Taiwan Taipei Mission Alumni
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Old Rainbow Discussions 18 Mar 2016
Does anyone have a copy of the old rainbow discussions with the romanization and the audio tape that went with it (was in use in late 70's to early 80's I believe)? I would like to get a copy if possible.

Thanks
Bob Lamb
Bob Lamb Send Email
 
More couples needed! 20 Aug 2015
Dear returned Taiwan missionaries and friends,
The Taiwan Taichung Mission is in great need of a few adventurous missionary couples: One couple to serve in the mission office as Financial Secretary and Mission Secretary, and one or two more couples to serve in Member and Leader Support (MLS) roles. President Blickenstaff, the current mission president, recently sent me the following note:

“Dear Brother Walker,

We are in need of at least two, possibly three senior couples in the Taiwan Taichung Mission. Our office couple, Elder and Sister Jan, are scheduled to return home in December and our only other couple, the Schweiders, will complete their mission in February. The office couple needs to be reasonably proficient with computers and general office procedures. The sister functions as mission secretary and handles many details of new missionary arrivals, returning missionary departures, correspondence with families and many other tasks. The brother functions as our mission finance secretary. He keeps track of all missionary funding and expenditures as well as the mission budget, including the yearly audit. Our office couple also has opportunities to teach with the missionaries and interact with local members.

We also need a couple to serve in member and leader support (MLS). Our current MLS couple lives about 3 hours south of Taichung in Kaohsiung. They serve in a ward and help with English class, music, youth activities, home teaching and anything else the bishop needs. They have many opportunities to teach and interact with the full-time missionaries in their ward. There is a possible third opportunity for another couple to serve in MLS or self-reliance.

These are wonderful opportunities for those with Mandarin Chinese language skills, however this not a requirement. There are also mission cars available for MLS couples to use. The people in Taiwan are still as warm and wonderful as they were the last time you were here, and maybe even more so! If you have been thinking about serving a mission and waiting for the perfect opportunity…wait no longer! Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come!

Thanks so much for helping us put the word out to our former Taiwan missionary community. This is a great opportunity to brush up on that rusty Chinese that you have always wanted to use again. Anyone interested in serving with us should contact me directly at kblickenstaff@ldschurch.org. If someone has real interest, they should contact me right away because the office couple opportunity is high priority and may be filled by the missionary department soon. I would love for these opportunities to be filled by those who have a particular desire to serve in Taiwan, as opposed to someone who is randomly assigned to come here.”

We recently served a couples mission in Taichung, and it was one of the very best experiences we have ever had as a couple. Don't miss out on this opportunity!
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
Previous message 20 Feb 2014
We found Sister Wang's "Gospel Elder". It is Kyle Andrus. They've reconnected…great story!!
Douglas Richard Wheeler Send Email
 
Office Couple Needed! 22 Jan 2014
Dear returned Taiwan missionaries and friends,

The Taiwan Taichung Mission is in great need of an adventurous missionary couple to serve in the mission office as Financial Secretary and Mission Secretary. President Blickenstaff, the current mission president, recently sent me the following note:

“Hi Elder Walker! We are trying desperately to find a couple to replace the Darringtons. Do you keep in contact with enough missionaries from our era to put out the word that we need a good secretary and finance guy? I think it would be a blast for someone who is looking to come back and brush up on their Chinese.”

Let me give you a few more insights: Kyrstne and I recently returned from the Taichung Mission after serving about a year and a half as family history missionaries, and I want to tell you that we absolutely loved it. While there, our previous mission president was also desperate for an office couple, so he asked us to serve as finance and mission secretaries for about two months. If you have worked in an office before, I don't think you will find it extremely hard to do. It’s just a matter of being organized and getting things done when they need to be done. You DO NOT have to speak Chinese to do famously in this calling (although it certainly doesn’t hurt). When Chinese is needed in the office, you will have office elders all around to help you. The current couple, the Darringtons, did not serve missions in Taiwan, don’t speak any Chinese beyond “ni hao,” and had never worked in an office or with computers, but they are doing wonderfully, and having a ball doing it. They are two people with adventurous spirits and smiles on their faces and with the Lord’s help have settled in very comfortably.

Living in Taiwan is not expensive. We actually saved money while on our mission. Taiwan is not like it was in the 70s, either – it has grown tremendously. I would say your standard of living would be like living in Japan or other Asian first world country. You will have access to a car for mission business, which can be combined with personal errands, so you won’t have to ride bikes unless you want to. Office hours generally are 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday, with evenings and weekends free to see the country and the people. Unlike your earlier missions, in general you won’t have to work 60 hour weeks.

Also, unlike your previous mission, you won’t be moving around the island: you will stay put in Taichung. That will give you the opportunity to really get to know the local members, to make friends with them. Also, since you are in the office, you will see nearly all the missionaries at one time or another, and will get to know the office staff and Taichung missionaries very, very well. My wife would say that that was the best part of our mission: loving and taking care of our young elders and sisters, for whom we became something close to parents. I agree with her.

If our personal circumstances permitted, we would jump at this opportunity. If you are close to retirement, or already there, don’t hesitate – apply to be missionaries with your spouses. I don’t think you will regret it a second – we certainly have not!

If you have questions, please send me a note through this website, and I’ll try to answer it. You could also message Kurt Blickenstaff, the mission president, who will probably give you better answers anyway.
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
1972-1974 Missionaries - Help 16 Dec 2013
I met a sister at the Taipei chapel last weekend, who is eager to know who her FuYin JangLau is. She hoped it was me, but it was not. Her name was Ho Tsu Fen (He Zi Fen). She is married now to a Wang. She was baptized in October 1973 in Taipei East branch.
I reviewed my journal and found that I attended all 4 baptisms held in October 1973, but have no record of who was baptized, besides my own investigators.
If anyone could check their journal and find this information, it would make for one very happy 3rd generation saint! Sister Wang (Ho) has 3 children, two of which served missions and 5 grand-children.

Let me know if anyone has any leads!
Thanks,
Elder Douglas Wheeler
Douglas Richard Wheeler Send Email
 
Elder Bergen 25 Jan 2013
Hello. I am trying to find the contact information for Elder Bergen (bu hao yi se, I don't remember his first name). He served in the Taipei Mission under President Thomas P. Nielson (1975-1977), was a zone leader, and a really great guy. Do any of you have contact information for him?

Thanks very much.

Elder Vic Walker
E-Mail: vwalker@pharmdata.net
Taiwan Taipei Mission 1975-1977
Taiwan Taichung Mission 2012-2013
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
Coming to Taiwan in 2014 - help! 03 Jan 2013
Friends! My family has decided to go to Taiwan in 2014 Winter/spring. We want to give our kids a big taste of the language and culture (and food!). We hope to stay as long as possible. (My husband can work from anywhere and our kids are homeschooled.) So we would love to find a place to stay (trade you our home in Logan, UT for yours for a month or more?) and friends to learn with. If you have any tips, suggestions, resources, or connections, please email me. I can be found on the alumni list under Steffanie Ackerman or Steffanie Casperson. Thanks!
Steffanie Casperson Send Email
 
Elder Kevin Huang? 16 Apr 2012
Does any one have information about Kevin Huang 1995-1997?
Joshua Keliiheleua Send Email
 
3-column Mandarin/English Book of Mormon 15 Jan 2012
I just tried to find the 3-column English/Chinese Book of Mormon on the Church's store site. It took a little doing but here is how to do it:


  • Go to the Church's Distribution Center website (LDSCatalog.com).
  • Search for 06215265. The site will return a single item. Click on it.
  • The website will automatically offer you an English Book of Mormon.
  • Choose Language. Use the drop down box to find Mandarin, 3-column. This is the one you want.


The price has come down from $35.00 to $21.00, which is much more affordable. I highly recommend this book if you want to maintain and improve your language skills, and get the Spirit.
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
President and Sister Harris' Reunion Message 29 Sep 2011
Dear Taipei Taiwan Missionaries,

As general conference time is soon upon us we think of the many peoples of the world and the messages that will enhance and prepare them for the trials ahead. We also begin praying for those who are preparing their message and for the ears of those who will hear them and for their hearts being willing to implement them. At the same time we think of our family and are hopeful that they are of one mind with the conference voices. Next we focus on “our missionaries” and your well being. Our association has slowed down but as we have occasion to receive updates we are grateful that the Lord is in your life. We continue to love and admire you for your goodness and are hopeful that you continue to move forward. We also want to share a few thoughts and feelings even warnings with you.

Dear fellow missionaries, from President Harris

Recently I was reading the words of Brigham Young concerning his feelings about the returned missionary. Some of this may seem bit “quaint” but it applies to each of us. “Come home with your heads up. Keep yourselves clean, from the crowns of your heads to the soul of your feet; be pure in heart. I wish to make this request: that the Elders who return from missions consider themselves just as much on a mission here as in England or in any other part of the world. We frequently call the brethren to go on missions to preach the Gospel and they will go and labor as faithfully as men can do; in a few years they come home, and throwing off their coats and hats, they will say, ‘Religion, stand aside, I am going to work now to get something for myself and my family’.” This is folly in the extreme. When a man returns form a mission where he had been preaching the Gospel he ought to be just as ready to come to this pulpit to preach as if he were in England, France, Germany or on the islands of the sea. And when he has been home a week, a month, a year, or ten years, the spirit of preaching and the spirit of the Gospel ought to be within him like a river flowing forth to the people on good words, teachings, precepts, and example. If this is not the case he does not fill his mission.”

A few weeks ago while serving in the Los Angeles temple I had the opportunity to assist with the own endowment patrons. On the sheet listing the daily schedule of endowments was a family consisting of a father about 30 years old, a mother and four children. The ages of the children were listed. The oldest child, a boy, was ten years old. We waited at the front desk for the family to arrive. It was easy to spot them when they arrived at the reception area. The children were taken to a special area to await the later sealing when they would be reunited with their parents. The wife was taken off by a sister worker to prepare her for her endowment. As we approached the clothing counter with the father I noticed for the first time on the daily schedule paper that he was previously endowed. This meant that we did not have anything we needed to do to help him, or so I thought. As we assisted him obtain clothing, he looked at us somewhat worriedly and said, “I went on a mission, but I have not been back to the temple since.” As we proceeded to the dressing room he stated, “Can I go through the entire procedure, I have forgotten a lot.” We stated that he surely could, and we would be happy to assist him each step of the way. As the day progress the temple workers awaited outside the sealing room as the four little children including the ten year old son, were ushered into the room all dressed in white., to be sealed to their newly endowed mother and temple returning father, for all eternity. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the children were escorted to their special area. The sisters took the mother away and we escorted the father. As we walked I told the father of a special memory of my own. I said, “In 1947 in the Idaho Falls temple, I was that little ten year old boy who was sealed to his father and mother.” At this point the returned missionary newly sealed to his wife and children broke down and began to sob, not cry but sob. I am sure this temple day is not the end of the story for either this young family, nor is it the end of the story for us.

Brother Brigham gives us an additional promise that will give each of us pause and additional hope for our own missionary efforts. “Those faithful Elders who have testified of this work to thousands of people on the continents and islands of the seas will see the fruits of their labors, whether they have said five words or thousands. They may not see these fruits immediately and perhaps, in many cases, not until the Millennium; but the savor of their testimony will pass down from father to son.”

Let us each remember the blessings and opportunities our Father in Heaven provides for each of us and make the most of each missionary day in our lives.


Fall Missionary Message 2011, from Sister Harris

The world we find ourselves a part of is filled with snarling, quarreling, upheavals and discontent. Men entice us here and there and work their words to make us feel discomforted. Yet as we set our patterns of righteous living we can live in the world and not be of it. This requires diligence. We need to notice the ever changing patterns in the day to day world we live in. Things that were quiet and useful have become snares to take our time and peace away from us. On a recent Fifth Sunday Priesthood/ Relief Society combined meeting the bishop had a presentation given by a knowledgeable high councilman reviewing the miss use of the cell phone-texting devices. Where texting began as a simple devise for chatting it has become a magnet to squander hours of our lives. Some youth spend more time texting than talking and regular interaction with people, grown men race home from work to get into their other self and ignore wife, family, sleep, and all normal living, because they are needed in the virtual world. Some are even more attached to their virtual spouse than their real one. Addictive patterns that entice us away from our lives and responsibilities are forms of bondage.

There are gifts that we have been given, prized among these is the gift of discernment. The topical guide has many entries related to the subject of discernment. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines discern: to separate or distinguish between; discernment: the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure. The Topical Guide says further, in Alma 32:28, the good seed…beginneth to enlighten my understanding; in D&C 63:41 enabled to discern by the spirit. We are invited to use and become familiar with the things of the spirit or in other words learn to discern.

There are many fronts to be contended with: self consumption; excessive expenditures; noticing and focusing on all that is wrong with the world; the list of issues is long. We are told by the prophets that this life is to have joy. Joy comes from having a house of order, living on less than we make, and leading out in a positive manner. We must be ever watchful and notice the pressures on us to be dishonest. Let me share a story of a family member who in 2005 was feeling the pressure to falsify people’s financial status to qualify for loans they could not afford. There were many sleepless nights. Finally the decision was made to change employment. The change to assisted living management has been wise, and sleep has been restored. When the market fell their family was on safe ground.

Let me share an experience I had some time before President Harris and I went to Taiwan. I had a dream, in this dream I stood on the steps of three story building, much like the turn of the century buildings in San Francisco. This wooden structure stood on a corner. The side walk, curb, and road were in disrepair. As I looked up I noticed the building too needed attention. Next I looked left up the street where I saw a strange thing; about half way up the block I saw a glass wall. As I watched I saw a small trickle of water in the very dusty street. The water was held back by the transparent wall. As I awoke I thought for some time about what I saw. The very next night the dream continued. This time the amount of water had grown. I watched for some time and the volume of water continued to increase. The amount of water was about a half a story high. At this point I awoke. During our three years in Taiwan I thought of this example from time to time and wondered what it meant. After returning to our home following our mission I was once again reminded of this example. I found myself back on that aging street confronted with the now menacing body of water. It now was taller than the three story building. I was fearful. I can remember turning and hoping I could open the door behind me. It was difficult but I was able to escape. Just as I was able to enter the door the wall of water burst forward.

Our priesthood leaders have warned us and now we are responsible to strengthen ourselves and our families to: LOOK EVIL IN THE EYE AND JUST SAY NO!

We have loved working with you. We know that you desire the freedom that comes from striving to live righteous lives. We pray that you use your power of discernment.
Emily Wardle Send Email
 
Robert "Bob" Drake 23 Apr 2010
I am looking for anyone who served in Taipei from 1976-77, or anyone who served with my dad, Robert "Bob" Drake. My name is Mary, and my dad (Elder Drake) passed away when I was a teenager. I am sad to say that I really knew nothing about him. Today, I found a business card among some of his things that says "Elder Robert L Drake, assistant to the president, Taiwan Taipei Mission". I'm hoping there is someone here who may have known him and can tell me something about him. Thank you!
Mary Drake Banford Send Email
 
Chinese scriptures now online 19 Dec 2009
Check out this link for the announcement of Chinese scriptures online at lds.org.

http://ldsmediatalk.com/2009/12/18/chinese-scriptures-now-online/

http://www.ldschinese.com/2009/12/traditional-chinese-scriptures-now-available-online/
Steven Argyle Send Email
 
rainskirt for Sisters 02 Nov 2009
I don't know if this is the right forum for this or not, if it is I'll repent :)

With Christmas coming, I thought I'd mention that during the rainy season, our daughter (serving currently) mentioned how terrible it was riding a bike in a skirt (got wet etc.). We had some rainskirts made (one for her and her companion) and now all of the sisters are asking about them.

We originally looked online and the prices ranged from $80 to $160 US. Instead we had 2 made for significantly less. They are a waterproof nylon fabric (not the disposable plastic) and a wrap design (about 3/4 length). On Sunday I spoke to the Sister that made them for us and she said she would be interested (she is a single elderly) if I'd help her post them and take care of anything to do with the Internet.

If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll send you an email so you can conteact her. I also think I have some photos that I can send of our daughter in hers.
-b

BTW - thanks for the pointer to the new BoM translation - it was another great idea for a care package!
Ashley Maren Andreasen Send Email
 
President & Sister Jackson 07 Oct 2009
Did anyone else see this article in the Church News:
http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/57942/Warmth-for-winter.html

It's just like President & Sister Jackson to be back in Asia (Mongolia) on a senior mission. I hope I can last that long!
Douglas Richard Wheeler Send Email
 
Re: Taiwanese exchange question 11 Sep 2009
Brother Andreason, I was last in Taiwan in 2003. At that time, I used my ATM card and had no problems. Looking at the back of my current card, it seems to be associated with Plus, Star (ATM only) and Interlink.

Good luck to you and your daughter.

Vic Walker
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
Taiwanese exchange question 05 Sep 2009
I'm not sure this is the correct forum for this question, so excuse me if it is not.

My daughter is serving in Taiwan currently and has had occasion to need to access personal $$$ from her US account (zone P-day activities that involve a fee). Before leaving she got herself a debit card and Visa CC to do just this type of thing if necessary, but so far all attempts have been denied at the ATMs in Taiwan. I have verified that the card providers know she is in Taiwan and have removed any blocks from the cards for using it there.

Is there something else that we can do here or that she needs to do to have this work? Are there special ATMs the she needs to use (how are they identified)? Surely she is not the first to need to do this and run into problems - how did any of the others resolve these issues?

Thanks.
-b
Ashley Maren Andreasen Send Email
 
Response to flooding in Taiwan 26 Aug 2009
Here is a link to a story about the relief efforts. Be sure to check out the video.

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/churchupdate/090826typhoon.html
Steven Argyle Send Email
 
Bogus e-mail 18 Aug 2009
I just received a love letter from "Anna", who got my e-mail address from Mission.net (it's my own fault, I posted it in a previous message). "Anna" is a 21 year old unmarried girl from Senegal, whose late father was chairman of an oil company. It was accompanied by a couple of pictures of a pretty girl.

This sounds too much like the Nigerian e-mail scams we have all received. Word to the wise. It's interesting that they trolled Mission.net to harvest the e-mail addresses.

Vic Walker
Vic Walker 葛志浩 Send Email
 
Flooding in Taiwan 15 Aug 2009
I was just curious and anxious to know what the church or missionaries in Taiwan are doing to help the unfortunate victims in Taiwan. This is one of the worst floods/typhoon that they have had in a long time.

McKay
McKay Eckman Send Email
 
English Teacher in Taiwan 06 Jun 2009
American teachers wanted asap to teach English in Kaohsiung Taiwan. A four-year college degree a must, good grammar, pronunciation, spelling, communication skills, cheerful, friendly manners required, must love teaching and can teach ESL. If interested, please send your resume with a recent photo to Miss Chang at: englishschool@hotmail.com or call: 011 886 7 622-2926 or 011 886 7 625-3072
McKay Eckman Send Email
 
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