Badge of Honor

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

I started out this morning attempting to take a shower, but there was no hot water.  Elder DeVictoria found that the igniter battery on the water heater was dead, so he went to 7-11 to get a new battery.  But I have a schedule and knew that if I waited I wouldn't be ready on time so I just took a cold shower.  I'm glad that it was just a battery and that next time I will have hot water.  You really don't appreciate life's luxuries until they are gone, right?

This week we had transfers.  Most of the missionaries who are moving to a new area came to our church building across the street from the office to meet their new companions.  We also had about 8 missionaries going home this week, and we just got in 5 new missionaries, so everyone came to the mission office.  Not gonna lie, it was chaos at times.  lol  At one point Elder DeVictoria counted 32 people in our little tiny office space!  And that is about a third of our mission!  I took the opportunity to go down to the church and hand out residency cards and insurance cards to missionaries who hadn't been able to pick theirs up yet.  Elder DeVictoria kept busy giving out reimbursements from his desk.

I had to go to the immigration office this week to register new missionaries.  There is a website where I can see how many people are waiting in line, but I always forget to check it.  I think I waited about 45 minutes for my turn this time. 

One night we went over a few streets to get my favorite beef tomato noodle soup.  I saw this lantern as we walked and wanted to stop and get a picture of it.  

Here's another food pic for you.  This was my lunch today.  Stir fried green beans, stir fried cabbage, Sweet and Sour chicken, a fried radish cake (my favorite), purple rice and seaweed/daikon radish soup.  

 

Elder DeVictoria and I had to go prepare the spare mission apartment for some incoming missionaries.  When we got there, we found that the departing missionaries who stayed there previously had started a batch of laundry...sheets...but then never put them in the dryer.  So we decided to rewash them and wait til they were done to put them in the dryer.  While we were waiting, a HUGE thunderstorm hit!  I genuinely was terrified that if we walked back to the office right then we might get hit by lightening!  But after waiting another hour for it to stop, we finally decided we had too much to do back at the office to wait any longer.  We walked back quickly.  When we got to the temple grounds, a HUGE crack of lightening flashed not far away followed by a LONG and LOUD round of thunder!  Elder DeVictoria said, "We just need to walk faster."  I said, "Yes, we can out walk the lightening."  ;)  I was so glad to be back in the office!  The other day I was at the photo shop and I mentioned to the owner that it was supposed to rain that day.  He said, "Yes, it rains every afternoon, so get your errands done now!"  Boy was he right, it has rained every afternoon this week.  In Utah, if it says 40% chance of rain, I think to myself, "Well, it might sprinkle a little."  When it says 40% chance here, be ready for a downpour!

Our new mission president and his family arrived tonight.  Exciting changes!  We were supposed to teach the English Institute class tonight but only one student showed up and he said he would rather not stay if no one else came.  Also we were having trouble with our media equipment, so we just talked to him for awhile.  Afterwards we went back to the office to take care of some things, it was around 8:30pm by then.  Elder DeVictoria needed to reimburse Pres. Yang for his recent cash expenses before he leaves, and the receipts were just turned in at the last minute.  Just when everything was ready and we were about to leave, Pres. Yang stopped by the office on his way back from dropping off the Whiteley's at their hotel.  I said, "Hello Elder Yang".  He is an area seventy now, so is now called Elder.  He said, "Oh that's right!  I need to take off my name tag!"  It was a sad thing to watch.  I told him taking off my name tag at the end of my mission will be hard for me.  I think of it as a badge of honor.  He agreed with me.  But he does feel the load of stress is lifted off him! Caring for and worrying about each missionary 24-7-365 is a heavy burden.  He said he was going to take his name tag off earlier, when he was still with his assistants, but they begged him not to take it off because it was just too sad for them to watch too.  I will really miss the Yangs.

Elder DeVictoria and I were asked a few weeks ago to speak in Church this Sunday.  I have had a subject on my mind for a while now, and it just so happens that it fits with the topic I was given.  This also happened with our going away talk back in Utah.  For 4 months I had the basics of a talk running through my head.  Every morning when I woke up early, that topic was on my mind and I found myself thinking it through.  Every night as I was going to sleep I would once again be thinking about that topic.  It really weighed on my mind for four straight months.  Then when we were asked to give our farewell talk, I asked if I could choose the topic for my talk and they told me I could.  I gave the talk that had been on my mind all that time.  I don't think I was given this experience because I had some grand talk to give, but so that I could learn about receiving revelation.  Pres. Nelson asked us to learn how to receive revelation, so I have been praying for that.  I feel the Lord gave me these thoughts to teach me.  I actually loved the experience.

 

Elder DeVictoria writing:

It's so weird the dietary ideas nowadays in Taiwan.  I mean, it's still Chinese cuisine and they use all the classic standard Chinese cooking ingredients, but they use so little of it.  I think it's because of a modern idea of what is supposedly "healthy" like using reduced salt, reduced oil, not much garlic or ginger, not much soy sauce, very little hot peppers, etc.  I guess they've become used to it now and so the food here often seems to me to be a little bland.  I've been noticing this all over.  A few days ago I was at the cafeteria style place where we go a lot, serving up a meal for myself, and there was the boss lady looking over the food trays and actually picking out garlic with tongs from one of the freshly cooked vegetable dishes, and throwing it away in the trash bin.  I couldn't believe my eyes at first.  She should be adding garlic not removing it!  And who is she to decide how much garlic I get!  Anyway, a couple days later I decided to take a picture of the vegetables section for this blog, and there she was again, doing the same thing, picking out chunks of garlic from the food trays that others were about to go through and serve themselves!  One of the main reasons I go there in the first place is because their cook makes the food taste good!  What I'm saying is, among some people at least, there seems to be this weird fetish against strong flavors.  Seems to be especially important to Taiwanese women.  How do you like her rain boots?

 

 We hope you are all well and happy! 

Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

We had the most incredible thunderstorm this week!  We were working along in the office and suddenly it started POURING down!  Then suddenly we heard a huge CRACK of lightening that sounded like it struck something very close to the office!  We heard some other large and loud "cracks" that were also close to the office, but we kept wondering what that first big one hit!  Needless to say, I was happy I didn't have to go out for any reason!  After a while it all died down.

The other day we went to pick up some pictures from the photo studio.  The Immigration Office has tightened its requirements for photos and they are getting very picky.  They must meet the following criteria:  

--Well lighted white background

--The face must take up a large part of the frame (and proportioned just right)

--Both eyebrows and both ears must be showing

--The image must be different from the previous photo used if renewing the alien resident card.

I have been asking the missionaries to take photos of each other with their cell phones according to these guidelines.  Sometimes I have to edit the photos to brighten them or change the framing.  But so far they have accepted all of the ones that the missionaries have taken themselves.  It's working out.

While we were at the photo studio picking up some of the prints, I noticed the owner lean down and pet something.  I looked down and there was a huge tortoise!

 

He explained that this tortoise was put up for sale at an auction, but no one wanted to buy it.  Then the sellers just chucked it out.  So he went and got it.  He actually has two of them.  It just wanders around the store all day.  He feeds it vegetables.

We had our last staff meeting with President and Sister Yang before the new mission president arrives with his family next week.  It was kind of sad.  We will miss the Yang's.  I did crack my joke with them when I said, "You need to let us know when you are coming to visit so we can clean up first."  They both laughed.  Pres. Yang said he will work a regular shift in the temple after he returns home.  He said they never released him from when he served in the temple before, so he's going to start back up.

A new senior missionary couple arrived the other day, Elder and Sister Millington.  They will be serving in Hualien where the earthquake epicenter has been.  But our housing coordinator missionaries have found a new apartment for them that is sturdy and safe.  Just like us, both the Elder and the Sister served in Taiwan when they were young.  They are a little older than us and so served in Taiwan earlier than us, one in Taipei and the other in Kaohsiung. 

Some church physical facilities employees came to our mission office to look around, they are thinking about how to renovate and improve our office space.  I was thankful that we were there when they came so that we could put in our ideas.  One wanted to put up walls instead of the glass windows around the work desk space.  We told him that would make us feel like we were working in a cave.  We showed him how we can close and lock the sliding glass door so that we can have quiet and keep unwanted visitors out.  I had two suggestions.  One was to get us a bigger safe.  One was to help us organize the closet where we keep our flyers.  Oh, I also told them I really like sitting right below the air conditioner outlet. :)  Elder DeVictoria thinks we could use updated/higher quality and larger working surfaces at our desks.  They're old, worn and outdated; they weren't very high quality to begin with and kind of junky now.

This week a local couple who used to have our positions in the mission office took us out to lunch.  When we arrived at the restaurant there was another couple there who are members of the church, just finishing their lunch.  The two couples knew each other.  When I saw them, I could see they had a light about them.  I could just feel that they are good people.  They kept thanking us for our service.  Then right before they left they sneakily grabbed our bill and paid it too.  Taiwanese are such great hosts.

As we were returning to the office walking through the temple grounds after lunch, I snapped this picture of some flowers they have planted all around.

The other day we went to the cheap cafeteria style restaurant on the corner near the office, where we often eat.  As we were taking our food to the table, I suddenly heard a lady scream!  I whipped around in time to see one of the employees shoo something out the front door.  I'm kind of glad I didn't see what it was, but I'm thinking it might have been a large roach or maybe a mouse...

As I work in the office, missionaries often come in or contact me with problems they need help with.  I recognize that I need to give them my full attention.  I pray every day that I will be Christlike in my interactions with others and that I will be led by the Spirit to know what I should say and do.  My mission is not to go out and preach the gospel, but maybe I can still be of service to those around me.

Last night we went to the Shilin night market.  It was really hot and humid, but we stuck it out until we got some dinner.  I'm not sure what this building it, but it is near the night market.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Five new missionaries arrived last night.  I can only use my imagination to appreciate what they were feeling upon arrival.  For such young and inexperienced 18-19 year olds, their first time leaving home, to go live in a foreign country, it's really a shock.  Culture shock.  And this is just the beginning.  I overheard one of them talking with an AP last night, she said her biggest concern is the language.  I would agree, for sure that is the biggest intellectual mountain to climb, the biggest immediate challenge to face.  To be effective they simply have to learn the Chinese language and this will take the greatest mental effort.  But there is also a whole world of differences to adapt to, differences of living standards and lifestyle, differences of culture, the diet, climate, housing, time schedule, on top of the language, there is just so much that has to be adjusted to. Then the work itself, teaching the gospel of our dear savior according to the pattern he has established for our day and time, it's incredible.  This is all just such a HUGE transition.  It permanently affected me, I was never the same after serving as a missionary in Taiwan. The shock of being forced to adapt is really monumental.  But it's a good thing.  It will be a special remembrance they can treasure for the rest of their lives (or look back with dread?) 

The one Elder went to stay at the AP and Office Elders apartment overnight, the four sisters came to our apartment to stay for the weekend. We have two extra bedrooms with twin beds in each room. Since our arrival we used one of the rooms as our "dressing room" with our luggage laying open on the beds, using them as our "dressers".  Now everything of ours has been collected into the master bedroom, and it's a little tight in there.  After the guests leave we'll probably move the luggage back to the other bedroom as before. The new missionaries have a whole weekend of orientation, instruction, and fun ahead of them.  Plus they have to deal with jet lag, that usually lasts about a week or so. 

On the second night of our guests stay, after a long day of orientation and adventures on the subway and to the night market etc, the sisters finally returned to our apartment and got ready for bed, and in the middle of one of them washing their hair in the shower at 10:30pm all of a sudden the water went out.  She had to use one of our jugs of emergency water to rinse the soap out of her hair.  I got up and heard the neighbor upstairs in the stairwell speaking to their next door neighbor, asking if they still had water?  They said they did.  I spoke up and said our apartment lost water.  So it seemed that one side of our building lost water.  We had to got along without water overnight and in the morning the same neighbors rang our doorbell asking again if we still didn't have water (we didn't). So we called around and arranged for Sister DeVictoria and one of the sister missionaries who hadn't showered last night, to go over to the mission presidents apartment to shower before church.  It all worked out in the end.  The water came back on around 10:30am.  

“In one of the most profound verses in all of scripture, Alma proclaims, “If ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?”… It is not surprising that some in the Church believe they can’t answer Alma’s question with a resounding yes.  They do not “feel so now.”  They feel they are in a spiritual drought.  Others are angry, hurt, or disillusioned.  If these descriptions apply to you, it is important to evaluate why you cannot “feel so now.” … For any whose lives are not in order, remember, it is never too late to make the Savior’s Atonement the foundation of our faith and lives. In the words of Isaiah, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” My sincere prayer is that each of us will take any necessary action to feel the Spirit now so we can sing the song of redeeming love with all our hearts.  I testify of the power of the Savior’s Atonement, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”  Elder Quentin L. Cook “Can Ye Feel so Now?” October 2012 General Conference

Balancing Act

Sister DeVictoria writing:

On our last Pday we decided to go to Taipei 101 for lunch.  As per the name, there are 101 floors.  It's the tallest building in Taiwan.  It takes 4 stops by subway to get there from where we live.  They have a big food court downstairs.  We didn't actually go up to the top, we have been up there before (in years past).  And if you want to go to the very tip top you have to pay a fee.  But we did snap a pic from below.  You can't really see the top in this picture, only our double chins.

We got some lunch there.  We were surprised that it was very affordable.  I really thought being in a tourist attraction it would be more expensive.  Elder DeVictoria got Tofu, braised pork, rice, fish ball soup, and stir fried vegetables. He really liked the fish ball soup.

I got the chow mein noodles, stir fried vegetables, and fried shrimp cakes.  It included pig's blood soup.  I tasted a tiny bit because I hadn't had it in 42 years, but that was even hard to swallow.  I did drink some of the broth, but the more I drank the more it tasted just like the blood.  UCK!  But the shrimp cakes were DELICIOUS!

I found some more orchids.  I was surprised at how many blooms were on this plant! People just leave them outside and they thrive in this climate!

In the evening we went to the ShiDa night market and had 13 Burger again!  I am not exaggerating, this burger is delicious!  I have a hard time thinking of an American burger that I like more.  I told the owner that he needs to open another restaurant closer to my house!  :) Here is a picture of Elder DeVictoria at the night market.

I was asked to play the organ in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.   As I sat down to the organ, I realized it has been 10 years since I played an organ!  In my home ward, there are so many organists, and also I haven't learned to play with my feet, so they don't want me to play.  Many organs have a "Great/Bass coupler" that takes the sound you play with your fingers and makes it sound like you are playing with your feet.  But our home ward chapel organ doesn't have that feature.  Maybe some day I will learn to play with my feet.  

One thing I wanted to mention is that in Taiwan they have such high humidity that they have to handle some things differently.  For example, postage stamps do not have glue on the back.  Instead, they have bottles of glue on the countertops at the post office for everyone to use to stick their stamps on the envelope and to glue the envelopes shut.  If they did have sticky backs, they would stick together just from the humidity.  Also, people usually put some raw rice in their salt shakers.  If you don't, the salt clumps up and you can't shake any out. 

We have a large scale in the office that we use to weigh suitcases.  I weighed myself and found that (if it's correct) I've lost 13 pounds!  I knew I had lost weight because some of my clothing is too big.  Also my face and fingers feel much thinner.  I owe my success to what I'm calling the "Bento Box Diet".  In America I make a dinner for my family every day.  I eat some, and then when I'm finished I might take a second serving.  Here, I buy a pre-made Bento box.  When I finish it, there are no seconds!  Basically, forced portion control.  Actually I feel like my stomach has shrunk so I am satisfied and don't feel the need for seconds.  I have kind of plateaued, but I hope I still may lose a little more weight. 

This blog post might be a little longer because I really wanted to share the following pictures.  There is a tradition here in Taiwan that on the day of the Dragon Boat festival you can stand an egg on end at noon.  It's supposed to have something to do with the position of the earth and sun and the gravitational pull or something like that.  So of course the missionaries all had to try their hand at it and shared their pictures on our mission communications app.

That last one made me laugh!  :D  And finally I saw a news article about how they even balance watermelons.  Here is the picture from the article.

As mentioned before we have been teaching the English Institute class.  We don't usually have very many students show up, but we always have really great discussions and feel the Spirit.  Many times we only have one student, but one of them told us that after our class, even though she struggles with anxiety, she just felt so happy.  The most we have ever had in attendance was three students.  Last night two showed up.  It's just a wonderful way to bring the Spirit in to our lives.
 

Elder DeVictoria writing:

This week went by fast.  For me, most of the office time was spent doing the usual financial tasks, like preparing the mission presidents expense report in the church's Oracle credit card accounting system.  For the month of May and first week of June he spent about US$5000 on his mission president credit card, about 40 or 50 transactions.  A lot of them were Taiwan Railway train tickets for missionaries going back-and-forth to and from Hualien where the epicenter of the big earthquake was back in April.  Out of abundance of caution the missionaries had been pulled out of Hualien, but they went back on weekends for baptisms etc.  Now they're totally back living in Hualien.  This whole episode did create somewhat of a spike in our mission travel expenses which is not a big deal financially, but not all of the physical train tickets (which are the receipts) got back to me for documentation.  In the Oracle credit card expense reporting system each transaction is supposed to be supported with a receipt that gets scanned and uploaded and attached digitally in the system.  Without a receipt for each expenditure then I have to complete an "alternate receipt" form, with a bunch of explanations of exactly what the expense was for and greater detail of the expense.  It all gets approved and signed for by the mission president in the end, and this was all his own spending to begin with.  Anyway, it all has to be handled.  Typical accounting stuff.  Another example is the closing of an apartment, we got the deposit back from the landlord in cash (around US$3000) -- it has to be deposited at the bank, etc etc  

"And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."  Phillipians 4:7

 

 

When it Rains it Pours

Sister DeVictoria writing:

We are in the midst of typhoon season here in Taiwan.  That might sound scary, but basically it just means we are getting a lot of rain.  Up until now, Elder DeVictoria and I have been borrowing umbrellas from the office, and also one that we found left behind in an empty apartment.  Many umbrellas get left behind in the office, so we just borrow them for the day.  But the other day I bought a new one for myself.

We had a funny thing happen with an umbrella.  The other day one of the assistants to the president was going out and needed an umbrella.  There was a really nice one there so he asked who it belonged to.  I said, "I don't know, we just borrow whatever is there."  So he took it.  After he left with the umbrella, the President was leaving to go somewhere and said, "Hey, where is my umbrella?"  I had to tell him that I suggested the AP borrow it.  lol  He wasn't upset, he just grabbed another one. :)  Separately, the  other office elders had previously went to meet with someone and grabbed another nice umbrella from the office.  After they finished teaching the woman, it started raining and she didn't have an umbrella so they let her borrow their borrowed one. At some point the stake president of our stake (Taipei North Stake) called our mission president and said, "Hey, I left my umbrella in your office when I met with you. Can I come get it?"  The mission president said, "I don't know anything about it! I don't even know where it is!"  Then this random woman buzzed the call box and said "I have an umbrella to return".  Elder DeVictoria went downstairs and got it from her.  A short time later, like within an hour, here came the stake president to retrieve his umbrella.....the very one the woman had borrowed. lol  It was just a weird coincidence of timing.  I decided to put a sticker on my umbrella with my name on it.  lol

Yesterday a general authority of the church from the Asia Area Presidency came to release President and Sister Yang. When I came to the office in the morning, there was Pres. Yang busy cleaning up the office, so Elder DeVictoria and I joined in.  He wanted to make sure it looked decent for the general authority.  Pres. Yang has already been set apart at the last general conference time as an Area Seventy.  I really wanted to say, (but I was good and didn't) "When you come back to visit us, do we have to clean up first for you too?"  ;)  He would have just laughed.

This week a senior missionary couple finished their mission.  They are Taiwanese but have lived in Montreal, Canada for something like 30 years.  This is their third mission.  They served twice before, helping with member leader support in China.  They said they will probably serve another mission.  They are awesome.  The President wanted to take them to lunch and invited all the other senior companionships to attend too, because he and his wife are also finishing their mission this month.  So we all went to lunch at a really nice duck restaurant.  I really learned to love duck when we were living in Wuhan.  We used to have duck for holidays since we couldn't find turkey in China.  This restaurant was really good.

Here is a panorama shot of our table, minus me because I was taking the picture.  Sorry for the warped picture of Elder DeVictoria's face, I guess I moved the camera wrong.  lol

Here are some pictures of the duck that we ate.  It really was delicious!

Here is a fish that we had, it was also really delicious!  Also a cabbage dish.  There were about eight different dishes, I won't post pictures of everything.  :)

But here is a final food picture that shows my lunch that I got at 7-11.  It's a cold noodle dish with chicken, cucumbers, carrots, and a peanut sauce.  Also some potstickers with soy sauce that the attendant heated up for me. 

This is a picture I snapped during staff meeting.  Elder DeVictoria and I are sitting behind the camera.

I also snapped a few pictures from our Zoom devotional today.  Don't judge that I took a picture of the Elders praying.  ;)

 

I wanted to tell about an experience I had this week.  A young woman called the office and asked if she could go to our church.  She began to cry over the phone and told me that she has had a lot of hard things happen in her life lately.  She said that she has seen our missionaries going around and they appear to have a strength about them and she wondered if they could help her get that same strength to help her through her trials.  I told her I would contact the missionaries in her area.  I also told her that at the very least, they could pray with her.  I told her that prayer can bring peace.  I sent her info to the missionaries in her area.  I followed up with them this morning and they said they have already had two discussions with her and have another planned!  I think what she is feeling from them is the Spirit of God and she recognizes she needs that in her life.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Our mission president has been released technically, but will continue serving as acting mission president under his calling and authority as an Area Seventy until the moment the new mission president arrives (in 3 weeks).  I guess they wanted to handle things this way because of logistics.  He said "the new mission president will be in charge the moment the wheels touch down at the airport".  He reported that the general authority (Elder Johnson) who visited our office last night, reviewed the progress and success of the Taipei mission and commented that it appears this mission is at peak performance, with a higher rate of baptisms now than in the past 7 or 8 years, with everything functioning well and ready for the transition to a new mission president.  This is a deep compliment to the mission president and the missionaries currently serving.  

President Yang has explained to us in the office that his future role as an Area Seventy within the Asia Area will be to focus on serving the church in the following countries or territories: Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan. (The Philippines is it's own area, and the North Asia area is separate for Japan and Korea).  He said they expect him to be in attendance at church meetings away from home for 3 out of every 4 weekends, it's a heavy traveling position.  He also said the church gave him some choice of duties to focus on in his new role, one of which was "Audio Visual" development, which is right down his alley and that's what he chose.  He said he will try to develop local vendors and infrastructure in each country to provide local audio-visual production resources within the Asia Area.  I think he's quite suitable for this role because he is a very artistic person himself, and has been quite involved in translation of temple ceremonies into Chinese; he did a lot of "voice work" for the Mandarin temple ceremony; he's very familiar with the needs of the church in this regard.  There are several dozen major languages within Asia with hundreds of millions of speakers, so there's a lot of work to do.  Perhaps a next step will be to portray Asians visually in our temple ceremonies?  It's interesting to think about.  Currently the temple ceremony here in Taipei is presented visually with the actors who are white (or, whatever race they are?)... anyway it's the exact same visuals as in Utah and every other temple (I suppose) but with the presentation language in Mandarin, including the subtitles.  Where am I going with this?  I personally think the future is bright for the church in Asia and it wouldn't surprise me if the membership in Asia far surpasses those of North American or European descent.  Especially during the millennium once that gets started any day now. 

1 Nephi 21

6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

12 And then, O house of Israel, behold, these shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

The weeks are slipping by quickly now.  We are almost done with our third month, leaving only twenty to go.  I do think time seems to pass more quickly when you are older.

One thing that I had forgotten about Taiwan, but which is wonderful to see is how rule and law-based this society is.  When we are crossing the street, no matter how narrow the street or lane, people wait until the "walk" sign flashes before crossing.  Even when no traffic is coming, people wait. Also, in this old neighborhood many of the streets are very narrow, so they painted a green lane on the streets for pedestrians to walk on.  It is really convenient!

In this photo the characters roughly translated (from top to bottom) say "Pedestrian walk way".

Also people are generally honest.  Some time back there was an Elder whose bike was stolen.  He announced it on Facebook.  The people here got quite upset about his bike having been stolen!  Even the nightly news featured his story.  He got his bike back!  This past week we had several incidents.  One Elder had his bike stolen.  He reported it to the mission office.  The office elders suggested he make a police report, which he did, and look around the neighborhood.  He found it nearby in the neighborhood!  The police came and took fingerprints.  They took this very seriously!  In two other incidents, two other Elders on separate days lost their wallets.  Each of the wallets were turned in to the police station and weren't missing any money!  I was glad about that because their alien resident cards and health insurance cards were also in their wallets and it costs a lot of money and effort to request new ones.

This week I think the city must have sprayed the streets for roaches because all of the sudden we are seeing tons of those huge kind of cockroaches!  Usually I never see any, or maybe occasionally one.  We came out today and there were 5 or 6 in the area just inside our apartment gate.  And as I walked down the street I kept seeing them.  And we are seeing a lot of dead ones.  I HATE roaches!!  Frankly, I only have three phobias in life:  deep water, floating in space (think of the movie Gravity), and roaches.  The giant spider didn't freak me out as much as roaches do!

I wanted to explain more about the call boxes.  All buildings here have a locked front door or gate, and a call box where you can buzz the buzzer to get permission to enter.  When I was a young missionary, we would stand at the call box of an apartment building and push the buttons one by one asking if we could go in and talk to people.  Then if they let us in, we would knock on each individual door.  More expensive buildings also have security personnel who monitor who goes in and out.  Here at the mission office we have two call boxes.  One is wired to a phone on the wall, and the other is connected to our desk phones.  I'm trying to get the missionaries to use the one connected to our desk phones so that we don't have to get up and down from our seats to answer the phone on the wall.  

These are the call boxes on our building.  There are 7 floors to this building, so the gray box buzzes the wall phone in each of them.  But the small one on the right is the one that is hooked to my desk phone.

 I put a little sticker on it that asks people to use that call box.  No one seemed to even notice it, so I went back later and highlighted it with an orange marker.  I'm considering laminating another sign and taping it on the top!  Lazy?  Maybe, but it's just so much easier to just answer the phone on my desk instead of walking across the room to answer the wall phone, especially on transfer day.

We had zone conferences this week.  There are 8 zones, but to minimize the number of conferences the mission president has combined some zones together so that he only holds 3 zone conferences.  We kind of took the lazy way out this time with the food.  Since this hadn't been done before, we ordered Costco hot dogs (polish sausages) that came with a drink.  A senior missionary elder and two young elders went together to pick them up.  The only problem was that they had to fill all of the drinks themselves.  Over 100!  Costco said that the drinks are basically free, so they weren't willing to do it an easier way.  We also had some big beautiful green salads (they couldn't eat all we made) some watermelon (once again, the melons were HUGE so they couldn't eat it all) and some delicious carrot cake made by one of the MLS senior missionaries. 

We have one missionary (Elder Harwood, shown above) that is around 6'4" and can never seem to get enough to eat, so he took a lot of leftovers home (here he is holding 5 hotdogs) as did some other missionaries.  I handed out a lot of leftover hot dogs for Elders to take home.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

 The hotdogs from Costco were OK on Wednesday but what I liked discovering this last week was a Mexican burrito shop called Macho Taco located in the Shida night market neighborhood, it's within walking distance of our apartment.  It's not perfectly authentic, but close enough to enjoy on occasion, maybe we'll go back in another couple weeks or when the craving becomes strong enough.  Sister DeVictoria is losing weight.  I'm not.

Here is a picture that I snapped of some Sister Missionaries riding their bikes home through the traffic of Taipei after an evening of church activities.  They are wearing their reflective vests and their helmets which I was glad to see.  They saw me and waved.

In this picture you can see one of the many 7-11 stores in the background, this one is about 50 yards from our apartment.  There are two more 7-11 stores at similar distance from our apartment in different directions.  There are three or four more 7-11 stores a little further distant, really in every direction surrounding our apartment there are 7-11's, altogether I can think of 7 that are within easy walking distance.  To the left in this picture are a couple of small restaurants, I estimate in our neighborhood there are at least 100 similar sized small restaurants and coffee or tea shops.  In this neighborhood the restaurants tend to be slightly upscale, a little more expensive, or higher quality (?) than in other neighborhoods around Taipei.  People come from all over to visit this neighborhood, it's a kind of "destination".  The Dongmen subway station is located on the north side of this neighborhood which makes it very accessible, and there is one of the largest city parks (DaAn Park) to the east.  There is a fair amount of foot traffic around here especially on the weekends and in the evenings.  

It always surprises me to see how many foreigners are in the crowds here, and on the subway.  The English Ward that we've been attending is going through their annual turnover of expatriates that are leaving.  It seems the most of them are employed with the US Government in some way, and they get rotated out to move to their next assignments during the summertime.  They usually stay here for 3 or 4 years, I guess.  Today at church it was fast and testimony meeting and there was a lot of goodbyes and tears.  I think expats love living in Taiwan.  I enjoy it myself.

I will say that serving and living in Taipei in 2024 as an office specialist in the mission office is a lot different than what it was like for me serving as a young proselyting missionary in southern Taiwan 40+ years ago.  I think Taiwanese society has changed a lot.  I just remember how deeply alien the society was (and just everything was) to me back then, and now everything seems so normal.  Perhaps I have changed?  Probably it's both.  Taiwan has changed, and I have changed.  Some of the biggest differences I see in Taiwanese society now, and this could have a lot to do with where I'm located now compared to before, are:  richer/more money/more worldly; less Taiwanese language spoken; much more concerns now about bodily health and exercise and pollution and recycling and and diet (the food is less salty now, less oily than before); less political propaganda/slogans/rallys/fervor; far less Buddhism or other traditional religious practices; less consumption of beetlenut with its chewing and spitting; less smoking (although still plenty of people smoke here).  More scantily dressed immodesty in the young girls, and far more tattoos.  Of course technology changes have happened everywhere throughout the world and Taiwan is very modern in this respect now with excellent internet speed and access, great cellphone coverage, wonderful mass transit system, ATM's everywhere, just lots of super convenient innovations and modernity.  Like air conditioning in every apartment, in every room. Which is a huge from before and it's wonderful. 

This week our apartment coordinator, service missionary Sister Chen mentioned that she stubbed her toe in the night.  We laughed and talked about how many times I've stubbed my toe in the night over the years.  Lo and behold, on P-day when I was doing the laundry I stubbed my little toe!  OUCH!

"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