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."

A Day of Rest

 Sister DeVictoria writing:

I gotta admit that this has been an exhausting couple of weeks.  It could be a combination of having a lot to do, and not getting enough sleep.  We also have had a lot going on for the past few weeks on our Pday, so we haven't been able to rest as much.  We have one sister that needs to go home a little earlier than planned because of a family situation, so I needed to have her flight plans changed.  She needs to leave within a week or so from now.  In order to do that, I needed to stay up until 11:00 last night to call the church travel office at Salt Lake City.  I thought they would be open by 8:00 a.m., (10:00 p.m. Taiwan time) but they didn't open until 9:00 a.m. (11:00 pm Taipei time).   So we are dragging today, but I'm so thankful the flight plans are made and she will be able to leave on time!

We started off this week speaking in church.  There is a non-member friend who comes to church every week and she took this picture of me while I was speaking.  I really think that in the future they should ask Elder DeVictoria to speak first because he always gets cheated on time when I speak first.  I plan out my talk, and time it, but in real life I seem to always go a little over my allotted time.   

Our Pday is on Saturdays but we had so much to do that we really didn't get much preparation time.  We went to the office to help get things started for the Whiteley's residency permits.  Then we did a temple session.  Then the Taipei stakes here had a going away party for the Yangs / welcome party for the Whiteleys.  The office Elders prepared a video of the young missionaries saying goodbye.  Three missionaries performed a musical number; the two office elders played the violin and a sister sang.  Pres. and Sister Yang took one look at them and the tears came.  I took one look at the Yangs and the tears came.  Then the Yangs spoke...more tears all around.  You know, sacrificing three years of your life really is a big deal!

One night this week we went to our favorite "13 Burger".  It is just so good, and every time we walk away from the restaurant we find ourselves saying out loud "That was so good!"  I told the owner that he hit another home run.  YUM!

A funny thing happened at lunch this week.  We went to the cafeteria style restaurant and were sitting at a counter that has a big mirror on it.  I happened to see a guy behind me (in the mirror) who was wearing a special mask to eat this food.  He conveniently cut away the mouth part of the mask so that he could eat.  I HAD to take a picture (look closely!)

The girl who cleans our office told me today that there is another COVID variant from China that everyone is worried about.  That's probably why he had a mask....  Wouldn't want any of those mosquitos getting through the chain link fence...

On Tuesday the Whiteleys held a "Get to know the Whiteleys" for all the missionaries.  They each introduced themselves.  Then they had us play a Jeopardy game where the questions were all about what they told us about themselves.  The winners all got a prize that was to get treateed to a mango shaved ice.  Then the Whiteleys had the missionaries participate in some team building games.  They played one where they would say something like, "There are 5 ants sitting on a log and they all have the same color shoes".  Everyone would have to find a group that had no more than 5 who were all wearing the same color shoes.  Then they would sit down and act like they were ants on a log.  It was a pretty fun game.

We are supposed to teach the English institute class tonight, but I think we might have some competition with a game night that is going on, so we will see if anyone comes.  The Chinese institute class always meets together beforehand to have a pot luck meal and play games before institute.  But we haven't had enough people attend our class for them to do that.  We substituted for the Chinese institute this week and I have to admit that it was a challenge for us!  There were so many quotes in Chinese, which we can't read.  I made a power point presentation with the quotes.  Each slide was numbered.  I printed out the English version of the lesson and highlighted all of the quotes and numbered them according to the slides.  Then we just had the students read them.  I think the class went pretty well, but it was stressful for us!

Today during our Pday we went on an expedition to shop for some items Elder DeVictoria wanted (spices ofr Indian cooking).  We took the subway.  I snapped a picture of the crowds changing trains.  I also found a picture I took awhile ago of a decoration in the subway.  It is really cool

Most people here live in apartments without a yard.  They grow a lot of plants in pots out by their front door.  I particularly love to go down these little lanes that have pots of plants all around.  They are narrow little lanes, too small for cars.  I think they are so pretty.

I'm thankful we get a Sabbath tomorrow.  I really need a day of rest.  Not just a rest from work, but a rest from the world.  That is the blessing of the Sabbath.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

We got through the institute lesson somehow.  It's just a little difficult for us, doing it live in front of an audience, in Chinese.  The lesson material was from Pres. Nelson's talk, "Choices for Eternity".  There is now a large delegation of students from BYU who are here in Taipei for the summer to learn Mandarin.  Most of them already speak some Mandarin pretty well because they were missionaries speaking Mandarin somewhere in the world.  There were about 20 Taiwanese students and about 12 BYU Students at the class.  What a relief to be done with it.  Then this morning (Sunday morning) we got a message from the institute director, he said the feedback was really great, and they want us to teach again "Will you substitute again this coming Tuesday?"  He said the students expressed an interest in Sister DeVictoria and I telling about how we met, and our advice how to date, and how to find an eternal partner etc.  Basically, they want dating advice or inspiration.  So, now we have to prepare another lesson along those lines.  It's easy enough to talk about ourselves but we need to make it relevant to them.  We've got our work cut out for us. The institute director made this poster today, advertising the class (he's going to send it out to the students through social media):

We sat in on a missionary discussion today after church, the elders were teaching a young man from Indonesia who has been attending our ward for some time.  I think this young man likes the social interaction he gets at church, but I don't think he understands the Gospel.  He is learning very slowly.  There seems to be some language and comprehension issues.  He acts like he understands everything we're saying in English, but by slowing down and really asking him careful questions, it becomes clear that he really doesn't understand much. 

During the week I got invited out to lunch from a Taiwanese member of the ward, Simon Lee.  He is a single man about my age. He previously lived in North Carolina for 11 years.  He invited me to lunch at a hotel associated with the Taiwan military, the "heroes" hotel, in downtown Taipei.  That's when I found out he had been in the Taiwan army, he was a career Army officer, now retired.  That was fun for me to talk to him for several hours.  We walked around that neighborhood and he showed me all the government buildings.  He pointed to a big sign on the wall of the restaurant written in big calligraphic letters that said, "Little oil, little salt, watch your health, live a long life".  He read the characters out to me and we discussed it.  He said, "In Taiwan everyone is worried about their health."  And he added, "really, they are afraid of death."  So if they are writing big calligraphy things on the wall of the restaurant about reducing salt and oil in their diet, this really is a genuine societal "thing" going on.  As I suspected.  He agreed with me that the food in Taiwan is a little bit milder than the cuisine in China.  One interesting thing we talked about after lunch, was the issue of China/Taiwan relations.  Obviously that's not a subject that gets discussed at church.  I mentioned the old slogans "Take back the mainland", and "Strike back at the Communist Thieves" (etc etc) that I remembered being plastered everywhere during my first mission.  He nodded and agreed "Yes, that's how it used to be.  Now we don't talk like that anymore."  I said, "I wonder if the mainland actually ever went through another struggle or serious internal revolution, couldn't Taiwan lead the way politically to help them get a better system going over there?"  He said, "I don't know" but went on to say "about 70% of people in Taiwan do lie awake at night worrying about the China - Taiwan relations and the possibility of war, etc.  But they don't show it publicly.  They don't talk about it in the open."

Sister DeVictoria is right, we have been extremely busy these past few weeks.  Starting off with the last transfer, then getting ready for the transition from the old mission president to the new president, then dealing with things during the first week of the new president's arrival, it's just really been hectic and kind of stressful.  So, we feel a little tired this weekend.  Today we fasted and prayed for more physical strength.

Isaiah 58:13,14

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:  

Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.