Mission Backup

After a busy week of office work, we did some sightseeing this weekend! On Saturday (our P-Day), we visited the Paochueh Temple, which is only a few blocks from our apartment. It is home to a huge Buddha statue, 27’ tall!    From this Buddhist temple, we walked a half mile to the Taichung Confucius Temple. Here, Debbie is posing on the pedestrian overpass as we arrived at the Confucius temple complex in Taichung. Young women come to pose at the Confucius temple in Taichung. Some were there apparently for wedding engagement photos, others for "glam" shots. The shrine to the "greatly perfected sagely teacher" Confucius, in the Taichung Confucius temple. In the 3rd ward on Sunday, the Chen family spoke, including their cute 3-year old. All three were very good talks. Sister “Torry” Chen told how she had been baptized at age 14 (by President Card!) and was immediately called to serve in the Sunbeam class. She has since served in every non-priestho...

 We had a couple of "firsts" this week. We got our International Driver's Licenses approved by the Driver's License Bureau here. Well, almost approved. We got only a temporary permit, since we don't yet have our ARC (Alien Resident Card) cards yet. They were held up because of a snag with the Church paperwork at the immigration department. My first driving trip was to the immigration department, to get the problem with the ARC cards resolved. It wasn't too different than driving in the USA. Mostly just lots of scooters zipping around, and less stringent driving and parking practices. Meaning, cars sometimes double park, so you have to go around, and the lanes are not respected as carefully as at home. Little things like the signal lights being horizontal instead of vertical, different signage, etc. make things a bit different.\\ We also took our first bus ride this week. After a long day which ended with a dance lesson by the young elders in our home ward, we ...

  We checked off each day in quarantine. We're done! Heading out the door for the first time The street sign outside our apartment Today, after a 14-day quarantine. we were finally able to leave our apartment! Neither of us had been confined for so long, and it really made us appreciate the freedom to come and go as we please. The authorities were faithful to contact us every day, to make sure we were still healthy and maintaining our quarantine. Anyway, this morning we walked out into the Taiwan sunshine, and to the mission office and local chapel, which are located 1.4 km (.86 mi) away. We didn't even get lost (thanks Google maps!) We attended our local ward, the Wuquan 3rd Ward first. We arrived just in time to introduce ourselves to a few people and then the meeting started. I counted 42 souls in attendance. Once testimony bearing time started, a member of the Stake Presidency called us to come up to the stand to bear our testimonies. Debbie's FB entry reads, "I to...