Wood-fired pizza and roast duck

A spiritual hightlight for us was last Sunday's Stake Conference. The talks were well crafted and very inspirational. Afterward, some of the missionaries gathered for a photo:
We had another busy week at the office. Which we don't mind, but, why, oh, why won't the petty cash balance?! *Sigh* I make so many mistakes! Which is alright, except it takes only a moment to make the mistake, but hours to figure out where I went wrong and fix the problem. Oh, well, such is life. On Thursday, we definitely needed a break, so we went for an evening walk around our neighborhood. Looked in shop windows, said "hello" to people (including a young child who looked up at us and loudly said, "Wai Guoren!" (Foreigners!) and enjoyed the cool night air. Glancing down a sidestreet, we saw something colorful and decided to check it out. Just a block or so away from the noisy street was a small Buddhist temple, beautifully decorated and well maintained. Incense was burning and the place fairly glowed. I felt it was a small oasis among the hustle and bustle of the city. Returning home, as we approched our building, we spotted the glowing wood fire in the oven of "Bonjour Pizza", a mobile pizzeria. We decided on a late night dinner, and bought the "Mexican" pizza with chicken and jalepenos for 300 Kuai ($10.50 USD). We enjoyed the pizza far more than the silly Jerry Lewis movie, "Visit to a Small Planet" we watched with the dinner.
During dinner, our very nice landlord and his wife showed up, to begin repairs on our air conditioning and a minor plumbing problem. It turns out they live a literal stone's throw away, just across the small park in front of our building. Saturday was a VERY full day. We began by getting Sister Genesis Wunderlich out of quarentine and to the office. From there, she was taken to the train station enroute to her first area here in Tiawan. She has already been serving a year in two US missions, but finally got a visa to travel here. In the afternoon, The Card family (including their children Stepanie, Riley and Cameron) kindly invited us along to visit the Tiachung Metropolitan Park, which is situated W-NW of the city on a ridge (1000 ft!) that separates the city from the seashore. It was just the tonic - a large wooded park with nice walkways and interesting features. Unfortunately, with the current drought, there wesn't much water in most of the ponds and streams. One prominent man-made feature is a large sundial. When I checked the time, it registered about 5:00 pm, slightly off the actual time of 3:30. And, Sister Wells mistakenly hit the "emergency" button in the restroom, which sent staff running. haha. But, it was a lovely afternoon in the park. A highlight for me was the fragrant scent of some flowering plant we couldn't see, but whose aroma was just delightful! We took a few photos.
But wait, there's more! After returning home, we prepared a dish and rushed to the ward dinner that evening! We fixed penne pasta with spaghetti sauce and cherry tomatoes, with chicken strips on top. It was all gone by the time the dinner ended!
Our bishop and his cute daughter
The roast duck dish was delicious, but we passed on the duck heads!

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