Sister DeVictoria writing:
I've been thinking that I should give an explanation of what exactly I do in my missionary duties. This list is by no means everything, but just general duties.
--I prepare a letter to the government for each incoming missionary and send it to the Church travel department in Salt Lake. This is used to apply for their visa. I usually print out several at a time and send one big envelope by FedEx.
--I register the missionaries for their alien residency permit. That has to be renewed after one year. This is quite a process that includes certain documents required by the government. I have to go in person to the immigration office to present their papers and pay the fee. I had to go three times this week because once one of the photos wasn't right. Another of those times a new missionary arrived later than his group, so I had to go register him, but the document I prepared wasn't dated right. I thought I was saving time by printing it a month in advance but they don't allow a date that isn't in the same month that you apply, so I had to go back to the office to reprint it. Each letter is "chopped" with the big official red Chinese character stamp of the church, and signed by the mission President with his personal chop too.
--I make copies of their passports, residency cards and health cards to keep on file. We keep their passports in a safe in the mission office.
--I register the missionaries in Taiwan's National Health Insurance system. This is done six months after their arrival.
--I make reservations for several things: restaurants, temple sessions for departing missionaries, and the church building to use for zone conferences and other missionary meetings. This week I had to go to the restaurant across town to make a reservation for the dinner for the departing missionaries. The trip isn't too bad because Taiwan has a wonderful subway system. I keep lists of directions for how to get to each place I need to go, including which subway exit to use that has an escalator :)
--I prepare picture cards for each missionary, to be used on the transfer board. I also print out lists of those leaving the mission each month and those coming in each month, with their pictures on it.
--I help plan and purchase food for mission meetings such as zone conferences, mission leader conference etc. Sometimes we cook the food.
--I order the reprinting of flyers that we have run out of. I believe the owner of the printing company is a member of the church, so he works well with us and is very helpful. I also sometimes have to have passport photos printed for missionaries. Just recently one Elder had a photo that wasn't light enough (it was rejected by the government) so I had his companion take another picture of him and I had it printed out at a local photography studio.
--I prepare the agenda for our office staff meetings and take notes.
--Currently we are teaching the English Institute class once a week.
There is more, but that is the general gist of it.
Last p-day we went to an early session at the temple. Who should I run in to but my very last companion when I served here 40 years ago! She was my favorite companion and I was so happy to see her! The week before I also was able to meet up with another of my Taiwanese companions. She was a school teacher and came to serve a one month mission while she was on summer vacation. She was an angel! I have been so happy I could meet up with these two wonderful friends!
On Sunday we attended the new member/friend class. Afterwards the Ward had a linger-longer where they served a potluck lunch. As I was waiting in the hall, one of the non-member friends who had attended the Sunday school class came up to me. I had made a comment in class about how the Savior experienced our pains and suffering so that He would know how to help us. I talked about how if you have never experienced the death of a loved one, you may not know how to help someone who has lost a loved one. But the Savior knows our pains and knows just the right way to help us. This man said he liked that comment, and that before his country (Myanmar) had civil war, they never thought about what war would be like. Now they can empathize with countries like Ukraine. We talked about how God can bless you with peace. He asked me how he could get peace. I told him he could pray for it. He asked how he could know that it was the Holy Ghost communicating with him. I told him that the Holy Ghost would put a thought in his head, and a feeling in his heart. I explained that after a person is baptized, they receive the gift of the Holy Ghost that can then be with them to help them always. Before baptism the Holy Ghost can also help, but it is even more so after baptism. He had so many good questions. He is a thinker. It was such a blessing for me to be able to have that conversation and feel like a real missionary. :)
I guess we have been splurging on food. We've found so many good restaurants lately!
We found an Indian restaurant that was very good. Elder DeVictoria ordered coconut milk which was NOT very good. Bleh.....
We found a rice porridge restaurant which we enjoyed. It wasn't quite as good as the porridge restaurant that we loved so much in Suzhou, but still good.
Of course I have to post my obligatory flower pictures. :)
Our grocery cart that we bought. It has changed our life! We had one of these in China too. Here we are at the open air market.
Sister DeVictoria in front of a hot pot restaurant.
4 missionaries have hurt themselves lately. One Elder broke his leg, 2 tore tendons in their legs/ankles, and a sister sprained her ankle. The one Elder with torn tendons they treated with Botox. Botox helps the tendon heal faster. I sent him this cartoon that I found. :)
Elder DeVictoria writing:
I've been thinking about the transition from working professionally to serving as a full-time missionary. I did it pretty abruptly. For 35 years I worked hard for corporate America, for a salary, and then it came to an end and like the next day I was a missionary. In some ways now my daily experience is much the same, I mean the pace is about the same, waking and sleeping and the meal schedule, etc because I'm still working normal daytime office hours Monday through Friday in the mission office, pretty much the same as I did before retiring. But, now we're living with a different purpose, to serve the Lord and our fellow missionaries and the people of Taiwan. Now we're suddenly living out of our suitcases in a modest apartment in the middle of this big city Taipei, and without a lot of possessions around us. And no vehicles! It's quite a transition. Yes I think the biggest lifestyle difference for us has been the walking. Now we're simply forced to walk everywhere we go. And since neither of us is in very good physical condition -- in my case I'm fairly rotund and not very strong, and Sister DeVictoria has been struggling on and off with some serious pains in her leg since we arrived -- this has limited our world. We're basically restricted to a radius that is within walking distance for us, which is not that far. We've been here for 2 full months now, and in that time have only been in a car for shopping just one time (with the mission president and his wife to Costco, where we only purchased for ourselves 2 lb of cheddar cheese, almond milk and a pack of flour tortillas). Everything else that we've purchased to eat at home has had to be obtained very close to our apartment, from within the selection of whatever they sell in the stores and shops that are close by. And we have to carry it all home by hand in bags or in a small shopping trolley that we got. So, this is really the biggest lifestyle change. But hey, this is exactly what we knew would happen! We were pretty clear going in, we knew it well, this is how it would be. Because we served as young missionaries here before.
Thinking back, it was really much rougher then. Back in those days we rode our bikes everywhere and boy did we exert ourselves with the full strength of our youth. How well I remember the great physicality of serving as a missionary in Taiwan back then, riding our heavy single-speed bikes for miles and miles, in all kinds of weather, day or night. It was exhausting. But later as adults we also experienced similar lifestyle transitions when we lived as expats in mainland China on 3 different occasions. So, what did we expect this time? Exactly what we've found! Experiencing the difference is itself a kind of pleasure, it's satisfying in an interesting way. For me so far the best part of all has been our interactions with the the other missionaries. It is deeply satisfying to serve with them, and to assist in our own small way in the great work of the Lord to gather scattered Israel.
I was coming up the stairs in our apartment building and saw this spider in the corner near the ceiling. Stopped to snap this picture. This spider is about 8 inches across. I think it has it's egg sack underneath. When we came out of our apartment and down past this spot in the stairs about an hour or two later, it was gone. Probably crawled up into somebody's house...! The Taiwanese don't usually kill these because they reduce the other insects so much.
“The Holy Ghost speaks with a voice that you feel more than you hear. … While we speak of ‘listening’ to the whisperings of the Spirit, most often one describes a spiritual prompting by saying, ‘I had a feeling …’” “This voice of the Spirit speaks gently, prompting you what to do or what to say, or it may caution or warn you”
(in Conference Report, Oct. 1994, 77; or Ensign,Nov. 1994, 60). Pres. Boyd K. Packer
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