When family visits...

We were so happy to have our daughter I-Shuan, my sister Alice, my other sister Ling and her husband Stan, and their son Dennis, visit us, April 18 - 28, 2013.

To accommodate everyone on this trip, we rented a van.  Here is how it all transpired.

This was how we felt when we first got the rental car.

Renting a minivan for the 7 of us was probably one of the better moves.  We were able to get to places quickly without having have to wait for buses and trains.  We decided that we had had enough of that.  But following the GPS was another issue.  After much navigating through the Taipei Mass Freeway System, I called the rental company and told them the navigation system didn't work.  He agreed that we needed to go back and exchange for a new one.  Two hours later, the agent called to see if we were okay.  I told him we were so confused and frustrated that we decided to go on our trip by train, he could pick up the rental in front of the Taipei Train Station.  I had to calm him down and tell him the truth that we were almost at the town of YiLan where we were supposed to be.  After that, we were just fine, driving.

Highlights of the trip:

Day 1:  Saturday, April 19, 2013

      Since our mission started 7 months ago, we have researched and found many of the Song and Shi ancestors.  With the computerized system from the LDS Church website, familysearch.org, we were able to organize a lot of the information.  With the help of Elaine Wiley, our daughter, and her family, we set out to do some temple work for these ancestors.  What a happy morning it was for us to do ordinances for my great-great-grandfather, Song Zhang and his wife, Liu He in the Taipei Temple.  The Song Zhang 宋彰 and Liu He 劉蚵 stories were shared in previous posts.  We know there is much more work to be done.  A facebook page is dedicated to do the Song family history at https://www.facebook.com/groups/songagong/.  Take a look.  Contribute if you have any photos or stories to share.

      We had lunch with Meri Lin at the Hilton Hotel Restaurant.  Meri's mom, Shi Quan E 施瓊娥, was our mom's best friend growing up.  施瓊娥's dad is Mom's eldest brother, and she and Mom were close in age.  After lunch we went to visit her.  She has been sick, but smiled when she recognized us.

Pictured here are:  施瓊娥 in the wheelchair,  (from r to l), Ling Winters 宋鈴惠, Huang Li Yun 黃麗雲, Alice Feng 宋秋惠, I-Shuan Warr 戴怡萱, Shirley Davis 宋文惠, Elwin Davis 戴亞文, Aunt Shi MeiJuan 施美絹, her daughter Shi JinYu 施錦瑜, Meri Lin 林萌利, Huang ShiShi 黃奕時, Lin Feng Ji 林豐基 （They have an apartment in DaZhi大直 overlooking JiLong River)

方媽媽 w/Ling and Alice

I-Shuan's kindergarten in TianMou

     Next, we went to TienMou to visit our dear friend, Fang Mama 方媽媽, who used to work for us and helped us raised our kids when Elwin was working as the Engineering Manager for Philco in DanShui 淡水, 1977-1982.  The reunion was sweet as they, I-Shuan and 方媽媽, haven't seen each other for 31 years.  We left Taiwan when I-Shuan was 10 years old.  We also took I-Shuan to see her old kindergarten, St. Vincent Academy.










Stan and Dennis Winters arrived Saturday night.  We were able to hire a taxi to pick them up at the TaoYuan Airport and bring them to the hotel for US$35.  It was reasonable and convenient as it would have taken us more than 3 hours to go get them.

Day 2:  Sunday, April 21, 2013

We attended church at JinHua Jie where Stan and Elwin  both served the LDS Mission at one time or another.  Stan reunited with his old buddy, Brother Wang.  The two of whom served as President Kimball's bodyguards when he came to attend the Taiwan Area Conference back in 1979.  Elwin met an old friend, too, from when he served a mission in Taiwan.

We met again with our Aunt MeiJuan as she wanted to take us out to lunch.  It turned out to be her 84th birthday.  So Ling and I did the Chinese custom of fighting with her to pay for the lunch； we won and paid it.  Aunt MeiJuan is mom's youngest sister and we all love her.  It was a pleasure to be there for her birthday.  She is in good health, but Uncle Shi is bedridden now, he is 91 now.

After lunch, we went to a place near the famous LongShan Buddhist Temple to visit my cousin AhDing.  It was the only time slot left, so we took the MRT to meet her.  She's the daughter of our Dad's #6 sister.  She co-owns a karaoke shop.  We were happy to see her, and she, too, was delighted to meet the family.





Day 3 - 5:  Monday, April 22-24, 2013

We picked up the van and started our trip to YiLan, LuoDong, HuaLian and TaiDong.  The trip went well and we were delighted to see the beauty of Taiwan mountains and seashores.

One of the most memorable places during the Eastern Taiwan trip was the Buddhist Temple in LuoDong that our cousin Waka Song told us about.  It is a beautiful building in the middle of some rundown old homes.  The GPS did a superb job of taking us to the front steps of the place.  Waka is the daughter of Dad's #5 brother.  Her mom became a nun (a story to tell some other time) at this place.  She brought our Grandma Xu Tao's ancestral plate to this temple.  We didn't know what to expect, but what we saw was very interesting.

name plates at the Buddhist Temple

temple altar

candles for blessings

Waka and her daughter's names appear on the donors' list

Vegetarian lunch with the Master

Waka's mom passed away many years ago.  Because she gave up her secular life to become a nun (shaved head), she had a special place at this temple.  Her name plate is honored at the front of the temple next to their gods.  We don't know quite the reason, but she brought our Grandma Xu Tao's name plate here for her to have a resting place.  The master nun was very kind and welcomed us.  She even invited us for a vegetarian lunch.  We graciously accepted.  Everyone was surprised at how delicious the food was.  We sat at a round table with at least 10 dishes of food.  The food looked like chicken, some fish, beef, but were all made with some soybean derivatives.  We were glad that we gave it a try.  This time, Alice sneaked out and paid for the lunch.  We are doing well here to maintain the customs.

Some hotel accommodations are fine, but a little rough.  Since we only stayed at each hotel for one night, it was fine.  We did some hiking, lots of walking and just enjoyed the places we visited.  This would fast forward us to day 6 when we got back to Gaoxiong.

Day 6:  We got back to Gaoxiong at around 4 pm.  We got Ling and Stan settled at a hotel near the 85 Building in Gaoxiong.  We all went out to have some Korean food.  Since I-Shuan served a mission in Korea, we thought we'd surprised her with some good Korean food.  It was fine, but not great.

Day 7:  A big day as we plan to visit Tainan Old Homestead

I arranged for the Song village magistrate to meet us.  He couldn't be there because of a prior appointment, so he brought in his brother and several of the Song cousins to show us around.  They set up the front room in the community center for us to meet and chat.  Several cousins brought their genealogies with them.  Most of us share the same great-grandfather, Song Lu.  They had the record of Great-great-grandfather Song Zhang, whom I

We think Ling was born in this house behind the picture.

spent a lot of effort to find.  But they didn't have dates.
The village was settled by Song Zhang, and many of his descendants still live there.  They occupied important posts such as mayor, magistrate, commissioners, representatives, and union leaders.  They were all eager to share what they have with us.  One of them suggested that we should have a clan organization and build a memorial there since the Song's still own some land there. It was a delightful meeting as we exchanged contact information.  

My sister Ling was born in one of the few remaining original houses there.  This reunion was very special as our cousin Waka (daughter of Dad's #5 brother) came to meet us there.  Waka came to live with our mom and dad when she was very young.  She was assigned to be Ling's nanny.  She loved Ling so much that she carried her around on her back wherever she went.  Waka is 5 years older than I am, and I remember her running around with us playing in the fields with Ling on her back, as happy as she could be.  It was told that Waka never let Ling down on the floor until she was 3 years old.


After the meeting, one of the cousins, Song Shi Ying, drove us to our Grandfather Song Tian-An's gravesite.  Elwin and I were just there a month ago, but since we didn't drive, we couldn't quite remember where it was.  We brought some flowers and put them there.  It was special to visit Grandfather Song.  He was a great man.


Lunch was at the ChiMei Museum Coffee Shop as we were scheduled to visit the museum at 2 PM.  Song Shi Ying took us there.  He is the son of our cousin, Chao Yang 朝陽.  朝陽 is the son of our Dad's eldest brother.  Since Dad is the youngest of the Song brothers (except for the youngest one who died serving in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II), he and 朝陽 were about the same age and grew up together.  ChiMei has a frozen food division and served up very nice foods.  It was a western food style eatery and they have very good lunches.  Shi Ying paid the bills for our meals.

A Visit to ChiMei Museum:  Since our cousin Richard is the Chairman of the Board of ChiMei, we decided to pay a visit.  Besides, Chi Mei Museum is one of the finest museums in Asia.  According to its website -

Thinking Globally – The ChiMeiMuseum Chi Mei Culture Foundation was established in 1977 under the instructions of Mr. Wen-Long Hsu, the founder of Chi Mei Industrial Corporation. In February 1989, the Chi Mei Museum Preparatory Office was established, and the museum was opened to the public on April 1, 1992 with free admission. In 2001, a BranchMuseum was established in the TainanSciencePark, with displays that focused on the development of technology from primitive hand tools to modern machinery.The ChiMeiMuseum, which occupies the fifth to eighth floors of the Chi Mei headquarters building, covers a total area of approximately 6,600 square meters. The Museum's rich and diverse collections include ancient artifacts, violins crafted by world-famous instrument makers, centuries-old Japanese samurai swords, and classic paintings from the Renaissance and from later artistic movements; the museum also holds a large number of bird and animal specimens. At the ChiMeiMuseum, visitors can experience the finest masterpieces from different civilizations and cultures without leaving Taiwan, thus offering a broader view of the world. Chi Mei has gone into the frozen food business too.  So it was fun to have lunch there.  Their signature food is tiramasu.  Since it has coffee, we didn't try it.  But they do have a wonderful on-line radio station that plays classical music all day long.  Give it a try if you like classical music.  http://www.chimeimuseum.com/english/04_music/01_music_list.aspx Alice had a bad fall while we were at ChiMei Museum gift shop.  A worker left a cart carrier in the corner which tripped Alice and she fell with a big crash.  She was on the floor for a while and we didn't know if she had broken her bones.  Luckily, nothing was broken, but she was left black and blue.  It'll take a while for her to heal.  We were just so thankful that she was in good enough shape to sustain such as big fall. We were worried that she couldn't make the trip from Gaoxiong to TaoYuan to catch her flight by herself as she has 2 suitcases and carry-on bags.  The Taiwan High Speed Rail System was wonderful.  When we took her to the train station, the service people immediately took charge of her luggage.  At TaoYuan, some workers came to her seat to tell her that her suitcases would be taken care of and they would take them to the Eva Air counter at the Train Station and help her check in.  Wow, we were all thankful for the wonderful services they provided.  She got home without any problems.   Day 8:  A Visit to the Shi Lang Memorial:  All the Shi cousins, Mom's sister's daughters, all came to meet us there.  It was quite a reunion.  We hugged for a long time. Through our family search, we found that my mom's line, the Shi family, is related to the famous Admiral Shi Lang (1621-1696).  He was sent by the Qing Dynasty to Taiwan to drive out Koxinga and reclaim Taiwan for the dynasty.  So, he was a loyalist to some, but traitor to others.  Many stories have been written about him, even a TV series was created.  Even the first Chinese aircraft carrier was going to be named after him, until someone cautioned that if China name that aircraft ShiLang, it might imply that China was coming to reclaim Taiwan.  So, instead, the carrier was named after a seaport in NE China to avoid any problems.  I even was challenged on one occasion when a group of young people who came to church to learn English and visited the Family History Center.  I did a general introduction of the Center and encouraged them to come back if they were interested in search for their roots.  I told them we found out that I was related to Shi Lang, the Admiral.  One young man challenged me and said:  you are my enemy then.  I smiled and asked him if we still could be friends since it happened over 400 years ago.  He smiled back and said:  I guess. I felt fortunate to find that there is a memorial museum in Tainan.  It took me a lot of effort to find the place.  It's located about 40 minutes north of Tainan in the JiangJun (Admiral) District.  Shi Lang's descendants have built a big 4-story building to house the relics from Shi Lang's collections.  It was so amazing how these descendants were able to preserve and keep these treasures through out all these years of wars, Japanese Occupation, Chiang Kai-shek's army, and economic conditions which might have caused some of the descendants to sell some of the treasures.  It was amazing what they had in that museum.  They were all originals with some of the gifts from the Qing Emperor. The only thing lacking was stories of Shi Lang and descriptions of the treasures.  The old gentleman who everyone called Shi Bobo (施伯伯）was the tour guide.  He had so many stories to tell.  When some of the cousins challenged him about what they have learned from the history books, Shi Bobo told us:  History is written by whoever was in power.  These stories came down in our family.  It was so neat to be with him for a few hours to hear what he had to say. Afterwards, the Shi cousins took us to MaDou (麻豆）to have the famous rice gluten bowl.  We used to eat it during the holidays.  It was especially fun for Alice, Ling and me to have it again.  Then, it was off to the famous "Mango City" for us to experience the famous Mango shaved ice.  It was everything we remembered and better.  Wish we could show the pictures, but the blogspot uploaders are not working , so you'll have to take my word for it.  This famous dessert is layered with fresh mangos, shaved mango ice, mango syrup, more ice, more fresh mango slices, then mango ice-cream, topped with sweet condensed milk.  I think we all thought we had died and gone to heaven.  Even the Shi cousins said that they were looking forward to coming as it was too far for them to come normally.

     
It was a wonderful trip!  We are so thankful that our family members came to visit us.  We are grateful for the safety and for all the people who make it possible for us to take this trip.

Pictures will be posted later as we are having problems with the blogspot uploader.

Here is a copy of the itinerary for future references for us and for others who may be contemplating a visit here.

A tribute to Grandfather Song and Grandmother Xu

     My grandfather Song Tian-an, 宋添岸, 1876 - 1963, was born in Tainan County, Taiwan.  Grandfather Song had 3 wives, 7 sons and 6 daughters.  Since we came to Taiwan on a Family History Mission, I longed to visit his gravesite.   

     Traditions have it that one can visit the ancestral halls during the first few days of the Lunar New Year and are allowed to move the ancestral plate so to reveal the names written on the back of the plate. Most of the residents in this village are Song descendants. We met the town Magistrate, Song JinSu, who is a distant cousin. He took us around to visit various sites and saw amazing relics left from olden days. I was very glad to have learned about this custom of visiting during the Chinese New Year through one of the members of the Church, which made it possible to make this visit.     

Picture 1:  Cousin Song praying to the ancestors to allow us to move the name plate.
Picture 2:  Food items and flowers are placed on the altar table.  

Picture 3: the Ancestral stand is taken down to allow us to look into the names
Picture 4:  Another ancestral stand                                            

   
Picture 5:  Genealogy writing in the back of the Ancestral plate
Picture 6:   Ancestral stand for Song Tian-an's brother  

     It was touching to me as the distant Song cousins showed such respect to our ancestors.  I was later told that traditions had it that women were not supposed to see the sacred name plates.  May be they had a change of hearts as they were very kind and respectful to my request to see the names.   I found out later that my first cousin, Song Bo Ming, has our Grandfather Song's name plate in his house on an altar table.  I asked if he would let me come to visit and pay respect to our Grandfather Song's name plate.  He told me he had to ask grandfather (through some means) if it was okay with Grandfather, but he never got back to me.  May be I need to wait until next Lunar New Year.

     Grandfather Song was a distinguished looking man with a white beard and had respect of everyone.  Rumors had it that when he came around, even the babies would stop crying.  He was a prominent figure in the community, probably because he was very wealthy.  Many stories told about how much land he owned.

   He was the State Representative and had the licenses to sell rice, sugar and tabacco and even opium.  He exported sugar to China and the saying in one of the community published books said that:  Hangzhou had beautiful lakes, but Er Chen Hang had sugar, meaning that Taiwan sugar was very popular in mainland at that time.  I interviewed one of the older Song relatives with great memories of details, Song Dong Cai (宋冬菜）， who told me that my grandfather

was very kind and generous.  When he married off each of his 6 daughters, he would only accept half of the dowries from the suitors to lessen their burdens and so they had more money to start a family.  Indeed, that was a very kind deed.

    When Chiang Kai-shek's government came to Taiwan, they took away most of Grandfather's land.  To compensate for the loss, the government gave him grain coupons instead.  My parents and us lived with our grandfather for years during my growing up years.  One of my chores was to clip the grain coupons that matured at the end of each month and we would go to the Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) to turn them into money.  In my young mind, I thought it was a pretty good deal that he turned in some papers and the bank gave him cash for it.  Little did I know how hard it must have been for him, but he accepted it without much complain.  It was such an honor that he trusted me to do it.  He wouldn't let any of the grandsons do it.  :-)

    One of the more memorable things I remember was Grandfather Song's birthday celebration each year.  There would be feasts for at least 2 days.  A group of caterers would come and start preparing for the food the day before.  All the sons and daughters would come with the children and there was always plenty of food and fun.  On the birthday, about 20 round tables were set up in the courtyard with white table cloths.  We kids would sit together and had a great time visiting and eating.  The last of such banquet was at his funeral when he died at the age of 87.

     When it came to education, Grandfather Song would send his sons to Japan to get the best education possible.  His first and second sons were physicians.  One of them took 12 years to finish his medical school.  Number 3, and 4 earned business degrees.  Number 5 uncle had no interest in getting any advanced education, so he stayed home to run the rice factory, sugar factory and other businesses.  My father, number 6, the youngest of the 7 sons, was sent to Japan when he was 14 years old to study.  He entered the law school at the University of Japan.  It took him 8 years to finish his law degree, but Grandfather Song continued to support his sons to finish their education.  The advice my father gave me when I went away to college was:  don't send any telegraphs, or calls for money, because I have played every trick in the book.  That's my dad!

     Grandfather didn't send his 3 older daughters to school.  But number 4 aunt had a mind of her own and decided that she should go to school and she did.  Number 5 aunt stayed home and was one of the illiterate women of that era.  Number 6 aunt went to Tainan Girls High School.  All the girls married very well and lived comfortable lives.

     During the QinMing Tomb Sweeping Holiday (equivalent to Memorial Day),  I had great desires to visit my Grandfather Song's grave.  I made many calls and were mostly told that no one knew where the tomb was.  I went to bed in tears feeling very frustrated the night before the special holiday.  I remember my prayer was sad.  I was awoken by a phone call early the next morning, the day of the tomb sweeping day.  On the other end of the line was my cousin,  Song Bo Ming.  He said that he found another cousin who knew where grandfather was buried.  I called this cousin right away and he said he would be happy to take us.  So we decided that we would go on Saturday, April 6, early in the morning.  This cousin asked if I could round out at least one representative from each of Grandfather Song's 6 sons.  I told him I would try.

    We went on to do tomb sweeping with the young missionaries on Tomb Sweeping Day since we weren't going to visit Grandfather Song's tomb until Saturday, a couple of days later.  It was a very touching experience to see how hard these young people worked to clean up the cemetery.  There were tents set up by the city fire department across from the cemetery.  I went over to visit some of the firemen and asked why there weren't as many people out there doing tomb sweeping.  The answers surprised me.  They told me people took advantage of the holidays to go on family outings.  Not too many people were willing to go clean up the tombs in the hot sun and do dirty work.  They may hire someone to come to clean it up later.  I was astonished to hear this and frankly saddened.  But we did see many people visiting the military cemetery about a mile down the road.  Elwin and I could not find the one the missionaries were working at.  We walked in the hot sun looking for it.  Luckily we met a good Samaritan who took time to drive us around until we found the missionaries working at the other cemetery.  The Lord sure takes care of his missionaries.  Many thanks to the kind gentleman who helped us.

the Song Clan

One rep from each of Grandfather Song's 6 sons (2 from the same family)

     After we got home that day, I started contacting each of Grandfather Song's son's families.  I bear testimony that the Spirit of Elijah was very strong.  I was able to get hold of at least one family from each son.  But then on Friday I got a call from a cousin that he wouldn't be going because there was torrential rain in Tainan.  The cousin who was going to take us advised us to cancel too.  It was so hard to cancel after working so hard to make it happen.  A little later, one of the other cousins called and said he was very disappointed that we cancelled the trip.  He said he had talked to Grandfather through some Buddhist monk and knew that Grandfather was very happy that we were going to go visit him.  Did I hear it right?  I happily called everyone back and pretty much asked each one that we would go ahead and visit the tomb and asked each to pray for a sunny day.  Saturday morning, Cousin Waka got her nephew to come to pick us up and took us to Tainan.  What a glorious day that was!

     Three of the cousins came on the train and stood out side of the train station waiting for us to come.  In the meantime, another cousin came early to wait for us at the train station.  These 4 cousins stood almost next to each other and didn't even know each other.  Wow, the two cousins looked so much alike (they are first cousins).  How did they not recognize each other!  It was time for this reunion to happen.  Thanks to our Lord God for his tender mercy and his love for us, his children.  Below are some of the pictures:

                        

Grandfather Song's grave

Xu Tao 1883-1950

   













      As it turned out, a cousin, Richard, already took care of the tombs each year.  We were able to discuss what needed to be done and each family would pay a part to have the place cleaned up, stones repaired, and grass put in.  It was wonderful to have feedback from each family right there.  I know Grandfather and Grandmother were happy to see us all there.  And it turned out to be a beautiful cool sunny day.  In fact, it started misting after we had lunch.  We were truly blessed!

      

One of the cousins treated us to a delicious lunch at a fancy restaurant in Tainan

Missionary lives in Taiwan

     It's summer time in Gaoxiong already.  We are running AC now since it's in the upper 80's with high humidity.  Shirley went out for a quick walk/run mid-morning and came back with a red like a monkey because her thick hair covered part of her red face.  It's going to be a long summer.  In fact, we don't remember that we had spring at all.  Or for that matter, we didn't have any winter either.  Hope our children will be able to take our winter clothes home.  We don't need any here.  Elwin says that the only thing he needs long sleeved shirts for is when he wears his suit coat.

New Assignment:  Family History Support (Call-center missionaries)

     Since we accepted an additional assignment in January, life has been different.  We've been asked to be "familysearch support missionaries", meaning that we'd answer phone calls from the FamilySearch website when patrons call in for various problems.  We are taking online courses from a group of Asian/Pacific Family Search Missionary Experts (Australians and New Zealanders with strange accents) over Skype and Meeting Place, 4 days a week for 2 months.  We are utilizing Meeting Place, Skype...in so many different ways.  We are also learning new software, such as inContact, Amdocs, inSite, etc.  We figure the next one we attend may be the "inSanity" clinic.  There are plenty of homework assignments to keep us busy all day, and all night if we allow them.  Yes, we are learning a lot about family search, but we are very tired everyday too.  I think getting a PhD was easier.  I don't think we can learn all about this humongous project in our life time.  All 3 family history missionary couples in Taiwan are going through the training together in hopes of sharing the workload.  The rolling out of the Church's "familytree" has made a great impact on this work.  Anyone interested in family history, and can handle technical stuff, needs to apply.  The Church has great need of "service missionaries" for this job.  You don't need to leave home.  You just need to be interested in family history, are somewhat familiar with the FamilySearch program and are willing to learn new things on the computer.  I won't be able to do too much blogging because I'm working on Case #2999..., 2998.....  We started working officially now that we have graduated.  I sat in front of the computer working none stop for a solid 4 hours yesterday morning.  It's going to be interesting.

Visiting Wards and Branches each Sunday

     We continue to visit wards and branches each Sunday and derive much satisfaction to preach the gospel of family history.  We have finished visiting East and West Gaoxiong Stakes (about 16 units).  Some of them are as far south as you can get in Taiwan.  We also visited Dong Gang, which is a sea port.  It's very satisfying to see the Church spread out all over the island.  We meet wonderful people every Sunday.  We enjoy listening to their testimonies, their conversion stories, and their "Mighty change" after they joined the Church.  Most of them are 1st generation LDS members.  We see in them the future of the church here in Taiwan... and it looks great. A lot of them are sending their kids on missions now.  We see many local young missionaries in the missions in Taiwan.  We have met parents who brought their sons and daughters to the Taizhong Mission to serve their 2-year, or 18 months missions.  We have also met some older couples looking into serving a couple mission.  We have been asked to speak about how to prepare for missions for older couples now.

    Amidst all the craziness, we are glad to have Sundays to visit the various wards and branches.  We are treated very well there.  We love visiting the members and feel of their beautiful spirit.  We give sacrament talks, and have received positive feedbacks from both leaders and members.  We do workshops on the new "Family Tree" either during Sunday School time or after the 3-hour block.  People are thrilled that they are learning new technical stuff.  By the way, if you are interested, you can now upload photos, stories, albums onto the Family Tree now.  Go to familysearch.org/photos and you are there.  It's been fun to see how far the Church has gone to make all these things possible for us. 

Relief Society sisters in DouLiu.  

Get on familytree

     We are grateful to be here at this time.  Elwin continues to work on his own genealogy when he finds time.  We both have learned a lot about how to fix problems in the family history.  Elwin has been able to connect with relatives to combine records, to correct problems, and to share information.  He talks about the differences between genealogy and family history at sacrament meetings, which has made quite an impact on the members here.  The Gaoxiong Family History Center sees more and more members each week.  We had 22 visitors last Wednesday night.  Hooray!  Malachi's prophecy is being fulfilled:   Malachi 4:5 ¶Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful 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.

       If you have been doing your family history, you probably know that new.familysearch.org is being replaced by familysearch.org which is the familytree.  The change is pretty transparant.  You log on just like you would for the old system.  Click on the "familytree" link on the front page and you are in the familytree.  It's very userfriendly.  If you are new at this and are interested in doing family search, be assured that the Church has opened the system to the public.  Considering that genealogy has become the top hobby  in the world.  Wow...that's really cool.  If we could get the people in Taiwan excited about their genealogy, it's going to be amazing.  We plan on continuing our efforts to bring members and non-members alike to get involved with their genealogy and family history.


      If you haven't been to "family tree", let's get started.  Go to :  http:www.familysearch.org.  For beginners, it's fun to watch an introduction video in English or Chinese, whichever one chooses.  There are 9 videos/powerpoint files of training.  
https://familysearch.org/tree-training.  Enjoy!  Problems, call the help line.  Who knows you may hear some familiar voices.  Call at 2 AM and we may be on.  :-) 

Other work...church related

    It's atypical that we go to universities to speak.  But since we came to Taiwan, Elwin was invited to speak to a graduate students' group at the Pingtung Science and Technology University a couple of months ago as posted in a previous blog.  

    Shirley was invited to be the keynote speaker for an Educational Conference at the Pingtung Science and Technology University on March 28.  A big poster adorned the auditorium.   There were around 150 students participating.  The professors all sat in the front as Shirley has asked for assistance to translate some professional terminology into Chinese.  Most students can read English well, but listening and speaking skills are not sufficient to understand a professional lecture.  A PowerPoint presentation was prepared to help the students.  Dr. Ma had it uploaded to the department website requesting students to study first.  Then, we were told by some professors, there would be some tests about the lecture in their next class.   It was a very fun experience for us.  Shirley's topic was on:  Optimizing the learning environment for the young ones.  

國立屏東科技大學幼兒保育系 National Pingtung University of Science & Technology

Shirley lecturing

Group sharing their finding

     We were served a delicious lunch at the conference room in the Education Department.  As we talked about our mission, one of the professors asked us to talk about family history.  Elwin immediately went to the computer and pulled out his familytree and showed everyone how to access the LDS familysearch website.  He generated many questions from the staff.  We are invited to go back to teach them more next month.     

Fellowshipping with members and missionaries at the Lin's

Sunday dinner at the Lin's, 3/24/13

A Special Senior Missionary Outing on March 30, 2013

Taizhong Mission President Bishop and Senior missionaries

Visiting BuDai Fish Market

37 hairpin turns going up MeiShan

Tea Farm

Elder Davis doing missionary work at the fish market in BuDai

           Drive up the mountain with cars/buses passing on the curve and more

Happy Easter!

Hope you all have a very Happy Easter!

Missionaries

     Look at these beautiful pictures!  These people are full of energy and spirit!  They are the Lord's army in Taiwan.

December Get-together

In front of the Gaoxiong Train Station @6 AM 

Arrived at our destination in JiaYi for the December Get-together

At the Chinese Lunar New Year Dinner with Pres. & Sister Chen 

Family History Training at TaiBao Branch in February

At the Taizhong Train Station on Feb. 18, 2013

At the Taizhong Train Station on Feb. 18, 2013

At the Taizhong Train Station on Feb. 18, 2013

Missionary Meeting with Elder Evans, Elder Watson, et al, in Taizhong on Feb. 18, 2013

Mission Tour:  Visited by Elder and Sister Wilson of the Area Presidency in Jan. 2013 

    Missionaries are awesome!  Watching the army of Helaman on Sundays, on workdays, we see in them our four children, and their spouses and come to truly realize how blessed we are to have them.  We heard from our children when they served on their missions.  They were all awesome, inspirational, touching about things they were doing...but watching these young missionaries in the mission field helps us to see first hand what missions for the young men/women are like.  We see how they are converting the world!  We are grateful for our children and their spouses for taking time off in their youth to serve the Lord.  They blessed the people who they came in contact with, they blessed us because of their services, and they also blessed their own lives.

    Like the many missionaries we see on the mission field here in Taiwan, we are aware of the following in our children:

   How hard they must have worked
   How much they have learned the principle of being obedient
   How they learned to rely on our Savior, Jesus Christ
   How they got on their knees and prayed
   How they listened to the Spirit and let it be their guide
   How strong their faith was and is still now
   How they loved the people they served
   How they learned to get along with their companions
   How they learned to take care of themselves
   How they learned to be organized
   How they set goals and followed steps to achieve them
   How they loved the scriptures and let the scriptures guide their lives
   How they grew

 Again, they have put their shoulders to the wheel and pushed along...raising children to walk in their footsteps.  How blessed we are!  Thanks for being such wonderful kids for us!

the Davis' children in 1977

Kong/Cami and Children

Nelson/Hilary and Children

I-Shuan/Ryan and Children 

Elaine/David and Children

For missions, we can only be grateful.  They go as young people and return as adults.  Many of the mistakes we have made as parents are rectified by their mission experiences.  We are truly blessed!