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.

Interview Week and Fortress Visit

This week we met in formal interviews about half of the missionaries in our mission.  Next week we will get the rest.  What a delight to sit for only about 20 minutes each with 50 outstanding young men and young women of great faith and desire to share the joyful message of the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The stories of miracles and personal blessings have been amazing.  I was able to shed tears with a few.  Meanwhile Terri was providing her home made peanut butter bars and getting to know them more intimately.  They are a joy to be around!

There are no pictures to go with the interviews.   However, our hearts are full of the experiences with this fine young adults and the love they have for  what they do.  It seemed like when we were not in interviews we were in the car! Not a great picture, but every where we go we have to go through tunnels.  It's so much better to go through than move the mountain!

We found a tower somewhat similar to something in a recent trilogy.  It's now called the Lotte Tower and we drive by it almost every day.  The area has been somewhat built up since Frodo was there.  It's pretty awe inspiring.

Each weekend we attempt to attend a baptismal event celebrating with the missionaries the love they share with others accepting the gospel and making sacred covenants.  Here's a young man, aged 27 who recently joined the Church with the young man who taught him, Elder Evans.

In planning for a major zone conference during one of the two biggest holidays in Korea, Chu Seok, or Thanksgiving in September, Terri and I took our two mission assistants, Elder Craven and Elder Kim to Hwa Seong Fortress in Suwon.  It was completed in about 1796.  There is an interesting story surrounding it's history.  Unfortunately, it was almost entirely destroyed in the Korean War.  However, the records for it's construction were found and it was almost completely rebuilt.  Here's a site to learn more about the special historical site: Hawseong Fortress - Suwon

We had the amazing opportunity to see some martial arts demonstrations which I really wanted to link here, but all you get is a picture with us and a few of the warriors.

There is an artist's street which we walked down looking for a quiet lunch.  I was grabbed by a dragon.  By the ball in it's mouth you can see it is good luck and he let me go quickly:

We found the local Buddhist temple and took a few pictures for posterity.  They really keep their sacred places clean and the landscaping well cared for.  It was a hot day, but we were glad to be out.

We decided to take a bike ride, but had difficulty getting on it.  We settled for a Kodak moment.

Terri loves flowers and when she saw this giant hibiscus she was quite taken.  This is one of our church buildings kept up by the members and not professional landscapers.  They had a wonderful flower garden all around the building.

We may amend this posting as we find more pictures that seem to be lost in cyber space.  Until next week....