December 16, 2014

We visited the Fish Market a few days ago. Niki and Ben each had fun holding the baby octopus.

We like eating at this restaurant near our home, making lettuce wrap type thingys. YUM! There is a restaurant above this restaurant that is called Casa Bonita, which sounds like a Mexican restaurant to me. We tried it one time. There isn’t a Mexican thing served there. It’s a coffee shop that serves bread/toast.

As we were walking home one day we came across this set of steep steps leading up to someone’s home, along a little side street. Niki and Ben jumped right in for a picture.

I had Niki get out of the car to take a picture of how tight a spot Dad was driving through. The picture doesn’t do it justice. Elder Bowcutt was sitting in the front seat encouraging Dad to keep going둨ut did tell him he had just a half inch on this side and that ³Now is the time to be real careful.²

Ben was invited and inducted into the National Honor Society! Yea!! I think he is the first of our children to do so (correct me if I’m wrong). Ben was the only young man of the four students. We hustled as fast as we could to get there but the office elders didn’t have the address correct so we kept searching until we found Ben’s school. Ben was worried, waiting outside in the cold for us to arrive. We ran up the stairs to the fifth floor as fast as we could go, then he changed his clothes in the restroom. But they hadn’t started the program without us. The missionaries had dropped us off so then afterward we took the bus home.

Dad, Niki, and Ben made fudge together for FHE this past week. I came right at the end to scrape the pan and taste the finished product! We plan to make three batches in order to have enough to put in small plastic bags, along with other treats, for the missionaries. Thankfully friends sent baking supplies.

We hosted a dinner Saturday evening for all of the stake presidents and district presidents and their wives along with our area seventy (his wife could not attend). Sister Lee made the meal; with fish soup as one of the dishes.

Sitting around the table at our dinner starting on the left side is the Busan stake president Lee and his wife (I do not know her name딮orean women keep their own last name when they marry). Next is Niki, Dad, Mom, then President Lee and his wife. Further down along the left side of the table is the wife and then President Kang땒olding hands (District President in the Ulsan Zone딬 don’t know the district name), then Sister Lee is standing but bent over for the picture. The right side of the table: President Gill (one of Dad’s counselors in the mission presidency) and his wife, Sister Kim and her husband President Cho (the other of Dad’s counselors in the mission presidency), then the district president on Jeju Island along with his wife. They spent the night at our house since it would be too late to catch a flight back to the island at night. Further down on the right side is another stake president and his wife딶resident Lee (I don’t know from which stake딠hangwon or Daegu). And then back to Sister Lee.  Sister Lee prepared raw fish, the yellow stuff is a pumpkin soup (which is somewhat sweet and has a few red beans that settle in the bottom of each bowl), the red stuff is kimchee, lettuce (dark purple with green tips) for wrapping the bean sprouts, spinach, bulgogi and other stuff in, jopjae is the dish with clear noodles that has small pieces of vegetables and egg and whatever else is in it. There was rice and the fish head soup and sauces at each place setting. Sister Lee did a fabulous job of cooking and organizing and orchestrating the meal!

The man standing on the left side of the table, in this picture, is Elder Jeong, the area seventy general authority. This is President Lee’s wife (from the Busan stake). We just laughed when we listened to her. She met Niki and acted so surprised as she turned to Dad and I and said that Niki looked so good땈etter than the both of us! She made it a point to sit by Niki for the meal after which she told us she ate well (like she ate a lot)/like a Korean! The lights in the background are on our “Christmas tree” which is really a plant/bush. I brought one strand of colored lights from home. Then we have another smaller bush with clear lights that we got from the military base, along with a clear set of lights set up over the kitchen sink. It took Niki and me about 10 minutes to set up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. If we were back at home it would have taken us a number of hours to set up our Christmas decorations.