Happy New Year!

Can't believe how time flies!  It's been a month since we have posted on our blog.  That's a record...

Hope all our family and friends are doing well out there.  We miss y'all!  Christmas was great, but we sure missed everyone.  We continue to work as family history missionaries and it's keeping us very busy.  Below are some highlights:

1. Sunday Family History Talks and Training:  We continue to visit all the wards and branches in both East and West Gaoxiong stakes.  It's been very gratifying as we share the importance of family history.  The traffic to the Family History Center has increased.  More members are getting online to use the new Family Tree to update their pertinent information and search for their ancestors.  We have had a few double meetings (spoken at two Sacrament meetings in one day) because there are not enough Sundays to spread around.  We are certainly not used to those 6-hour church meeting days.  Bless all the bishops and leaders for working long hours.  We now have several versions of our talks about genealogy and family history.  It'll come in handy when we start our 2nd round of visiting.  



Bishop Qiu, his family, 2 sisters and us in Qishan Ward



Elders King and Baxter with us at the Qishan Ward



Family History Staff and us at the Pingdong Ward

We usually are asked to speak at Sacrament meeting, then Brother Liu and Sister Guo do the training with us assisting.  Brother Liu has a prototype of microfilm reader that connects with the laptop.  Instead of using the bulky microfilm reader, we now have a small, USB driven machine to do the work.  

Bro Liu and his invention, a microfilm reader

Sis Guo and Davis

Training w/Sister Qiu

Family History Training Session

Family History Training Session w/Grace Chen

    2.  For Christmas, several wards had Christmas programs and dinners.  The highlight for Sanmin Ward, the ward we usually attend when we are not on the road visiting wards, was the special guest visiting the children.  The children grabbed that special guest before he had a chance to say his hohoho...It was really fun to see the children so excited.

Special guest - he needs to workout after Christmas!

Ho ho ho....

plenty of food

you name it, they have it!  Just bring your own utensils.

We were invited to the Lin's for Christmas dinner.  The Lin's are super members with 4 children, 7 through 13 years old.   They love the missionaries and are so generous.  We've been to their home for dinner at least 5 or 6 times already.  

Christmas in Taiwan is quite different.  Several stores had Christmas decorations, and one could find decorations for sale at some stationary stores.  We noticed that the public buses were even decorated with Christmas bobbles.  But other than that, it's not a busy holiday at all.  It sure is a time when one gets homesick.  We'll spend one more Christmas in Taiwan before coming home.

Lots of food @the Lin's

At the Lins with the missionaries

  3.  Taiwan Taizhong Mission Christmas Celebration:  On Dec. 20, we boarded a tour bus at 6 AM at the Gaoxiong Train Station for an undetermined location.  President and Sister Bishop decided to surprise us.  We first went to Tainan to pick up the missionaries there.  We then knew we were going somewhere north.  It was fun to try to guess where we were going by the road signs.  Well, we ended up at a Taoist Monastery.  It's a beautiful place between Jiayi and Taizhong.  We had a good time visiting a couple of places.  Then, the big surprise was that we stopped at an All-You-Can-Eat Steak House in Taizhong.  The restaurant was pretty large to accommodate all 200 missionaries.  It seemed like all the missionaries went to the steak bar and enjoyed the steaks, while I stayed close to the seafood bar.  It was heavenly to have all the fresh seafood I wanted.  Other than a bowl of salad, I think I had a totally seafood lunch that they grilled, broiled and stir-fried for me.  I was in hog haven.  We then went to the Stake Center for a Devotional.  Surprisingly, no one went to sleep after such a big meal.  It was wonderful to hear the testimonies of these wonderful members of the "Army of Helaman".  We are so blessed to be in their midst.

Missionaries at the train station

Sis Davis, Liu and Zhu

in the tour bus

in the tour bus

Destination - Monastery

Missionaries on the steps of the Monastery

Senior missionaries with Pres./Sister Bishop

Ladies or Gentlemen, your choice!

Missionaries at the mountain side

   4.  The Davis' have moved:  After living by the Golden Lion Lake, we decided to move out.  It was too remote, bus stops are too far away, no 7-11 around...We found ourselves a much nicer apartment near the MRT Aozidi Station.

Moving time made easy with all the wonderful missionaries!

Since we moved to a different stake, another set of missionaries came to help us move in 

 The apartment complex has a gym, a reading room/library, and a swimming pool.  There are 3 bus-lines outside of the building, 7-11 downstairs, MRT station (8-minute walk), a beautiful park (5-minute walk), 4 or 5 noodle shop/restaurants across the street, a wet/dry cleaner, Costco (15-minute walk, or bus ride 2 stops), and many more.  We are sure a lot happier here.

    5.   Continue to visit wards and branches:  We set a goal to visit as many wards as we could when we came.  It has become a spiritually uplifting experience not just for members we visit, but for ourselves too.  We visited 4 wards in 3 weeks (didn't visit on Dec. 23) in December.  We were well received.  Each ward prepared lunch for us after the meetings.  We would speak at the sacrament meeting on the topics of genealogy and family history.  Then, Brother Liu, Gaoxiong Family History Center director and Sister Guo, Assistant director, and we did "family tree" training either at the Sunday school time or after the church meetings were all done.  At each one we felt the Spirit helping us carry out the assignments.  The 4 of us have become fast friends as we share our expertise with the other members.  

     We feel the Spirit of Elijah as we visit the wards. The promise of the Prophet Malachi rang true as we read in 4:5, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."