As I thought about the last ten days (I'm sorry if I let any of you down not posting on Sunday!), I thought of all that happened and thought, well nothing monumental, but in reality it's all monumental to us or to someone reading something special or for a family that sees their son or daughter here! Our capacity to love the country, the culture, the people, and especially our missionaries is unbelievable. It seems to grow every day.
It seems like every week we say goodbye to one or two or twenty who have completed their mission. This week we said good by to Sister Kwak. She is actually flying to Utah to see her sister who is preparing to enter the MTC and serve a mission in Hawaii.
We had our first temple excursion with two of the zones, about 35 of our missionaries. Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of all of them before they left for their areas. Some had to travel two hours to get there while others it was only about 30 minutes. I think you can see by the smiles on their faces that they enjoy their missions, the temple, and of course the mission president and his wife! I received on email this week after Terri spoke in church all in Korean that she was now a celebrity among the missionaries. They do love her. She got one compliment this week when a young elder said, "You know who you remind me of? My MOM!" We hope in some way these young men and young women can come to us as their surrogate parents so they can talk about concerns, problems, etc. This comment was a treat!
We get to go to the temple over the next two Thursdays with the rest of the missionaries. We truly look forward to every opportunity we have to be with them!
Of course, we want them to know that as well as being their parents, we still love each other!
The reason we are here is to help these missionaries in their desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every opportunity we have we attend a baptism and celebrate with the missionaries and the families and individuals who accept the gospel and commit to live by its principles. These two young missionaries had the opportunity to teach a teen-age girl whose mother had been baptized many years ago but had not been actively involved until recently. Together they are enjoying the blessings of the gospel. During the ceremony, nine young men, five of who are preparing to serve missions in January sang to her in beautiful harmony. They sang "Army of Helaman" which was truly amazing. Afterwards there was a great feast for all in attendance. This is the last baptism in this building as it is being sold and this ward is moving to another larger building with several other wards. They have outgrown the building!
We do have the opportunity to eat out often because of all the travel we do. Some with friends and some alone. This week we had McDonalds and On the Border. We've now had those plus KFC in the two months we've been here.
Of course there are some things we miss that just can't be duplicated, good old home made pizza! And alas, there's no corn, cherries, sweet potatoes, or other interesting things added like you find in the local shops. This was good old-fashioned Canadian Bacon! Food is pretty important here!
We had a special conference this week with Elder Garrit W. Gong of he Presidency of the Seventy of the Church. He and his wife came from Salt Lake to train and to teach in his role as a leader overseeing Asia. After the meeting we had a wonderful Korean meal with the various leaders of the local stake and spouses. To interact with these great leaders is a truly wonderful experience!
As we travel we see all kinds of interesting things. Occasionally on the walls of the subway or underground shopping malls we'll find something interesting and fun to mimic.
I have no idea what to say about this one....
We also see interesting signs on busses which serve so well as billboards. They advertise everything from movies to TV shows to things I can't really explain.
We also find neat advertisements like this giant crab on a building. We haven't yet figured out what it's for as we only pass by at a fairly high speed on this main road.
We do actually work once in a while as well. This week we went to the area farthest south in the mission to work with four great missionaries. We truly enjoy spending time with them and they say they enjoy having us around. Of course, it always ends with an ice cream treat of some sort! The young man in the glasses knows our son, Jacob very well as he was his teacher in Vernal, Utah. Jacob sees Elder Young's grandfather at the store periodically and loves to give him updates. I'm sure this one will bring him great joy!
I know I mentioned this sight before, but someone said these were the national birds of Korea, the crane! It was such a beautiful evening, we had to take a pictures.
Finally, we had the special opportunity to meet our Korean tutor from last winter. Hanna Choi was working at the Missionary Training Center until December when due to travel and other reasons had to discontinue teaching us. She was such a fine young lady that when we learned we would be in an area near her family home in Seoul we were anxious to reach out to her. She joined us for a quick chat. She left a few days to return to BYU to continue her education. What a joy and help she has been to us!
This one is pretty long, but we had so many things happening. This next week is pretty crazy too. We are very happy here and hope you can sense that in our messages. We wish we could share in a meaningful way the experiences with interviews, blessings, special counsel sessions, etc. These are not our children and the people we meet every day are not our family, but while being this far from our own, they have quickly become ours and they are blessing our lives! We are so grateful to be surrounded by such good people who lead by example in all they do. We are indeed blessed!
