January 2016 Part 2

Last Saturday we attended the wedding reception for Elder Min, our AP when we first arrived in our mission. He married a girl named Sister Kang Hanna. Sister Kang’s family used to live in the Daejeon Mission and Sister Kang served her mission in that same mission (it happens sometimes like that in Korea). Sister Kang’s family moved to Gyeongju within the past year. But while Sister Morton was serving in the Daejeon Mission she knew the Kang family. Now Sister Morton is serving in Suseong where the Kang family lives. So you will see Sister Morton on the left side of the group picture.  That was our first Korean wedding/reception to attend. This was a big one with at least 300 people there. The bride and groom walked down an aisle to a place where an older gentleman (Elder Min’s uncle/could be a stake president or some other older relative or respected male figure stands and gives advice) was standing ready to speak to them for about 25-30 minutes!! Both sets of parents are seated on either side of the stage.  Next there was a big screen /multi screen showing of a song that the couple had recorded in a sound studio, of them singing a song (it was in Korean so I don’t know the song/love song???). Next they had recorded the two of them honoring/thanking/their parents through pictures of them at a young age on up in years to family pictures it is somewhat like our videos made of the bride and groom over the years but it was different.  Then the bride and groom walked over to the bride’s parents and bowed down before them. The further down you go getting as close to the floor as possible, the more respect you are showing to /witnessing to the parents. Elder Min bowed down on his hands and knees. Sister Kang bowed her head (I doubt she could have bowed down at all in her wedding dress)(Oh! In Korea the bride keeps her maiden name.). Then the couple walked across the stage to the parents of the groom where Elder Min bowed down to them.  After that they had many pictures to be taken, while all the guests could watch or go eat at a large buffet/banquet room. We waited a while to eat as we were talking with some of our returned missionaries so good to see them!!! We saw Sister Gim Gyuri (she died her hair reddish) and Sister Byun (who came and smiled and held my hands as she rocked them back and forth). Elder Jeong No Yeong, who went home February 2015 (I’ll send another picture next of him and Elder Min Sang Jun going home while I was attending my dad’s funeral in Utah). Elder Jeong got married last Spring and he told us that his wife is now pregnant with twins, less than a year later!! We saw Elder Lee Joon Seok, with his new braces; Elder Moon seems more quiet; Elder Choi. We miss them all.  We had a number of our current missionaries attend the wedding reception. We were grateful for the one elder who called and asked permission to attend, though he stayed way longer than he was given permission to stay. Dad, Ben, and I stayed over an hour and a half (arriving after the missionaries arrived and leaving before they left way longer than any meal appointment should be!).

We traveled to Gyeongju after attending Elder Min’s wedding reception. One of our missionaries in Gyeongju, is about to finish his mission this transfer, Elder Park Kangsan. Elder Park arranged for us to attend this musical fireside, along with Dad speaking about families, the theme of the fireside, so the musical numbers were about families. My phone has been acting up so I cannot send video recordings like I used to--DRAT!  This first picture is of Dad with the branch mission leader, and his wife and youngest of three children. This family moved to Gyeongju about four years ago, from Seoul, where he served as a bishop in a ward where Elder Billy Barnes served as a missionary. The wife recognized Billy on Facebook.  The second picture is being taken by the branch mission leader, who is the son of the branch president, President Lee, and his wife, Sister Jeong. You can see the mission leader’s wife crouched down in front with their youngest child, in pink, and their older twins, the girl in red and the boy in the green striped shirt. That boy just cracked me up!! That boy had so much energy wanting/waiting to BUST out of him‹--he was so excited and proud of himself that he watched his dad closely and jumped up right when his dad was taking the picture!  The third picture: I think is funny to see many times Koreans make a peace sign when taking pictures/they love to make hand signs for pictures.  These pictures were taken right after the musical fireside and the snack provided for us to eat. It is cuelle season so there were many cuelles/cuties oranges to eat. They had these puffed rice slightly sweetened things that looked like corn nuts but tasted like puffed rice/eaten like grabbing a handful of popcorn.

What a week this has been!  We had a wonderful missionary, Elder Kim Dohyun who was a visa waiter, going to the MTC preparing to enter the California Anaheim Mission. Elder Kim is sweet, respectful, happy, learns very quickly, and is even pretty good at English. We will miss him! I prepared a spaghetti dinner for him and all the office missionaries to wish him well/along with our weekly staff meeting.  The weather had turned very colds we were getting a number of calls from missionaries with frozen water pipes. Elder Suk Dohyeon, one of our assistants to the president, showed us his cold water shower taking technique. He’s so fun!!  Yesterday our garbage disposal backed up water from the right side of the sink into the left side of the sink, and then I felt water on my feet as it started coming out below. Sister Lee was there and helped with mopping up the water; and then she and Dad got the outside water hose to push water pressure through the pipe to unstop the clog. An ordeal that just flows off Dad’s back. The water got underneath the flooring causing a short in the fuse/floor heaters, which tripped the fuse that connected to the internet/modem/?? Anyway, Dad was able to track it down and fix the problem of why my computer would not connect to the internet.  The week ended on a sad note as Dad and I had to take a missionary to the airport to go home early. He is a sharp young man who needed to clear some things up before he started his mission. We look forward to when he comes back on his mission.