Busy, and happy in Taiwan!

The days are going by so quickly - I suppose that has to do with keeping busy. Here are some highlights (or at least things I took pictures of!).

Last time I wrote, I recounted the baptism of a young man in the Wuquan 1st Ward. Less than a week later, on October 2, Sister Chen, the mother of another young man in our ward, also joined the fold of God in a wonderful baptismal service. Her son, who uses Jacob as his English name, has been preparing to serve a mission and that made his mother get interested in the church.

Immediately after the service concluded, we all gathered in a large circle at the back of the chapel for a send-off of her son on his mission! He will be serving in Taipei. Here is the bishop, giving his words of advice, while his mom and other close friends, including the sister who introduced them to the gospel, look on. Everyone in the large circle was given the opportunity to give their words of advice. Many had served in Taiwan, and had lots of interesting comments and advice!

The next day we had the opportunity to teach an eight year old boy who needed some additional help in getting ready for baptism. Sister Wells used our grandchildren's "Blanket Book" to teach about accountability by showing pictures of our youngest grandchildren and asking him "Does this child understand right and wrong?" "Does a boy this age know what's right?" until we reached the 8 year old grandchildren and then talked about the age of accountability. We will continue teaching him for a few weeks.

The days continue warm and muggy, though it's officially "fall". I took this picture of a roadside potted shrub near our apartment. Taiwan, even in the city, is beautiful!

We keep running into people who know Sally, either from her mission in Taipei or from her job teaching at the MTC in Provo. This brother, Eric Chen, who works for the Church in the area of helping missionaries prepare for the future, is one of them:

Our weekly English Conversation Group is picking up, with some new friends as well as some familiar faces returning now that Covid restrictions are easing. We enjoy meeting with this group each Tuesday evening!

Rear: Ming, Elder Sutton, Elder Chuang, Hugo, Aaron, Lisa, Bill
Front: Elder Wells, Anthony, Mae, Sister Wells

And, it was transfer time again. The Turners treated us and the APs to dinner, and to say goodbye to Elder England. He's a favorite, with his cherry "Zao!" greeting and fun personality. He's also the king of selfies.

Elder England, Elder Fairbanks, the Wells' and Turners. Note the "small hearts."

We bade farewell to a group of missionaries going home. (Since our Mission Leaders are still in Guam awaiting their visas), it was our turn to fix the spaghetti dinner for them. Among the group were Elder Chen, who was in our English Connect for Missionaries group for "forever", Elder Lin, who was one of the APs when we were training, and Elder England, who taught us the ropes on English Conversation Group and who was also an AP when he finished his mission. We love these three, and all the missionaries!

Elder Chen Cheng Yu, Elder Lin Tzu Chun, Elder Benjamin Burt,
Elder Tristan Weech, Elder Traven England
Sister Chen Wan Ting, Sister and Elder Wells

We said goodbye Elder Lin ("Little Lin", since he was the shorter
of the two APs named Lin) who helped train us when we first arrived.

Elder Chen was another favorite, since he faithfully attended English Conversation Group for Missionaries, and tried really hard to learn English. He lives just minutes from the mission office, but we drove him home anyway!

Two of the mission cars needed servicing, so Elder Turner and I took one of them to the Honda dealer on Friday. While we waited, we decided to walk around the nearby park. It turned out to be "Central Park" and had a visitors center. We were greeted and offered a guided tour. Our guide was a woman named "Julia." She had pretty good English, and was super nice. At the end of the tour, she bought us each an orange juice drink, and we visited for a while. We set the appointment for the other car for next Friday, since that's the day she volunteers at the park! Next week Sister Wells wants to come for the tour. 

Also on Friday, we visited the Feng Chia Night Market. We were joined by the Turners and Jeff, our member friend from Changhua who played tour guide. It was a long (30 minutes) bus ride (standing in a crowded bus), but even though it was tiring we enjoyed the outing. We ate some fun food and enjoyed walking by the many food stalls and clothing stores.

We got to sit down on the way home!

Next morning, Jeff tricked us to coming down to the office so he could get his backpack, which he had left there. He made a big deal about apologizing to us about being late, but then surprised us with a pair of cakes for our belated birthdays! He is such a nice guy! Later, we went to McDonalds for lunch.

We spent the rest of the weekend watching General Conference and resting (and blogging haha).