Transfers!!!

Elder/Dr. Haansen and Sister Hansen at Transfer Meeting on Monday, April 20, 2015. They are Fabulous!!! We love the Hansen’s! Dr Hansen is our Area Medical Advisor, from Tokyo. They are traveling around to all the missions in the Asia North Area giving their presentation about good health, hygiene, and exercise. They are funny and captivating so that the missionaries were engaged in their discussion. I was in and out of the room during their presentation helping the office elders cut and carry and set up four pans of sheet cake (two chocolate/Texas and two almond/white) to share with our missionaries to help us celebrate our anniversary. Dr Hansen is wonderful about taking calls whenever I have a medical question from the missionaries that I need help with. Many times he calls the missionary directly to talk with them. He is good about emailing me exercises to share with a missionary. He is great about having a missionary take a picture of the problem (ankle, rash, eye, whatever) to send/text to me and then for me to send to him. Sister Hansen is a wonderful area medical advisor assistant. She is so wise, funny, personable, encouraging, positive, easy to talk to, close to the Spirit. She commented on how mature and full of light Ben is. She told us what a wonderful son he is. So true!! What a blessing and privilege to have them in our home for a visit! (Look at that missionary pulling a face in the background. He reminds me of Steven doing that!)

  

Monday, April 20, 2015 the night before the outgoing missionaries go home, in the mission home. Sister Hansen asked if Elder Mangakahia would perform the Haka for us. He was hesitant about performing it, I think he was thinking that it would take away from the spirit that was felt at our meeting just before. But we asked him enough to convince him to perform for us. I looked on the internet about the Haka and learned that it is a traditional ancestral war cry, dance, or challenge from New Zealand. Elder Mangakahia is from Australia but one of his parents is a Maori from New Zealand. He told us that the All Blacks rugby team performs this same Haka dance; but I guess there are other different versions of haka dances.  It is a loud chanting aggressive body movement with stomping of the feet as loudly as possible while slapping the hands against the thighs and chest with fierce facial expressions. I couldn’t quite catch the words because of his accent but I think he said "Ka mate", “Ora", “Code", “Huru", “Hi". Elder Mangakahia is one of our assistants. We will miss him!

  

On Saturday morning we got up early to go hike the mountain behind the mission home, and follow the wall and hike to the three different gates guarding Busan. One of our former sister missionaries came to visit and brought with her a sister missionary from the Korea Seoul Mission (same dongne??sp?) (were in the MTC together). We have never seen this totem pole before during our many hikes in the mountain. I thought it was so funny/comical so I wanted Dad to get in the  picture with it. It was up a ridge of dirt so I struggle to get up there to take the picture-Ben had to give me a push from behind!

This reminded me of the talk The Fourth Missionary.

Sister Ali Scott (was one of our sister missionaries who went home last September), Dad, Courtney (served in the Korea Seoul Mission-friends with Sister Scott), Ben. I laid down on the ground under this late blooming Cherry Blossom Tree in order to get as much of the blossoms as I could. Ben and Dad under the same tree- laughing as Dad denies talking all the time. It was a gorgeous day with wonderful weather. It was strange because the trails were almost deserted. We were wondering if there was some sort of holiday that we didn’t know about. But as we were hiking back down after being up at the top of the mountain we started seeing groups of young adult age/maybe students going up. But they were getting a late start. We hiked for just over five hours, and took a taxi home. We ate lunch at our favorite local meat wrap place right close to the mission home. The owners recognize us as regulars by knowing just what to bring for our order. But this time they even brought extra lettuce leaves without us having to ask. And they didn’t bring the dish of whole garlic or the salad with the white dressing, and extra of the green salad that I like. When I say green salad it is not like a green salad that we eat back home.

When we drove up to the branch church building we saw these beautiful flowers with our missionaries and a few members waiting to greet/welcome us. I think I surprised Sister Kim by including her in the picture. Then  it took a little tracking down/communication skills from our sister missionaries to share the photo with her as Sister Kim does not have an email address-but sent it to her phone. The older woman is Sister Kim and our missionaries are Elder Harkness and Elder Suttner. Ben and I each spoke along with Dad, and two missionaries during the branch conference. Then they had a combined meeting for Sunday School an also for Relief Society/Priesthood Meeting. Our missionaries were in charge of that meeting and it was very well done. Dad and I each spoke at the very end. I had a short (less than a page) talk prepared for that but had to shorten it even more. When something like that happens it’s hard to know what to say and what to cut out; but I just used a couple of scriptures. Whenever you use the scriptures you are always inviting the Spirit to testify of truth. It was a great feeling. After the meeting the branch prepared bibimpop for the members to eat. That is the dish most often prepared (most of the time the branch will have a meal afterward for all the members to eat/share together). Each ward or branch/area tastes different as they have their own unique flavors and ingredients. I guess it’s kind of that way with kimchee, too. Each family makes their own recipe which is similar but unique.