This was another busy week of transfers. We had two leave and five come. We are always saddened at the talent we lose, but absolutely dumbfounded by the new talent that comes to join our mission!
The sister who returned home after her 18 months of wonderful service is from Australia. (We try not to use names because of the nuts out in the world taking advantage of others.) She knows we love her and will miss her.
We had a young man for six weeks while awaiting his visa to serve in California. He was a very mature elder who joined the church with his family about two years ago. He had an opportunity to meet his family before saying good by for 23 months. We look forward to seeing him when he returns.
While at the airport dropping this elder off, we picked up five new missionaries. One was from California and the other four are from various areas around South Korea. They are all amazing. They are mature, kind, and eager to serve. We took three sisters with us to help the sisters and two elders to help the two elders on their way to the mission home. We take the luggage and they ride the subway getting their first missionary experience on the two hour ride home. They were incredible!
On Saturday, we had the opportunity to visit the South Korean government sponsored school for children of North Korea refugees. We took 23 missionaries with us to spend the day with about 30 students from middle school through high school. We send two missionaries there every week to assist an English class, but we thought a broader interaction with a mix of foreigners and Korean young adults would have a powerful, long-lasting impact on them.
It is a very nice school, housing roughly 180 students currently. They live at the school during the week and most go home on the weekend.
The school motto is Purity, Light and Warmth per the stone out front.
I like this totem which says "One Heart" in Korean. It's a great school.
We played various relay games, tossed water balloons, ate lunch together, and finished with 'capture the flag'. The weather couldn't have been better and everyone really had a great time! Grass does not grow well in Korea except on the golf courses (of course) so we played on a large artificial turf soccer field.
Lunch in the cafeteria was a wonderful mix of fish, octopus, kimchi, rice, chicken soup, and egg plant. They treated us very well. Just like school lunch in the US right? The trays are sort of the similar. At least they were when we went to school.
We wore one elder out completely. He didn't make it far in the car before he settled in for a snooze.
The next night, under a delightful sky and cooling breeze, Terri and I walked to the Rose Plaza at the corner of the Olympic Park. You may remember the picture from an earlier blog that showed the rose bushes in March pruned and ready for spring to come. Here are some pictures now. There are acres of lovely different roses. We debate which ones smell. At our age, our olfactory senses don't agree all the time!
We were able to participate in two of the five baptisms over the weekend. One was the wife of a US military serviceman, the other the boyfriend of a member of the Church. What an experience to be with both.
Here are the missionaries singing a number as part of the program. Amazing talent.
As for unusual sites this week, here's the Lotte Tower, about three miles away, but still very visible on my morning run.
This cat was outside the church entrance. Interesting mustache don't you think? He's not friendly, and does respond to "kitty, kitty." Terri wanted to feed him some tuna but we aren't allowed to have pets. :)
And finally the food of the week was Kimbab. Some of the largest circle of it we'd seen. It was quite tasty. Each circle was about three inches across. Normally, the are barely and inch and a half at most.
Once again, we come to the end of another week. During this week, Terri and I celebrated our 443rd anniversary. We'll let you do the math. We love being together and being here. We're so amazingly blessed in all aspects of life! We hope you are enjoying sharing our journey with us, your friends or your sons and daughters.
