RUSSIANS AND CELEBRATIONS

This is the picture that was taken after the first morning the Russians were at the Temple. Can you tell which ones in the picture are Russians? Hint - there are 5 Russians and 2 Senior Missionary couples serving in the Vladivostok Mission.

Temple Missionaries know how to have a good time. The cake with the candles is a traditional Korean birthday cake with "Happy Birthday" written in raisins on the top. If you want to see a closeup of the writing, send Sister R an e-mail and she'll send a closeup of it to you.

These beautiful and formally set tables are what Elder and Sister R saw after they came into the Shinchon Meetinghouse on Saturday afternoon. Can you tell the chairs are really plastic lawn chairs covered with white fabric?

This is a car Elder R saw in the parking lot when he went to the Temple on Saturday evening. He heard the car's decorating was done according to the design and directions given by the bride! It is the first decorated car Elder and Sister R have seen since they've been in Korea.

This is the Korea Seoul Mission Office couple with their daughters and darling granddaughter. As might be imagined, the baby was the CENTER of attention for the senior missionaries.

Monday morning Elder and Sister R took what may be their last trip to Costco in Korea. It was quite a feat to get 10 adults and all the things they bought into the van for the trip home. After putting everything away, they took advantage of the kind offer of the District Leader’s wife to show Sister R where to buy more sweaters and children’s clothing, etc. Sister R found some beautiful sweaters and tops. Elder and Sister R will return there another day to shop for children’s clothing. In the afternoon Elder R went out to do some errands. The Temple President, Pres. Jun and his wife, Sis. Cha, hosted all the Temple Missionaries for dinner to welcome the two new Temple Missionary couples and to say “thank you” to the couple who will leave in a couple of weeks. Later Elder R presented the FHE lesson about Elder Anderson’s talk, “Come Unto Him”. Sister R didn’t know anything about the lesson except it would be given by Elder R. She feels the Spirit prompted her in choosing “Come Unto Him” for the opening song.

Tuesday morning was time for Elder and Sister R to watch Pres. Uchtdorf’s CES Fireside talk given about 11 hours earlier. After helping Sister R a bit, Elder R went out in the chilly weather to mail a letter. That day was the first day since coming back to Seoul that Elder and Sister R have felt uncomfortably cool in their apartment. Usually, even on below 60 days, it’s felt warm or even too warm in spots. Sadly, that “cool” weather only lasted a couple of days before the warmer weather returned. In the afternoon Elder R did some needed cleaning and Sister R did a little work in preparation for the upcoming English classes. English classes seemed to go well. There were three adult classes. 8 students were in the middle class with Sister R and there were 2 with Elder R. In the middle class the words that caused the most discussion were “appropriate” (both pronunciations and meanings) and “medication” vs. the various meanings of “medicine”.

Wednesday morning instead of “the Russians are Coming”, the happy news in the Temple was “the Russians are here.” Three older members received their endowments in the 9:40 session Elder and Sister Reeve, 3 other Missionary couples, and our District Leader’s wife attended. The afternoon was “on again, off again, on again.” Elder and Sister R were scheduled to be the main helpers in the 2:30 session, but two people told them they were to be in the 2:50 session with the Russian members. At 2:20 Sister R was told Pres. Jun said Elder and Sister R were to be the main helpers at the 2:30 Korean session after all, so she hurried to get the translation device she needed and to make sure the room was ready. Sister R thinks Heavenly Father knows she needs more practice with the ending part of the session. Sister R boiled some bulkogi beef left over from Monday’s dinner to try to make some soup, but the meat was still SO TOUGH after boiling over an hour that she let it boil for several hours more. After dinner Elder R went down to Institute class.

Thursday Elder and Sister R were patrons at a special 9:30 AM Russian language session – one of four American couples. The Russian District President and his wife were the main helper couple as they were in the 9:40 session on Wednesday. Sister R was a worker for the sisters and Elder R was a patron for the brothers in the afternoon’s first assignment. During that time Sister R found it especially lovely to find enough Korean sisters had come to be proxies so all the Americans were workers. The Russian members went to a Korean language session and Sister R was able to help one of these sisters who sat next to her during the session. After dinner they went to the November birthday celebration at another Temple Missionary apartment. The twenty Temple Missionaries living on Temple property were there and it was almost wall-to-wall people with a large table of food in the middle.

Friday morning Elder R was assigned to be at the Recommend Desk from 9 to 12. Sister R’s morning was pretty usual attending the 10 AM session. With the arrival in recent weeks of the two new couples there are 8 brother and 10 sister Temple Missionaries plus Elder and Sister Reeve (Elder and Sister R are technically Temple Ordinance workers because they only work 3 days each week that they don’t have meetings one of the days with missionaries in the Korea Seoul Mission.). The afternoon’s activities went pretty much like normal. Elder R went out shopping and to bring dinner from KFC. Elder R went back to the Temple to get some of his things and saw again a man he knew when he was here on his first mission. Sister R embroidered Elder R’s initials on one of his packet envelopes.

The first Saturday of each month is “Military Day” at the Temple. The Shinchon Meetinghouse is used as a place to congregate, to leave children and others who aren’t attending the Temple, to eat, and to do other things. All during the morning there were sounds of people coming and going. Sister R’s main activity of the morning was making brownies for tomorrow’s couples’ meal. The afternoon English classes resumed the 3 P.M. starting time after being rescheduled to 5:30 or cancelled for previous three weeks. On their way to class they saw there were many tables set up in a formal style in the meetinghouse multi-purpose room. They saw Elder Choi, Yoon-Hwan of the Seventy and his wife walking into the building for the special meeting and dinner. It was surprising to Sister R to see 6 new people come into her class. There was a lot of talk about the various meanings of the words “chore”, “make up”, “refreshments”, “refresh”, “refreshing”. The much boiled bulkogi beef combined with veggies and rice made a fairly tasty soup and the meat was finally tender enough to eat. Sister R finished embroidering Elder R’s requested initials on his remaining bundle envelope.

Rain was falling lightly Sunday morning as Elder and Sister R walked over to the meetinghouse. They found out the missionaries were to sing a song in Sacrament Meeting and Elder and Sister R joined them and had all of 30 minutes to learn the song, “If the Savior Stood Beside Me”. The “sincere pumpkin patch” result was indicative of Sister R’s lack of practice in singing her part. Hopefully the Spirit was felt anyway. One of the speakers in Sacrament Meeting was a recently released sister missionary who told something that Elder R had said earlier in Gospel Essentials class – that it is a glorious privilege to be qualified to be a citizen in the Lord’s Kingdom. The main speaker for the meeting was our former Korea Seoul Mission President, but we were sad to hear his wife was ill and couldn’t come with him. Elder R valiantly ate the oysters from Sister R’s after meetings food. Though it had been raining a bit, it stopped by the end of meetings and the senior missionary after meetings meal was able to be outside in answer to prayers. There were three special visitors – the office couples’ two daughters and a 7-month-old granddaughter.

OPEN HOUSE AND HALLOWEEN IN SHINCHON WARD

Our Mission President, President Lee and his wife, Sister Han, surprised the missionaries by coming to the Shinchon Ward Open House Saturday afternoon. In this picture Sister Han is speaking with the two young sister missionaries serving in this ward.

President Lee enjoyed talking with the sister missionaries and a young woman from China who came to the Open House. Later Sister R saw President Lee speaking to this young woman and he seemed to be explaining more about of the Book of Mormon to her, showing her things in the Chinese language copy she had been given.

These are the two young missionary elders serving in the Shinchon Ward. The elder on the right (green-striped tie) just arrived on Wednesday after serving in the Donghae Branch where usually 6 adults attend. It's a BIG difference to be in the Shinchon Ward where over 100 attend Sacrament Meeting each week.

Elder R helped decorate by putting up these and other balloon decorations in the entrance hallway.

You can see two of the three activities that were arranged for the children (and others) to do. The 'doughnuts' the children in the back are eating without using their hands were made by the young sister missionaries. They did most of the preparation for this party. Spider Man was the winner of the bean bag toss when he got the most beanbags in the 10 point container during one turn of anyone, including adults. The bean bag toss was quite a competitive game with some teenagers and adults trying to use special strategies to win.

This picture was taken of the two "missionary costumes" before these two sisters went upstairs to join the fun. Making things from balloons is quite popular in Korea and many know how to do it. Does Sister R look like a witch or someone from Harry Potter or someone who's trying to be a 'good sport'?

The Shinchon Ward Bishop is HAPPILY leading the children and others in a hand game. You can see all but one of the children who came to the party. It was raining fairly heavily and that might have taken a toll on the numbers of people who came.

This is the activity that was the most popular -- decorating cupcakes. Quite a few people of all ages enjoyed doing this activity and eating the results of their artistic efforts. The young missionary sisters made the cupcakes and frosting and provided the decorations -- sugar sprinkles and small marshmallows.

Elder and Sister R’s Monday plans changed when our Zone Leader called to tell us of the lunch invitation for all missionaries and that Zone/District Meeting would be in the Shinchon building. So, instead of leftover pizza for lunch, Sister R had rice, some bean sprouts, and what she could eat of a bean curd soup. Elder R did try some of the “mild” (by Korean tastes) soup the younger missionaries loved, but Sister R was glad she steered clear of it when he said it was definitely NOT mild by his tastes. It was a sweet experience to hear each of the 6 missionaries being transferred from our district bear testimony. After District/Zone Meeting Elder and Sister R went to the EXPENSIVE Itaewon area of Seoul that caters to Westerners to try to find a nativity set reportedly seen there, but didn’t find any such thing. FHE was presented by Sister R from Pres. Eyring’s Sunday morning General Conference talk.

Tuesday morning blessings came so Sister R got a box of things ready to send the S-L-O-W and C-H-E-A-P way back to the states. Elder R’s muscle was necessary to keep the box closed while Sister R taped it. In the afternoon Elder R used a small luggage cart to take it to the Post Office to mail and Sister R stayed in the apartment and worked on some things for English class. There were three evening classes – beginning, middle, and high. In the middle class the most time was spent on trying to help the students understand the meaning of the sentence, “He wanted to subject the subject to many tests.” The students continue to enjoy making sentences using Sister R’s alphabet cards. Since this was one of the elder’s last night at English class because he’s being transferred, the sister missionaries brought treats for everyone – choco pies and hot chocolate.

Wednesday the Temple President, Pres. Jun, told Elder and Sister R the hardest thing about serving in the Seoul Korea Temple is Wednesday’s EARLY wake-up. All of us agree with something else – MANY blessings come that enable to “do hard things” and allow us to see Heavenly Father’s hand in this work. Being the “3-session day” we begin (session at 6 AM) and end (session at 2:30 PM) our Wednesday service with an Endowment session. The middle session (10 AM) found Elder R and Sister R as the main Ordinance workers in the session. It was the largest session of our day with 31 sisters and 8 brothers as patrons. Sister R helped 8 sisters at the end, including one sister whose main language is French. No, Sister R didn’t speak French, but she did what an ordinance worker needs to do to facilitate this sister doing what she needs to do. In the evening Elder R again went to the English Book of Mormon Institute class and was one of the main reasons his team won a teamwork “scripture chase like” quiz.

Thursday was the second day Sister R was proxy in the Temple for 2 women named “I, Ssi”. That’s like us saying Miss or Mrs. I (The I is pronounced Eee and the Ssi is pronounced like we would pronounce “she”.). Sister R thinks this is the only time in Korea that she has had two consecutive days where she’s had the same name (different birth dates) at all the sessions where she was a patron. Thursday there was a difference. The blessing came during the afternoon session as Sister R was sitting in the endowment room and she looked at the name card more closely, saw the woman was born in 1493, she was baptized on 5 September 2009 (Sister R’s birthday), and received her Initiatory ordinances on 22 October 2009 (Sister R’s sister’s birthday). It was wonderful see our recently moved family’s blog and be able to know they are back in the “Internet age” and learn more about their situation. After returning from the Temple in the late afternoon, Elder R went out to do some shopping while Sister R started making sure dinner would be ready to eat when he returned. After dinner Sister R gave “missionary support” by telling one of the Shinchon missionaries how to make frosting from powdered sugar.

Friday the week’s special blessing continued as the only name Sister R was proxy for was I, Ssi. It has been amazing to be proxy for 5 women in a row with the same name. Elder and Sister R found they were scheduled to be the main ordinance workers for a special 3 PM session for workers from the Church’s Korea Area Office (KAO). It turned out to be something like a YSA (Young Single Adult) session with 10 sisters and 14 brothers. Sister R had a brain block struggle at the ending part and had to appeal to Elder R for a little help in remembering the correct thing to say. Blessings came and she was able to help 5 sisters finish the session. The doorbell unexpectedly rang two times in the evening. The first was a Temple Missionary was bringing some delicious Korean potato and “pumpkin” (zucchini) pancake his wife had made. The second was our District Leader with an unusual request for Elder R. He wondered if Elder R could come and help fulfill a request to work with 3 other brethren and three sisters in Baptisms for the Dead tomorrow. Of course, the answer was “Yes”. So, we’ll go to the Open House a few hours late tomorrow.

Elder and Sister R had another “divide and conquer” morning. Sister R stayed in the apartment and did the dishes, etc., while Elder R went to the Post Office to mail a couple of letters and some necessary shopping. It was fun to see pictures and hear about the experiences on their blog of our Tennessee Family as they are getting settled into a new environment. As expected, Elder R left shortly before Noon to go to the Temple to be ready to help with Baptisms for the Dead. Elder and Sister R joined the last week of the Shinchon Ward’s three consecutive Saturdays of Open Houses. They were able to meet the new elder who is serving in the Shinchon Ward. Our Mission President, Pres. Lee, Yong-hwan and Sis. Han, In-ja also came to it. It was a RAINY day with few people on the street, but the Bishop talked to a receptive woman who came in. The Sister Missionaries and Pres. Lee talked to her. Sister R thought they gave her a Chinese language copy of the Book of Mormon. An English class student also came and talked with the missionaries and a ward member. The evening’s main activity began at 6 as everyone ate Kimbap the Bishop provided. A Sister missionary gave Sister R a “witch’s hat” to wear. When the Bishop took a picture of Elder and Sister Reeve when she was wearing the hat, he said they look like teachers from a Harry Potter movie. The ward members and missionaries enjoyed the Halloween Party that was “for the children” of the ward, but some of the adults seemed to enjoy it as much or more than the children.

Sunday we went to the meetinghouse later because the Missionary Correlation Meeting was held after all the meetings with other ward leaders present. Sister R didn’t call someone in the RS Presidency to find out what the lesson would be from. After the RS President came in with a Spencer W. Kimball manual Sister R found out the source of the lesson. She then leaned over before the meetings began, saw that lesson 2 would be the one covered so she was able to go home later and look the lesson up on the Church’s website and be able to read again Pres. Kimball’s talk – “Tragedy or Destiny.” Toward the end of Gospel Essentials class Sister R saw the young woman from China who came to the Open House the day before walk in with a friend and alerted one of the elders, who alerted a sister missionary, and she hurried out to talk to them. As they were talking Heavenly Father’s hand was made evident when the recently baptized Chinese brother walked into the building and right over to where Sister Peterson and these two Chinese women were. He was then able to talk to them as well. Fast Meeting had a surprise experience when a woman got up and introduced herself as being from Uzbekistan. As Sister R were going down to the missionary meeting later she we saw the Bishop talking with this young woman. We later found out she’s a friend of a member in the ward and Elder R said he heard her tell Sister Peterson something like, “You can call me after an hour.” The Missionary Meeting was longer than expected, so Elder and Sister R got back to the apartment building after 3 and joined the couples who had already started eating. The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent in the usual activities.

BACK TO THE TEMPLE AND SHINCHON WARD OPEN HOUSE

Here are some of the Senior Missionary Couples enjoying their monthly meal at a buffet restaurant called "Jessica's Kitchen." Other missionaries were seated at adjoining tables or getting more to eat. One couple aren't currently missionaries, but were visiting currently serving missionaries. Sister R is in the picture but is conveniently hidden.

This is the new Korean Temple Missionary couple who arrived a couple of weeks ago from Australia. Our District Leader is sitting with his arms folded near the back of the picture.

These four missionaries were standing outside with an investigator who came to the Shinchon Ward Open House Saturday afternoon. The two missionaries in the front are co-Zone leaders of our Zone. The two missionaries in the back are the Shinchon Ward missionaries. The missionary in the brown suit is being transferred to Wonju this coming Wednesday.

These are a FEW of the posters the Shinchon Ward Mission Leader made that were used at the Open House. Posters like these telling different things about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lined the perimeter of the large room. It's hard to see the hanging "posters" in the window, but they have been there all the time Elder and Sister R have been in the Shinchon Ward.

The Ward Mission Leader (the shorter man) is explaining something on a poster to one of the recently baptized members from another ward who came to the Open House. The missionary from that ward was VERY appreciative of the things our WML taught this man during this open house and said it was very helpful to him. The CD player on the floor was used to play some Tabernacle Choir music at various times in the afternoon.

Monday morning’s P-day was made fun by receiving various family e-mails and an unplanned, but happy Skype visit with a daughter. Plans were confirmed for a Skype visit with another family tomorrow morning (their Monday evening) and for a telephone call with another family Saturday morning (their Friday night). Elder and Sister R laughed out loud when reading some of the e-mails. Elder R did some errands in the late morning and plans were set up to go to tonight’s monthly Couples’ Dinner at Jessica’s Kitchen. 13 Senior missionary couples (including the Mission Presidents from both the Seoul and the Seoul West Missions) were there. Elder and Sister R sat between the office couple and our mission president and his wife, Pres. Lee and Sis. Han. Later Elder R gave a fine lesson about “The Day of Our Salvation” using some scriptures. Elder and Sister R happily watched the still available Tabernacle Choir program for their activity.

Tuesday morning was the first day the Temple was open after the closure. Elder and Sister R saw some of the Temple Missionaries happily “returning to work.” After putting the first loads in to wash, Companion Study was enjoyed. There were important e-mails to deal with and Elder R was able to enjoy a nice telephone conversation with his father. This is Elder and Sister R’s week to clean the exercise and laundry areas and hallways of our apartment building. Elder R began the process when he mopped and vacuumed the hallway and swept some pine needles outside. There was a fun Skype call before lunch. After lunch and a “senior missionary rest time” Sister R ironed and mended some things to get ready for their first day back at the Temple tomorrow. Elder and Sister R took necessary items to the Temple so they wouldn’t have to worry about that in tomorrow’s WEE hours’ apartment departure. There were 4 evening English classes that night – children’s, beginning, middle, and advanced. The beginning class had the most attendees with 5 or 6. There were 3 in the middle class and 4 in the advanced class.

Sister Reeve actually beat the alarm clock on “EARLY wake-up and go to the Temple Wednesday”. She received help in getting the birthdate for the woman she was proxy for in the 6 AM session when the Temple secretary complied with a request for the birthdate and found the name slip for the woman Sis. R asked her about. Thankfully, it was a “ui buin” name and not a “Ssi” name, because something like “Gim, Ssi” or “I, Ssi” are very common names. Later our neighbors, a Korean native temple missionary couple, helped us find the hidden controls for the floor heating we weren’t sure we had until then. Elder R went out to do errands, including buying some white chalk for Sister R to use in English class. After dinner he went to Institute Class where he was in charge of the opening Devotional. He enjoyed the class and schmoozing with other class members a bit afterwards.

Thursday morning about 40 young missionaries from the Seoul West Mission came to the Temple with several senior missionary couples. Those missionaries, combined with Temple Missionaries and the usual Korean sisters and 2 brothers made both the special 9:40 English session and regular 10:00 Korean session so FULL that extra chairs were brought in. Sister R hurried out after the session to grab the candy jar and took it outside to give to the missionaries. The afternoon seems busy because that’s when most of the things are done on weekdays other than Wednesdays. A Korean sister from the Shinchon Ward who will be returning to her home in Australia next week, came and was a proxy for sealings, including some of her family names. There was a “birthday celebration” for all the October birthdays among the Temple Missionaries – Elder R. There were 17 senior missionaries (including 1 older single sister) at the celebration. There was an unwelcome “guest” – a mosquito. Sister R thought it was too cold for them. To show how wrong she was, Elder R saw another one after they returned to their apartment – the first they’d seen there since early last week.

Friday morning’s Temple session had more brothers than a weekday 10 AM session usually has. Sister R thinks it’s because five young missionaries from another mission were there. There were 14 brothers and 22 sisters in that session. It’s not unusual for quite a few member sisters to attend the 10 AM weekday session. In fact, that’s the session with highest attendance of sisters Sister R sees. Pres. Jun announced that Russian Saints will be coming to the Temple the first week in November. That is always a special experience for the workers as well as for those Russian Saints. An unusual thing about the afternoon’s sealing session was that all the sealings were boys to their parents. Pizza was enjoyed for dinner and then a peaceful “computer” and “scripture study night”.

Sister R decided a “relaxed” (no deadline to be somewhere in the morning) Saturday was a good day to make a tasty American breakfast – pancakes – in Korea and to use some of the maple flavored bacon she mistakenly bought a few months ago. A mid-morning family telephone call was anticipated and greatly enjoyed by Elder and Sister R. Shortly before 1 they went down to the Meetinghouse for the Shinchon Ward Missionary Open House. The Ward Mission Leader had made and set up MANY informative posters around the perimeter of the room. Anyone coming into the building could walk around and see many different things about our Church on those posters. English class was at 5:30 instead of at 3. There were 2 students in the High class, 4 students in the Middle class, 2 in the beginning class, and 2 children in the children’s class. Elder and Sister R didn’t arrive home until after 7 – a FULL afternoon and early evening.

Sunday morning Elder and Sister R were the first ones in the building and later found that the front door number lock wasn’t working. The Ward Mission Leader stood outside several minutes without realizing Elder and Sister R were in the building. He called the young elders to hurry so they could go in the back way and let him in. It was the last day for one of the elders to be in this ward since he’ll be transferred to Wonju this Wednesday. Elder and Sister R saw a very Christ-like example as they watched the Bishop interact with a man with disabilities who seems to be homeless. We first saw the man at yesterday’s Open House. He returned to the building this morning. Elder and Sister R decided not to stay for the food after meetings when they realized it would be VERY SPICEY, but came back to their apartment to do some necessary things before the couples’ meal at 3. The main topic of conversation during the meal for Elder and Sister R and another couple were the blessings of senior missionary service and how Heavenly Father makes that service possible in some wonderful and even miraculous ways. Elder R “restfully” listened to some General Conference talks on the Internet. The evening was quiet with much being accomplished by Sis. R to get the blog posted and other things done.