people i love

as rude as this may sound, there are few people i would deem as important enough in my life to be invited to my wedding. i have always felt very strongly that a wedding should only include those that are very near and dear to you, those that have made an impact on you. well taiwan might have just added 4 more people that my list. every day i am amazed at the genuine charity the people of taiwan exude. from the minute we landed we have been cared for, fed, amused, chaffeured, and pampered. and always with a willing heart. although there are many dear friends i have back at home who are the same way, i still cannot help but wonder why we as americans sometimes tend to forget charity. i include myself in this statement! we have become such a "me" society and although i have always advocated taking the necessary time to care for oneself, i was reminded this month of how important it is to lose yourself in service of others.
the following individuals are those whom i have felt so much gratitude towards as they have made my whole trip to taiwan that much more meaningful.

jane 
this is jane. sweet jane was there for us from the minute we arrived by train. she picked us up from the train station and brought us to our dorm rooms where we would stay for our stay. jane is 28 and full of life! this girl loves to have fun and will do just about anything to get you to party with her. i cannot even begin to list everything she has done for us. food is just the beginning! when we got in the bus to drive to our dorm rooms, there were water bottles for each of us ready and waiting. that night after we had finally gotten settled in our rooms, she ordered pizza hut for us so we could relax and prepare for the hospital the next day. the weeks following prove just as giving. from baseball game goodies (dumplings, soda, popcorn, kinder chocolate), to running after buses to get us on, to translating to help us bargain our way down on prices, to teaching us asian culture, to buying us tiramisu cake, the list goes on and will not stop! i will greatly miss her always happy and positive spirit.

thomas 
thomas was the next person we met once we arrived in tainan. thomas was our security guard for the rooms we were living in. just to give you an idea of his true loyalty, when we arrived he greeted us by bowing and sincerely saying, "i am thomas, your humble servant and security guard". from that moment on, i knew we had a trusted and loyal friend. in the days that passed, we would continue to see his concern to make our stay as easy as possible. as a fellow lds member, he told us that his one wish is to eventually come to america and live in salt lake city where he could be a baker for fellow church members. he then proceeded to tell us that he would try to arrange church members to pick us up from our complex and take us to church that sunday and that if he could not, he would gladly pay the bus ride for us. by this point i was in tears. everything about him was so pure and innocent. he only knew us for less than an hour but his dedication and love to us appeared like we were all life long friends. i was truly touched and am very grateful for his dedication to keeping us safe.

cathy
dear cathy. when this woman heard of the byu girls visiting her floor (she is the head nurse of the ortho floor), she took the time to make a whole powerpoint presentation to welcome us and prepare us for the floor. although she was super busy with work and rarely had spare time, she would check on us hourly and make sure we had chairs to sit down on and make sure we were finishing our homework. {side note: we never mentioned we had homework nor did we really ever have anything we were required to do while at clinicals aside from following our nurse around. we are still confused as to why cathy was so adamant we finish homework even after we assured her we had already finished our homework.} in addition to all her hard work, she wrote down food after food of all the things we had to eat at the night market. at the end of our rotation she was also the one to purchase us personalized stamps as a parting gift. she was such a comfort to see every day and her smile was contagious.

jenny
i love jenny. she was our first nurse assigned to us in taiwan and perhaps it was that alone that made me so attached to her but i cannot express how much i appreciated her humor and spastic personality. she always made me feel so comfortable and at home in the hospital. once we knew each other a bit better she took aubrey and i to the night market and on a separate occasion to a dutch fort for a cultural outing. i have to brag that jenny is probably the best english speaking nurse of any of the nurses we have had this trip. she even knew slang terms and perhaps a cuss word or two...
i will miss jenny so much but that is the joy of facebook. as friends on facebook, i plan to keep in touch with her and hopefully convince her to come visit me in california so i can return the favor of showing her around as she so graciously did for me.

and there you have it. i love these people and thank the lord every day for their kindness and caring nature to give me one of the best experiences of my life up this point. i pray they will be blessed for all they have done and continue to do. they have been wonderful examples to me of a christlike love and charity. i only wish to one day be able to emulate their examples.