COLD!!!

As soon as we arrived at church today in Pohang (about a two hour drive away) these two cute sisters came up to Niki and me and started talking with us. The first is Sister Hee Young Moon, who served her mission in Hawaii about two years ago. She translated for Ben and I during Sacrament Meeting, but went up to the stand to translate while Niki gave her talk. Then Sister Moon translated for us in Gospel Principles and then in Relief Society. She was very good and very sweet. The second picture is of me with Sister J. Kim, who served her mission on Temple Square about 10 years ago. As we were all talking they asked where we were from to which we responded, Texas. But when she asked further I told her I grew up in Michigan. She told me that her good friend from her mission grew upon Michigan, a Laura Otto. My best friend growing up is Janine Witt Perry, whose older sister is Merrilee Witt Otto. Laura is Janine’s niece. Small World! It was fun to hear just a bit about that mission since they have just sister missionaries serving there the AP’s and Zone Leaders and District Leaders are all sisters. Laura was an AP while Sister J. Kim was a Zone Leader (I think).

Sister Lee prepared a wonderful Korean dinner Monday night for the missionaries who were returning home. I didn't think to take a picture of the other food, but here she is cutting up the kimchee she made. She seemed to think people would want a healthy portion of kimchee. Sister Lee made a delicious lunch of Korean food on Wednesday for the new missionaries who just arrived in the country/mission the night before. They probably don't realize just how good of a cook she is right now, but will soon realize that after they have been cooking their own food for a while.

The temperature yesterday was about 18 degrees F in the evening, COLD! It feels cold because of the humidity in the air. We rode the subway to Nampo, an area of town with the fish market and lots of other shopping so there were tons of people out shopping and looking at the Christmas lights. I haven't seen other areas of town where people have lights out except a random place here or there. I miss going out driving looking at the Christmas lights.  Niki served as our other sister missionary during this jundoing (proselyting) activity until Sister Lee Yeji arrived late that night. We pair up a new missionary/trainee with a trainer for a 30 minute rotation and then switch, for a total of four times during the night. Niki was with Sister Kwon for the picture.  Ben was happy to visit with Elder Suter (second from the left) again, who he became good friends with when Elder Suter served in the mission office.  Elder Hong (third from the left) is an office elder now, and Elder Miller (on the right) is one of our new missionaries.  Dad and I had fun passing out "He is the Gift" cards. Our mission had small cards made for the missionaries to pass out that have an URL code on it for people to pull out their Smart phones and watch the Church video. Many people were out on the street in this busy shopping area taking pictures and selfies so Dad and I would ask someone to take a picture of us using my phone camera, and then give them one of our cards when they handed my phone back to me. It worked a few times (Koreans love to take pictures either for themselves or helping others) so I'm sending you the best pictures of us.  After the jundoing activity we all walked briskly to a restaurant to eat dinner. Along the way there were three young adults (one young woman and two young men) each holding a sign saying Free Hugs. I gave the girl a hug and went to give her one of our cards but she had already received one from one in our group; though she was excited to receive it. I looked and each of the young men had a card, too. Good for our missionaries! As we walked away one of our trainer sisters confessed to President that she was hugged by one of those young men. She didn't ask for it and it happened so quickly/unexpectedly, but she felt bad for it. Dad understood, HAHA!  The dinner at the restaurant was delicious. But I was so impressed with our assistants for finding this restaurant for different reasons. Most of our missionaries could sit down on the floor Korean style (which is fun and good for our missionaries to see and experience), but there were also a few tables with chairs nearby for the overflow, meaning I could sit more comfortably than on the floor, I thought that was so thoughtful of them! Also, the food that we ate was good. We sat down to kimchee and soy sauce on the table, also a small dish with a raw egg per each person. We were served a piece of cow (as they termed it) that looked like a big round piece of hamburger meat sizzling in a pan placed in front of us along with shears for cutting it up into bite size pieces. We could start eating that as they delivered cow soup to everyone in individual bowls that were SIZZLING HOT! (clay pots that are served on wooden platters thingys-small-that keep it all hot. So when the soup came we each cracked an egg into it and stirred it up. A side of rice came with it, to cut the heat. Right near the bottom of the bowl was the 'sweet spot" where it wasn't burning my mouth둨ut had enough heat to warm me down to my knees. I won't say down to my toes because they were still COLD (because I was sitting by the window). Niki was a little worried about some of the new missionaries because they weren't really eating much (they will discover how hungry they really are and what it's like to prepare their own meals).  We rode the subway back to the mission office/bomboo to have a short testimony meeting before sending the missionaries off to bed. Our office senior couple came back from the airport with Sister Lee Yeji, the other new missionary coming form the Philippines MTC. After we fed her and got her situated we had the assistants and office elders come over to our home to discuss what they observed during the jundoing activity. It is helpful to have all of their eyes/what they observed with the interactions between trainees and trainers during their different rotations of working together. Also, Dad looks at the missionaries applications, what their bishop and stake president wrote in their comments about the individual missionary. And our office senior secretary writes to the parents requesting they answer a few background questions to introduce their child/missionary. And, Dad has an interview with each of the new missionaries when they arrive (probably the next morning but maybe into that first afternoon). So there are lots of sources for input for Dad to sift through before deciding who should be with whom as a companionship. Lots of prayer and thought goes into the process.