Farewells, Fun, Flowers, Food (not necessarily in that order!)

This was another busy week of transfers. We had two leave and five come. We are always saddened at the talent we lose, but absolutely dumbfounded by the new talent that comes to join our mission!

The sister who returned home after her 18 months of wonderful service is from Australia. (We try not to use names because of the nuts out in the world taking advantage of others.)  She knows we love her and will miss her.

We had a young man for six weeks while awaiting his visa to serve in California. He was a very mature elder who joined the church with his family about two years ago.  He had an opportunity to meet his family before saying good by for 23 months.  We look forward to seeing him when he returns.

While at the airport dropping this elder off, we picked up five new missionaries.  One was from California and the other four are from various areas around South Korea.  They are all amazing.  They are mature, kind, and eager to serve.  We took three sisters with us to help the sisters and two elders to help the two elders on their way to the mission home.  We take the luggage and they ride the subway getting their first missionary experience on the two hour ride home.  They were incredible!

On Saturday, we had the opportunity to visit the South Korean government sponsored school for children of North Korea refugees.  We took 23 missionaries with us to spend the day with about 30 students from middle school through high school.  We send two missionaries there every week to assist an English class, but we thought a broader interaction with a mix of foreigners and Korean young adults would have a powerful, long-lasting impact on them.
It is a very nice school, housing roughly 180 students currently.  They live at the school during the week and most go home on the weekend.

 The school motto is Purity, Light and Warmth per the stone out front.

 I like this totem which says "One Heart" in Korean.  It's a great school.

We played various relay games, tossed water balloons, ate lunch together, and finished with 'capture the flag'.  The weather couldn't have been better and everyone really had a great time!  Grass does not grow well in Korea except on the golf courses (of course) so we played on a large artificial turf soccer field.

Lunch in the cafeteria was a wonderful mix of fish, octopus, kimchi, rice, chicken soup, and egg plant.  They treated us very well.  Just like school lunch in the US right?  The trays are sort of the similar.  At least they were when we went to school.

We wore one elder out completely.  He didn't make it far in the car before he settled in for a snooze.

The next night, under a delightful sky and cooling breeze, Terri and I walked to the Rose Plaza at the corner of the Olympic Park.  You may remember the picture from an earlier blog that showed the rose bushes in March pruned and ready for spring to come.  Here are some pictures now.  There are acres of lovely different roses.  We debate which ones smell.  At our age, our olfactory senses don't agree all the time!

We were able to participate in two of the five baptisms over the weekend.  One was the wife of a US military serviceman, the other the boyfriend of a member of the Church. What an experience to be with both.

 Here are the missionaries singing a number as part of the program.  Amazing talent.

As for unusual sites this week, here's the Lotte Tower, about three miles away, but still very visible on my morning run.

This cat was outside the church entrance.  Interesting mustache don't you think?  He's not friendly, and does respond to "kitty, kitty."  Terri wanted to feed him some tuna but we aren't allowed to have pets.  :)

 

And finally the food of the week was Kimbab.   Some of the largest circle of it we'd seen. It was quite tasty.  Each circle was about three inches across. Normally, the are barely and inch and a half at most. 

Once again, we come to the end of another week.  During this week, Terri and I celebrated our 443rd anniversary.  We'll let you do the math.  We love being together and being here.  We're so amazingly blessed in all aspects of life!  We hope you are enjoying sharing our journey with us, your friends or your sons and daughters.

Done with big three and planning next big three

We have been very busy with three activities for the last three weeks: interviews, temple trip, and special musical firesides.  These were incredible experiences observing our missionaries in different venues, under different conditions, in different situations.  They are amazing!

First the interviews. We finished interviews with everyone but the two assistants to the president.  They say the cobbler's children have no shoes and the assistants seem to be the last to get attention. These amazing young people are fun to talk to!

The array of personal challenges, personalities, energies, etc. keep the head constantly spinning!

We took two more zones to the temple this week and got pictures with most of those attending.  Some got away to start their preparation day before they got posed.  We hope you find some fun in what you see here!

Of course, we caught some live action moments as well.  They love to take pictures with each other as well.  So many great friendships.

The other activity of the big three was the final night of the three special nights of music.  Again, there were so many wonderful performances.  As we didn't catch on the blog all the ones from the previous week, we add a few here as well.  A reminder that by searching KSSM Pres Turner on Facebook and seeking a link you can see some of the full-length performances that won't fit on the blog.  We hope you see your son or daughter here.  You should be able to click on the picture and enlarge it to get more detail.

In preparation for three zone conferences in June that are somewhat of a tradition in this mission, we took a trip to Namhansanseong, a mountain fortress mentioned before on the blog.  We will be hiking and teaching and training and eating and learning more about the traditions, culture, and history of this amazing country.  We took the assistants who have been on the same hike in the past to help us understand the terrain and options of what to do in the conferences.  Here are a few pictures as a sneak peak of the area we visited.

You can anticipate some good pictures the week of June 19.

Remembering how important food is, we start with a cheese and pork cutlet called Dongkase.  It is served with or without a gravy.  It's pretty amazing.  Deep-fried and unhealthy, but is still amazing.

 We've showed bbudaechigae before, but usually after it's been cooked up and half eaten.  Here's the view from our favorite place with cheese slices, bacon, hotdogs, beans, spam, tofu, rice noodles, onions, and other items making it tasty.  Is your mouth watering yet...

We had a happy day at another baptism of two lovely young friends.  They were fun to be with.  The mission had eight baptisms the last two weekends.

 

We had some time with the three missionaries who arrived five weeks ago, checking on how they're doing.  Their trainers are wonderful leaders who are learning as much as the new missionaries.



 

Finally, Terri continues to be busy developing her rooftop Eden.  She has a great time trying to talk to the flower shop lady.  Mostly she asks questions and I try to translate.  (How do you say "we have spider mites on our plants?)  There is a lot of hand gesturing and looking up random words on the phone. It has been fun to continue to add a bit of color here and there.  The weather has been wonderful allowing her to spend quality private time studying, reading, meditating in her own little world. 

 Until next week, we are having fun and love our missionaries!