District Conference and Elder Choi

After the district conference on Sunday the women prepared a nice meal for Elder Choi and the other leaders and a couple of wives, and me. We know that Elder Choi likes nice dishes to be used (the box dinner last night must have driven him crazy as you might recall that he asked for the nice mission home dishes be used when Elder Bednar came to Korea, transporting them to the stake center rather than use paper plates kind of a hassle) and as they were doing the final preparations he watched (unusual for the presiding authority to be the first person seated but we sat beforehand longer than the other leaders). Elder Choi seemed impressed and delighted as the different foods were placed on the table in front of him, which prompted personal stories from him from his youth while growing up in the Busan area.  The fish shaped dish held dried ginger pieces very strong in flavor, some sort of tree bark crunchy thingies, and a sweet potato stuff cube; I was told are all Korean snacks. I tried them all (after the men left for a feedback/follow up meeting) and was even given a box with the first two in small jars, as a gift.  The dark colored gel like snack I sampled, and do not know how to describe it, besides being strong in flavor. It is covered/dusted with some sort of powder.  I have had the rectangular squares (blah color with speckles in them) that is acorn (tasteless blah stuff)(but when I tried it the speckles were not there). Much of the foods I did not try. I noticed the buzzing about because of the extra chopsticks on the serving dishes (people still just used their own similar to double dipping). There was fancy/expensive food served like the kim/seaweed with sesame seeds or the oysters. The individually wrapped special rice in large lotus flower leaves had different varieties of beans and arrowroot slices throughout the package. I ate every bit of that rice so that at least they knew I ate something (they noticed and commented to Dad that he could eat the beans from that rice). I did eat the bulgogi/beef.  After the men left I watched as the children of these families came in to eat the leftovers. The older young men sat at the far end of the table with the younger other children close by their mothers. Interesting to watch!