Greetings From Taiwan

Greetings! It has taken us a long time to get set up and settled down to this point where we could drop a little note. We hope you are well. We are actually writing a group e-mail to those of you who expressed an interest to hear from us occasionally (and maybe a few others who have no idea who we are!) We have been in Taiwan about 6 weeks and are beginning to get used to it. The heat and humidity are amazing. The Elders dashed our hopes by saying that your body probably doesn't really adjust to it but in time you just get used to being wet. I don't mean "glistening", I mean "hot, long hot flash" kind of heat and humidity. But we're getting used to it.

The chapel, mission home and mission office occupy a triangular-shaped piece of property in the middle of a busy area of Taichung, a large city in the middle part of the island of Taiwan which is about 90 miles off the coast of mainland China. We are not in the skyscraper, downtown, main part of the city but busy nonetheless. We live in a pretty nice apartment building about three blocks away on the fifth floor in a two bedroom, two bath apartment. We have enough bunkbeds in our study and spare bedroom to sleep 6 missionaries on their first or last night here. We haven't had any stay yet but we have big groups coming and going within the next few weeks so we assume that the beds we've washed and made will soon be used.

Hank's job is being the financial man for the mission. We have 150 missionaries with rent, utility, phone cards and debit cards that Hank manages. He is doing a great job even though he normally dislikes paper, computer and financial work. If he ever gets done with the basics, he receives a phone bill each month to analyze that is 2 1/2 inches thick. Even more amusing is the fact that I am the mission secretary. I had no idea what that involved and I certainly was not prepared. My computer skills are pathetic but they are wonderfully patient and helpful with me. As we are assured when we receive and accept a call such as this, the Lord will make up the difference. We walk the 10 or so minutes each day to the office where we work 12 hour days and that is the easiest part. We truly have been blessed to physically do this and we are being blessed more each day emotionally and spiritually to get up to speed with all that needs to be done. We are trusting that someday we will be adequate.

Hank is a counselor in a small English-speaking branch. It consists mostly of two families with American husbands and Taiwanese wives, several Phillipinos who speak better English than Chinese, several Chinese who want to use English and about 10-15 American young people who are here teaching English for usually about 6 months. The president left after two weeks for a six-week visit to his family in America. I teach the Gospel Essentials class and lead the singing and we are speaking next Sunday which assignment we will get about every 3 months. That keeps us busy and happy the other days of the week.

Well, that is about enough. This responsibility is harder than I ever imagined but I have to admit that I'm grateful to be here instead of many other places in the world. Simple things are hard here for us like eating but the good part about that is that we've each lost about 10 pounds. We are getting better at it. It is not true that most people here speak English. They all say "Hello" or "Hi" and the boy we pass on our way home each night even says, "Whasupman" but in stores and resturants and barber shops it's tricky. We are getting better at it all. Fewer people stand a laugh at us as they watch us eating rice with chopsticks.

Thank you for caring about us and listening to us.