This is a quick note to catch you up before the big day! Tomorrow we'll have everyone together and we're excited to take lots of pictures to share. We may have another post early in the week.
We started the week with our first real snow of the winter. We've had small amounts here and there, but we got about three inches last weekend. This is a view from our apartment window on the third floor of the church. This was early in the day. We have yet to see a snow removal or salt truck.
We finished up all the interviews this week with the last two zones. What an amazing group. The buildings are always so cold we tend to dress in layers. Here in Korea whole buildings are not heated, only the rooms that are in use, and never the hallways. We have taken to putting feet warmers in our shoes, and hand warmers in our pockets.
This sister was so enamored with the white beard contrast with her black hair, she wanted Santa's curly locks.
We happened to be in the nursery for these pictures, lots of props to use. The previous building had very little in the way of options.
This is the wonderful military relations couple serving near the large base in the south of our mission. We have a new couple coming in January because the one base is getting too big and we need a couple to cover the air force base.
Our evenings continue to be full with multiple activities. We had another caroling, proselyting activity at a large train station. We had a good time with these missionaries in the cold evening air. They didn't care, they just continued in their work.
We had an afternoon lunch with a wonderful senior couple here is a great view over a busy street. This area can be so congested, some taxi drivers refuse to take passengers to this area. We love seeing all the busyness with all the buses, taxis, people, houses, apartments, business buildings, etc. As you can guess, we love the food!
We love Christmas decorations as well. Some of the buildings have great decorations.
The streets are amazing. The decorations on some trees are truly jaw dropping!
As it is the Christmas season and we have a tradition of making two types of special cookies every year (this is our 38th Christmas doing this together, these are the same cookies Terri's family have been making since her great grandmother brought the iron over from Switzerland), we brought over the assistants to help meet the production demands. We will be serving them to the missionaries at our get together on Christmas
Terri makes all the dough. Roger puts the Spritz (from Sweden) dough in the special device and puts them on the pan to bake. The Bratzlies (from Switzerland) are made in a special iron and we used the young hands of the Assistants for this work. They had to be specially dressed so as to not get anything on their good clothes. You can tell who lost in rock, paper, scissors...
We had a local church Christmas party which resulted in lots of crazy antics and nice presents. We are well treated. Though, it may require some uncomfortable dancing...
On the Sabbath before Christmas, the wonderful office couple wanted to provide a special Christmas morning type breakfast to the missionaries serving in our ward. However, their apartment was a little confining for so many plus potential investigators. After the church services, we had all the missionaries and an investigator join us for brunch. It was quite a feast.
We had a picture in front of the Christmas tree, but we were too big. We are fortunate to serve with wonderful young people, even if they are older than us in some cases...
The one goofy part of the week was the allergic reaction Roger had after a dinner one evening. Nearly immediately his body started doing funny things. The eyes started to itch. Terri kept asking if I was having trouble breathing. Nope, but you can see the impact on the eye. If this is the worst thing happening in these three years...
We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with those they love. We miss you all, but we have so many lovely people here. It is a special time of year. May all your hearts and your homes be full of love, joy and laughter. How grateful we are for the Savior in our lives. We feel his presence daily. We are blessed to be able to share his gospel, and the wonderful plan of salvation. We are blessed to be able to celebrate with 115 delightful young missionaries and six of us older ones. Love to you all.
