A Month Goes So Quickly!!!

It's been such a long time!
This has been the busiest time we can remember.  Things are winding down quickly and there is much to do!  We'll do some catching up, but we'll break the month up and do more than one blog update.

The final week of March was the final week of interviews for the transfer.  The Gokbanjeong and Shinpung District was right before a meeting we had to rush away to so we didn't get to have District Council or lunch with the group.

 
 The next day was the Suji and Shingal District

This is a unique situation with a foursome! The Samoan sister had two trainers and another sister had a companion who went home.  I couldn't separate the trainers!  The fourth sister rotated between the two trainers to cover her area. 

Lunch was their favorite "forbidden chicken".  It was the best we ever had.

They were so happy, they asked the resident expert to sing the song!

We had a great district council right after.  These are smart missionaries!

 The phone got away...

The meeting we ran off to was with five of the six Military Relations couples serving in the four missions in Korea.  A head military chaplain who is a member of the church and a member of the English-speaking District for Korea wanted to get them all together to discuss how they're doing and to share ideas.  What a wonderful day it was.

 Interestingly, the chaplain and his wife lived in a ward in Manassas, Virginia and knew a couple from Indiana who had moved there from our church ward.  It is a small world.

We then had our last trip to the temple for this half of the year.  With the missions changing July 1, we are not sure when they'll have the opportunity again. :(  It was the largest group of the three days and the temple was very accommodating to allow us to switch rooms to keep us all together.

 Camera got away again...

 This is a very handsome group of young men!

These are the Gyeonggi Zone Elders

 These are the Suwon Zone Elders

 This is all the sisters from from both zones.

We also had a little live taping:  

We even had one of our previous missionaries join us for pictures.  He happened to be at the temple that day.

This was the end of the week with the missionaries.  Friday evening, our son, his wife and four children arrived.  They are the last of our five children to come to visit us in Korea.

The next blog will contain some of that.

A Mission Tour

It was an amazing, but busy week.  We were able to be with everyone of our missionaries.  We had a visitor from the Asia North Area Presidency, Elder Yamashita and his wonderful wife.  The missionaries were well fed physically and spiritually.
We started with a special Mission Leadership Council meeting where the leaders shared with Elder Yamashita their feelings about expectations within the mission.  These are good leaders for a reason! 

The Gyeonggi and Suwon zones met with Elder and Sister Yamashita on Thursday.  They all looked terrific and participated actively in the discussions and training throughout the day.  They learned much more about their role and our expectations for them throughout the day.

 The local leaders arranged a massive feast for them.  Even with their big appetites they couldn't finish it all!

Before they left, we were able to get one picture with some of the local stake leaders who attended the meeting with us to learn more how we can work together.It's a wonderful stake Relief Society presidency with Sister Yamashita and Sister Turner

The Seoul West and Seoul South Zones met with Elder and Sister Yamashita on Friday.  The training was roughly the same with a few changes.  The food was terrific and as plentiful as the day prior.

 Two large tables of wonderful local and western foods.  Again, more than they could all eat!

Earlier in the week we had a great opportunity to interview two districts.  We got everyone except our Assistants to the President, but you got to see them last week in their special hats!

On the weekend we had a special visit from two of our former missionaries.  One plays football now, having just finished his first year at Stanford.  He brought a young lady friend to tour his former areas.  She actually has a cousin serving in our mission.  The other former elder was his companion who lives in Korea.  We love these guys.  Of course the two Assistants had to get involved as well.
We can't get enough of these guys!

We finished the weekend with a wonderful stake conference in the Seoul West Stake.  Elder Choi, Yoonhwan, the Area President presided over the conference.  Between meetings Saturday he convened a dinner for the bishops and their wives, the stake presidency and invited us.  We are so blessed to serve with and among such wonderful individuals and leaders.

Another full week has passed!  The upcoming week promises to equally busy and exciting.  We're very excited to welcome next weekend our oldest son and his family to Korea!  Much more to come.  The missionaries are doing so wonderfully and they are such a blessing to us and all those with whom they interact.  You can be so proud of them!  Until we have more.

Spring is in the Air!

We are going more and more without winter coats, though we still need them occasionally.  You can see in some of the pictures things are changing. You can't go by the color of the grass as it is always yellow except in the prime of the year.

Last Sunday we held a "True to the Faith" fireside which is a fireside where recent converts speak to those who are learning about the church, the missionaries perform musical numbers and one missionary shares a personal testimony.  It is always a great thing followed by about an hour of socializing over cookies, strawberries, nuts, chocolate, etc. 

We could only fit so many in the picture.

Here are the three actual performances.  I have learned how to get the long ones into a smaller format.  They have so little time to practice given their schedules, but they do amazing things!  We try to include everyone in the pictures.  This is only one stake and some missionaries were unable to attend.  We try to do one of these each month in a different stake.

We had two more districts of interviews this week.  We could only have one district council as the Korean missionaries in one district was participating in a special English aptitude test to be considered for enrollment into BYU-Hawaii.  It was still great being with them.

We think the picture in the background is especially meaningful to these missionaries as they do so much service for others!  This group is in the Yeongdeunpo and Bucheon District.

This group is in Icheon and Bundang District.  No pictures, we weren't smart or alert enough, but as we arrived, we were in a freak snow storm with huge flakes and cold wind.  Gratefully it blew over in only a short period and we were able to walk outside to lunch together.  Spending time with them is always an amazing experience, especially over food!

The highlight of the week was definitely another day at the temple with our wonderful missionaries!  We truly enjoy spending time with them.  Have we said that before?
Sister Turner enjoys getting them to pose.  They really have fun with it.

 See if you can find anything unusual about this one below.  You may need to enlarge it to really appreciate it.

 They do love Sister Turner and her big heart and tasty treats!

 All with a common title and role...

 Pretty awesome group of young ladies!

 What's one more pose?

 Posing takes a lot of energy... Needed an energy lift.

 Of course, we don't mind being together either...We are together so much now, we are really uncomfortable when we are not together.  Ah, blessed companionship!

Well, that's all for today.  We have lots of pictures planned for this week as we have a Mission Tour with our visiting General Authority and counselor in the Area Presidency, Elder and Sister Yamashita will be coming.  We'll have pictures with everyone.  We are excited for Spring.  We're sure those of you in the US are probably most ready for spring after the brutal winter that never seems to end.  We hope you find someone in these you know and love!  We sure appreciate all of you and your support and prayers for us and our missionaries.  Until there's more...