We had 17 last month come in and 18 needing trainers coming in this month. Between those two groups, 70 missionaries are involved in training. Throw in the 12 or so the transfer prior and you have 94 of 116 that are or just recently were involved in training. Nearly half of all our missionaries have arrived in the last three transfers! We are young, but happy.
Terri and I went into an area to work with missionaries. She was smarter than me and got some pictures with Sister Troxel and Sister Holste. They had fun visiting church members and chatting with people on the streets. Aren't these happy faces?!
We did have a little snack afterwards with these two and the three elders I worked with, Elders Lydon, Pettijohn, and Coon. It's fun to find connections with these missionaries. Elder Coon attended seminary in Draper, Utah taking a class from our son, Nathan.
Terri and I spoke in a stake conference on Saturday evening addressing some 200 members of the Seoul South Stake. Terri did a great job in English with a translator and I scared them with my Korean skills. It was fun, but as I told them in the meeting, it's the one thing I knew would scare me during me service in Korea. We get to do it again next Sunday to a larger group.
Today, we met with our Missionary Leadership Council for six hours discussing the challenges we are facing and how to help missionaries in their work. As you can see here, it's a handsome group. We try to keep it serious, but most are still older teenagers and need to loosen up a little!
They are all so smart and full of happiness. Who wouldn't want to talk with this group, despite their scary leader! Our love for these young men and young women grows each day we get to interact with them.
They tolerate me, but the adore Terri and her ability to love and feed them. You'll never see longer, more enduring embraces than when the sisters grab Terri!
This week we saw a few more unique things our missionaries see periodically. We hope you enjoy!
Delivery truck with some sort of family of bananas. I didn't have time from the car to capture all the sides, but it has to do with birthdays and other gift giving events and sending texts. It didn't make sense to me in the moment we had to look at it.
We found another activity we can't let the missionaries participate in. If we did, I'm sure it would show up in the white missionary handbook. This one is for you Rachel Munk!!
We told you last week everybody delivers here! Unfortunately, with the "better ingredients" come very high price tags. We haven't had the Papa in our house yet...
A favorite for our missionaries is called a Bob Burger. Actually, the Korean word for rice is very close to Bob. Missionaries love these burgers where the bun is really sticky rice and the meat is Korean Bulgogi. It's fairly cheap for a missionary budget. The little bowl is a spicy soup with large rice pasta noodles called something like Ddukboggi. There's one across the street from our home/office and when we need something simple and quick, it's a Bob Burger.
In one of our early blogs I showed a piece of exercise equipment on the street that people can use. Near our home is a small river that has a walking, jogging, biking path that runs for a few miles. Along the path is a string of exercise equipment. On some preparation day mornings Terri walks and I jog at the park and see people on this equipment. The community is throwing their investments to good health in Korea. They have to since we have exported to them McDonald's, KFC, Papa Johns, etc. The majority of the individual using the equipment is probably over 50!
Finally, in the 20 years since Terri and I were last here, the number of pets, mainly small dogs, people have in their homes has exploded. Most are the smaller dogs no larger than a toy poodle or a terrier, but occasionally, you'll see a lab or a setter. We even saw a beautiful greyhound and a Saint Bernard. They coddle and pamper their dogs. With the weather changing, they are upping the fashion!
This next week will be exceptionally crowded as we have lots of training, transfers, new missionaries and their orientation, and lots of Sunday meetings. Monday we attend a mission president training seminar to improve our skills. That will be all week. I'm not sure that we'll have an update next weekend, but for sure we will the next. Thanks for your kind thoughts and continued support.
