20 Jan - 26 Jan

On Monday, the Assistants were going to go to the largest Mall in Korea.  They asked us to go with them and so we did.  It was a beautiful place.  And huge!  We entered in the basement and there were 9 other floors.  Tried to get a picture so you could see.  In the Lotte grocery store they had there, we found some Tomato Soup.  I bought two cans and had a toasted cheese sandwich and soup that night.  It tasted wonderful!  The building below holds the Guinness Book of Records for the longest Cantilever Roof.  It is a sports arena right next to the mall. It was pretty neat to see.

Outside of the mall

Outside of the mall

This is looking up from the 2nd floor.  There were 5 floors above us and 3 below.

Entrance to one part of the mall.

This is by the grocery store

First time for Wayne and me - we took a taxi from the mall back to the office instead of the subway.  The taxi smelled inside, but it was faster than the subway.

Tuesday, the Daegu and Changwon Zones came for their Zone Conference.  President took them hiking up to the place where we watched the sunrise on the 1st of January.  There were over 500 steps they had to climb to get to the top.  Everyone had fun.

Everyone just waiting to go.  Sisters!

Elders!

Everyone is always on their phones.  But they are probably studying the scriptures!

Elder Seung and Elder Lowe

Elder Skousen (in shorts???) and his companion Elder Moody

On Wednesday, they did the same thing with the Busan and Ulsan Zones.  It started to sprinkle about 1:00 pm so they had to cut their hike short.  But everyone still enjoyed.  I was the only one in the office that day.  Wayne wasn't feeling well.  He had a terrible cough and with this Coronavirus going around, it kind of scared me.  So I made him stay home and stay in bed.

Gathering outside to start walking.

Leaving from our office and walking up the road.  

Through the trees

On the road

Finally, up the stairs.

Good thing they are young.

Everyone made it to the top!

And this was the view

So Wayne came to the office on Thursday.  He had a whole bunch of missionary refunds to put into the system and had to go to the bank.  Still coughing bad!

On Saturday, we were invited to the Stake President's home for lunch.  It is probably the biggest holiday in the Asian countries.  It's their New Year celebration.  So here's our plates of food.

Lettuce,rice, apple and orange slices, spicy chicken bits and spicy beef bits.

Wayne had the same, except he tried some fish.

They always let President Jeong go first and then us.  Everyone else follows behind.

Elder Oh and Scow enjoying their meal.

Wayne was still kind of sick on Sunday, so we didn't go to church.  It made it a very long day.

We love you and miss you all.

13 Jan - 19 Jan

We downloaded the Tree of Life app from the church.  It was really cool to walk around the area of Lehi's vision.

So the elders got creative.  In the first photo, Elder Oh is partaking of the fruit.

And in this photo, Elders Gatherum and Jung are part of the spacious building, luring us in. 

We had District Meeting on Wednesday.  They all sang happy birthday to Elder Durrant in their native language.  So we heard Korean, English and Tagalog.  It was awesome.  We had drinks and treats.

Elder Oh enjoying his drink

Elders Scow (standing), Kua, Isorena (drinking),  Wayne in the back and Sister Ababon.

Elder Gatherum and Sister Ibera

It's been kind of fun teaching the Stake President's daughter and the Mission President's daughter English.  They both know how to speak sorta good but they have problems with understanding meanings.  So I guess they don't teach that very much in the schools.

We found out on Sunday that one of the young women in our ward is leaving for a mission in April.  She will be going to Toronto Canada.  Which is very rare.  Usually all Koreans stay in this country.  

But she is very excited, as we are for her.

So that's about all that happened this week.  Zone Conferences start next week.

Can't wait.

We love you and miss you all.

6 Jan - 12 Jan

So this was a first for our mission, that we know of.  The missionaries coming in on Tuesday from the MTC left Narita Airport (Tokyo) on time.  Last leg of their trip.  When they were about 30 mins. out, the pilot was told to turn around and go back.  It was too foggy and windy for them to land in Busan.  They arrived the next day about 11:30 am.  Anyway, they all arrived safe and sound.

Elders Gandolph, Gill, Warren, Kua and Carpenter.  And Sisters Ababon and Choi.

Sister Kim has them learn a cute little song about opening your mouth.  She wants them to sing it every morning before they go out.  With actions!

It's exciting when they meet their trainers, also.

On Thursday and Friday, I cooked for the District Leaders and Zone Leaders/STLs.  About 50 people all together.  We decided to have barbecue beef sandwiches, potato salad, fruit salad, chips and cookies for dessert.  It felt like I had been cooking for 2 weeks.  Anyway, everyone enjoyed.

Saturday, Wayne and I just kind of died!!!  It was about 50 degrees outside though, so really nice.

We can't believe it's 2020 already.  Hopefully, we will be hearing soon who our new president will be.  President Jeong goes home at the end of June.

We listened to most of the Podcasts the church has put out about the First Vision.  What an awesome tale.  It really makes us appreciate what we have within the gospel and what we need to do to learn all that we can about our beloved prophet, Joseph Smith.

Love you and miss you all.

30 Dec - 5 Jan 2020

On P-day Monday - the Office Elders and Assistants finally left to do something fun.  They met two other missionaries and went to play soccer.  So we were alone in the office.  The President still wasn't feeling well, so he stayed at home.

Sister Kim - president's wife asked me on Monday if I would help teach her daughter and the Stake President's daughter English.  So I am meeting with them this week to teach.  I think they get English classes in school, but I don't know how much they know.  More to come on that.

We were told not to come to the office on Wednesday, because of the holiday.  But the President did ask us if we wanted to go up in the mountains and watch the sun rise that day.  You can not believe how crowded it was.  I guess every Korean wanted to see the sun rise on a brand new year and the first day of 2020.  Actually, it was very beautiful.  Hopefully some of these pictures will show what we saw.

Just beginning

First glimpse of the sun

Little bit more

More

This is full up from behind the mountain.   It's bright.

So it was about 15 degrees up on the mountain.  Very cold!

We spent the rest of the day in our apartment with some hot chocolate and a good book.

I decided to cook lunch again for the District and Zone Leaders meetings next week.  So after the English lesson, we went to Costco to buy the food.  Spent about $580.00 for 60 people.

Now next week will be all cooking.  So far I have made about 6 different cookies for their dessert also.  Anyway, something to keep me busy.

That's it for this week.

We love you and miss you all.