You were meant to be here.....from the beginning

Sister DeVictoria writing:

Where did this week go?  I know I was busy all week, but all of the days have kind of melded together.  I guess the biggest news this week was the typhoon.  The government called off all work and classes for two days, but actually here in Taipei the storm wasn't that bad.  I did see some video from southern Taiwan that looked pretty intense.  Someone mentioned that it was kind of like the typhoon kept bouncing off the edge of the island.  Elder DeVictoria said it was probably the mountains.  We did prepare food and water just in case, but it was a very mild storm for us here in Taipei.  We actually went in to work those two days that everyone else took off from working.  

On Tuesday we also had a military drill.  We were told to stay indoors from 1:30-2:00.  Anyone found outside would be fined.  I was standing at the window of our 4th floor office and could see an elderly lady outside sitting on the wall by the chapel.  I could tell from a distance that she was mentally ill.  Eventually someone came and helped her get inside.  The drill started and ended with sirens.

Today is preparation day (P-day) so we have been trying to get things ready for incoming missionaries.  The senior couple in charge of housing are preparing 4 sets of bunk beds to put in our apartment, and another three sets in the other senior couple apartment.  Our apartment has three bedrooms, two of which we aren't using.  So they will set up the bunk beds in there.  On Thursday we will be getting in 12 new missionaries.  Some will stay here, some will stay in the other apartment, and if needed, some can go to the President's apartment and the office elders' apartment.  Our only problem is that our apartment has only one big bathroom, and one 1/2 bath.  The 1/2 bath is off of our bedroom and is VERY small, but does have a shower head hanging on the wall with a drain in the floor... so if really needed we could shower in there.  Then on Saturday those new missionaries will meet up with their new companions and go to their assigned areas, and the missionaries who are returning home this transfer will come take their places.  We have 16 going home!  

Paul taught the Institute class on Tuesday night and I tried to help out as much as possible.  I spoke with one of our Service Missionaries who confirmed my suspicions that Taiwanese students don't like to talk in class.  It sure makes it hard to teach a lesson, and even more importantly, to assess how much the students are learning.  This next weeks lesson is going to be TOUGH!  We are teaching about the divine gift of intimacy in marriage.  We aren't teaching how, just that it is an important part of marriage.  lol

Two more pictures of the pretty lanes in our neighborhood.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Yes the Institute classes are by far the biggest challenge that we're facing right now.  That, and exhaustion. I haven't been sleeping well at night, or, I can't always get to sleep at the right time.  Sometimes I have weird dreams.  One day I woke up and a song was running through my head, an old pop rock song from 1972 by Emerson, Lake and Palmer called "From the Beginning".  I hadn't heard that song in nearly 50 years.  What I figured out while I was laying there in the dark in the middle of the night, was that I must have seen this song in my YouTube feed the day before.  I whipped out my cell phone and there it was, in a "reaction" video by a young black couple who I had never watched before, I had just glanced at the title as I scrolled by.  I hadn't stopped and watched it, I didn't really even notice it, and I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard that song since I was a teenager.  Then to wake up in the middle of the night with that music playing in my head?  It's just weird.  So, I got out some headphones and looked up that song on YouTube and listened to it.  It's a nice groovy song with some nice instrumental sounds but the lyrics go on to say "You were meant to be here...from the beginning."  Is that a message to me?  Yes!  It's very moving, quite a meaningful sentiment.  For everyone.  And wow, the incredible power of the mind to recall that meaningful phrase buried in a 50 year old song that my waking mind would never have remembered.  Here is a link if you want to listen to it yourself, a nice song from the years of my youth: 

Russel M. Nelson (October 2013):  "Your Heavenly Father has known you for a very long time. You, as His son or daughter, were chosen by Him to come to earth at this precise time, to be a leader in His great work on earth."

Mawage... Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dweam! (quote from Princess Bride)

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

We spent a lot of time this week trying to get our prescriptions refilled.  The last time I saw my endocrinologist in Utah, he told me to quickly get registered with an endocrinologist here in Taiwan in case something changed in my health.  So when I first came here I found a doctor and gave him my doctor's notes.  This week both my and Elder DeVictoria's medications were running out so we both went together to the same doctor.  But when we got there (on Friday morning) we found his clinic was closed until the following Monday.  So on the next Monday morning we went back, only to find that the doctor would only be in the office that evening starting at 6pm.  So we came back again in the evening and signed in.  In fact we went in together for the consultation with the doctor.  In Taiwan you don't really need to make an appointment, just show up and get in line.  We were really afraid that the medications we needed would be really expensive or unavailable here.  But actually here in Taiwan the very same medicines are readily available and SO much cheaper!  He gave us a week's supply and asked us to come back in a week after he got the results of our blood tests.  

Those two trips to the doctor weren't really wasted, we learned how to get there on the subway so that we can avoid a taxi fee.  But after two trips in one day, we were pretty exhausted at the end of the day.  First we have to walk the few blocks to the subway station that is nearest to our apartment or office.  We get on one train, then change to another train.  Luckily we found the subway exit that is right by the doctor's office.  We are getting used to the walking, but the heat and humidity right now is really taxing.  We found a grocery store right next to our doctor's office so we stopped in for a few minutes.  I was happy see there was a floor map that showed us where to get the "FLOZEN" food.  ;)

Last night we taught Institute again.  I had prepared the power point presentation, so I knew how the lesson would progress and I taught most of the lesson, but Elder DeVictoria did handle a couple of parts of it.  This next week he will prepare the lesson and I will help out as needed.  It has been our experience that the students don't really like to participate much in class.  I think they are worried about being embarrassed.  My understanding of Asian schooling is that they are taught facts, then quizzed on the facts.  My teaching method is to ask questions that make them formulate an idea about the subject.  Anyway, we always come away wondering how the lesson was received.  We did get positive feedback from the teacher, who has a son in the class and evidently said we did OK, but we still don't feel that secure in our abilities.  I think we forgot to mention that the regular Institute teacher slipped on the stairs and broke three ribs.  So we will be substituting for him until he gets better.  We are sure praying for his recovery!  We are teaching the Family Life course and there are some sensitive and tough subjects in queue for lessons!

Earlier that day one of our Taiwanese senior missionaries taught me a new phrase.  It is a Taiwanese phrase that she taught me in Mandarin.  Basically the saying pertains to the moment right before your mother spanks you.  The phrase warns you to tighten your buttocks skin and muscles so that the spank won't hurt as much.  It's kind of an equivalent to "Brace yourself".  So when I started the class, I told them about their teacher's injury and explained that we would be teaching until he gets better.  Then I tried out my new phrase (Ba Pi Bung Jin)...or "Brace yourself."  People laughed.  :)

We had to arrange food for Zone Conference today.  Since it is only us two senior missionaries in the office right now, we just ordered bento boxes for everyone.  We got a variety, and also a variety of fruit.  We ordered a few extra, the Elders took the leftovers to have for dinner that night.  But some Elders can eat two, so we do try to always have extra.  When we get our new office couple the end of August we will try to branch out to provide food that the missionaries are asking for (like Pizza).

On Friday my computer volunteered to take part in the global Microsoft/CrowdStrike blue-screen-of-death crash.  I had some paperwork that could be done by hand, so I did that, but when I was finished, there was nothing else I could do without a computer so I just went home, about 1-1/2 hours early.  I sure hope they get it fixed on Monday!  

We are hearing there are plans being formulated to renovate our office.  It could take up to one year!  My understanding is that they might put us in the church building across the street, next door to the Temple.  It is the biggest church I've ever seen with 7 floors.  The bottom three floors are parking garages, the distribution center, and some storage.  The main floor and second and third floors have chapels and classrooms and bishops and stake offices.  The top floor has the church foundation / employee offices.  The third floor also houses the Institute office and classrooms.  There are two chapels in this building, and there are 5 different wards who meet here.  The first floor has a multipurpose/gymnasium.  Each of the hallways is locked up unless there is a scheduled event, and there is a guard always on duty.  Part of the reason is that some homeless people come in to the building and hang out during the day.  

Here in Taiwan, they call the @ symbol a "little mouse".  The loop around the "a" is the tail.  Once you see that you can't unsee it.  ;) 

One night we went to a restaurant that deep fries food for you.  This basket had chicken, french fries, tofu, rice cakes, green beans, squid and Thai basil.  They sprinkle a spicy pepper powder on top.  It was pretty good and didn't really taste greasy.  Then we got a shaved ice for desert to share afterwards.  It wasn't as sweet as it looks, and I love all the tapioca balls and almond jellies and pudding cubes in it.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

We had another two baptisms in the Taipei English Ward today.  One was a filipino woman Brena Morales, she is a younger woman I think in her 20's.  The other person was a more mature man from the US who has been here in Taiwan for 26 years.  It's funny, about 3 weeks ago on a Sunday morning I was suddenly asked to give a priesthood blessing to a fellow high priest in the ward, he was having some kind of health problem and asked for a blessing right before Sacrament meeting started, and while giving the blessing there was this other brother in the room who I didn't know.  My friend Simon Lee administered with the consecrated oil, then I sealed and pronounced the blessing.  Then the stranger asked if he could have a blessing too, and of course we said yes and gave him a blessing.  I thought he was a member at the time, but it turns out, he is the man who got baptized today!  I went up to him after the baptism and said, "Hey, I thought you were a member already!"  He replied "I am now!".  Nice guy (Jake Palmer).  The Lord is really blessing people who are ready, to connect with the missionaries who then teach them and invite them to come unto Christ and enter on their own covenant path.  It happens one at a time, it is very special, and very personal for each person. 

This last week I had to renew our auto insurance policy that expires on July 21.  Even though we aren't even at home and won't touch our vehicle for the next 19 months, nevertheless we still have that truck sitting there on our driveway and even though it's not being used, since it has a loan so we have to keep it insured.  I ended up getting a new policy with Allstate.  The agent in Orem was totally knowledgeable and instantly helpful about how to handle our situation being away on a mission outside the country.  Under our old policy with Progressive, that we had for many years, there was just no way for them to handle our situation.  I tried calling their call center and they were just clueless and anything but helpful.  I'm glad I got it sorted out with a local Utah-based agent who understands what is going on in our lives.  I view this expense as just another part of our sacrifice to serve the Lord.  No big deal, it's all His money, if He ever wants it it's all His, and besides it's all Monopoly money anyway.  It could all go "poof" at any minute. We just do our best to manage wisely but for sure we can't control what happens out in the world and the Savior warned so many times not to set our hearts upon our riches. I can't think of anything I would rather be doing than serving on this mission right now and the expense is really a non-issue for us, what better thing to do with our life savings than to spend it on serving the Lord.  To me it's fun and very satisfying.  But it is exhausting.  

On Saturday one of the other senior missionary couples who are now serving in Hualien (Elder and Sister Millington), came up to Taipei on the train to attend the temple.  Afterwards we had lunch together and they mentioned they really wanted to go to Costco.  I asked the mission president if I could borrow one of the mission vehicles and he said yes, so we drove the small mission van to Costco in Zhonghe.  Elder Millinton drove and I navigated, the Sisters sat in back.  We ended up buying a good load of stuff.  Including my favorite, a big bag of Doritos. 

A quote from our class, by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:  "Let me declare unequivocally, absolutely, and adamantly that not only is there such a thing as a happy marriage, but happy marriages are the rule, not the exception.  Sister Holland and I are living proof that you can not just be happy but that you can be ecstatically happy. … You have to work at a marriage.  Every good thing that I know of in this world you have to work at.  God will help you.  Of all the things in this world that He will help you with, He will help you with your marriages and your families, because it matters to Him at least as much as it matters to you." 

Match Made in Heaven

Sister DeVictoria writing (with additional comments interspersed by Elder DeVictoria who just couldn't resist):

This week I've had some visa situations to sort out.  One of them was quite stressful to me, until I found out that Salt Lake had prepared already the document that I needed.  They just had to send it to me, which they did by FedEx.  I don't want someone to get deported!  But there is still another visa situation that I'm very concerned about.  I am waiting for the Church travel department to help sort this out as well.  I actually reached out to our ward here at one point for advice.  Our ward has a lot of people who work for AIT (the American Institute in Taiwan).  The United States government doesn't have an official embassy here but we do have AIT which acts as the equivalent.  I reached out with my questions on the Ward "Line" channel and I was given really good info, right away. 

We were asked to teach as substitutes for the Chinese Institute class again this week.  The regular season of Institute classes doesn't start up again until August I think (maybe even September?), but in the mean time over the summer they have some seminars that we can help teach.  For this week Elder DeVictoria and I were asked to teach about "Choosing an Eternal Companion."  The actual lesson material didn't have a lot of doctrine, it just gave some situations to discuss.  But we were specifically asked by the institute director to tell our own dating and marriage story, to really give them our whole story.  It was a little hard to figure out how to prepare, we finally decided I would tell my experience and then Elder DeVictoria would tell his experience of what led to our meeting and marrying.  We prepared a power point presentation with some quotes and pictures of ourselves and family.

This assignment really stretched our language abilities.  Although we can speak fluently for most daily tasks and office needs (usually), our Chinese certainly isn't perfect.  We simply do not have 100% grasp of all the vocabulary we need for every topic.  And our reading/writing ability of the Chinese characters is on a first grade level (ie. very poor).  But when we're speaking extemporaneously in front of a big group of people, that is a stressful situation, and suddenly we both found the simplest words that we really do know slip our minds!  It's funny because when we meet Americans who are learning Chinese they say, "Your Chinese is so good!".  But when we talk to Taiwanese they say, "Well, we can understand you..."  We do have a slightly different accent from how they speak here in Taiwan, so they might have to listen more carefully to us.  But teaching in Chinese in front of a group is really daunting.  It's not like when we were young missionaries and gave one-on-one memorized discussions (which we've forgotten by now).  I had to print out in English the lesson and number each of the quotes according to the slides in the presentation.  That way when we had students read a quote out loud, we would know which quote they were reading and be certain of the meaning ourselves.  We're willing to bumble along like this and try to help when asked, but this dating and marriage topic was really a challenge to communicate. We're not sure if the students got any good out of it or not.  We are feeling like we didn't do that good of  a job.  We gave it all we had though, so we just have to do our best and trust the Lord to help us.

For my part, I explained the key point for myself in finding the right person to marry.  I was living in a little town in southern Utah that had about...maybe less...200 people.  None were my age.  I was the only one who spoke Chinese, but I felt I should marry someone who spoke Chinese.  One day I saw a program on the Oprah show about how to marry a millionaire.  The guest talked about how if you want to marry a millionaire you have to put yourself in the places where millionaires hang out.  You can't marry one if you never meet one.  I decided to use this method to find the right person for me.  I felt strongly it should be someone who spoke Chinese so I came up with a plan:  

1.  Attend BYU

2.  Take Chinese classes

3.  Get a job teaching Chinese at the MTC where there were other teachers

4.  Move in to the Chinese language housing.  BYU has language housing where there is a native speaking head resident and when you live there you are supposed to speak that language at all times in the house.

I met Elder DeVictoria 2 weeks after moving in to the Chinese house.  We had an instant connection and within a couple of months I knew that he was the right one for me to marry.  My point in telling this story was that you should decide what it is you want in a spouse, then put yourself in the right place to find them.  If you want someone with the same religious faith as you, you should attend church.  In the case of members of our church, if they want a faithful Latter-day saint, they shouldn't look for them in bars.  It might mean moving to a place where there are actually single people.  In my case, the little town I lived in was too small with no single men my age.   I hope I made my point, but we didn't really get any feedback, so we are still wondering how our presentation went over.

 Elder DeVictoria writing:

Below is an interesting restaurant concept:  The Taipei Restaurant Bus.  Look carefully you will see people eating at tables inside as it drives around town!  Is that a kitchen downstairs?  Amazing.

 Here's a popular place where you pick the ingredients you like and they cook it up for you.  There's always a line of people waiting.

We had our first staff meeting with our new mission leaders.  We hadn't had a staff meeting for a couple of weeks so this was catch up, and the first for the Whiteley's.  We decided to take a picture to mark the occasion.

The new mission leaders have two teenage sons with them while serving in Taiwan.  Unfortunately the official mission home on the 6th and 7th floors of the mission office building, where they will live for their 3 years of service, isn't ready for them to occupy yet.  It's being remodeled, so they are staying at a hotel until it's finished.  It should have been finished by the time they arrived 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't.  The project managers promised it would be ready last weekend, it wasn't.  Then they promised this weekend, it wasn't.  Seems like this project is not being handled urgently.  Now they are saying it will be ready "next week".   It's not really my business so I've kept my mouth shut, I'm just observing and commenting on our blog...  In the meantime while they don't have their own place to really settle in and call home, President and Sister Whiteley have had to start performing their duties in the mission, and the two boys have been hanging out in the mission office quite a bit.  They purchased some amazing Lego models here in Taiwan, one of them has over 6000 pieces!  They've been busy using the available empty desktop space in our office area to do the Lego construction work.  It's a pleasure to have them around, they are fine boys.  They are certainly much closer in age to the young Elders, who easily connect with them.  (Sis. DeVictoria commenting:  "All of the elders LOVE the Whiteley's sons!  They love to play sports with them and hang out with them.  And most elders love legos, so it is a match made in heaven.) We're more like grandparents.  

I had some additional keys to the office made up for the boys, per President Whiteley's request.  Here's a picture of the lady making the keys.  She did a good job, the keys worked perfectly.

I'll share my slide with the talking points from our "Choosing an Eternal Companion" lesson.  The amount of time from when we were asked to teach to when the lesson was given was a very short 2 days, I didn't have time to translate this into Chinese, I just put this together to guide my thoughts, and with this slide up on the screen I tried to talk to each point and tell our story from my perspective:

I'm not sure how it went over.  I feel like I fumbled around a lot for the right words in Chinese.  When I tried to explain the answer I got from God on step 5, which was "laughter" at the obvious answer "Yes" -- it was just too obvious, evidently God found it comical from an eternal perspective -- I found it hard to convey this sentiment.  What I really should have tried to communicate better was that when I met Delores Allred, it was as plain and clear and obvious as it could possibly be that she was the right one for me.  I asked her to marry me just 2 weeks after meeting.  She wasn't so sure in that instant, but answered Yes a few weeks later.  And we got married 4 months after we first met.  We were married in the St. George Temple.  When I explained all this, as best I could, I did see some shocked faces among the students who understood me.  I especially saw a shocked look on some of the older male students in the crowd, especially those who are Americans.  These students attending the Taipei institute are all single, I estimate most of them are in their mid 20's.  I hope some of them get the message that when you meet that special girl, the right girl for you, go for it.  There's no need to delay. 

Spencer W. Kimball:

“Soul mates” are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price. … Two individuals approaching the marriage altar must realize that to attain the happy marriage which they hope for they must know that marriage is not a legal coverall, but it means sacrifice, sharing, and even a reduction of some personal liberties. It means long, hard economizing. It means children who bring with them financial burdens, service burdens, care and worry burdens; but also it means the deepest and sweetest emotions of all."