Reinforcements have arrived!

 We're excited that another missionary couple, Lynn and Cindy Turner, have arrived in Taichung. They are currently on day 2 of their 2 week quarantine in the "other" seniors apartment. Elder Turner will be taking over the Financial Secretary role from me, and I'll be able to concentrate more on operations - mostly, doing minor repairs in the young missionary apartments, replacing appliances, and the like. We're looking forward to seeing other areas in the mission and getting to know the young missionaries better. Sister Wells will be continuing as Mission Secretary, though with a bit different schedule. Sadly, just today Sister Turner learned that her younger sister has unexpectedly passed away after a brief fight with cancer. This news greatly saddens us, and we are praying for the Turners and their family.

Last week I mentioned the celebrations around Baosheng Dadi's (the God of Medicine) birthday. Well, on Sunday, after stocking the Turner's apartment with food they will be using during quarantine, we went by the Taichung YuanBao temple, which is a shrine to Baosheng Dadi. We happened to get there just as a large ceremony got underway. It was amazing, and lasted about 10 minutes. Here are a few photos:

  





You may recognize these fellows from their appearance in the parade video I posted last week!

Sister Wells posing in front of the "fire lion" which was set ablaze later in the evening (after we left)

Tuesday, it was English Conversation Group night, and we had another fun class. Sister Wells led the discussion in the advanced group Here's a short clip of an activity where the participants worked in pairs, to give you an idea:


On Thursday, we attended our first baptism in the Wuquan 3rd ward. It turned out to be the bishop's 8-year old daughter. She is a darling child, and was so sweetly attentive during the whole service. The children sang "My Heavenly Father Loves Me", and afterwards, they served birthday cake and goodies.





 Finally, here's the cute baby who was in the row ahead of us in Sunday School today. She makes us miss our own grandbabies!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lots of fun... and hard work!

Image
 The past two weeks have been just about typical for us, with long, tiring days, and some fun thrown in. Chinese New Years lasts two weeks, so we've been doing lots of celebrating and well-wishing lately. Last year, we enjoyed many meals together with members and missionaries, but the last few weeks have been a time of increased Covid fear, and our Church leaders have placed restrictions on missionaries which precluded visits to members homes, or regular Church meetings. We were sad to have to refuse the many kind offers we received. We were allowed to eat in restaurants, though, and we enjoyed a hot pot meal at Bulu Bulu with a couple from our Wuquan 3rd Ward! Interestingly, we have had an egg shortage in Taiwan recently, so we've had to buy eggs as we can. The last batch (10, not 12, here), included some mismatched sizes. Because we're not meeting in our churches, the missionary Elders are once again providing sacrament services to the Sister missionaries. Our neighbors, ...
Read more

"Settling In"

Image
The last month has brought us our "sea-legs," it seems. We're both more at ease with our roles and duties, meaning less panicked every day! We've done most things at least once (I think), although "you don't know what you don't know." Here's the sort of thing I'm up against every day: But, the work is exhausing! I'm probably repeating myself, but I'm working far harder here than I did when I was working for a living! I've learned how to convert Chinese street addresses to their English (Pinyin) equivalent, which is a big milestone for me. That's only about a half of one percent of what I need to know, but it's a start! We've been asked by our Ward Mission Leader to do a short video message each Sunday.Here is the second of three we've done so far: The love and kindness of the Taiwanese Church members towards us continues. Brother and Sister Yu invited us to dinner again, along with the office elders. Our good ...
Read more

We Have a President!

Image
At long last, President Karl Fields and Sister Melanie Fields have joined us here in Taichung! After being released from their quarantine in Taipei (and a visit to the Taipei "Temple Square" and a few other sites), the APs drove them here to Taichung. We enjoyed a small soirée with them, in the mission office.  Elder Robert and Sister Gloria DeWitt, from Spanish Fork, Utah, were also released from quarantine here in Taichung. We enjoyed hosting them for a meal and to do some laundry, and after a quick visit to the office, they set off for their new home in Kaohsiung. They will be helping with missionary needs in the south, as well as helping with missionary health concerns mission-wide. Now we have a full complement of senior missionaries. A far cry from our early days here, when we were the only seniors in sight! We also attended the baptism of Zhiyun and Vic, the two youngsters we've been helping prepare for baptism. Zhiyun's baptism wasn't correct, so it needed...
Read more