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

Broken Legs and Spider Legs

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!

Mango Shaved ice.  The biggest pile you see is shaved ice with one scoop of mango flavored ice cream on top, and jelly cubes with mango chunks.  I try not to eat very much because I'm diabetic, but it's hard to resist!

 

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

Grand Central Station

Sister DeVictoria writing:

In order to enter our office building the front door needs to be unlocked electronically.  Next to the front door are two call boxes that connect with the mission office.  One of the call boxes calls the phone system in the office.  When the office elders are in the office they answer these calls, but when they are gone, it falls on me to answer.  I can tell by the number of rings if it is a regular phone call or if it is from the call box.  I answer the phone and ask who's there, then I can press a number on my phone to unlock the door.  It's getting to the point that the one day I dread the most is transfer day because the office elders are usually not in the office the whole time and we have missionaries coming and going ALL DAY so I need to let them in, over and over.  The second call box is attached to a separate phone line that is mounted on the wall of the office.  If a visitor presses the button on that call box, and the office elders aren't in, then Elder DeVictoria or I have to get up and walk over to that phone to let them in.  On transfer day it is an all day thing!  I have to confess that sometimes BEFORE I answer the phone I say out loud, "Grand Central Station" but then I obediently answer the phone saying "Mission office" in Chinese.  You could refer to transfer day as "chaos".  We do love to see all the missionaries and their energy is contagious, but it's hard to get anything done with all the noise and activity going on.  Elder DeVictoria brought in a pair of noise cancelling headphones one time.  

That being said, the Elders help me so much.  I feel like I know more about computers than the average person my age, but there are times I just need help to learn how to do something.  One day I asked an Elder for help, but just as he started looking over my shoulder, I saw what I needed to do.  He said, "See, you can do it!"  That actually was a confidence boost.  But I did post this cartoon on the wall of my cubicle.

 

This last transfer day an elder wanted to do a recorded interview using one of our office computers, to apply for a job as a teacher at the MTC.  He will be returning home soon.  We decided to close up the window and door to our inner office area so that he could have some quiet (there is an an automatic sliding glass door with an electric lock that seals in our working desk area from the rest of the mission office).  He did a good job recording his interview clips, I think he will get the job if they have an opening.

Usually by the end of each day and especially by the end of our week we are pretty tired.  Fortunately preparation day for us is Saturday, and Sunday is a wonderful day of rest.  Despite the possibility of chaos, by Sunday evening I'm already looking forward to getting back to work on Monday.  Confession:  I seem to have some attention deficit disorder.  So actually this position is perfect for me because I am not just doing the same thing all day long every day.  I have many different tasks for which I'm responsible, so it never gets boring.  

More flower pictures.  By the way, the flower that Elder DeVictoria previously said was plastic...I looked at it again and saw that it is REAL!  So many orchids growing outside here!

This week I had to go to the immigration office to register three missionaries for their alien resident card.  I arrived there in the afternoon.  I knew it was a bad sign when I got my queue number which was 252.  Usually I get a number like 78.  When I sat down in the waiting area the sign above said something like "69 people waiting".  I waited for a good two hours.  But I was just getting over being sick from a cold, so actually the rest was nice.  I just surfed Facebook on my cellphone while I waited.

I decided we needed a better way to organize the missionary passport photos so we bought a binder with plastic pages for collecting cards.  This will make it much easier to keep track of all the photos and find them when needed.  We have to submit a photo of each missionary when applying for their alien resident card, and another photo different from the first one a year later when we reapply.  Also we need photos of each missionary when applying for their national health insurance card at 6 months in-country. 

We have a local Taiwanese couple that work as the Housing Coordinators for the mission, Elder and Sister Chen.  They originally were supposed to serve one year, but they just kept going because we had no one else to do it.  Now it's approaching two years of service.  They are amazing.  She has really good negotiation skills, especially with landlords who want to discuss in the Taiwanese language.  He can fix ANYTHING!  Really good people, salt of the earth.  I've been thinking about how we won't have them much longer, so I took this picture to remember her.  Then I saw I could add her as a friend on Facebook!  :)

Elder DeVictoria writing:

This week started off early Monday morning with a surprise fighter jet fly-by right over our apartment at 6:30am.  That kind of freaked me out.  I looked online and couldn't find any warnings about an attack from China.  Later in the day I saw a news item that said there is the presidential inauguration speech coming up next Monday and the military is making some preparations for a show.  Later in the week there were some more early morning fly-bys over Taipei.

There have been more earthquakes too, but so small they are not always noticed.  One earthquake occurred on Monday as I was walking back to the office from the bank, I didn't notice it myself but I heard a shop owner come out and speak to his neighbor saying "did you feel that!".  Yesterday in the office there was another one the I could clearly feel while sitting at my desk, and so did the office elders, but Sister DeVictoria didn't notice it.  It was like a gentle swaying.  Here in Taipei we haven't been near the epicenter of any of these quakes, but with this recent transfer we are sending back in the missionaries to Hualien that has been the epicenter.  However we are trying to change apartments for the senior missionary couple in Hualien who were on the 7th floor, all of their food was spilled out of their cupboards and refrigerator with a lot of the glass bottles broken, and the elevator was damaged during the big one last month.  We're trying to find something different, like in a single or 2-story building that is a little further away from the downtown area, which should be OK for them because they have a car. The couple now serving in Hualien will be completing their mission on June 5 and a new couple is coming from US to replace them around June 18.  We're trying to get a new apartment ready before they arrive.

We're gradually starting to get some exposure to our new mission president who will arrive at the end of June.  The current mission president has a transition checklist that he's working on.  The new mission president and his wife sat in (by Zoom) on the new missionary orientation that I gave to the newly arrived missionaries last Saturday morning.

On Sunday after church there was a baptism of a man originally from India (Drew Aggarwal).  He said he's been searching or the truth for a long time.  Born a Hindu of the Brahmin caste, converted to Islam, started investigating Christianity, finally found us through a Facebook ad in Taiwan and was taught by the Taipei missionaries and decided to get baptized.  I was asked to speak on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and it was my pleasure to do so.

One evening we asked the missionaries serving in this neighborhood for food recommendations.  They said there is a place in the Shida night market that serves excellent hamburgers, it is called 13 Burger.  We decided to go there.  Delores's leg was hurting so we took a taxi although it's not very far away.  The burger was fantastic, and it included a small serving of fries and bottomless sodas (but no ice). Besides playing hard rock music in Mandarin it was great (I guess I wasn't in the mood for hard rock).  But for US$6 each it was a bargain, and delicious.  Will go there again. We walked back home afterwards, about a 15 minute walk.  Good thing it's not closer or we'd be there every other day. 

 "Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." 3 Nephi 27:20

The Tender Mercies of the Lord

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

It's surprising how fast time flies when you are our age.  Our 23 month mission is already down to 21 months.  I keep a chart in my journal that has a square for every month we will serve.  I cross off each month that passes.  I don't do this because I'm anxious to go home, but to remind myself how little time we have left.  I remember when I was a young missionary the first year seemed to crawl by, but the last year flew by.  Before I knew it I was going home.  

I am constantly amazed at the help the Lord gives me in my duties.  He reminds me of things that I have forgotten to do.  For example, this morning I woke up really early and suddenly remembered that I hadn't sent the mission home address to the incoming missionaries.  They will need that to go through immigration at the airport.  Also, He prepares things ahead of time for me.  For example, the other day I was looking at the missionary application of a young missionary who is scheduled to come here.  I have to do this to get the home address to fill out the alien resident application.  I was thinking about our own applications, so decided to pull up ours and just poke around looking at it.  Right then Pres. Yang came in and I asked him about reserving a temple session for the departing missionaries.  He asked me to call the temple right then and make the appointment.  When I talked to the scheduling person at the temple, he asked for my membership record number.  It just so happened that because I had been looking at our missionary application, I had my membership number right there in front of me on the screen.  Another time Elder DeVictoria was talking to me and reached over and clicked on my "Teams" app.  I didn't even know I had that!  And there just happened to be an important message there that had recently arrived!  One more example:  I was looking through my top drawer of my desk to pull out all of the passport photos that were there.  I happened to see a key ring with tons of business card sized cards on it.  I got to looking at it and saw that it had addresses for places like Costco, Beauty shops and barbers, etc. as well as cards with simple phrases like "Where is the bathroom?"  I recognized that it was probably used for the wife of a former mission president.  The next day Pres. Yang came and asked the office Elders to make up a map showing the location of important places around this neighborhood that we could give to the new mission president and his wife, as part of their transition.  I suddenly remembered the cards and brought them out!  This will be a big help to the new mission leaders.  I can't tell you how many times this kind of thing has happened!  If this just happened once I could maybe write it off as coincidence, but this kind of thing has been happening all the time.

We are experiencing a phenomena that we have experienced in our Asia travels before.  You know how people in America say, "All China-men look alike"?  Well that is obviously ridiculous.  But before when we have ever moved to Asia, or visited, there comes a time when we are walking down the street and we suddenly can't tell if the person walking towards us is Chinese or American.  Elder DeVictoria came up with a code for us to use.  Of course we can't tell secrets in Chinese like we do in America, and we can't speak in English because many, many people here speak English.  So we just say to each other "YES or NO"...meaning "is that person a foreigner?"  In addition, we sometimes see a Taiwanese person that looks like someone we know back home!  Their Taiwanese doppelganger if you will.

Health update:  My leg is SO much better!  It's not 100%, but I am almost there.  Thank you for your prayers.  I also developed a skin rash on my arms that is a chronic thing that I usually get in warm weather, now it is also almost completely gone.  I have a cold now, but this too shall pass.  Thanks again for your prayers on our behalf.

Every time we walk to or from the church (about 50 feet from our front door) I see plumeria blossoms on the ground.  I have never seen a plumeria tree before, so didn't know where they were coming from.  Then one day we happened to see blossoms at the very tip top of a tree.  These trees are planted all over the chapel and temple grounds.  My Dad loved plumeria which are used in making leis in Hawaii.  They smell heavenly. A woman I met on the street said in Taiwan they call it the chicken egg flower.  Not sure if it is the shape of the blossoms or the color that remind them of an egg.

I had to go to the immigration office this week.  I saw this tree, but don't know the name of it.  But I thought it was interesting.  Banyan maybe?

Because it had an escalator, I went out a subway exit that I don't normally use.  I had to walk past this old city gate.

I am part of a Facebook group that is for missionaries from my first mission.  This week one of them sent me this picture of when I was a teacher at the MTC.  Paul and I were newly married.  I don't know what the event was that had Paul in attendance, but wow we were young!

And lastly I can't forget my obligatory food pic. :)  This one had Taiwanese popcorn chicken, rice, tofu, broccoli, stir fried cabbage, bean thread noodles, and I ordered a side of stir-fried greens.  And some Coke Zero.

Elder DeVictoria writing:

Today (Saturday) is our preparation day but we have some duties to fulfill in the office at 10:30am because yesterday evening 2 new missionaries arrived at the airport, they were picked up by the mission president and his wife and the assistants.  They have stayed overnight in temple patron housing (men stay on 3rd floor and women on 2nd floor, the office is on 4th floor).  This morning they go to a local park to play frisbee with the office elders, and then try some local breakfast items.  Then the new missionaries will receive their "office orientation" that I will give, and Sister DeVictoria also has a form for them to fill out and she will take their passports for safekeeping in the office.  We are allotted 1.5 hrs with them.  I will explain their interface with mission finances and their monthly Missionary Support Fund (MSF) budget; how to get their cash from ATMs; reimbursement procedure for travel and other expenses; the bedding situation, laundry and house cleaning expectations; and bicycle safety.  They are also supposed to pay for their bikes today, in cash.  Later in the day the office elders and assistants will train them on their cell phones, and the area book, and the Line app -- there is a long list of things for them to do today.  Transfer day is on Monday, when they will meet their companions and find out where exactly they are going to start their service; they will take their new bikes with them when they go to their areas. 

Every young missionary in this mission has a bicycle (just as when we served here 42 years ago).  Now the bikes are made-to-order for the missionaries at a bike factory in Taichung.  Here is a picture of our mission bikes storage area (for the new bikes) in the basement of the church building across the street from the office.  The new bikes are made-to-order according to the height of the missionary and cost 9200NTD (~$285USD) and used bikes that are rebuilt by the factory cost 3000NTD (~$93USD).  In this picture it shows there are now about 10 rebuilt bikes, and there are 2 brand new bikes in the front; the women's bikes are on the left side and men's bikes on the right.

FYI the missionaries serving in this mission are mostly from USA (about 80%) and the rest are from other countries like Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, etc and the local Taiwanese missionaries are about 10% of those serving, but of course all these numbers and ratios fluctuate with time.  I think the ratio of elders to sisters serving is about 75%/25% roughly.  There are some large groups of new missionaries scheduled to arrive later this year, up to 14 in a group arriving in September, and another in October.  Sister DeVictoria prints out their pictures with their name and date of arrival and puts it up on the arrival board as they show up in the system each day. It's exciting to see the new missionary calls show up one by one in the system. 

We had a baptism in the Taipei English ward 2 weeks ago, then another last night, and there will be another baptism this Sunday after church.  I have been asked to speak about the Holy Ghost.  The man baptized 2 weeks ago is from Australia, the woman baptized last night is from Myanmar, the brother being baptized tomorrow is (I think) from India.  These are all young adult-age people who are in Taiwan as students.  There is also a steady pace of Taiwanese people joining the church in this mission, I think over 60 since the beginning of the year.  

I attended a zoom meeting devotional for the Asia Area employees of the church, and they invited certain missionaries like me who are involved with finance, to attend.  The presiding bishop Elder Clause spoke.  He made a number of very interesting comments.  Such as: The church is transitioning from a historic practice of frugality and conservative management (to be so very careful to run the church on as little expenses as possible) to a new era where much bigger spending will occur for the sake of growth and for "Spiritual Dividends".  There are 12 big prophetic initiatives that have recently been approved (and budgeted/funded) by the first presidency and quorum of 12 apostles.  The first is obviously Temples.  Others include YSA programs/facilities/events, also FSY events, and a big one is young adult education throughout the world ie. the BYU Pathways program (especially in Africa and the Philippines).  The decision making and management authority for running the church will become more devolved from Salt Lake City to each Area organization, it will become more and more decentralization as time goes on. 

On the lighter side, this week I cut my chin shaving.  I wasn't paying attention (I think I was thinking about something from the Book of Mormon and letting my imagination run wild) and I mistakenly manipulated the razor the wrong way.  So for the last 2 days I didn't shave in order to let that spot heal. I'll shave this morning before going in to the office.  Hope I don't cut myself again.

"We should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord's tender mercies.  The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live...I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us."  Elder David A. Bednar (The Tender mercies of the Lord April conference 2005)

...in his own tongue, and in his own language

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

Another busy week in Taipei.  Once again we feel trepidation as we learn to do our duties, but I have felt the Lord's help each time I faced a difficult situation.  Each time I learn something well, I try to keep a record of what I learned.  I made a book with tabs for each subject.  Actually there is a book in the drawer that someone else had made, but it is so scrambled with no organization and little notes written all over the pages that it's hard for me to make sense of.  I write a step-by-step list or procedure for each thing.  Some tabs have things like: restaurants from which to order food for zone conference, contact info for the temple etc. 

It was the mission president's birthday this week.  He came into his office to find the missionaries had decorated it for him.

The missionaries love him, and from my first day here I could feel his love for them.  They posted the funniest pictures of him on our closed mission group on the Line app, here are a couple examples: 

I found a picture of Elder DeVictoria that I wanted to share.  This is a "Then and now" compilation.  He worked as an office elder for three months during his first mission :)

Then (around January 1983):

Now (April 2024):

We went to the temple with our English ward last night.  I can speak and understand Chinese, but I'm still getting used to the Taiwan accent again so don't always understand everything that is said.  I felt like for my own spiritual strengthening I wanted to attend the English ward.  And we also attended the English endowment session.  The Taiwan temple is so compact!  39 people fit in a session.  It was wonderful to be in the prayer circle and hear the prayer said in English by a Taiwanese temple worker who struggled to speak English.  He did a wonderful job and prayed with the spirit.  I believe that hearing the gospel in your own language brings a deeper meaning to the words.  That is why we strive to teach people in their own language.  We are in the process of being approved to serve in the Taipei Temple as part-time temple workers.  It's going to be a challenge to learn everything in Chinese.

We made our own Facebook ad for the mission this week.  The young missionaries were specifically asked to do that, but I really wanted to participate too.  The mission president was a little surprised we wanted to do it.  I immediately had an idea for what we would do.  But I forgot to include one aspect of the requirement, so I hope to go to the office today to fix that.  If the Church likes the ad, they will pay for it to be promoted on Facebook. :)  (We had to include one still picture, and one outlink.  I forgot to add the outlink).  The young missionaries are so good with technology, I always ask for their help.  Here is the photo we used for the still picture.  We included the text, "Have you ever prayed to God, our Heavenly Father before?" written in Chinese at the bottom of the pic (not shown in this example): 

This experience has made me want to do more videos!  I have been using social media for about 20 years and I'm hooked!  I hear so many people talk in church about the evils of social media.  It all depends on how you use it.  I believe the Lord gave us this technology to help spread the gospel throughout the world.  Anyone with a smart phone can access information about literally anything.  We need to make use of this new tool we have been given.

I can't finish my part of the blog without sharing a food pic.  lol  Out of convenience, Elder DeVictoria and I often eat food from 7-11 that is about 45 yards away from the front door of the office.  Here in Taiwan, 7-11 carries fresh pre-made biendang (bento box) type meals.  They cost around 79 Taiwan Dollars (about US$2.50).  The clerk can heat them up in the microwave for you.  She uses some napkins and a special piece of cardboard to hand it to you so that we don't get burned.  They also have a machine that can toast sandwiches for you.  They also have fresh sandwiches and other specialty bread items.  This biandang was a spicy pork with rice and green beans:

Elder DeVictoria writing:

The two office Elders with whom we work (in their temporary office assignments as "media specialists") reported during our mission-wide prayer meeting online yesterday, that they got a message from church headquarters that our mission Facebook ad campaign is the most successful one in the Asia Area (with the most baptisms resulting from an initial contact through Facebook).  So, what's happening is, people within the Taipei mission area see our ads, they click on the link, our missionaries contact them immediately, and they become friends and the teaching and conversion process begins.  It's quite simple, and genuine.  Yes the Lord is hastening his work through technology, yes it is real.  The church does have to pay Facebook a little bit of money for posting the ads.  But what a pleasure it is to just be a tiny part of it and to see it really happening before our very eyes.  There is actually some rudimentary programming skills required of the Elders, mainly for formatting the ads and for handling the links and referrals management etc. The young missionaries are so smart, and so accustomed to technology, they do a wonderful job.

Here is a pic of the office where we work.  The 2 "media" office elders sit in the desks closest to the front in this photo, and you can see Sis. DeVictoria hunched over her desk in the middle; my desk is opposite hers on the right.  In the background near the photocopier is an Elder who is a service missionary, he and his wife as companion help with the missionary housing, they do a fantastic job.

"For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ."  D.&C. 90:11