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.
