This is a fun week with hundreds of pictures. Because of Sister Turner's surgery and recovery, we pushed off a dozen interviews until President could be comfortable leaving her. The final 12 interviews took place. The pictures look very off with out the color of Sister Turner's personality! We wanted to make sure all the missionaries had their faces on this blog for their loved ones. On the first few, no one had the confidence to approach President Turner that his tag was backwards...
They are amazing young men and young women! Next week you'll see the pictures of the 14 leaving and the 14 coming.
This week is the week of Chuseok, the Fall Harvest Festival in Asia. Since it is a lunar calendar event, it moves from year to year. This year it connected with other holidays and the country was very quiet for ten days when you include the two weekends. Traffic was wonderful! Since the majority of Koreans travel to the area of the country where their parents or grandparents are, the big city of Seoul gets really quiet. You can learn more about this holiday here:
Chuseok Holiday
During this time the missionaries have little opportunity to accomplish much work. To keep them busy, we scheduled two days of zone conferences and a preparation day in the middle of the week on the actual day of Chuseok.
We had some discussion about family history since family is so important here. The Koreans traditionally do a 'respect service', some might call it ancestor worship, but it is paying respects to the generations passed. Think of it as if they were paying respect to grandma and grandpa on their 90th birthday. They are not worshipping, just paying respects. In this season of the year, they pay respects to those same grandparents who have passed away. We focused on much of the same and helping people they teach focus on their families and preparing them for the rich blessings of the temple and the covenants there.
We then played games, some traditional, most not. It's the playing of games that are important, not what games you play. We then went next door to the Hwaseong fortress and palace to take pictures and sing the famous song: Arirang.
Here are the pictures from the first half of the mission:
We had competition during the day and the zone that won the competition had the senior zone leader crowned as king. The rest of the zone got to join it.
These are members of the Incheon zone.
Members of the Gangnam zone (their own Gangnam style...), and
members of the Gangseo zone.
Many of the members of the group acquired, rented, borrowed, or were given Hanboks, the traditional Korean clothing. They really look good in them. They are great conversation starters for those that rode on the bus or subway to the location!
In this picture, we found two little girls with their families at the site who were too cute to not include in the picture with all these big sisters! They are all making Korean hearts.
Some didn't have the Hanbok, but they posed well!
We even had to do the 'Dab' in Korea!
The day in between the two conferences was the preparation day. We told them to all go out and see the sites and have a cultural experience. Many went to the Korean folk village, others went back to Hwaseong, and a few invited President to join them at the 'Cave'. This is actually formerly a mine abandoned and has been turned into a tourist attraction by a smart entrepreneur. It is said that part of Lord of the Rings with Golum was filmed in this cave. Included on display was a staff of Gandolph. It's hard to see, but it is here. To further bring in money, they have other displays in an exhibition hall out front. This time it is all about Barbie.... I'm sure Terri was glad to still be recuperating from the previous day....
Special light show underground that made things look like they were underwater...
They had a fright castle that everyone felt impressed to go through since it is October and this is as close to Halloween as they will get...
Gandolph's staff
They have created a very impressive replica of Smaug, the dragon from the Hobbit and have it underground. here's the group touring together...
Of course, they have other displays for superheroes to fill space and bring in tourists. I had to take a picture of the one that looked the most like me. The grandkids love him...
The second conference was for the remaining three zones. More pictures for this group.
Sister Turner doing some training on health and cleanliness.
I wasn't very smart about pictures of the games in the first session. The first game was kind of like Hakkisak where you have to kick something in the air over an dover again. Some had great skills, the others, not so much...
The teams had to send three sisters to compete as well. Some wished they hadn't put on their Hanboks until after the games...
Koreans have a form or wrestling done in sand that is pretty neat and is a traditional game for Chuseok, but we felt that might be a little much. Instead each team sent an arm wrestler. As you can tell, in this picture, one team had the biggest guy in the mission...
The sisters had to send two to compete as well. It was a great battle, much more equal than the elder's competition.
Instead of the traditional game of Paddoek, we had them flip bottle caps to knock another team's cap off the board.
Another championship team!
The two assistants were terrific about sharing some history of Hwaseong and doing a great skit. It'll be on the Facebook page. You'll need to read a little bit about the history of Hwaseong to understand the skit. They took some liberties, but it's very entertaining!
All three zones after singing Arirang. you'll have to go to Facebook to see it.
The Anyang zone, small but dynamic!
The Gyeonggi Zone with all their energy!
The Suwon zone with their color and happiness.
More of the Hanboks and the personalities that go with it.
No one can reflect the personality of the king like this elder!
More personality and color among the elders.
We've had many baptisms of late and we've not been able to attend due to conflicts, but this weekend we were able to see two men enter sacred covenants. The missionaries sang a song which was marvelous. Again, an opportunity to go to Facebook to see their amazing talents.
After the baptism the members had a nice meal for everyone and gave them a cake to cut. You'd think someone was having a birthday. Oh, it truly is that rebirth the Savior spoke of with Nicodemus.
Afterwards, Terri found a cat that is as friendly as a scorpion. He was basking in the morning sun in the church parking lot area. When Terri went out to chat, he dropped his ears back and she knew it would be better to have a long-distance relationship.
We're having amazing experiences every day. This week we get 14 and lose 14 of our sons and daughters. Lots of pictures and more amazing experiences to share.
