Interviews, Challenges, and an Emergency Room Visit

We are so far behind, you probably wonder if we'll ever publish anything again!  It has been a crazy few weeks.  Thank you for your patience. 
To start it of this week, we wanted to share a note from one of our missionaries.  This gives you a sense for the typical week and sometimes day for our missionaries:

I am in a really good mood this morning! This week was really fun in all sorts of ways. We were able to meet with our investigators and have some really solid discussions about the Book of Mormon, the Church, and all sorts of cool stuff that we do as missionaries. We've had a lot of weird moments happen though. From a woman offering us peanuts, to getting pulled into a pub with a bunch of drunk hikers, to mango smoothies with a man who has seen missionaries for years but never really wanted to talk to any of them, we've certainly run the gambit of things getting offered to us.

We have had parents offer daughters to some of our young missionaries.  We've had angry rants to kind dinner offerings.  What a learning experience these young people are having!

We've interviewed all but 14 of our 117 missionaries.  Those 14 got put off because of an emergency room visit.  Here are your missionaries.  If you don't see them, you'll see them next time.
Sorry, there's not much witty commentary accompanying most of them...

 President does not make this look good!

  

 Camera got wings and caught these sisters.

 Note the Hello Kitty Band-Aid.

 For a district meeting, these sisters wanted to dress a little like the elders with the white blouse and black skirts.  This picture in the church is of two young missionaries walking the dusty roads of the mission field.  These sisters are strong examples of great missionary work!

Once again, the camera took drone-like wings and starting shooting randomly... I have to figure out how it does that.

We attended an event at a historical site and they had some special lights on the grounds.  I wish we could capture it better.

We had a former missionary and her mother join us for a visit one day.  We always appreciate any visit we get from them. 

When we do interviews, Sister Turner is in a separate room.  They have special chairs for her.  President gets an old hard metal chair...  They know who provides the treats! Peanut butter cookies and milk just in case you were wondering.

We had an interesting 48 hours with Sister Turner this week.  On Wednesday she was feeling some discomfort in her abdomen up under her ribs.  Within a few hours it was much more painful.  She didn't sleep much and in the morning Thursday we took her to the hospital in for a check up.  Later that afternoon she was on the table having that pesky gall bladder removed.  She was home 24 hours later tired, but sore.  We were grateful for good professionals and for our great missionaries who can run things well in our absence.  the healing powers of the priesthood are real.  A little before and after...

 She had a wonderful babysitter and translator for much of the morning.  Her two companions came back to get her later in the day.

While their senior companion was away, they got on a wrong bus and called me and told me they had crossed the river out of the mission.  Here's some of the dialogue through text which we had.

There is so much humor along with the hard work here in our mission.
While out jogging a few mornings I found some interesting things.  This first one was on a Saturday.  Since the vast majority of folks live in apartments, they have difficulty having what we would call 'garage sales' in the US.  We put out to the public things we want to sell in our garage.  People come by and by things they see they may need.  Here, they spread out a tarp or blanket and lay out personal items to sell.  There is everything from shoes and socks to coats and hats.  Fishing gear to tools and ladders.  It happens to be on the river parkway where I was running.  I crossed the stream to get a better picture of it.  This went on for about a half of a mile.

Another morning while running I passed the entrance to the high school.  Welcoming the students at 7 AM was the school orchestra and some mascots.  You might recognize a few of them.  It was pretty interesting.  I never got welcomed to school like this...

We also had the opportunity of visiting a funeral hall to recognize the passing of the mother of a young man in the ward.  funeral arrangements are in the hospital in which the person passes.  They have a special bunch of rooms where a picture of the deceased is on a stand with many flowers.  You can bring a flower and set it on the stand and bow in recognition of the deceased.  We then go to the room next door and they provide a dinner.  It is supposed to be a moment of celebration.  Everyone is in black.  When we arrived, several of us didn't have black ties so they had a place to borrow one for the time you attended the visit.  After three days of this the cremation occurs or the family takes the body to the family mountain for burial.  Few Koreans have personal land.  It was a peaceful moment for us.

 Finally, we want to share a picture of three of our grandsons.  Their mother is from the island of Tonga.  As many of you may know, the Hakka is a battle dance performed by many Polynesian warriors to scare off their enemies.  Today, football, soccer, rugby teams with Polynesian players will do the Hakka at the beginning of the game.  These three grandsons watched the movie Muana where the Hakka is briefly referenced.  As you check out the picture you can tell which one is the most fierce!  They are going to be fun to watch as they continue to grow up.

Once again, we've had more fun than two people deserve with our missionaries.  The Lord is taking good care of our many children and grandchildren back home.  We are so richly blessed.  This upcoming week we have the second biggest holiday of the year.  It will be bigger than normal because of the timing in the lunar calendar.  There are nearly 10 days of holidays including the weekends.  We will have special zone conferences and hope to have many fun pictures.