Here are the highlights of the 182nd Semi Annual General Conference:
We've been in Taiwan on our mission field for almost 6 WEEKS now. We see the church as the church of many miracles. To list a few:
- Our call to serve in the Taiwan Taichung Mission as Family History Research missionaries is a miracle in itself. We were serving in Hong Kong when we felt that we needed to send in our application for a mission in Taiwan. Most of you may know that you may request where you would like to serve a mission (for senior couples), but the ultimate decision lies with the President of the Church. We considered that we may not serve a mission after Hong Kong, but rather move to Taiwan for a period of time for me to do research on my family. But, our inspiration to apply for a Taiwan mission was so strong that after we consulted with the children, we decided to throw our hat into the ring. It was a miracle to us that we received a call in March to come to the Taichung Mission.
- Family History Training, part 1: There is no any specific training for us that we knew of. But we knew we needed training before going to Taiwan. Miraculous opportunities presented themselves to us. While driving in St. George one day, we decided to stop by the St. George Family History Library. After explaining what we felt we needed to do, the couple in charge, Elder and Sister Midgely invited us to attend the mini-MTC for the family history missionaries, starting the coming Monday, and they had two spaces open for us. The 3-week training was full of "aha" moments, research tools/skills, and many resources. The training started at 8 and went to 5 each Monday and Tuesday for 3 weeks. There was not one day that we were not surprised at the things we learned from the instructors. We called it the best kept secret in the Family History field. We are indebted to all those instructors who taught us and prepared us. Even though they didn't teach much about Chinese family search, what they did teach us prepared us more in what to expect, what to do in Taiwan and what we could do to help develop the family history program in Taiwan.
- Family History Training, part 2: While attending the St. George Family History Library mini-MTC, our dear friends, the O'Bryants told us about their Family History Mission in Salt Lake. Sister O took the initiative and called her supervisor in Salt Lake. She was told that they had the final Family History Missionary training for the summer starting the coming Monday. They were willing to include us in the training. The problem was that we had our last week of mini-MTC in St. George at the same time! Another miracle, after talking to Elder Midgely about our situation, he told us to go ahead and attend the Salt Lake training. He would personally make up the last week's mini-MTC with us. Sister O helped us secure an apartment (timeshare) unit a block from the Temple Square so we wouldn't have to travel far each morning, fighting the I-15 traffic. That was no small miracle in itself. We were assigned individual trainers and spent 4 incredible days learning from these experts. It was mostly on PAF, which we thought was going to be obsolete, but is what they use in Taiwan, because it accommodates Chinese writing.
- Church in Taiwan: Elwin served a mission in Taiwan, the then Southern Far East Mission, from 1963-65. The Church had barely started in Taiwan, and we didn't even have the Book of Mormon in Chinese yet. I, for one, was one of the early saints, who was converted through the Spirit before reading the Book of Mormon. The Church has grown many times over, from a few hundred to over 50,000 members.
- When Elwin served in the Southern Far East Mission, it included Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines in the 60's. According to mormonchannel.org - there are now over 50,000 members, 11 stakes, 70 wards, 22 branches, 2 missions, 1 district and 1 temple.
- Elwin served in Gaoxiong in 1964 where we are serving now: He rode a bicycle in what was a town, but now it's a metropolitan area of 38 districts and a population of 1.6 million people.
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| Gaoxiong today |
- Many church member families: we are getting 2nd and 3rd generations of church members in Taiwan now.
- Local missionaries: Taichung received 30 new missionaries last month, 17 of them are local missionaries.
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| New missionaries from the US |
5. General Conference in Taiwan: To be able to watch the General Conference in Chinese is a miracle. When I joined the Church in 1963, Book of Mormon wasn't even translated into Chinese yet, and now we have General Conference dubbed in Chinese, the Church Magazines, the Liahona, is in Chinese. After our Relief Society Broadcast in Gaoxiong, Sister Li, the RS Stake president, held a special dedication meeting with all the sisters to present crocheted hats to the elderly in the old folks home. It was such a great project as many sisters learned how to crochet and donated their time and gave their love to the old folks. Dinner was served afterwards.
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| Crocheted hats for the old folks home |
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| Elder/Sister Anderson, Humanitarian missionaries, who helped secured funding for the project. |
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| Elder/Sister Davis at the RS Activity |
6. Miracles during the Conference: The Chen’s (name changed) 19-year-old daughter is attending BYU Hawaii and fell in love with a 26-year-old Haoli. She called home to tell her parents that she was serious about marrying this guy. This set the parents on a spiral of emotional anxieties. When I saw Sister Chen at the General Conference she looked happy, not frazzled like last week. I asked her how she was doing and she told me the most amazing story. Since President Monson’s announcement during the General Conference about lowering the ages that young men/women could go on missions, we have heard many exciting stories. This one beats all. Sister Chen told me that her daughter called and said that she always wanted to go on a mission and she had called the bishop for an appointment. The daughter asked it was okay for her to proceed. Can you imagine the elation of these parents? Wow! It’s a miracle! We are going to see many of them to come. Miracles, miracles!
7. Missionaries are treated well by members: The first week we showed up at the Church, we were asked to bear our testimonies in the Sacrament Meeting. Members asked what kind of help we needed. People arranged to take us shopping at Costco, at Carrefour (the French WalMart), and various places, such as getting the internet connections, phone service, etc. We've been invited out to dinner. People brought us snacks. Bishops are inviting us to speak at their church meetings. One sister asked for a list of what we needed and posted it on the facebook and got us a lot of things that we needed to run a household. It was awesome. We may be able to feed the missionaries soon!
8. Missionaries are treated well by non-members as well: When we board the bus, young or middle age people stand up to give us their seats. They are so respectful. They come to look at our name tags and welcome us when they find out who we are.
9. Gaoxiong traffic: with tens of thousands of scooters roaming the streets of Gaoxiong, we feel it a miracle for us each day when we get home safely.
10. Last, but not least: Meeting my old friend, Mona Peng. Mona and I grew up in the church together during our college days. We both went to BYU at the same time. She married Colin Kailiponi and I married Elwin. We lost contact with each other after our BYU days. Now we are serving in the same mission, they in ChiaYi and we in Gaoxiong. They came down to Gaoxiong for the Missionary Zone Conference and stayed with us. What a happy reunion as we found each other still strong in the gospel.
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| Elder/Sister Kailiponi and Elder/Sister Davis |
