In the Midst of Affliction

 

Sister DeVictoria writing:

Some days I wake up and wonder what I can find to do in the office that day and worry that I won't have anything to do.  Silly me....  I seem to always be busy lately.  Just when I think I'm caught up, something else comes along.

 

One of the tasks I had this week was to give the Church Area office photos from every missionary that is now serving or has served under the Whiteleys.  I will need to continue to give them photos each month as new missionaries come in.  I'm not sure what they will do with them because they said they didn't need names.  I did name each picture, but it makes me wonder if they will do some kind of slide show or something when the Whiteleys are released.  I did the same for the Yangs, thinking they would show them a slide show, but I never saw one.

 

On Sunday Elder DeVictoria and I substituted for the "New Member/ Friend" class at church.  The teacher had told us that he would be out of the country for a long time, so we expected him to be gone longer.  He actually came on Sunday, but because his voice was not in good shape he had us go ahead and teach.

We also said goodbye to Sam Sunday morning.  It was fun to have him here, and I'm glad he could see what our life here is like.  I think he got a good feeling for the island in all of his traveling around.

 

 On Saturday before he left we went out to eat at a Korean restaurant.  I love Korean food!  This first picture is Jia Jiang noodles.  You mix all of that up together.  We shared this dish.

Here in this photo with Sam you can see we had several kinds of Kimchi.  Nappa cabbage kimchi or Daikon radish kimchi are my favorites.

I shamelessly borrowed this photo from a senior couple serving at the very bottom tip of the island.  These are the missionaries serving there.  The one on the far left, Elder Geis, flew to Taiwan with us.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

This week has been a very hard week for me.  It's the week when I've had to pay the rent for all of the apartments and there was a heavy load of reimbursements for missionaries.  In addition we are opening seven new apartments which requires a lot of work.  After Sam went home on Monday morning, I returned to the office and started working.  On Wednesday my eye starting becoming infected.  On Thursday I went to an opthalmologist.  She said I have conjunctivitis.  After I started taking the medicine it seemed like it got worse and worse.  On Friday I didn't even leave the apartment.  Now it's Saturday and I'm starting to feel a little better, but still a lot of pain.  It seems like whenever I moved my eye, which caused much pain in the eye, immediately there would be a surge of mucus into my sinuses.  So I've been suffering with intense sinus pain from the tip of my head down to my lower jaw, all on the left side.  It's finally starting to subside.  What an ordeal.

Sister DeVictoria writing again:

We had two missionaries return home this morning.  One more will return home in about a week.  Many of our missionaries get permission to return home a little early so that they can start a new semester of college on time.  The tradition is that the President and Sis. Whiteley take them to the Grand Hotel to review a letter they wrote there when they first arrived.  It's kind of a dedication letter where they write about their desires to serve the Lord while on their mission.  The Grand hotel is the location where the island of Taiwan was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel.  Another thing they do is go out to eat together with the mission leaders.  The current favorite restaurant for this is an all you can eat buffet.  At some point in the day they also attend a temple session with the mission leaders.  That is followed up by a testimony meeting, and at some point an exit interview.  It's always bitter sweet for me to see missionaries go home because I am happy for them, but I will miss them, especially those I've gotten to know.

A few days before the last Elder returns home we are getting in about 12 new missionaries.  Then in October we will get even more.  I'm already receiving information for missionaries who are arriving in April.  Some of those missionaries will stay at our house and some will stay at the other senior apartment.  We got in a new senior couple who will be in charge of housing an medical.  Elder Clemons will actually be the medical person for all of Taiwan, so if there is a need in the southern mission, he will help with that.  The couple they are replacing are also finishing their mission in the next week.  They are so talented, they will be sorely missed.

At the Korean restaurant we saw this couple who had a stroller with two dogs in it.  Dog strollers are quite common here.  Poor dogs, I wonder how they ever get any exercise!  If I look a little rough in this picture, it's because it was like 95 degrees outside with high humidity and we had to walk a lot before coming to the restaurant.

 

“Afflictions can soften us and sweeten us, and can be a chastening influence. (Alma 62:41.) We often think of chastening as something being done to punish us, such as by a mortal tutor who is angry and peevish with us. Divine chastening, however, is a form of learning as it is administered at the hands of a loving Father. (Helaman 12:3.)

Elder James E. Faust of the Council of the Twelve has said, "In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through the refiner's fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong." (Ensign, May 1979, p. 53.) Elder Faust continued, "This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master." (Ibid.)

It was President Hugh B. Brown who observed, "If we banish hardship we banish hardihood." And, further, "One man's disillusion may be another's inspiration. The same exposure to pain, misery, and sorrow that coarsens the mind and callouses the soul of one may give to another a power of compassionate understanding and humility without which mere achievement remains primitive." (New Era, December 1974, pp. 4-7.)

There are ironies, sometimes sublime ironies, in all of these experiences. We are often at the same time both the worker and him who is being worked. So much is always going on simultaneously. Therefore, as George MacDonald observed, "He who fancies himself a carpenter finds himself but the chisel, or indeed perhaps only the mallet, in the hand of the true workman." (Gifts of the Child Christ, p. 32.)”

(All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience by Neal A. Maxwell.)