Mission Backup

One of our member friends here tells us to "Watch out!" when warning us about cold weather. It /is/ cool - some days we even wear a sweater! We definitely won't be getting our wish for a white Christmas this year. But, we did get some wonderful Christmas cards from home. One fun one was in an envelope all by itself, and wasn't signed. We found out it was from Maxwell Darrington, Mia and Cody's 4 year old. His mom said he asked her for an envelope and stuck something in it and sealed it before she could examine the contents. He said it was for Nai-Nai, and would she send it? We loved this artwork! We finally got to go to the temple! President Fields authorized a trip for the three senior couples to the Taipei Temple. The DeWitts drove all the way from Kaohsiung to join the Turners and us. We drove the President's Odyssey, which was very comfortable. We enjoyed the temple, and also visited the Distribution Center, the little "LDS goods"-type souvenir s...

What a wild time we're having here in Taiwan! I named this post "Ups and Downs" because we've had some great times since I last posted, but also some trouble! Here's some of what happened since then: The young elders put together a nice Christmas pass-along card, which we got printed and distributed to all the Elders and Sisters. We had fun putting the packages together with Elder and Sister Turner! But, coming home from the office, Sister Wells missed her pedal when starting out and went down, hard on her left hip. That reallyhurt! After a few days, the bruise surfaced, and it is not pretty. That was sure a "down!" We enjoyed the annual "Mission Tour", which was done virtually (of course) due to the Covid pandemic. (The pandemic has touch Taiwan only lightly, for which we are grateful.) Elder and Sister Tai held many meetings with various groups of missionaries, including one just for the Seniors. What delightful, inspiring leaders! Here...

 Teaching our Junior Primary class brings us happiness each week. Yes, it's stressful to get a lesson ready and keep the little ones engaged, but they are so cute, and so willing to learn! Here, they are learning that "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" as enthusiastically as any Sunbeam class in Utah.      Marshall, Le Le (pronounced Luh Luh), Vivian, ?, and Ping An  Our weekly English Conversation Group is fun, but even more tiring. After a long day, we stick around for the 7:00 pm class. But, it's worth it to spend time with these nice people: Me, with Sisters Huang Li, Wells, and Lin, and class members Boyd, Anthony, Jessica, Ming, and Hugo I also love the interesting sights, sounds, smells, and people of Taiwan. We were out doing some "last minute" Christmas shopping on Yizhong street when I spotted this gentleman working on a third story remodeling job. As is typical here, there were no safety harnesses, or such, just men getting the work done. And, suddenl...