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.

Final Zone Conferences and First Interviews for August and a Happy Announcement.

We went to bed Monday evening and seemed to wake up Sunday Morning, the week went by so quickly!  We had the three final zone conferences and then on Friday started interviews again.  These young people truly keep us laughing and singing.  We can't get enough of them. Saturday we stopped and caught our breath.

We want to start this week's blog off with a great comment from one of our sister missionaries. We hope you find the light and joy in it she shared:

For some reason, I've been thinking about when I was set apart as a missionary this past week. I honestly can't remember much at all from my blessing--only two things, and one of them was about my smile--my Stake President counseled me to smile and said others would be blessed by it and that it was really important for me to smile. We had just left our house again after breaking our fast yesterday and we sat down at a bus stop. This woman was walking past and I remembered my setting apart and looked up and flashed a huge smile at her--AND SHE STOPPED. She walked back a step and looked at my name tag and said "예수 그리스도?! (Jesus Christ?)" Then she said in Korean, "I see you have a book. Is that God's word? How is it different from the Bible?" President Turner, we walked to the Church and met with her right then. She said she is looking for a way to live with Heavenly Father. I am so insufficient in so many ways but if I know anything, it's the answer to her question--we told her that we absolutely can tell her how to live with Heavenly Father! It was a huge miracle after fasting and seeking the spirit.

 We started the week in the Suwon Zone.  What an entertaining bunch!

 We wonder if you'll recognize any of them in their goofy posing. 

 The camera seemed to have a mind of it's own on this one....

I finally got them settled down and we had a great picture.  Some are a little hard to see, but somewhere in here are all the members of the zone...

We then moved on to the Seoul South Zone at the Noryangjin ward building.  It was another great conference with training by all the zone leaders.  They are so mature... and then again,

 Q&A period with President Turner and the Assistants

 Fitness, health and cleanliness training by Sister Turner! 5 minute warm up before getting down to business!

We then finished up with the Anyang zone conference.  I wasn't as diligent with pictures here and only caught the group photos. Only twelve members of this zone, but they carry an amazing spirit and determination.

This zone sang "Happy Birthday" to our granddaughter Alli, here they are sending her "hearts"

We didn't give ourselves a rest after the three fast-paced busy days of conferences but went right into interviews.  The first zone was the Suwon zone and we did it by districts.  While the president was interviewing one on one, Sister Turner was with the district talking about companion relations.  We know that to be most effective we really have to be one as companions.  She had them play a game where she had a list of several dozen questions.  Sister Turner would ask the questions.  If the companion didn't know something, such as favorite color, food, number of siblings, birthday, etc. their companion got to squirt them in the face with water.  It was tons of fun!

To get the full effect of the last one, we had to get some live action video...

We love getting to pose with them.  Sister Turner encouraged them to pose with their 'weapons'!

These two had to leave before President Turner could get a picture, but they too played the game.

Of course, there were always the things that are unique for our experience which we love to share.  These are things your sons and daughters may see, but don't have cameras with them or have not sent them. 
This picture is of a work area where the building was taken down in a few days. I run this route once or twice a week.  Between runs the building was completely razed.  I took this so that I can measure how long it takes to put up a new building.  They work so quickly here, it will be by the end of the year, I would expect.  It's likely to be a multi-story apartment building of concrete.

Terri and I attended a reception recognizing the 56th year of a relationship between the Ivory Coast and the South Korean governments.  It's the 57th year of independence for the Ivory Coast.  It was an interesting evening.  Our friend, a member of our ward here is the consul general for the embassy of Ivory Coast.  he is a true gentleman.

Here's Terri filling time while President Turner is doing interviews.  Badminton is a big game here, probably because it requires so little space compared to tennis.  One of our missionaries was on the Korean National Team at one time.  Everyone likes this game.

Finally, as I was out for a morning run, I came upon a man with his motorcycle hooked to a trailer with who I assume is his wife in the trailer.  A picture only shows she was in the trailer, maybe she hopped out.  I had to video this so you believe this really happened.

Things are always so much fun here.  A new adventure around every corner.  We expect if everyone looked at life with a new perspective, they'd find unique things all around them.  Some things just seem so common now...