August 2015 Part 3

On Friday, August 14 we held a specialized training meeting for all the sister missionaries in our mission, which is 46 in number.

The beginning of the meeting started with Sister Bowcutt, our office secretary demonstrating how to make dinner rolls.  She uses the same recipe to make cinnamon rolls, which she made the day before in order to give to the sisters as the came into the room for our training meeting.  YUM!!  Some sisters have to travel a couple of hours in order to come to the mission office, so they had to plan accordingly in order to receive permission to either leave their apartment early that day or travel the night before and sleep over at another sister missionary apartment that is closer.  Either way we knew the sisters would be hungry by the time the meeting started so they had something yummy to eats at the beginning.  We did this because we knew lunch would be a little later that day.

We saw some video clips, I spoke, we had a panel discussion made up of the sister training leaders along with Dad and me, and Dad spoke.  A couple of testimonies were shared by two of the sisters that would be going home form their missions o the Transfer Day (August 24).  Great meeting!  The Spirit was felt!  Lots of fun!!

We took a picture of all the sister missionaries in our mission, that will flow along with another picture of Sister Lee cooking.  Lunch was FUN!!!  Sister Lee taught the sister missionaries a number of simple Korean recipes, which will come whenever I receive them from our office elders.

Sister Lee and her niece, Sister Ha, chopped and prepared much of the food for six (I think) recipes to be prepared by the sister missionaries. There was still some chopping and preparing to be done by the sister missionaries but they made these recipes as easy as possible so that the sisters could prepare a simple, delicious meal in 30 minutes. We divided the sisters up into groups of 6-8 missionaries with the stipulation that a companionship had to be split up, in order to help with/learn two different recipes. The room was set up with long tables as work stations with Sister Lee going around to all of the stations in order to answer the sisters questions, but they had both a Korean and an English copy of the recipe to work from. The finished products were gathered at the front of the room for all to sample and eat for our lunch. PLUS, Sister Lee and Sister Ha prepared more dishes of food, along with Sister Bowcutt’s homemade dinner rolls. We had a FEAST for lunch! It all tasted so good!!!  Our assistants and office elders were BUSY all throughout the meeting with media support, recipes, setting up the rooms, cleaning up/take down, running all around for Sister Lee that day AND taking her grocery shopping for days beforehand. Those elders worked hard! But they were loving it! They did comment about feeling so much enthusiasm, excitement, energy, and love from the sisters. They were impressed with our sister missionaries because we’ve got the best sisters in the best mission ever!!!

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Dad, Ben, and I flew to Jeju Island to attend the Jeju Zone conference while hiking up Halla Mountain. Along the trail going down we passed by some Korean military men hiking up the mountain while carrying their heavy backpacks. One of the soldiers said; “Hello Sisters”, and said he was LDS stationed at one of the military bases here in Korea. Another of the soldiers did not like/want Dad to take pictures of them while they were on duty. As we were hiking I was holding my phone because I was talking with Katie and Steven/Facetime.  You can see the trail has varied sizes of rugged lava rocks that are difficult to hike on unless you keep your eyes on the rocks.  I was so tired after we finished the hike. Dad and I came down the trail first; 18 minutes later Ben came down with the AP’s; about 8 minutes later the rest of the zone/missionaries finished. My legs were sore for a few days afterward; not Ben or Dad. I remember toward the end having my legs feel close to wobbly/like rubber. My arms swinging felt like they were carrying me along (kind of like the feeling when I ran in high school and my coach would tell me to swing my arms because they would carry me through).  After our hike we all went to a restaurant/meat/lettuce wrap type place that had a private room where we enjoyed a nice lunch and then had more instruction to finish up our zone conference. Great hike, great meeting, great day! Hustled back to the airport for our flight home. Quick trip with Ben back home after spending a couple of months in America, before school started again.

We have a new senior missionary couple serving in our mission. Elder and Sister Dustin arrived last week and stayed with us for a few days Tuesday through Friday morning. They are replacing the Kelly’s. So the assistants drove the Dustin’s up to Suseong Friday morning, to stay with the Kelly’s overnight to learn all they needed to learn before the Kelly’s left them there Saturday and stayed at our home. The problem was that we had already left to attend the Ulsan District Conference for the weekend so the Kelly’s were on their own in our home, with the Bowcutt’s (office couple) helping to entertain them.  The Dustin’s are the parents of 13 children. The youngest is a boy who graduated from high school this past June and left on a mission to Baltimore, Maryland. The Dustin’s entered the MTC three days after their son, so they were able to see him, eat meals with him sometimes, before leaving on their mission to Korea. How cool is that!?!  They are wonderful people! It is a privilege to have them here in our mission.

President Bae, on the left, is Dad’s second counselor I the mission presidency. He was a former area Seventy. He is a doctor and gives lots of support to our missionaries. I thought it was fun to watch him step up onto the next step up, trying to get taller than President Kang who was standing next to him.   President Kang is the district president. He and his family are the ones who visited America and stayed with Aunt Tricia and her family in San Diego. He just arrived back in Korea a day or so before this conference; uncertainty and stress were building as the conference planning was not complete.  Elder Koo Seung Hoon (Korean way of saying his name)/(or Elder Seung Hoon Koo American way of saying his name) was called to be an area Seventy in the April 2015 general conference. This was his first assignment to preside over. Dad said he is one year younger than him; joined the church in Seoul during the same time Dad was serving his mission in Seoul but Dad did not know him but knew of the missionaries who baptized him.  Dad  President Gill, first counselor in the mission presidency; works as the FM manager in this are with his office at the Oncheon ward church building, across the parking lot form the mission home.