Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Interviews and Olympic Venues

We continue to be amazed by the power of our missionaries and the joy we find being with them.  Our mission vision is "We will fulfill our missionary purpose in Joy, Excellence, and a Christ-like Attitude".  It's easy for us to feel joy just being around them.  Their Christ-like attitudes are a blessing to us and they are excellent missionaries.

We are a few days late, but that's okay because we got in the last days of interviews into this blog.
Here are your special missionaries:
 The mix of personalities and talents is so amazing.  It's fun to watch them learn how to mix and utilize strengths.  We are all learning life lessons every day.




 These three have been amazing together for four weeks while the one in the center prepared to go to Hawaii Visitor's Center.
 

 If there is a tree nearby, we have to put it in the picture.  This is one of 20 just with this tree...
 We are anxious for spring and seek flowers anywhere we can find them.
 It was in the high 60's this day and we had to come outside to take the picture.  We even did the interview out side in the warm sunshine!





 It wasn't raining, there were just lots of umbrellas sitting around waiting to be used as a prop!


 The Primary room, the best place in the building for a picture.
 The closes opportunity a missionary will have to hold a baby on their lap...






Always the last, the two Assistants to the President are great young men.  They truly represent the caliber of all the missionaries, including the great sisters.

We said farewell to two missionaries this week.  The first was only with us four weeks while she awaited her visa to come to the US for 18 months, serving in the Hawaii Visitors Center.  What          a gem she is.  We would  loved to keep her.
We also had an elder leave due to health issues.  We hope he gets that healed quickly.  He will be missed.
The Incheon airport near Seoul is one of the most amazing airports you'll ever visit.  Recently, they added a new terminal and with both the departures this week, we took them to the new terminal.  We have a brief video of it.  It is so open, spacious, and clean.
They also have the largest travelers and carryon luggage we've ever seen!


For our preparation day, we decided to visit the Helping Hands Center constructed by the Church to provide a service for those attending the Olympics. About 12-20 missionaries during the peak of the Olympics helped visitors navigate from the train station. The local and international media have been covering the service provided by the missionaries.  Here's a link to an article: Helping Hands Center

Inside we found some of the pictures mentioned:


Here are a few of the other sites nearby.  It was an amazingly quick train ride there and back:



As you can see above, we are at the coast which is a five minute taxi ride from the train station.  They had what they called a FireArt Festival.  They built a number of artistic items out of wood to burn at conclusion of the Olympics.  Here's an introduction: FireArt Festival
Here are our two versions of it:
We had a great visit and were back at the mission office before dark.

It was a busy weekend for us and there are a few pictures of us doing our thing.


We also saw an interesting sight this week, what looked like an old fashioned camper, unheard of here!
During my early Saturday morning run it was fun to see what a typical Saturday morning looks like around the Olympic Park just a short walk from the mission home.  A little early morning soccer for the over 50 crowd!  It's a nice background...
Finally, our newest granddaughter will be blessed this weekend without us but we wanted all to see her in her special blessing gown. 
We expect there won't be a posting this weekend.  We'll wait until all the new missionaries have come, the departing missionaries have left and things have settled down a little bit.  We have a busy couple of weekends and week days ahead of us.  We're blessed with great joy in this work!





Monday, March 12, 2018

Interviews and a Farewell

There isn't much time for commentary this week.  The last week was all about interviews and a stake conference.  We didn't get any pictures with the presiding Area President, Elder Gay, but we had a great weekend with him and the Seoul South Stake Presidency.

The interviews were a lot of fun.  We have another week ahead of us and we really are looking forward to it.  Here are your missionaries from this last week.  We hope you can sense how happy they are.  These are some amazingly hard working young men and women.









 Occasionally a little bit serious...


















We think it is important to understand that three houses were deemed to be the cleanest and most organized in the mission.  Two of the three were in the same area, Cheongra 청라.  Unfortunately, some of the people who were serving in that area at the time have moved, but these individuals are the ones currently there:
We appreciate these young people for how well they keep their homes.  Most are very, very clean.  These happened to be the best.  The last home we don't see until this week, but amazingly it happens to be the house with eight elders in it.  Who would have thought?

We said farewell to a lovely sister this week who had severe feet problems.  We wish her well.  We will miss her.

We have another busy week this week and expect many good pictures for next week.  We are happy in this service.  Know of our love for your support.