Korean Fall Harvest Holiday and Zone Conferences

Over the last ten days the primary happenings were preparing for zone conferences.  The zone conferences took place on the Korean Chuseok 추석 holiday.  Our experience is that on this, one of two huge holidays here (similar to American Thanksgiving), within our mission area, the streets are empty.  Nearly everyone goes to the country to their ancestral town to be with family.  Because very little in the way of missionary work happens, we use one day for zone conference and the other for their preparation day.  The holiday actually continued through Wednesday, but it seems to be more like our Friday after Thanksgiving in the US and people begin returning and more missionary work happens.  You can learn a little more about the holiday here: Chuseok

Across the street from one of our church building is what is called Hwaseonghaenggung: Hwaseong Fortress Palace.  There is a palace in the middle of a walled city.  We like to have the conference and then walk across the street dressed in Korean dress and take pictures and to sing the Korean anthem "Arirang".  We always get a large group to stop and take pictures and chat with our missionaries.  They really look awesome. Lots of pictures, but the music portion is too long to put here.  You need to go to our Facebook page to see it.
Here is a random shot of the main square in front of the palace where flying kites is a big deal.  We were blessed with great weather.

Here's one group getting ready to sing:

Here's part of another group with some guest performers!

 They love offering to take pictures because random shots pop up on the camera!

 We even get lots of requests for pictures with our celebrities.  Who wouldn't want a picture with our lovely sisters!

 


It's very difficult to make plans for or carryout these conferences without our leadership team.  These are the current leaders of the mission.  Great young men and young women who are learning so many life skills.

I have to give a shout out to those who let me play soccer with them occasionally.  My skills are non-existent, but they let me play with them anyway,

 We found a Harley wanna-be rider.  Looks like a comfortable ride...

It's been a fun week plus.  Now we start interviews in the homes of our missionaries.  We look forward to posting pictures for you to appreciate, that is if your missionary hasn't sent you any!  We enjoy every moment with them and hope you can see some sense of happiness in each of them.

Crazy Couple of Weeks!!!

The week of preparing for transfers, conducting exit interviews, and finalizing the mission interviews is pretty full.  Follow that with the week of actual departures, new missionaries, orienting new missionaries and trying to get caught up and you end up with little time for blogs and extra notes.

That said, what a great few weeks.  First we finished the normal interviews and activities that happen every six weeks. In reviewing these pictures it almost appears President Turner is pushing the elders away from Sister Turner.... Not intentional!

We had a nice lunch and district council with this group and in closing they had one missionaries "dying" as he goes home the next week so they had a mock wake for him.

 everyone should have the opportunity to grab a drink from Burger King before attending a wake!

 And the camera had a mind of its own a few times....

We then visited with the office elders, the Assistants and the office couple.  We had a great lunch with them as well, but we forgot to take pictures. :( Sister Burr takes excellent care of us!)

We said goodbye to 13 wonderful elders, young men with great leadership, teaching, and ministering skills.  How we will miss them.  We had no sisters leave this time, quite unusual.

 Home to Idaho

 Home to Utah

 Home to the Philippines

 Home to Utah

 Home to Utah

 Home to the Philippines

 Home to Utah

 Home to Utah

 Home to Gwangju, South Korea

 Home to the Philippines

 Home to Georgia ( just in time for a hurricane)

 Home to Utah

 Family moved to Island of Mauritius just a few days prior.  He'll have a nice break!

So many amazing personalities, skills, talents, gifts, etc.  We say goodbye with tears and sadness and then drive to the airport in joy and excitement to meet the next group!  We had two Assistants and two sisters accompany us to the airport to pick up two elders and two sisters.  They are amazing!  Each group seems to come with a little better language skill.  They are all so eager to help in the work.  All of the new missionaries came from different locations in Utah.

Here they are with their trainers and the Assistants (on the far left):

We had enough changes that we have six of our districts with new leaders.  We were able to do some training with them.  Wow, what a fun group this will be.  We have a great mix of nationalities, length of service, prior experience, and personalities.

Our purpose is to bring others to Christ by helping them make sacred covenants such as baptism.  We continue to see rich blessings in the work.

As for other fun things happening in the mission, we continue to see interesting things:
If your kids wonder where  Pikachu ran off to...

 This is a true bull dog!  No doubt where this animal  hospital is!

 Looks like Stitch crossed the wrong motorcycle delivery guy!

Another interesting event to finish the weekend.  We were counseled to make sure we took a true preparation day, not preparation hours which is more like what we do given our schedule.  Trying to enjoy that this week and do some Christmas shopping we had an interesting event.  A young naval cadet in a hurry racing along swerved to miss a truck and found us instead!

 If you wonder what the true reason for back ups on the free are from, it is usually from something like this.  We were not injured in any way, but they sent two fire emergency vehicles and an ambulance along with two police vehicles.  The six lanes of traffic went to just two for a good hour.

 Here's what it looks like just after we got out of the car...

If you wonder how our weeks end, Terri captured a good picture during personal study....

That wraps up the past two weeks.  We thank you for your prayers on our behalf and for our wonderful missionaries.  We know we are not in heaven, but we have to be pretty close given the good people we are with every day!  Until we get another break!