Trip to Nantou

On Tuesday we got up early to meet the Cai's. They drove us up the mountains  to the east of the island. Half way there we met the other group. We went to a famous tea shop that has a beautiful lookout. The tea shop was very interesting, it had been operated by a family for 4 generations. The scenery was beautiful! Here are some of the pictures.

It got very cold up in the mountains!

 After visiting a few spots including lunch traditional Chinese food.

Hannah eating a fried fish (Whole)

Hannah eating a shrimp (whole)

Eating Bamboo with Bamboo chopsticks 

Then we headed to the villa that one of the sisters had rented for all of us it was really nice and since it was off season the price was cut in half. They were so nice and insisted that we take the master bedroom.

After a nap we went too a Swedish garden near where we were staying.

Hannah got to feed the ducks and pigeons (She was ecstatic)

The pigeons were pretty happy too :)

 After our walk in the garden we had another dinner which was included in our stay. It was traditional Chinese of course.

After dinner we had family worship. Since I was the only baptized brother I conducted  in Chinese (yikes!!!). It was very nice though, we studied our watchtowers. And any comments that I needed to make Jackie translated for me so everyone could understand.

After family worship we went back to the garden because they were going to have a light show at 8:30. Sadly we got there right after it ended :( but we still walked through with all of the lights.

We made plans to get up early with Jackie to take pictures of the sunrise. So we set our alarms for 5:45. We got up and bundled up since it was really cold in the mountains. It was super foggy so we couldn't really see much Hannah and Jackie went back to bed. I stayed up for a bit longer and took these shots.

After returning to bed for an hour we went down for breakfast. For some reason I was expecting to have normal breakfast items. Nope...  more Chinese food... there were hash browns and some coffee that was really good but not what I was hoping for.

Next we headed to a sheep farm. They also had a horse show.

Another one of Hannah's friends we met along the way

We shared a little ice cream with her

Sister Cai and her husband 

The horse show

After the horse show Jackie needed to head back so she could get to work so that part of the group left. We continued to walk around the farm and take pictures. We told the Cai's we wanted to treat them to lunch for driving us around and taking such good care of us. Sister Cai suggested pizza, I was so happy!!! Finally real good food I thought. She said that there was a really good pizza place near a kingdom hall and a famous chocolate company called 18°C. But after going to the kingdom hall she said that we didn't have time to get pizza but we could eat some traditional rice noodles that would be faster. I was very sad, although the noodles were not bad. Just not as good as pizza.

Lunch

Kingdom Hall

After the noodles we went and got some chocolate and enjoyed some complementary coffee and tea from 18°C. The Cai's also bought us some passion fruit. Very yummy.

Well that was our trip it was a lot of fun and we saw some of Jehovah's wonderful creation. It is nice to be "home" though. Tomorrow (3-7-13) we go back to school and start the next semester of classes 201 (insert scary music here)
That is all for now, until we have more to share.

Love Phil & Hannah

Tim & Jamie's Going away party

Well the day has already come Tim & Jamie have left and are headed back to the states before their new assignment. We are very excited for them but we already miss them. It feels so strange to see them go before we do. On Saturday (3-2-13) the congregation had a small going away party both for them and for Lydia another sister in our hall who was headed back to the states actually on the same day.

A few in the congregation arranged it to be a surprise party and much to our surprise it actually was a surprise to them :)
Here are some pictures from the gathering.

Mother and daughter Cai

Jackie and Sister Cai being crazy

FOOD!

and yes there was KFC :)

A good time was had by all

Jamie & Hannah

Sioux & Jamie

Tim Jamie & us

After everyone finished eating they played a few games. The first involved knowing facts about the three who were leaving like how long they had been baptized favorite scripture, what generation of witnesses they were ect... everyone had to go and sit next to the person who they thought fit the description. since this was all in Chinese I sat this game out :)

The next game just focused on they ones who were leaving. Sioux had asked everyone to write something they will always remember about either Tim Jamie or Lydia on a post it note. Then they had to guess who wrote it if they got it write then they got to stick it on them if not then the person who wrote it got the sticky note. Jamie and Lydia tied. Poor Tim had a hard time but made a come back toward the end. It seemed like a hard game especially since most of the cards were in Chinese.

We have most of this week off of school and will be going on a short trip tomorrow to Nantou which we hear is beautiful. So we should have some nice pictures to share soon.

Until then.
Love Phil & Hannah

End of the First Semester

Well on Wednesday we carefully made our way to school. We were able to make up our finals. Our teachers were all very nice and sympathetic about what had happened. Our 101 teacher told us that we could take as much time as we needed on the test, and to not worry about it.  We also were able to turn in our receipts from the hospital. Health care here ROCKS! We got Hannah all checked out including X-rays and they cleaned up my cuts and we spent less than 2000nt  (approx 68USD). We will get up to 70% of that back too from our insurance through the school.

Once we finished our finals we headed to the embassy to get our visas renewed. There was a long wait but we got to watch some sponge bob on  TV. :) When it was our turn we found out that the embassy in Kansas city had told us wrong about our dates and that we needed to leave the country on May 30th! ( 2 days before our flight is scheduled to leave Taiwan.) And since we bought the cheapest round trip tickets we could find, the tickets are non transferable. So we headed home fairly upset and stressed. When we got home we prayed to Jehovah asking for help to know what to do. Hannah received a text message from one of the sisters suggesting that we go to the Philippines to rest up after our scooter accident because it is beautiful there and flights can be as cheap as 40USD. We also thought about going to Hong Kong but it was going to be more expensive to travel there.  

We thought, "hey this is perfect we can go relax on a beautiful beach fix our visa and do it all really cheap." So we started trying to plan. We also prayed again to make a decision that would help us to handle everything in the best way and to help us stay focused on why we are here. We spent all day looking for tickets and hotels and doing research on what area to go to. Well after about literally 11 hours of frustration in trying to plan the trip and realizing that it was going to be super expensive and possibly not very safe to go there.  We stepped back and realized that we had not been paying attention to our prayer; it was clear that Jehovah was not blessing this decision. So we said another prayer and decided to rest on it and see what Jehovah worked out for us. The next day Hannah got a call from Ashia letting us know she was in Taiwan. Hannah was really excited and started making plans to go visit her. As they were catching up, she heard about our visa situation. She insisted on paying for our tickets to Hong Kong to fix our visa issue. Hannah refused a few times but then Ahshia said "Hey! Remember I'm your Taiwan Ma ma. I want to do this". Jehovah took care of us and our visa problem.

Friday at the meeting I got to run the amp for the first time. It went pretty well although I started a few songs a little early and didn't have some of the mics quite loud enough at first. Not too bad for my first time here and since it has been probably 5 months since I have ran an amp if not longer. It was really nice to be able to help the congregation since I can't do much else.

After the meeting, we had a really strange experience! We were both starving and since we didn't have any food ready to go at home, Hannah convinced me to just go to McDonald's. (Which I don't even like in the states.) After ordering our food a man came up to us and started talking to us, asking where we were from. He seemed nice enough but a little crazy. He kept talking really loudly and putting his arms around us. He said he was Taiwanese and from Barcelona so he also spoke Spanish. After our food was ready we tried to dismiss ourselves. He came up to Hannah, grabbed her, and kissed her on one cheek and then smushed her face into his cheek. I was shocked and angry, but then he did the same to me! We left feeling very awkward and uncomfortable. After getting home we immediately washed our faces. I refuse to go McDonald's ever again!

Well that is the big update our next post will have some pictures from Tim & Jamie's going away party
until next time..

Love Phil & Hannah

Scooter Accident

We are OK now, but Phil and I were in an accident this morning (2/26/13).

We were headed to school for finals, Phil was driving the scooter and I was holding on behind him. We were about to enter an intersection going straight, when a car shot in front of us and turned right, directly in front of us. We hit it and fell over. Phil hit his shoulder, and scraped his knee, but he hopped up pretty quickly. The scooter pinned my leg until Phil pulled it off of me. We were in shock, I was in tears. It was one of the scariest things that's happened to us. The man in the car ran up to us to make sure we were OK  We were in so much shock we told him we were OK and let him leave. Then I realized I couldn't put my weight on my leg all the way. It was extremely painful. I didn't think it was broken, but when we called a sister that was a nurse she told us to go to the hospital. I got X-rays, and it checked out OK. Nothing is broken. While they checked me out, they kindly cleaned Phil's scrapes. We were so thankful a sister in our hall went with us to the hospital. I was having a hard time keeping it together, and could not for the life of me communicate with any of the staff. The sister was so sweet, and tried to cheer us up. She told us now that we had been in a scooter accident, we are Taiwanese.  Apparently a brother told Phil that with scooter accidents, its not an if, but a when. They are extremely common here.

Obviously we wished we could have avoided it, but we are extremely fortunate that it wasn't more serious. I have a temporary limp, and was told to rest. The doctor gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxant and pain killer. Phil is very sore, and has to get by on ibuprofen. But it could have been much much worse.

Even the scooter runs ok.

My bandaged knee

Phil's bandaged hand

Phil's scraped up knee

Well that is the update. Hopefully tomorrows finals go better than today. We are both very homesick and a little down. But we are counting our blessings just being alive.

We love and miss you all!

Field Service and English Assembly

(Hannah's Study with Children)
Last week I had my second study at the cram school with the kids. I was really nervous since I couldn't find another sister to go with me. But Rena went with me and helped me translate. This time I was prepared to study with several children. Jw.org has the most beautiful tools for studying with kids. I downloaded the first video for kids and played it for them on my tablet. They loved it! They were completely absorbed in it, gasping and giggling along with it the whole time. After we read a couple lessons from the Bible story book i gave them the picture activity, also from jw.org, so they colored and talked about the Bible story. It was so much fun! After the study several of them individually came up and told me "謝謝 老師!" "Thank you teacher!" It was a neat experience. :)

Back to Phil
On Friday (Feb 15th) Before Hannah's talk she went with several sisters to get a massage. This was nice for her since she has had a lot of pain in her back lately. I decided to be brave and go and work in our personal territory. I worked all the way around a block the territories here are a complete mix of residential and business. With Jehovah's help I was able to do it, it was exactly what I needed too to place my self in Jehovah's hands and see how he would help me. Although many of them were busy or not interested most were very nice. Several of the buildings only had intercoms (my worst nightmare since it is hard to understand them and it is hard for them to understand me). So I said a prayer to Jehovah and rang the buzzer.  The first building had 6 buzzers (not to bad). then the next 3 buildings had 12. Then I came to a building with 30 buzzers! One by one I buzzed them all. Most were nice and a few took literature  It took me about 2 hours to work the entire block, during which time I probably took about 100 doors. Apartments back in the States don't seem to bad to me now :) Jehovah always gives us what we need and only what we can take.



Friday Feb 22nd we got to attend the annual circuit Pioneer meeting (In English). It was so nice to see all of the English pioneers. Since Taiwan English is relatively small the meeting covered the entire island. There were  120 there are only 7 English congregations in Taiwan. Not all in attendance were part of the English congregations here, several were like us foreigners who need to get the information in our mother tongue to understand.

The theme was 2 Tim 4:5 "Keep your senses in all things". The program helped us to evaluate our situations and make sure that we are keeping our priorities in the proper place. It also had good reminders about Family worship, and Daily Bible reading and study with some nice suggestions if you have not yet formed a yearning for it. When talking about Family worship the brother made a joke that this was not to be confused with ancestor worship, which is very common here. One point that I really appreciated was part that was tailored to those in foreign language, Since English is a Foreign language here. The point was simply this "Don't be so quick to assume that Jehovah doesn't want you in this field just because things don't seem to be working out right now." I felt that was really good advice because I have felt that lots of times in with Chinese that "I just cant do this and I would be more useful somewhere else". But after the meeting we left refreshed and with an even stronger zeal to keep doing what we are doing.

The Beitun Kingdom Hall where the pioneer meeting was held (kingdom hall is in the basement of the building)

On Saturday we went to the first day of the English "Safeguard Your Mind Circuit Assembly". We enjoyed the information and the encouragement both from the program and the association. There were some sisters there who had to work from 4pm to 7am the night before, after the assembly they had to go and work the same shift with plans to attend Sunday as well. Another sister that sat next to us on Sunday had been awake for 36 hours. It was so encouraging to see such wonderful examples. There was an average attendance of 485. There were 10 baptized, 1 brother and 9 sisters. Here are some pictures from the assembly.

There was a small Thai group also in attendance. Jehovah makes sure everyone is take care of.

We loved the assembly, it was just the spiritual treat that we needed.

We will blog again soon. Love Phil and Hannah

Phil's First Reading & Hannah's First Talk

Hello all! Sorry we have been neglecting the blog lately the past two weeks have been busy and yet somewhat uneventful :) however we did both have talks so we can tell you about that.

On Feb 8th I had my first bible reading in Chinese here in Taiwan. And even though I have had several bible readings in Chinese back home, this one made me extra nervous. I think it was because I knew that everyone there was going to instantly know when I made a mistake and how my mistake probably completely changed the meaning of the entire reading. I was also nervous too because back home I have never been able to read the material in the allotted 4 mins, in fact the last reading I gave in the states my time was over 6 min! This time, even right before the meeting as I was practicing I couldn't do it in less than 5 mins 30 sec.  But after allot of practice and a lot of prayer, the time had come to give my reading.

Brother Gao introduced me and I went up fulling expecting to have the bell rung on me. I did my reading Matthew 23:25-39. I made several mistakes and had a few pauses that were too long but over all it went ok. (you can decide for yourself though it is posted below). Afterwards the congregation clapped and brother Gao thanked me and said something about it takes lots of practice. He also told the congregation that if you have ever had to give a talk in another language you know how hard and scary it is. After the meeting I had allot of people come up to me and thank me for my talk and say that they couldn't have done the same thing in English.

The Following Friday (Feb 15th) Hannah has her first talk with Jamie. Her theme was: "How Does God’s Patience Lead to Salvation? (2 Pet. 3:9, 15)". First she wrote the talk out completely in English then using Watchtower library and the sync features included in it she translated what she could on her own. After that she asked one of the Taiwanese sisters to help her translate the rest. They made arrangements to do so on Monday after field service since Hannah had about half of the talk translated already it didn't take too long. Although I think She would have gladly spent a little more time on it if the sister helping her would have slowed down. They were still doing door to door (at night) when the sister started reading what she had on her tablet. She then translated it and dictated it to Hannah. Hannah had to write what she was dictating as fast as she could. Hannah has learned that there is a downside to sounding good when speaking Chinese when you don't know a lot. That is as soon as they hear you talk they assume you must know more than you do and they will not slow down. :) long story short though she was able to get it all down and type it up at home. It was nice too that we had that week off of school for Chinese new years, so Hannah had lots of time to practice. As you will see from the video below she did great!  Afterwards brother Gao commend her on doing a good and her effort. He also said he couldn't understand why two Americans would be talking about this topic in fluent Chinese. Everyone laughed. :)

Most of the week we spent either working on our talks or in field service. I will talk about that more in the next post. 

Love Phil and Hannah