  I wish I could have expressed to him how life changing a mission can be.  

I've said it before, but I will say again that I absolutely hate the L.A. airport!  I wish I had worn a fitbit to see how many miles I walked there just trying to get to the gate.  While we were walking, we happened to pass a mainland Chinese woman who was jabbering away in Chinese to an airline pilot she had run in to.  It was obvious he didn't speak any Chinese, but was trying to help her.  We stopped and looked at each other and we both knew we had to help.  We offered to walk her to her gate.  But she insisted that she needed to go to a ticket counter and get a physical ticket.  We could not convince her that she had an electronic ticket.  So we finally showed her how to go out and explained that she would have to go through security again.  She was happy to do that because she was convinced she needed a paper ticket.  Her flight to BeiJing didn't leave until 11:30 p.m., so she had plenty of time.  We said goodbye and went on to walk the 50 miles to our gate......  Our son Daniel picked us up at the airport.  I think in all, our trip was 30 hours door to door.  But as I look back at our trip, despite the long tiring day, the interactions that we had with people along the way were very meaningful and the best part of the trip.

Last night we had a dinner for the two families of the wedding couple.  Elder DeVictoria's sister and brother in law offered to make the dinner and host us at their house.  That was a huge service for us which we greatly appreciate.  We had a wonderful time and enjoyed getting to know our daughter in law's family.  We really love her.  The food was excellent!

We can't wait to get back to Taiwan.  It was hard to leave, especially because the mission president had been asked to go to conference in Utah.  He has been called as an area seventy and needed to attend training.  It was hard to leave the missionaries, but our president's councilor said he would come stay in the office to be on hand to help.  I know it was especially hard for our mission president to not be present during the earthquake.  We use a communication app called "Line", and he asked for an immediate accounting of all missionaries.  I'm sure he was very worried to not be there during that time, but the Lord protected us all.  But we need to get back, we have a lot of work waiting for us.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Well, our training is complete and we have to stand on our own two feet to perform all of the duties that are assigned to us.  I expect there are going to be some tasks that are going to be forgotten, then we will get a rude awakening when something doesn't get done.  We will do our best to remember all the steps and all the tasks of our roles in the mission.

This earthquake was really something.  I have never felt anything like it, and I grew up in California where I had felt a number of quakes in my life.  It was really powerful and it seemed like it lasted quite a long time.  An article said there were 40 recorded after shocks.  It seems like I felt every one of them; a tremor, a shaking.  Through this experience I can really imagine what a more serious earthquake that causes buildings to collapse would be like.  In fact, if this magnitude of earthquake continued for a longer period of time, like for 10 minutes or so, I'll bet a lot of buildings would have started to fall down. Magnitude is one thing, the duration is another.  Ever since it happened, it has continued to be on my mind.  If it doesn't happen again, I'm sure the memory will gradually fade.  They reported this was the largest earthquake in the last 25 years in Taiwan, but the previous earthquake of this magnitude killed over 2,000 people and caused a lot more damage.  So we were blessed.  In this case, in this instance, we were spared.

The flight home was pretty miserable, but just like in previous years of heavy travel back and forth to Asia, we just live with it and survive; grit our teeth and bear it.  

An interesting fact that came to my attention this week is that except for the local Taiwanese couples, all of the foreign senior missionary couples, both husband and wife, previously served as missionaries in Taiwan when they were young. We are the only ones assigned to the office.  All of the other senior missionary couples are assigned as MLS missionaries to specific wards.  

The family dinner with our future daughter in law's family was really nice.  It was such a pleasure to get to know her parents, brothers and sisters.  Really excellent people.  Our son is joining a really wonderful family.  We hope our daughter in law feels the same way about us.  

We caught most sessions of conference but not all during our visit back home.  There has been a lot of comings and goings of people related to Danny's wedding.  We've also had preparations for the dinner to take care of.  I haven't had time to really deeply digest the messages of this conference.  We will review it all again in the coming days and weeks.  

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."
Helaman 5:12

Building in HuaLien that tumbled.