We kept our Thanksgiving
tradition alive this year by running a 5K early in the morning, so that Ben
could get back and ready for school on time (no holiday here in Korea). We used
our Brent Event shirts like our Turkey Trot shirts.  How was your Thanksgiving? What did you do?
Where did you go? Were you all together? 
We hosted the nearby missionaries and Sister Lee (who cooks for the missionaries
when we have zone conferences and such) and her husband, Brother Gu. With our
family we had 18 of us. We had turkey (that the missionary military couple got
for us before they returned home not long ago) and other traditional foods. But
this is the first year we also served rice and kimchee. It was fun to watch the
elders eat SO MUCH!! Amazing!




















I made this Thankful tree from
the box used at Halloween time by one of  our elders (to scare Sister Lee). My friend,
Marianne, sent the colorful  leaves in 
 a box (that had holiday napkins and Stove
Top stuffing, a can of pumpkin,  and
other supplies to help make our Thanksgiving meal) to me; we had the  missionaries and guests write what they were  thankful for and tape it to the tree.  The tree has moved spots so many times as it
would fall off the walls or doors, needing more powerful tape to hold it up.
This is in the front entryway to our home; under the mirror/propped up.

Niki's Mission Return!!!!!

The day for Niki to come home, from her mission to the England London South Mission, finally arrived on Thursday, November 20, 2014. Dad and I took the KTX (bullet) train to Seoul, leaving at 5:00AM that day. We quickly walked over to the airport from the train station, supposed to get there about 10 minutes before her plane landed.

We hung up Niki’s Welcome Home sign in our living room. She had the sign at the airport, the sign on the front door, the sign in the living room, plus a banner in the parking lot at the church (you’ll see it soon). We are so happy to have her home!

It was fun making Niki’s sign; the different letters, deciding what designs and colors to use. I thought I brought the signs that I made for the other children returning from their missions, with us to Korea but I couldn’t find them. I liked this part of her sign; the flag section.

I didn’t realize until after Niki was home and she told me that the England flag is not what I put on the letter N. I put the Great Britain flag on her sign. Texas pride helped me to decide to put cowboy boots on Niki’s sign, even though she doesn’t own a pair.

When Dad and I first arrived at the airport Niki’s flight was listed way down near the bottom. But as more and more flights landed and then arrived Niki’s flight kept getting pushed up on the Flight announcing board. You can see that it was supposed to arrive at 8:55 but the new arrival estimated time was 9:30; and didn’t actually arrive until 9:42AM on Thursday. She left London at 1:00PM on Wednesday; long flight.

Niki was the last person to come off the plane and through customs out of six flights that were originally supposed to land AFTER her flight. The doors are mostly hazy with small strips to look through at the bottom of the doors. I stood as close in front of those doors as I could, crouched down low, and saw Niki waiting on the other side. When the guards would walk over to talk with each other they would step on the sensors that opened the doors and she could see me stooped down real low looking for her so that’s why she’s smiling so big and laughing when we finally got to see her come through.

Dad found a bench right near where we hoped Niki would come out so we held our sign there for her to see. Dad teases so much that when I had my head down he said, “There she is!” Of course I believed him until he laughed at me. I told him he was evil and threatened to push him off the bench (like in Steel Magnolias).

Once Dad and I had Niki with us we took the subway near the Seoul Temple. People were so helpful and friendly toward us. One young man was so excited to tell us that he studied for a year in America and that he didn’t need Dad to try to speak to him in Korean. He pointed us in the right direction. On the way to the temple we saw Elder and Sister Groesbeck (Bishop Mark Groesbeck’s brother and his wife), a senior couple serving in the Korea Seoul South Mission. They were just walking back from the temple with the new senior couple who arrived to replace them when they go home soon. We saw lots of missionaries at the temple and then saw their mission president and his wife, the Morrise’s. It was fun to give them a hug again.  We took a taxi to the train station and then came home. Our assistants brought Ben with them to the train station to pick us up. Out of nowhere we saw a blur rush by as Ben ran to Niki and gave her the biggest hug! It was fun to see her looking up at him, he’s grown since she’s been gone.  It was fun to come home with Niki. The assistants remembered to take a picture, I think we were all too tired to have remembered. Also, they had a cake with candles lit for her to blow out, to welcome her home. They’re so thoughtful.

This is Elder Lee. We happened to see him at the temple with more of his group of missionaries from the Korea Seoul South Mission. His father was the man we met while on a hike up the mountain some time ago. We took a picture and sent it to him. I heard back from him (The father is not a member of the church. His mother is a member, in our mission boundaries.).  I thought to invite the parents to our transfer meeting (November 3) when the returning missionaries share their testimonies. They didn’t seem interested so I didn’t think anything more about it since the meeting was more than a month away. Guess what!? They came to our transfer meeting. It was fun to make this connection.

The Korean words just say Welcome Home to Korea. The Houston London is from the Olympic time trials for the marathon that was held in Houston shortly before the London Olympics. Dad and Niki attended those time trials and each got a running shirt - London on it. Niki still has her shirt. Then we just thought to add the next leg of her journey back home: London?—Busan.

Sending off new missionaries and their trainers!

Here we are sending off our new missionaries and their trainers to jundo(proselyte) with each other, switching partners four different times in the afternoon. The next day they were assigned their trainer for the next12 weeks. No rain this time! Great weather.

Ben had off of school this past week for Fall Break. We had Transfer week with training meetings most of the week so we could only do some sort offsite seeing on Friday. We visited the Busan Tower which has a Buddhist temple nearby, some park areas for sitting and visiting, art sellers little shacks on the way up these may stairs, statues, and a gift shop at the base of the tower. We took the elevator up (I don’t know how many levels up we were) and saw a great view of the city.

The temple is quite high, to be seen at the different levels as you climb the many stairs, and can be seen at the top. Along the way there is a place to stop the jets out to the side for small park area with exercise equipment that older people often use. It will be fun to visit.

The site seeing we did on Friday was in an area called Nampo. We went there before to the Fish Market. There are other areas of shopping so we found a baking supplies shop. It has some items we can’t find in the regular stores or Costco, but the prices are high. There are outside little vendor carts and restaurants to eat at so we chose a second floor Italian restaurant. This is a picture from their menu. I don’t know if you remember Bear making Nasi-Goreng, fried rice with a bunch of chopped up vegetables and seasoning that she served with French/garlic bread. I always thought the name Bear called it came from Malaysia/Papa’s mom when they lived there. I thought it was a native rice dish from that part of the world. I have never seen it on a menu before but here it is, on an Italian menu. We had a great view to watch all the people out on the streets. There was a young man working as an ad man holding a SALE sign. I say holding when really, part of the time he was flipping and twirling the sign, throwing it up into the air. He would step out into the street and block traffic doing spins and dodges and dancing of sorts. He kept that sign moving the whole time we were seated for dinner. But I don’t think a single person entered the shop because of him.

While we were eating I saw this advertising on a building; two or three or more stories tall. I thought it was interesting how the sign says³American Sports Classic with a model holding a paddleball paddle or handball paddle which is not a Classic American sport.

We are at the train station right before the train arrived to take the outgoing missionaries to Seoul where they went to the temple on Tuesday. The Koreans went home that night. The foreigners flew home the next day.

Saturday night we attended a district choir concert and we have a stake choir concert to attend this upcoming Saturday night. This must be the time of year for the music/concerts. The district president is young with three young children. This darling little girl recognizes Ben from when we have come to this district before. She would come up as close as she dared, smile coyly, and then run away. If Ben wasn’t paying attention to her she would come closer and closer until he would wave to her and off she would run. I think her mother said she was three, in American years. I don’t know how they figure age in Korea (where the cut off is) but generally Koreans age is a year older than Americans age.