Miracles and Learnings

Miracles are a daily fare here.  We wanted to share this one so you appreciated the faith and diligence and hard work of our wonderful missionaries.  We're sure you'll have some of the same images in your heads as you read through this:

Had an interesting morning so far- As [my companion] and I left the house this morning to come and email, we had a fun experience. As we waited for the elevator, I set my breakfast (a muffin) on the windowsill- this is ten stories up- to tie my shoe. Of course, the muffin falls from its precarious position ten stories below. I was understandably distraught. We hurried down expecting to find a mess of chocolate crumbles all over the pavement, but instead found the muffin perfectly intact. What a miracle. The only issue is it had fallen on glass rain roof, roughly 15 feet up... Luckily, with my height and [my companion] on my shoulders wielding a broomstick, we successfully retrieved the muffin. It was delicious.

We had a great week with missionaries as we conducted our three zone conferences.  We had only one zone at a time.  There was great training, learning and sharing of experiences.  The women of the local stakes prepared and served the food which was a great blessing for everyone!
First the three zones:
Gyeonggi was the first and the largest.

Second was the Seoul South Zone.  This includes the ladies who prepared/served the meal.

 The final conference was the Seoul West zone.

Of course we can't ignore the sisters in the other areas that prepared/served our meals:

Some views of the food!

 We sang to the sisters before each meal in appreciation.  This picture captures the food as well as the singing.

This will give you a sense for the foods eaten.  We didn't capture it all this well.

This will give you a sense for the energy of the missionaries before eating.

Musical talent was shared though with the video I didn't always capture a still photo.

Skits were also provided, again not all were captured on film.

Occasionally, we have a birthday to celebrate on the day of the conference.

Terri and I had the good blessing this week of attending the temple sealing for a previous missionary and his wonderful bride. What a sweet experience that was for us!  We've now attended two of the about 20 marriages that have taken place of our missionaries since we arrived.  The two were in Korea!

We also met two of our previous sisters who served in our mission on that day!

As for unusual things we saw this week, we have two to show.  

The first may be hard to pick out, but so many cars have the famous "Baby on Board" signs in so many ways that this one stood out to us.  One says "Baby Jedi on Board" and the other "Baby Sith on Board".

 This one made us laugh.  I don't believe we have a Kleenex or handkerchief large enough for this kind of cold!

There is never a dull moment in our mission.  We start interviews this week and will have pictures of the many companionships.  We feel like it has been a long time since we were able to sit down with each individual missionary and see how they're doing.  We are going into the colder months and we want to make sure they have all they need.

Thank you as always for the prayers and support to the missionaries and for us.  They special young people that make us laugh, cry, pray, and rejoice.  We hope you can sense that in their letters and emails.  Have a great week!

Temple Visit and Training for the President and his Spouse

We had a wonderful few days with the missionaries at the Seoul, South Korea Temple.  We have three zones and we visited the temple over two days.  We will probably do differently in six months when we have the opportunity again.  We want more one-on-one time with them  One zone, one temple day is our optimum.  We'll see what we can do.  We hope you can find your missionary in some of these pictures. They are somewhat random and there may be some duplicates.

 

 

Here are some live shots!

Sister Turner and I attended our semi-annual Mission Leadership Conference (formerly called mission president seminar).  We had the opportunity to meet with eleven other mission presidents and wives from the Korea, Japan and Guam/Micronesia missions.  It was held in Guam this year as we had the opportunity to play a part in a devotional held for the local people as they prepare for the construction of their recently announced temple.  Such warm and loving people!

Also in attendance was the Area Presidency and their wives and the Executive Director of the Missionary Department of the Church, Elder Brent Nielson.  We learned so much! We did spend one afternoon touring the area, but for the most part it was three days of training in a conference room.  They even pulled the shades so we wouldn't be distracted!
Also in attendance were supporting medical and mental health advisers, area presidency support staff, and others.

These are the four presidents and wives presiding in Korea.

 In Korea they have wedding ducks. They are given to a wedding couple to represent the mood in the house.   In Guam, they have what we think are water buffalo, but are Carabao. 

 The Spanish controlled Guam from the time of Ferdinand Magellan until the Spanish-American war.  At that time the US took control  They had one tradition in Guam where they served hot chocolate in a summer house.  What a great tradition!

 A picture of the four mission presidents from Korea plus the area president and his wife who are also from Korea.

 The beautiful waters below the cliff of the Two Lovers Point.

 A large statue at Two Lovers Point depicting the story you can read here.  They say many countries have their legends or myths, but they say this is real... Two Lovers Point

 Interesting museum capturing the story of the war in Guam.  Just three or so days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it also captured Guam and held it until the surrender.  After the war, a Japanese soldier hid on the island for 27 years after the war ended coming out in 1972. Yokoi found

 Three of the four wives of Korea mission presidents doing yoga at the sign.

This is about how much time we had on the beach.  We were waiting for our hotel room to be ready so we took a short stroll.  The heat and humidity was shocking for us coming from Korea where the temperatures are in the 50's during the day.

 A nice sunset view at dinner time.  It left us yearning...

The missionaries in one zone had the opportunity to do some translation services for an international symposium for Pearl S. Buck.

We also had a few fun pictures during the week.  We had seen on the internet, the source of all truth, marshmallow farms.  We didn't believe in them until we were driving to one of our mission locations.
We found the traditional...

 We also found some that looked like mint flavor... We didn't get pictures, but we also saw some that looked strawberry or cherry flavored as well as blueberry.

On Halloween, we did have four trick or treaters who came to our door very late...

There isn't a holiday between Halloween and the end of the year so they get started very early here...

If you ever wonder what strange services you might find on a random day, check out the left hand top corner of the yellow store sign here... Tempting to go in and check that one out, but we were in a hurry.

Another few weeks raced by like the delivery motorcycles and mopeds here on the streets of Seoul.  We have three zone conferences ahead this week and expect some good pictures and items to share.  We love the missionaries ( we believe you've heard us say that before).  We love the country with its traditions, culture, language, and especially the people.  Thanks for sharing it with us.