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Family Visits and memories of Christmas in Texas!

Sunday, August 9

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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