10 Jun - 16 Jun

We had a busy week this week.  Missionaries coming and going and a Korean wedding.

Sister Fisher talking to Elder Soffe.  She wasn't too excited to be going home!

Sister Darrington talking to Elder Seung.  Her parents came to pick her up.  She was excited!

Our new missionaries arrived about 9:15 pm Tuesday night.  They get them up bright and early on Wednesday to start training.

These are the new sisters meeting their trainers.

These are the new elders meeting their trainers.

And this is Elder Durrant training them all.

And this is all of them.  Ready to get proselyting.

In English class, we thought that we could read with them the fable of the "Lady and the Tiger".

We did finish the story, but a lot of them didn't understand it nor did they understand some of the huge words.  But most of them did tell us what door they thought the young lover opened.  I think the romantics won.  they didn't want to see the young man die.

On Saturday, we were invited to a wedding for one of the members of our ward.  It was beautifully done.  The couple will be moving to Canada and will go through the temple there.

The mothers of the bride and groom wore the traditional Korean dress.  They went up the aisle first and lit the candles on both sides of the podium.

And then they bowed to each other.  Signifying their approval of the union.

The groom walked up the aisle next.

Then the father of the bride walked her up the aisle and bowed to the groom.

The Stake President did the ceremony.

Everyone clapped at this moment.

It was a beautiful ceremony.  We didn't understand too much of it, but knowing the Stake President, I am sure he gave them some wonderful wisdom.

They had a buffet after the ceremony.  We chose our food carefully.  What we did get was very good. 

It looks like we will have a baptism next week.  We hope so.  Elder Soffe will be going home in July and I know he would like to get one more.  

So Happy Father's Day everyone.

We love you and miss you all.

3 Jun - 9 Jun

Getting ready for transfers this week.  All the welcome packets are done and everything is in order.
Elder Seung brought in some cookies that he bought.  He said they were very good and all sugar.
He opened his and ate the whole thing really fast.  So here is the one he gave me.

A couple of bunnies on it.  And before I could open it, it broke.  So it tasted like burnt sugar and that is exactly what it was.  I threw the rest of it away.

Also we had District meeting on Wednesday.  Our last one for this transfer.  Don't know who will be here new until Sunday.

These are Sisters Urbano and Evans.  And Sister Seol is in the background.  And the Elders are Scow, Guthrie, Soffe and Birrell.

We have a great time with these Elders and Sisters.  Hate to see any of them go.

On Saturday, we went to Nampo again to do some more souvenir shopping.  We went to the largest shopping center in Korea.  It was huge!

There were people all over the place.  Very nice and clean, also.

On Sunday, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting.  The Bishop asked me to speak for 5 minutes.  So I only had to prepare a 2 1/2 minute talk so that my interpreter had time to interpret.  I had Elder Seung come up with me and he did a good job.  He understands English more than he speaks it.  But all went well.

So Elder Scow will be leaving the office.  Elder Clark will be taking his place.  And we will be getting another Senior Couple.  They are both nurses, so we probably won't see too much of them.  

Well, gotta go and get things done.  

Love you and miss you all.

27 May - 2 June

It's almost time for transfers again.  Next week, we will be very busy.

On a sad note: we sent another missionary home 7 weeks early because of depression.  He was such a delight to be around.  Never would have guessed.  We all wished he could have made it through for the 24 months.  But the President has the last say and he said no.

He is struggling to say goodbye.  We all wish him well.

On Wednesday after English Class, one of our members said he wanted to take us out to dinner.  We tried to think of something to say so we wouldn't have to go, but we didn't want to hurt any feelings either.  So off we went and ended up in a Japanese restaurant.  He ordered for us so we just waited to see what came.  And actually, everything was very good.  Forgot to take a picture.  But I will describe as best I can.  There were 3 dishes - one was kind of sweet and sour pork (very tasty); another was noodles with this black sauce over it with small mushrooms and onions in it (it was very good also); the third dish was a very spicy fish soup (burned my mouth).  Needless to say, neither one of us ate the soup!

On Saturday, we took our normal walk and there were a lot of things going on.  It was very busy and very hot!

These women were dancing and singing in their traditional dress.

Really don't know what their were doing.  It was all in Korean.

I think this was a talent show.  These women and 3 men (in white in the back) were singing.  They were very good.

The girls out front were jump roping and the women on stage were kind of hula dancing.

They were good also.  We didn't stay around to see who won.  And there were several more acts than the ones we took pictures of.

Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting.  One of the families in our ward lost her mother this past week.  She gave a very humble and sweet testimony.

They then had the Stake President and some of his family get up and sign a song for that family.  It was a very touching meeting.

The Stake President has 2 daughters and 9 sons.  They are one awesome family!

So that's it for this week.

We love you and miss you all!

20 May - 26 May

The President was in Seoul this week for a Mission President's Seminar.  So really laid back in the office this week. 
So Korea is now making all foreigners that stay here longer than 6 months pay for their health insurance.  We don't know how the church is going to handle this, but it is going to be difficult for us to have to pay for the church insurance and Korea's insurance.  We are kind of hoping that the church will allow us to just pay the insurance here in Korea, but probably not.  So we will be paying close to $800.00 American dollars for insurance.  Which we will probably never use.  Very frustrating!!!

Anyway, we did have a good week.  English class went very well.  All of them thank us profusely after every class.  I'm glad we can communicate with some Koreans.  It's nice.

Elder Scow started to teach us Korean.  They write their characters for a word starting at the top and going in a circle to the right.  We are trying to learn the alphabet and the sounds so we can say the words.  It will be interesting.  We were able to say each syllable but be the time we got to the end of the word, we forgot what the first syllable was.  These old brains are what they used to be!

We went for our long walk on Saturday, but left at 7:00 am, because it was already 72 degrees.  It looks like it's going to be lots of fun.

We are too far up for me.  I get dizzy looking over the edge.  But those bags you see in the parking stall are filled with garbage, waiting for the truck.

On the way to the park on Saturday, we went through the subway station to cut off about 3 blocks and they were having an art show inside.  Very interesting.

Whale - made out of garbage

And a ship made out of an old engine and garbage.

Sunday, we had the elders over for dinner to celebrate Elder Soffe's birthday.  Made sloppy joes and a fruit salad.  Also made a chocolate cake and banana cream pie for dessert.

Singing happy birthday to Elder Soffe

Elder Scow wanted a big piece.  He ate it all!

They also left us with a message and ended by singing Nearer My God to Thee.  

Beautifully done!  Awesome missionaries.

We love you and miss you all!

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.