We're back from spending 2 weeks in Taiwan, mostly visiting people and places Sofi knew from her mission. We also made a few stops (like swimming in the ocean) that she wasn't able to visit as a missionary. It was an amazing adventure. Every day was filled with new experiences. This map shows all the stops we made. It will take a few days to sort through our photos and organize them to represent our trip. In the meantime, I asked everyone in our family to choose a photo that represented a highlight of the trip for them.
Gibson:
Sofi came home from her mission with a large Gudetama pillow. Gudetama is a Japanese cartoon character who is popular in Taiwan. Gibson's top goal for our trip was to buy a pillow like Sofi's for himself. We went the first half of our trip without seeing any for sale. One night, we met Sofi's friends at the night market in Xinying. When they heard Gibson was looking for a pillow, they joined the search and found him this giant beauty. The friends were almost as delighted as Gibson was to find Gudetama. This is a photo of Gibson with Shu Jing.
Helen:
We live near the Oregon coast and love to visit the beach. The Oregon coast is beautiful, but the water is freezing. A highlight of the trip for Helen was swimming in the warm ocean in Taiwan. We visited 2 beaches, one in Tainan and one in Kaohsiung, and the water was warm and refreshing in both places. This is a photo of Helen and Gibson body surfing in Kaohsiung.
Abe:
We ate our way across the country. Sofi introduced us to many foods we'd never tried before. Some of the foods were amazing, some not so much. We all agreed the food that needs to come to the US is bing. Bing means ice in Chinese, but this dish is so much more than shaved ice. First of all, the flavored ice is shaved so finely that it makes a pile of fluffy snow. The ice is piled with fresh fruit and then drizzled with a sweet milk topping. This is a photo of Abe's favorite bowl of bing he ate on the trip: chocolate ice with mango on top.
Sofi:
We organized our trip so we would be in Xinying on the one Sunday we would be in Taiwan and Sofi could take us to her favorite ward. Sofi served in Xinying the last 4 1/2 months of her mission and loves the members here very much. After church we were invited to attend ward family home evening. This is a photo of the group.
Becky:
A highlight of our trip was watching Sofi move comfortable and confidently and hearing her speak Chinese with ease and fluency. This is a photo of Cary, an investigator who lives in Changua. His face lit up when he saw Sofi. He was excited to see Sofi and talk to her in Chinese and he shared in English with the rest of us that his greatest wish is for a happy family. He sees a lot of unhappy families in Taiwan as modern life has gotten busier and more chaotic. Cary is super busy himself. As the owner of a fried chicken restaurant, he works very long hours. We hope he keeps learning about the gospel and finds the peace and happiness he is looking for. Listening to him gave us a glimpse of some of the good Sofi did as a missionary.
Brandan:
Brandan picked 2 highlights, which is reasonable since he had to narrow his choices from hundreds of photos. The first photo is from our temple trip. There are 2 missions in Taiwan and Sofi served in Taichung which is in the south. We spent most of our time there. The capital of Taiwan is Taipei in the north. We spent the last day and a half of our trip in Taipei. On our next to last night in Taiwan, we did baptisms at the Taipei temple. We love being in the temple together as a family anytime, but this felt especially sweet. Brandan helped with confirmations and Abe baptized a few of the people in the session, including Helen and Sofi, before being baptized himself. We felt the gathering into a single family of God across language, race, geography and time. The church always offers opportunities to serve!
His second favorite memory was joining a tai chi group in the park. Nearly every morning, Brandan and Becky went for a walk before the others woke up. In Taichung, we noticed many exercise groups in the park next to our hotel. After our second morning there, Brandan said the next time he saw an exercise group, he was going to ask if he could join them. As it turned out, we didn't see another group after that. On our last morning in Taiwan we went walking a little earlier with the goal of finding a group. In a sunken area of a nearby park, we happened upon a tai chi group. They were all wearing matching shirts so we were hesitant to jump in with them. To our surprise, they waved us over and invited us to join in. The teacher, Zhan De Sheng, happens to be the president of the tai chi association in China. He is well known in Taiwan and produces a lot of instructional tai chi videos. He has a private studio, but teaches a free class for beginners in the park every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In the photo, the teacher and one of the more advanced students are helping us with our form. The teacher is showing Brandan how he can stay relaxed and still produce a strong force. It was serendipity to find the group and we were touched by their generosity in including us.
Now we're back home and fighting jet lag. Here's a photo of Abe, crashing on Gibson's Gudetama pillow. Sofi's pillow is next to his feet.
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