We stopped by this Buddhist
temple to take a family picture. Not many people pass by on the trail so we
were lucky to find this woman to take our picture. Behind us people have
donated money to have their names placed on the small Buddha statues to have
prayed over
On Monday, the 21st of December,
our house was all busy with preparations for the Mission Christmas Conference. Sister
Lee had the assistants and the office elders peeling potatoes for her to make
cheesy potatoes for the meal. She was prepping other food items like the dried
octopus stuff along with green salad fixings. I would empty large plastic
containers of cut out cookies as fast as I could in order to wash for Sister
Lee to use. Elder and Sister Bowcutt were wrapping fudge and helping fill the
gift bags for the missionaries with the cookies and fudge and the written
message from Dad. Niki and Ben were helping the Bowcutt’s with all of that.
Steven was practicing his harmonica playing in a rehearsal with Mary (from
English class) on the piano. Mary studied music in college so she has a
professional view on how she thinks a performance should go. It was interesting
to discuss with her about audience etiquette; bowing before and after the
number by her and Steven, and no clapping by the audience. I don’t think she
really believed me on that until she heard nobody clapping after she played the
piano at the conference. I think there was a level of stress felt by all until
late Monday night when the luggage was delivered by the airport employees; now
Steven had his church clothes to wear to the conference?yea! Tuesday morning was a juggle of showers and
breakfast around Mom making a huge pot of gravy and Sister Lee working in the
kitchen making cheesy potatoes and cooking and then warming chicken breasts,
rice, and other foods. The flow of the Christmas Conference was halting with a
few technical difficulties like with the video of the Piano Guys (amazing that nobody
sitting on the stand even bothered to look that way good thing Steven motioned
to us!). Everyone LOVED hearing Kelly say AMEN after the opening prayer. Some
of the talents shared by the missionaries was more memorable than others: The
Haka, break dancing to Silent Night, the six elders dancing and rolling over
each other to name a few. Doing 15 seconds of planks with everyone was fun.
Watching short clips from Remember the Titans with lesson synapse was great.
Eating a great meal (minus the salad dressing) by Sister Lee was better than
last year’s Subway sandwiches. Shaking all the hands of the missionaries
reminded me of standing in a receiving line. Watching Ephraim’s Rescue was
good. The weather was a little warm for hot cocoa and cider so more water was
drunk but the cookies seemed to be a hit. We went a little over time (still need
to learn about time management) but overall it was a success. Thank you for all
your help!! After it was all over I had
a quick haircut by one of our sister missionaries seemed to shock some of the
missionaries to think that I would do that right there in front of everyone.
Who cares! That was my first trimming since leaving Texas back in June.
On Alex’s birthday we took the
subway to Nampo to visit the Busan Tower, which is about 130 yards high (think
the length of a football field) with high-speed elevators that took us up high
into the air to get a great view of the city’s port with ships in one
direction, the mountains in another, panoramic all around. Dad gave each of us
5,000 Wan (equivalent to $5 in dollars) to buy the craziest pair of socks for a
family member in our gift exchange, from the street vendors, without the person
knowing. Along the way we bought and ate a few heoduk (pastries). It was dark
outside and we were cold and tired by the time we got home to find a wonderful
Korean meal Sister Lee had prepared for us, in honor of Alex for his birthday. Right
before we sat down to eat Sister realized a big mistake she made when she
mistakenly turn the over on to Broil High with two platters full of food in the
oven, instead of setting the temperature to warm. The platters broke from the
heat leaking oil/grease all over the bottom of the oven ‹that smoked when the
food was burned to charcoal black. Smoke was pouring out from the oven and
Sister Lee felt horrible but we were fine with it. She prepared so much food
that we still had tons left over for a couple more meals. We invited the
assistants and office elders over to help us eat Alex’s birthday cake (bright
green frosting over a rainbow/tye dyed cake. They sang in Korean with us clapping
along. After eating cake we sat around in the living room to listen to Dad read
The Cajun Night Before Christmas and then from Luke in the Bible (our regular
Christmas Eve tradition). No Fuddruckers this year, a little quiet and lonely
without all the friends and family to celebrate Alex’s birthday. The big change
was that we didn’t go to the Mecham¹s for dinner and a musical program. We’ve
gone to their house for so many years that it was sad not spending that
reverent time with them. Kelly was put
down for the night and some of us had some last minute wrapping to do. But what
I enjoyed was the time we spent together opening and unwrapping a Christmas box
Marianne Mohr organized and sent to me way back in September. She contacted a
long list of friends from back home who all sent us Christmas ornaments along
with their love. We didn’t have a tree this year but set up around a potted
plant/bush one string of colored lights, so decorating the bush with the new
ornaments was not an option. But it was fun to pass around the small gift
packages for each of us to take turns unwrapping and reading the messages they
sent along. I’ll include a list of the friends (since this acts as my journal):
Hannah Rath, Kathy Littlewood, Linda Hackbart, Diane Moline, Lisa Butler, Nancy
Weaver, Kim Moss, Sherry Grogan, Kahna Cutler, Wendy Markwalter, Angie Haugen,
Nancy Alemany, Jenni Kennington, Sheriee Staub, Janice Hansen, Tami Mader,
Christy Glover, Marianne Mohr, Kim Leavitt, Susan Palfreyman, Leslie Wasden,
April Mecham, Joyce Owens, Annette Hruska, Larraine Nelson, Ruth Jeffery, Janet
Harris, Elyse Harris, Mary Ann Goehring, Denise Martinez, Veniece Griffin, and
Joyce Messick. Good friends!!
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