13 May - 19 May

Monday morning the Office Elders decided they were going to go to a city called Nampo and wanted to know if we wanted to go with them.  They said we could buy souvenirs there, so we went.
It was an awesome place.  On one of the streets they were selling all kinds of fish products.  They had baby squid, octopus, whale meat, eel and shrimp, etc.  Boy did it smell.  Elder Scow wanted to get some whale meat to cook at home, but it looked like it was just one big glob of fat!  So he didn't get any of it.  Anyway, we went under the street to a mall first.  It was huge.  It went on forever in all directions and it was very crowded.  Then we went back up to the street and walked around till we saw a shop I wanted to go in.  This area was also known for its movie and cinema accomplishments.

This was the beginning. Elders Scow and Soffe were leading the way.

This was their equivalent to Hollywood's Walk of Stars.  There were actors handprints in the sidewalk.  And you could but anything you needed here.

Including a huge ice cream cone.  It was very good.

Rows and rows of shops.

Here's our souvenir shop.  I spent 411,000 Wan.  They gave me a free tablecloth because we spent so much.

We ended up at a shop that sold hats.

Elders Seong, Scow, Soffe and Kim.  Looking good!

This is the tower of Busan.  We didn't have time to go up to the top, but we will one day.  

We have missionaries going home on June 11th.  I usually get their itineraries about 5 weeks before they go home.  I hadn't received anything so far so I decided to email our contact in the travel department in SLC.  She wrote me back and said she hadn't seen anything from me to alert her to order the tickets.  A little while ago the travel dept. was having problems with the access to ordering airline tickets and I guess these got caught in that time frame and they were somewhere in the cloud!!!!

So I had to request them again and did so on Thursday.  I felt really bad.  When I didn't get anything from the travel dept. I should have called them a couple of weeks ago.  Anyway, they all came to me on Saturday.  So all is good.

We had Zone Conference on Friday.  They talked about obedience and President Nelson's talk in Priesthood last conference.

Zone Leaders - Elders VanWart and Joung

Sister Training Leaders - Sisters Motto and Youn

They look so interested don't they?  

One of the Districts prepared a song.  It was good.

Elders Evaga, Lee, Choi. Sperry and Clark.

Sisters Motto and Youn

And of course, there was role-playing.

Elders Birrell and VanWart

On Saturday, it was raining alot.  It doesn't rain hard here, just a steady flow that doesn't ever stop.  We decided to go on our walk anyway.  The park was deserted.  

We were the only crazy people out!

Nope, we saw two other people.  

Saturday night, the elders had a movie night at the church.  They were about 20 people that came.  We watched Ephraim's Rescue with Korean subtitles.  There were about 5 investigators.  so it turned out well.

Well, that's all for this week

We love you and miss you all!

6 May - 12 May

Boy, last week was so boring - nothing to do, but just sit.  The office elders and assistants were all gone with the President to Zone Conferences.  So besides English class, we just sat in the office and watched conference or listened to music.  I hope we don't have too many of those kind of weeks!!!

Well, Happy Mother's Day everyone!  We hope you have a great day!

This week in Korea is "Lantern Festival".  A lot of the places hung lanterns outside their businesses and churches.  This is at the top of the hill Wayne and I walk at lunch.

It was also Children's Day on Monday.  All the children had no school.  Then on Wednesday it was Parents day.  The Elders were so sweet.  They got Wayne a new tie and they bought me some little ducks - two of them.  It is a tradition here that the married couples put the ducks on a shelf for all to see.  They place them facing each other, but if one spouse is upset with the other, then one of the ducks is placed facing away from the other.  So I guess everyone will know if there is harmony in the home for that day.  They also bought a little vase with flowers and a small bottle of  incense.  Our office smells very nice.

On our walk Saturday, we saw a crane in the river.  Had to take a picture of it.

By the way, we walked 14 miles on Saturday.  I wish I was losing weight, but I guess it would help if I stopped eating, too.

Well, that's about all.

We love you and miss you all.

Apr 29 - May 5

Happy Cinco de Mayo.  It's a holiday here also, but it's called Children's Day.  They celebrate with their children and take them to places to have fun.

I wanted to show you where Wayne and I go to exercise at about 7:00 every night.  It's in the children's park in our apartment complex.

This is the play area.

Exercise equipment for the arms.

This machine up front is for your waist.  You stand on the little discs and swivel your hips.

The next machine is a walking machine.  And they also have a stretch your back machine.

And then we walk around on the outside for about 10 laps.

Not a lot, but I hope it is doing something.

Also, it was meet our new missionaries day on Wednesday.  We had 2 American sisters and 5 Koreans.  

We were ready for them to come find their places.

They made it.

I went first.  They have to fill out three pieces of paper for me and give them back to me.

They get a full morning of training from the assistants, Sister Kim and President Jeong.

President Jeong is teaching.  The "Trainers" are sitting behind their trainees.

They then go out with their trainers for their first real experience of proselyting.  

They are all headed back to the church to eat lunch.

After lunch, they have a short testimony meeting and then....

They are sent on their way to their assigned areas.  

After transfers, it gets kind of dead in the office.  So I listen to a lot of the Tabernacle Choir and conference talks.  It's all good though.

Friday morning, Wayne and I woke up to some dripping water.  It wasn't bad, so we decided to go for our walk.  When we got back it was really bad.  We had to call the Assistants to have them call the FM manager.  It was all flowing into the kitchen sink so nothing got destroyed.  If the pipe had actually burst, we would have had a mess.   But it didn't get fixed until about 2:00 in the afternoon.  

Saturday, we came to the office for District meeting.  We left early, because we had to shop and do laundry and everything else.  It's getting to be warmer each and every day.  We did not even wear coats this whole weekend.  Everyone keeps telling us that it is going to get a lots worse.

So that is it.  

We love you and miss you all.  

Apr 22 - Apr 28

It's actually Monday here and it has been a crazy day.  Wayne had to go get his Foreigner card, so we traveled by subway to the Busan Immigration office and sat and waited for our turn.

Just waiting

Our number is 47.  Almost there.  They just called 41.

It was raining too.  Just hanging out.

We waited for 40 minutes and it took about 5 minutes to get the application for the card completed.  Now we have to wait for two weeks to get the actual card.

This week was slow.  President called me on Thursday to tell me that another missionary was going home early.  Some of them really surprise you!  But I had to get everything ready for him.  They tried to get him on the same flight as the other missionaries that are leaving on Tuesday, but couldn't get him on.  He will be going home Tuesday but later on in the day and by himself.

Two missionaries called us on Sunday night to tell us that they needed to go to the hospital.  One probably broke his finger and the other has chronic lower back and hip problems.  Probably from walking so much.  Anyway, I have to get a Letter of Authorization from Aetna so that the hospital won't charge them any money.  

That's all.  We are just waiting for the departing missionaries to come to the office and say goodbye.

Love you all.

Apr 15 - Apr 21

You can tell that everyone is getting excited for transfers and going home.  We have 6 missionaries going home and 7 coming in.
Our Korean Assistant Elder Kim left for military sign-in for three days.  All Korean males have to serve in the military.  They have to sign up be the time they are 22.  Elder Kim is 25 and his three days of military sign-in is required each year after they have done their active duty.  So Elder Soffe is off with the President driving him around so that he can do interviews.

During District meeting they had Elder Guthrie go out and get blind folded.  He was told to not listen to any ones voice but his companion, who would lead him to the prize.  When he left the room, we were told to say nothing at all, not even his companion.  He came back into the room and just waited to hear someone talk.  Of course no one did.  Then Elder Soffe whispered to him to listen to the spirit.
It probably didn't work out exactly how they wanted, but they were able to make the point of sometimes we listen and sometimes we don't.  We don't get anywhere when we don't listen.  And even after listening, sometimes we make the wrong turn.

He totally missed the table.

Ran right into his companion.

Rice Herb Cake

This was like eating a really thick glue.

Got my hair cut on Saturday morning.  The lady is so nice and she seems to understand my hand signals.  At least my hair looks nice when she gets done.  There were two other ladies in the shop and when I got done, they both said something to me in Korean and then put their thumbs up.👍 I guess they like what she did also.

So, they don't do anything here for Easter.  No eggs, no candy, no nothing.  Even in church, the talks were not about our Savior or the Resurrection.  Kind of sad.  It was the Sunday for a meal after church.  So we decided to stay.  They had rice and a curry ham stew.  It was very spicy and did not sit well in my stomach.  I had to eat some Tums all afternoon.  We watched the beginning of the Ten Commandments in the afternoon.  Also, I decided to make a small cake to take to the missionaries in the office when we went over for our Staff meeting.  But it decided to overflow the pan and we had so much smoke in the apartment, we had to get out the fan and open all the windows.  I'm sure the people that live next to us was wondering what was happening.  Anyway, we did get it all cleared out.  I guess the pans here aren't the same size I'm used to.  Live and learn.

So Happy Easter everyone.

We love you and miss you all. 

Apr 8 - Apr 14

It's been a quiet week.  Everyone had to recuperate from walking up the mountain.
President Jeong started interviews for this transfer and instead of them coming to the office, he and Sister Kim are going to their apartments to inspect and make sure that everything is okay.  Before they left on Tuesday, they brought us some rice cake? that Sister Kim had made for the missionaries.

Here is what it looked like:

Yep, it's green and the black spots are beans.  We did try it.  But there was just no taste to it at all. That's got to be why Koreans are skinny, because they eat no sugar.

On Friday, the Assistants and President left for Jeju Island for their Zone Conference.  There are only 4 elders and 2 sisters on the island.  We hear it is very beautiful over there.  Hopefully, the President will take us one of these times.  

Before them leaving, a missionary and his companion came to the office.  President pulled one of them into his office and they spoke for quite some time.  When the President left for the airport, the missionary was still in the office on the phone with his parents.  We assumed that he was struggling and wanted to go home.  This was a Korean Elder.  Anyway, he talked for almost three hours.  After all was said and done, he decided to stay at least until the end of this transfer.  So he is staying with the Office Elders here at the complex.  And his companion was moved to another apartment.  Hopefully, he stays.  He is a wonderful young man.

Wednesday at English class, I asked the question - what is your favorite movie and why?

One of them said Ben Hur - he liked the chariot race.  Most of them talked about Korean movies.  One of the ladies - Anna - told us of a movie about a young girl who wanted to learn how to play the piano.  Her mother couldn't afford one, but their next door neighbor had one and he said that she could come and play his piano.  So over a time, the neighbor asked her to start taking her clothes off.  I turned to Wayne and we both started wondering where this was heading.  So she stopped after she gave that little bit of information and then said that it was a beautiful movie because of the emotions this young girl discovered about herself.  Needless to say, we didn't really comment on the movie and moved on to the next person quickly.

On Saturday, we did our normal things at the apartment, went shopping and then went for a walk along the river.  We have noticed before that there are groups of people scattered along the walkway and you can tell that some of them are watching people play a game.  We thought is was checkers or chess.  But on Saturday, we got a little bit closer and took a picture.  We don't know what they call the game but it was interesting to watch.

Those are black and white stones on the board and it looks like they have to stop the progress of their opponent.  We will have to find out what the game is.

At church on Sunday, we listened to Conference.  The ward stayed down in the chapel listening to the Korean version and we came upstairs to listen to English.  Then of course, they had a luncheon and started again at 1:00 pm for the last session of conference.  

It is fun to be here and see these people sit on the edge of their chairs, literally, listening to every word that is spoken.  

Well, that's it for the week.

We love you and miss you all.

Apr 1 - Apr 7

Wayne did go to Tokyo.  He left Monday afternoon.  Here he is at the Office Building/Tokyo Temple site.  The temple is under reconstruction, so he couldn't go to a session.  But he said it was beautiful.

He returned on Thursday with a new Visa in hand.

Looking out over Tokyo from his hotel room.

Looking down from his room over the garden area.

Train station.  It goes on forever.

Zone conferences started this week.  Tuesday - Busan; Wednesday - Ulsan; Thursday - Daegu and Friday - Changwon

They took everyone on a little hike up to the top of the mountain in Geumgang Park, the park that Wayne and I went to earlier.  The President supplied lunch for them and this is what they got.  

Seaweed stuffed with things.  I tried to eat it.

Anyway they all had fun and along the way they stopped and had discussions about missionary work and how they can improve and become more Christ-like.  Wayne and I went with them on Friday.  And decided to hike up instead of taking the tram.  WOW!!!, what an adventure.  We have a pedometer on our phone and this is what it said at the end of the day. -  18,743 steps, 113 flights of stairs and 7.2 miles.  Needless to say, we were the ones that brought up the rear and I know the President was quite concerned.  But we made it to the top and this is what we saw.

Getting ready to go.

Starting the trek.

1st stop along the way.

2nd stop.  We got to eat a little.

Half way up.

Not only was it steep, but the steps were at least 2 ft. tall.

Here we all are at the top.  It was beautiful!

Thank goodness, we got to take the tram down!

Saturday, we just kind of died, but did go walking for a little ways.  Because they don't get conference on the same days that it occurs in SLC, we had Fast and Testimony meeting.  

Also, I have to tell you about the garbage system here. Talk about recycling!  We have 7 cans in our storage room.  This is how we have to divide our garbage up:

1. Soft plastic

2.  Paper goods

3. Cardboard - milk cartons, etc

4.  Hard Plastic - water bottles, etc

5.  Glass

6.  Cans

7. Wet garbage - no garbage disposals here

Then when our containers are full, we have to take them downstairs and put in the containers the apartment complex has for each of the items.  The wet garbage goes into a closed bin that you have to open with a electronic card.

It certainly is fun!

We love you and miss you all.