A Typical Day for the Housing Coordinators

 Follow us on our trip to Guangfu, Hualien.

It's 8:00 am. The serene mountains east of Taipei are always stunning, especially in the early morning with the mists and low hanging clouds creating an iconic panoramic view as we cruise along the highway.

We are on our way to Guangfu to close out an empty missionary apartment.

It's only 126 miles to Guangfu, but it'll take 4 hours to get there. It's shorter now than when we first came to Taiwan. Now there are 24 kilometers made up of a series of 15 tunnels, somewhat straightening out the winding, narrow mountainous roads to Hualien and points south, including Guangfu.

The tunnels are rather hypnotic, kilometer after kilometer of stripes and lights passing our view.

The drive includes an 18 kilometer-long freeway-bridge through the remote parts of Yilan County. We pass over small towns intermixed with rice paddies which are filed to the brim with water - ready for the first planting which will occur in a few weeks.

Fortunately for adventurous travelers, some of the mountainous roads are still part of the beautiful and amazing trip to the east coast of Taiwan. 

Hualien County is beautiful, but it's the drive that's amazing!

We arrive in Guangfu around 12:30 pm. Guangfu is a small sleepy town. The missionary "apartment" here is actually a three story five bedroom house. It's been empty for some time. It'll take a lot of work to get it cleaned up and ready to turn over to the landlord. We change into work clothes and get to work.

The van gets full to the brim with mattresses, desks, chairs, boxes, bags, fans, a microwave, heaters, and several bags of garbage. 

The house is cold and damp, with peeling paint, cement walls, and interesting former occupants. When the elders lived there, they caught this lovely lady.

A huntsman spider - generally harmless, but huge

Fortunately for us, the only resident we found was a former resident..... a mold-covered dried up gecko.

The toilets were typical of ones found in many places throughout Taiwan. Though they appear like Western toilets, their function-ability is not quite the same. These signs are seen less and less, but are still quite common throughout the country. A trash can is always nearby to collect used  items.....

A not-too-bad nights sleep on a rock hard mattress in the cold, damp house, and we're ready to finish up and meet with the landlord.

Thank you to an amazing local senior couple who came to help with the translation needs. They are serving not far from here and have done amazing work bringing several families to Christ in this part of the vineyard.

Then it's time to welcome the landlord and complete negotiations. If everything goes well, we get the full deposit back.

Landlord checking the contract, bills, and keys

Today was one of those days. All is well.

The senior couple invites us to lunch. We go to the Li Chuan Aquafarm - home of the "world's best freshwater clams." We dine on clams, water lotus greens, and sweet and sour red snapper. The clams and red snapper are harvested right there at the aquafarm. Talk about fresh!

For 100 Kuai (about $3.57 US dollars) you can load up a container with as many fresh clams as you can find to take home for dinner. Children love the adventure of digging through the muddy water to find each clam.

Or playing with the fish.

After lunch, we stop off at the Hualien Elders apartment to swap dryers so they can have one that works, fix a washing machine leak, and encourage a thorough apartment cleaning (!!).

Hualien coastline

Then comes the arduous, but beautiful,
drive back home, and the unloading of the stuffed van into the mission storage area. The mattresses, dryer, desks, chairs, bags, garbage, heaters, etc. all come back out and are tucked away in their proper places.

It's been a long two days but a great trek. 

We work behind-the-scenes here at the mission, and are grateful for the opportunity to support the marvelous work the young missionaries do in the forefront. 

After all this work, it's time for a great P-day activity!  Next blog!

2021 is Sending Surprises Our Way - Already!

And so it begins. 2021 is already full of surprises, and it's only the first month of the year.

The Taiwan Center for Disease Control (CECC) announced that beginning January 1st, they are not allowing any more foreigners to enter the country, due to COVID, for the unforeseeable future. The news of mutating strains that are up to 70% more transmissible is a great a concern for Taiwan, and they are willing to do what it takes to try to keep the spread of COVID here at bay.

"CECC announces adjustments to regulations for foreign nationals entering Taiwan beginning January 1, 2021, in response to continued spread of COVID-19 pandemic. ....Entry restrictions and quarantine regulations for foreign nationals will be tightened...." The news article explains that with only a few exceptions, foreigners will no longer be admitted to Taiwan until the danger has passed.

To us, that means a lot less missionaries. Many foreign missionaries have been assigned to Taiwan but have been reassigned in their home countries, hoping for the time they can come to Taiwan. For now, this won't be possible

Many hearts are disappointed and tears have been shed. The pandemic has affected all of our lives tremendously. To those missionaries and families who have waited and hoped and prepared for coming to Taiwan, our hearts go out to you. We pray, with all of you, that this may be temporary. 

We are blessed here with many wonderful, faithful Taiwanese missionaries. They are confident and able to converse freely in their native language and with their local understandings - teaching their own people with their own cultural perspectives. They are vital to all the work that continues on here. We are so blessed to have so many local Taiwanese missionaries serving here.

But as the foreign missionaries complete their service and return to their home countries, and are not replaced by new missionaries, the total number of missionaries serving here will decline a bit. Or a lot.

To Elder Coffey and I, this recent announcement means we will be very busy in the next several months taking care of empty apartments. We will be hauling beds, desks, bookshelves, dryers, washing machines, microwaves, bedding and kitchen supplies out of empty apartments and storing them with our mission housing " storehouse".

We are humbled to acknowledge that all of us missionaries, whether senior or younger, are called to serve "as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." We are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. As to where we serve - that is just an assignment, it is not a call. It is subject to change.

Whether in Taipei or Tampa, whether in Hualien or Huntsville, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be preached and will go forward. We bloom where we are planted, and we serve beautifully wherever we are assigned.

A beautiful delicate orchid grows out of a moss-covered brick wall

Sometimes we are called to scale unusual heights, like this tree growing out
of the roof peak of an old building. A modern building stands right behind it,
 representing the stark contrast between the old ways and the new.

Bloom where you are planted!

I love this message to Elder Stephen Burnett, an early Church missionary who received his call to serve in 1832.  Here is his mission call:

"Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Stephen Burnett: Go ye, go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature that cometh under the sound of your voice.

And inasmuch as you desire a companion, I will give unto you my servant Eden Smith.

Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss." D&C 80:1-3

So to all our elders and sisters and senior missionaries now serving "elsewhere" - we love you; your service is recognized in the heavens; your sacrifice is accepted. Your willingness to serve wherever assigned is a testament of your faith and humility. God bless all of you!

Packets of Light - A New Year's Quest

"Scriptures are like 'packets of light' - that illuminate our minds and give place to guidance and inspiration from on high.  They can become the key to open the channel to communion from Heavenly Father and his Beloved Son Jesus Christ." Elder Richard G. Scott

I just recently received such a “packet of light.”

The Chinese language is rich in expressiveness, and characters are often full of beautifully descriptive messages. I’ve been studying the Chinese version of the Book of Mormon in my morning scripture reading. Now, I really can’t read a lot of Chinese characters, but I like to study them nevertheless, comparing them with the English version. I often learn revelatory insights that come as “packets of light” – shedding a little more light and truth as I study God’s word.

Courtesy of Flickr - Bai Shi Li

In English when we conclude our prayers, we conclude by saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”  While the phrase has powerful meaning, it can nevertheless become a routine phrase that we don’t think about much if we become a little casual. But that’s where Chinese can enhance our understanding.

In Chinese, the same phrase is, “fèng YēSū JīDū de míng, āmén .”  Or, in characters: 奉耶穌基督的名,阿門。 It’s a phrase. You learn it. You memorize it.  You know what it means – we do all things in the name of our Savior.

But as I studied carefully, I thought about the word 奉, or fèng. The above phrase is not literally translated, “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” But rather, “fèng” Jesus Christ’s name, amen. And “fèng” does not mean “in”.

What does fèng mean, then?

I looked it up. Fèng = to present respectfully (to superior, ancestor, deity etc.) / to esteem / to revere, to offer.

We aren’t just ending our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ; we are offering it up with the highest esteem and respect. We express our deepest reverence for Him and for His holy name.

It’s as if we are saying, “With the highest esteem and deepest respect, I offer this prayer with reverence, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

The endings to my prayers now take on a whole new meaning.

奉, or fèng.  What a powerful word!  Feeling grateful for this “packet of light.”

"(Heavenly Father) has placed packets of light in our path both in individually appropriate doses and at the intervals that will both stretch and rescue us in our own unique circumstances.  As we receive, remember, and act on the truths in one customized packet of light, we prepare to receive new light, and the light grows brighter and brighter." - Elder Bednar

Inspiration or personal revelation can come to all of us no matter who we are. We know that every person born on this earth is born with what we like to call "the Light of Christ". Some might just call it our conscience, a light, a voice, a prompting, a gut feeling. But whatever you choose to call it, it is very real and a powerful guiding tool for all of us. The more we listen to this "light of Christ", or guiding influence in our lives, the more we'll be led to find more of these "packets of light" along our path. 

This year, join me on a quest. No matter what happens out there in 2021 - good, or bad, calm or scary, peaceful or violent, refreshing or suffocating, there will be packets of light strewn along our paths by a loving Father in Heaven. Let's look for those packets of light!  Let's find them!  Let's bring that light into our hearts and lives to make our souls brighter and brighter!

Courtesy of Flickr.com R Boed