Christmas is just around the corner

The front yard of our mission office. There are beautiful trees and colorful foliage and a friendly Malayan Night-Heron lives among the bushes and comes out often to watch us. In the back yard, which is actually the mission home back yard, there are banana trees with large clumps of yellow bananas growing on them. The front of the mission office is now decorated with many colorful Christmas lights, including a large star suspended about fifteen feet above the roof with lights streaming down and it can be seen from blocks away. We will go with the missionaries, on a large bus, to the Taipei Temple for an endowment session this Wednesday. It is a beautiful temple. For a Christmas Holiday the president will take all 180 of us to the Sun Moon Lake in the mountains about thirty miles from Taichung. There will be many sights to see, Buddhist temples, etc. and things to do and will conclude with a big steak dinner and a special Christmas testimony meeting at the stake center.

JoAnn and I take in a little shopping at the morning market just across the street from our apartment. There are about a hundred stalls with people selling all kinds of vegetables, fruits, raw meats, clothing, a shoe cobbler and just about anything else that you might need. The people are very friendly and love to try their limited English on us.

With Christmas and the Chinese New Year coming there are florist shops all over. These are ornate bamboo plants that they cut and then train to grow in many different designs and multi-plant groupings. We saw many of these bamboo plants while living in mainland China almost ten years ago and they never cease to amaze us.

SCOOTERS, THE LIFE BLOOD OF TAIWAN!

On an average day these scooters are packed in on the sidewalk right outside of our chapel, which is over the wall to the left of the scooters. We provide a large parking lot to accommodate the cars and scooters that our members drive to our meetings and none of the scooters in this picture belongs to our members. This scene is very typical of all of the streets and sidewalks in Taichung. This country is truly "on the move."

A huge modern hospital across the street from our chapel. It has a large helicopter landing pad on the top, and a large square hole in the building.  According to legends, the hole allows the "wind dragon" (typhoons), to blow through the building without damaging it.

Jim gets a good haircut, shampoo and a massage from the barber who has an underground barbershop near our apartment. The cost was 200 Taiwan dollars, about $6.00 in US currency.

Some single LDS English teachers who had a belated Thanksgiving dinner with us Sunday since we were working on Thanksgiving day.  All of these teachers are college graduates between the ages of 23 and 26. The first girl on the right side is Sara Spencer, from Rexburg, Idaho and a good friend of our daughter Jessica.

November 17th continued

One of the pictures is of a local creamatory where people are creamated. The little boy in a picture always waits for us with his older sister to give us "high-fives" before we go up to our apartment. They live and have a little shop near our apartment entrance. He and his sister are in one of the pictures.

Tuesday November 17th

The scooter traffic here looks like a race track every time the lights change. There are more scooters here than bicycles in China. They weave in and out of traffic and when I drive the van, I have to always watch out for the scooters. They are everywhere. The picture is of us in our apartment with the Chinese hat collection that was used for decoration by the past two couples living here.

Saturday November 7th

Saturday November 7th
We safely arrived here in Taichung a few days ago and are now totally swamped with all that there is to do. The mission president is fantastic and the missionaries are the best in the world. Last year they baptized over 1300 converts in this one mission alone and the church is growing rapidly. Tomorrow we will attend the ward about two blocks from our apartment and it is an English speaking ward with about 60 or so members and many are American English teachers making up the ward membership. I have attached a few pictures of the mission home office from a distance, our apartment complex, the one in the picture with the balcony light on is ours, and our ward building. There is a tremendous spirit among the missionaries and the members and the people on the street are very friendly. The second night that we were here about twenty of us, with the mission president, went in to the very crowded market street, and after a rousing hymn we held a street meeting, and while standing on a box we preached to the masses. It may be hard for you to believe but Sister and Elder Greene both actually took our turns individually standing on the box and calling out to the people and sharing the gospel with then. It reminded me of what some of the early missionaries in England did. Many pictures and even a video were taken and they were turned into a DVD, of which a copy will be sent home in a few days. I know that this is where the Lord wants us to be at this time in our lives. We love you all!! Elder and Sister Greene

We entered the Mission Training Center on Monday, Oct. 26

We were blessed to have Jo Ann's sister Carla, in Salt Lake City, volunteer to take our sixteen-year-old dog Rajah while we are in Taiwan. We could not ask for a more loving person to watch over and care for our special family member.

The MTC is a wonderful place with thousands of single and senior missionary couples preparing to serve the Lord all over the world. We are standing in the main hallway where world maps and beautiful artwork are posted. Jo Ann is pointing to our "Taichung, Taiwan" island on the map.

One of our favorite paintings is Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball shouting and waving at their families as they were leaving for their missions. Brigham and Heber were almost too sick to even stand, leaving sick families in the care and mercy of the Lord while they left to serve as missionaries in His service. They shouted "Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for Israel!" Their wives smiled and were comforted with this parting. Jim has been struggling with some medical problems and we wondered if we would be leaving the same way but the tender mercies of the Lord through some last minute medical specialists have brought him knowledge and relief and we are scheduled to leave as planned.

This is the door knob hanger that we will place on our apartment door as we leave for our mission. We are scheduled to fly from the Salt Lake City airport this Tuesday morning, November 3, for the two-hour flight to Los Angeles and then the 14.5 hour flight to Taiwan. The travel office has been kind to us and have us booked in business class, which is a step up from the economy class. We have eleven elders and one sister who will be traveling with us.

The family converges on Rexburg for Greene's farewell.

On October 18, 2009 we spoke in church and invited family and friends to attend and then to have lunch with us at our home. All six of our adult children with most of their spouses were here, along with nineteen of our twenty grandchildren, two of Jo Ann's sisters, her father, along with her nephew, a niece and an uncle. Jim's brother, sister-in-law and a niece and some of our dear neighbor friends also dropped in with food, to eat with us and to wish us well. Needless to say, our home was very full with loved ones and we enjoyed the the time with them. The last of our kids left on Monday and JoAnn and Jim started the long, long, job of putting things away to prepare for leaving for the MTC on Saturday.

Our daughter Rachel, with her husband and three children will house-sit for us during the eighteen months that we will be gone. We love and appreciate our children, grandchildren and extended family, not only for what they have done to support us but for their love of the Lord and who and what they have become.

Visits with our fathers.

Jim, his father Ernest Lee and Matt before leaving for Taiwan.

Jo Ann was able to spend time with her 89 year old father, Dewey Taylor at his home in Huntsville, Utah and when he attended our missionary farewell in Rexburg.

The Rexburg, Idaho LDS Temple.

We will miss serving as ordinance workers in the Rexburg, Idaho Temple but hope that we will have opportunities to serve as patrons at times in the Taipei, Taiwan Temple.

Greene Family Reunion 2009 St. George, Utah

We will miss our six children, their spouses and our twenty grandchildren during the eighteen months that we will serve in the Taichung, Taiwan Mission office.  But we have wonderful memories of a family reunion in Saint George, Utah the summer before we left.

Getting Ready to Go

We were originally called to enter the MTC on January 4, 2010 but our mission president asked us to come sooner. We are now entering the MTC on Oct 26, 2009 and will fly out to Los Angeles on November 3, and then take the 14 1/2 hour flight from LA to Taiwan that same day.

We're leaving Jim's beautiful garden behind for new adventures ahead to plant eternal gospel seeds in a new land.