Fall is upon us!



We're back...... I decided to add the pictures first that we want to share and write around them. I may have a blog but that does not mean that I understand how to do everything I want to do!!!!!!!!

Another transfer time. This past Sunday evening we had all 14 of them again before the actual transfer happened the following day. Jim and I have made this our tradition for each transfer coming up. It's such fun to have them together and they enjoy that last meal as a district. This time was really unique, we only lost one missionary, Elder Kaing. We love him so much and will miss him. Elder Kaing is going to one of the small islands south of Busan. The group above is Elder Routson from Lehi, Utah on the left and 2 of our Korean missionaries; Elder Jung on the left by Routson and Elder Jin on the right.







Sister Lee on the left. Elder Choi in the middle and Sister Chuluunkuhuu from Mongolia. I think we had so many new ones from the last change that the Mission President decided to let them stay. Sister Chu came here not speaking Korean or English at all. Elder Choi is such a cute guy.... he LOVES American food and wants to know how to make everything I do. He stands in the kitchen and watches and watches. What a beautiful singing voice he has! He has won many competitions in Korea and would like to become a professional singer.

Elder Harris is on the left. One of the finest young men we've met! He's from Colorado so he can't be all bad! While still considered new he's picking up the language very well. Elder Harris is one of the most considerate missionaries I've met. He's calls us his other grandparents! On the right is his good buddy, Elder Olsen. Olsen is one of 'our' missionaries along with his companion, Elder Green, as they live in our area of Daegu.  Elder Olsen's from Alaska! Very new to Korea himself, he's been here a whole 4-5 days longer than we have!  Elder Harris's companion is Elder Kaing who's being transferred this time. We love these guys. They both are very special to us.



Elder Jin again on the left and smiling at us is Elder Kaing. He's from Provo, Utah and is perhaps the happiest person we've come across. Everyone has their lower days, especially the missionaries who receive a lot of rejection just to get one person to listen to what they have to say. The exception to the rule is Elder Kaing. He is the most positive and upbeat person! He will be missed.

Elder Kaing saying his farewell to us. I think you can see Jim's reflection in the window if you look close. As we get to know these young men better we are becoming so confident in the future of the church..... 19 year old; who knew?!!! I am in awe of their commitment, their dedication, and their willingness to go the extra mile each and every day. Side note on Elder Kaing.... he's been a member just over 3 years!

 These 3 are; Elder Morrow from Farmington, New Mexico on the left, Elder Murray from Layton, Utah (the zone leader) in the center. I caught him with his eyes closed (sorry!) and Elder Green on the right from Fruit Heights, Utah. Elder Green is our district leader and the other missionary with Olsen in our area. Elder Green and Murray both go home in December. Our loss!!!! Unbelievable young men and leaders. 2 of our Elders had to leave prior to the photo session; Elder Kim and Elder Harken. Elder Kim is about 3-4 weeks in country. He's half American and half Korean and regrets that he didn't learn Korean when he was younger! Elder Harken is another 'grandson'.... he's from Lindon, Utah. We will have pictures of them later, I may have some from other events I can put in before I finish. Oh yeah.... notice the guitar in the corner...in a box....this room is Jim's office. Elder Howerton decided that perhaps he might learn to play or strum a few notes while he's on his mission. So far it hasn't been out of the box.

Last weekend was the 1st Saturday of a new month! That means it's Temple time. We took the train again to Seoul. This time I got a couple of pictures for everyone to see:

As always, it's a beautiful Temple. With folks all over coming to the Temple they have an annex building. You can stay there overnight in the brothers and sisters dorms. $12.00 per night per person is pretty reasonable. So we make an adventure of it and take the train on Friday, stay there that night, and we're there for the English session on Saturday. There's always a group so we go to dinner after and take the train back home. It's a tiring weekend but a good one. This time one of our new convert sisters went along, as did our youth, and did baptisms. The new sister was able to be baptized for her grandparents and great grandparents. She was so emotional as the spirit was so strong. It was a special day.

This  is Seoul by night. Not a lot different than others cities in Korea. While I didn't get pictures of the surrounding buildings let it suffice to say they are huge, and expensive. They carry all the top of the top stores and in front of them are these street vendors. Are they licensed? We haven't a clue. But there are literally rows of them. Each seems to be owned by the people cooking. You can get a plethora of food here, most of it we pass on. During the day the plastic covering is rolled up and you just walk by or sit down on the few chairs they have. These aren't big! At night, in the rain, or cold, the covers come down. You can see in them all over. Jim is standing there with a small bag in hand on the left. It's an unusual scene, very pricey stores on one side and vendors that date back to who knows when on the streets in front of them.... 



These are pictures of a bazaar I went to with some sisters from our branch. We 'thought' it was to be a pottery factory. Well, all I could think of was the tours to the different factories in Germany I'd been to. I was excited! This didn't turn out to be the same. Tents lined the street about as far as you could see. While they had their ceramics there it was not at factory prices. It was in fact very pricey. But I was able to get some pictures of the event.





The vase he is making was, as you can tell, huge! All hand-carved. No paint by numbers, or cut by numbers in this case. He used an exacto, the same I used to use in the newspaper business to do my ad lay-outs! Very delicate and intricate work. He was fascinating to watch.

 


This Korean gentleman is making another type of pottery. What I thought was interesting is how they make it. Look inside the bowl he's working on. See the can, similar to a paint can, on the left? That is actually hanging from something attached to it from the top of the tent. Inside this can was hot coals. As you stood fairly close you could just slightly feel the heat from the can. It helps him in forming the shape that he wants to make as he works the clay with his hands. Interesting....




As you can see, this is a skilled pottery maker working with a young man, most likely an apprentice. He showed much patience actually as this young man was learning. I found a vase I liked; $600.00. I didn't like it THAT well.... they had beautiful things there and it was fun to look at all. Also, a display and presentation was given of a Korean Tea Service....and all the tea you could drink.... We tried some of their herbal teas and they were good. Good bus ride, good friends, and interesting entertainment. Oh yes, see the little boy and his father in the background? They had an area where the kids could smash the pottery. We assumed they were 2nd's and they let the kids throw them against a wall. They loved it.






The next few pictures I think you might find interesting..... I have to set this picture up for you. You are up looking out the window and down.... You can see the yellow/white parking area. The flat thing on the left with suitcases on it, etc, is what the Korean moving company is loading. They don't take anything in through a building! They open completely these huge windows/doors we have in our apartments, slide the screens to one side and 'attach' this gigantic ladder to the opening. Then they load all household items on this flatbed and up it goes! Our missionaries moved (thank heavens!). Their old apartment had been leased by the church for 20 years!! The owner/landlord hadn't done much to it in those 20 years, let me tell you. Anyway, they were moved and we helped.



Here it comes with the load! I think this gives a good view of the height. Can you imagine getting a piano up there?!! They strap the important things down but it is something else to watch. Their apartment is on the 17th floor. We're on the 14th where we are. Our missionaries were at our place helping get everything in, just as in these pictures. They did that just prior to us arriving. I was glad I wasn't here to watch....

 


It's made it to the top! Now, the missionaries don't have much, of course. Certainly not in the line of furniture, furniture.... there are men on the inside of the apartment (in this case the missionaries as they didn't want to spend the money for the men the driver would have put there). These guys typically pull the things off the loading platform into the room.



A side shot of Elder Murray pulling a box off the platform. It was sure windy up on the 17th floor with the windows wide open! Thank heavens they moved before the really cold weather!



Elder Harris on the left. We gave him and his companion, Elder Kaing a bad time for coming in suits!!! They had to leave for an appointment though so we excused them.... Elder Harken on the right is just a tad bit excited to be moving into a new place! I love having a zoom lens on my camera.



Here Elder Olsen, wash this for me too, please...... Not a bad little kitchen. Notice the stove just sitting there.... they don't have 'stoves' in Korea, just a 2 or 4 burner (if you're lucky) cook top on one of the counters. So they have no ovens. We, as Americans, are given stoves with ovens through the Mission Home. Many are literally a mess.... but they can be cleaned up. Depends on how the former missionaries took care of them. As I cleaned their bathroom for them and their refrigerator (no missionaries were in this apartment prior to them. A Korean family was there), we had a little lesson on 'stewardship....' It tickles me now because when we get together some one of them will reassure me that they're 'keeping things clean...' They are such a great group of guys!



One last picture for this blog.... I love this. We do feed the missionaries a lot and we take them to post where they LOVE getting 'American' food.... so Elder Olsen - who spent about a year in France - decided they needed to do something for us. He and Elder Green came over, with all the ingredients in hand, and made us all crepes! They were wonderful. I think he surprised himself. See the water in the back? I love that. I may go to that when we get back in the states. No charge for the unit as long as we buy the bottles. 5 gallon bottles for less than $4.00 each....and they deliver. It's a LOT cheaper than buying plastic bottles, hauling them home, and then trying to do something with them that won't effect the environment! Instant cold and literally boiling hot water at a touch. Great for soups, hot chocolate, etc, also.

Now some reading for you.....

On the military side we are having great results. Just today Jim and I did the 2nd day of a 2 day 'workshop' on post - through the military - for 14 folks that were sent to this 2 day session for alcohol abuse. Not that they are alcoholics but they've done something over the top that got them sent to this class. We were invited by the manager of the Substance Abuse Department for the Army, here in Daegu. What a blessing for us. We had one hour each day to 'do our thing...'. At the end of our session with them today, we discussed the classes that we will hold, and our 12 step program, based on AA with spiritual help throughout, that's been devised through our church for any and all types of substance abuse. Bottom line, out of the 14 that attended, 7 signed up indicating they wanted to attend our 12 week class!

As we were leaving the manager spoke to us and asked us to do this again next month, if they have enough that the command orders to attend, and any of those in the future. So, we feel we were successful, through the help of the Holy Ghost. He was in attendance......

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and fall is here! The weather is warm and sunny during the day and pretty chilly at night. The colors on the trees, especially in the mountains that surround us are absolutely beautiful; oranges, reds and yellows. I imagine the 'cold' cold weather isn't too far off. Jim was able to have a below the knee black cashmere coat made by a Korean tailor for..... $110.00! It's really nice. Deep inside pockets as well as the outside and it has his name stitched on the inside. Can't beat that....

We are finding some more LDS folks here and making appointments to meet with them. Once we do we've been pretty blessed at getting them to come to church. We feel very grateful to be on this mission. We are certainly being watched over. I can't say the time is dragging, that's for sure, it literally flies by.

We thank all of you for your support and special hello and thanks to Michelle and family. They are great to get things to us that we find we (or I) find I just can't do without! We feel the Lord's love and pray all of our family and friends will be blessed. Thanks for your emails. We love to hear from you and how things are going there, wherever there is for you.

Elder and Sister Howerton

Finally - PICTURES!

We have pictures! Some of these go back to the first week we were here. I'll attempt to add comments to them so they might make some sense to you...




You are looking at our apartment, 20 floors.... it's facing us - on the right side of front building - and on the 14th floor! Each row you see here is an individual apartment. We all have the full set of windows across - very nice! If you look on the right side of the apartment building you will see a circle at the top of the building. Then 2 wide stripes of color going from one side to the other..... we should be the apartment just under that bottom stripe! There is another set of buildings like this on the back side giving each floor 3 apartments; 3 apartments x 20 floors; 60 apartments per building x 2 buildings so there's a 120 units per building, and this complex has 2 buildings. Some are more, others less, but they hold a lot of people in very tight areas. Everything in Korea is basically land-locked. Vertical living and working areas as well. We go to the downtown area and up and down the streets you see all the buildings with their windows all decorated, like the states. However,  you have to remember to look UP as there are usually at least 4 floors on top of that with shops and great places of interest as well.

 



This is walking out the front and looking to the south, down our street.   3 lanes each way with lots of other high rises and small shops and lots of mom and pop restaurants. I have to share.... there's a place close to us that we walk by whenever we go to post, cause we need to go to the subway station. Here's this small place with the female owner out front and a HUGE HUGE pot boiling away.... Didn't think much of it until one day we got there earlier than usual and she had pig's heads with the outside skin off, putting them in the pots. That was 'interesting' enough but over to the side she was chopping up the ears. They utilize ALL of the animal. Yes, these kind of 'local' places we tend to stay away from... We have gone to some biger and nicer places with the missionaries (and we have pictures of that, too) where we've had great soup with pork in it, but we haven't watched them make it.....

 



This would be at the same street in front of our building looking right straight across the street from us. It bugs the cab drivers as they can't come from the south and make a left-hand turn into our place. You can see the dividers in the street that make that impossible. The brown building is a restauant (fairly close to an American restaurant; hamburgers and french fries - but pretty expensive!). The other smaller and tightly spaced shops are individual fruits and vegetable stands. On the back side of this area has interesting meat (non-USDA inspected....) and fish markets. Some of the wierdest fish we've seen and most all of them are alive!

 



Here we are at one of those type of restaurants I mentioned above. Yes, we are on the floor; on cushions! Getting down wasn't as bad as I thought. Sitting there trying to figure out what to do with my legs is another story... Once down you have to get up again! Notice there are no pictures of that!

 



This is swine spine soup! You can see the bowl in the left it came it - sitting on top of a really good broth with vegetables. You take the pork out and place it in this smaller bowl and 'pick' the meat off. Notice the one chopstick on the left? There was another one somewhere..... removing meat with chopsticks is an extra bonus. Once deboned, you place the meat as you do the deboning back in the soup. A bowl of rice is given also and we all added that right to the broth. It was really very good! We would do this in the kitchen prior to serving it but the Koreans feel it an honor to allow the customer to see the meat and where it comes from.  It also allows for one to have a lot of meat or as little as the patron chooses. My glasses are laying there because I couldn't decide how much I need to see well.....

 



This is out of placement. I should have the next picture here but hey! we have a picture..... This is the group of missionaries in our district and a district meeting prior to all of us going to the restauant above. We had 3 sister missionaries that lived together. Sister Culver in the front is from California. The other 2 help each other a lot! The one closest is from Korea and the furthest away is a new sister who just arrived from the MTC. She's from Mongolia and is attempting to learn Korean. She doesn't speak English either so she has a harder time but she has a great attitude!

 



Here we are back at the restauant again. The missionaries love this place! I am amazed at how they speak the language and love the people and the country. The Koreans truly like Americans. Some have literally stopped Elder Howerton and myself and reached for our hands to shake (with both of their's - thats the polite way) and say 'Thank You', ' Thank You....' it's all some seem to know how to say! We assume it's because of us helping them during the Korean War. They know all too well that they do NOT want to be in the North!

 



This is Sister Lee (pronounced 'EEE') on the left. She is a doll and has been such a help to us! The sister on the right is our new sister; Sister Chuluunkhou from Mongolia. She is so pretty and has the best attitude you could imagine. Unfortunatley I can't say to you how to pronounce her name! I struggle with it myself.  We are sitting in the church building on the 2nd floor where many of the individual rooms used each Sunday for classes are located.

 



Here is Elder Green. He's from Utah; Fruit Heights. He's our District Leader and a very good one at that! You want to hear someone speak Korean?! He's amazing. I swear he doesn't know a stranger. Talks to anyone and everyone. We're very impressed with him as we are with all of them. So young yet so able. It truly testifies to the strength of the church in the future. Elder Howerton and I both feel it's one thing to speak and understand the language, it's quite another to teach a class to others! He does that. He reads, writes, and understand why something is and can explain it. As I said; impressive. He has been here a year and a half and goes home this December. I don't know what we'll do without him!

 



Another shot of us in the classroom for our meeting. We so enjoy being with the missionaries and we are constantly amazed at them. On the left is Elder Olsen from Alaska. He's Elder Green's companion and has been here about 5 days longer than us!!! Super young man that we love. Next to him is Elder Harris from Colorado. We have always loved Colorado and he is all the more reason to feel that way. Truly a great and very thoughtful young man. He and Olsen were in the MTC together and are best of friends. Next is Elder Kaing. This young man is amazing; been in the church all of 3 years! He is the most upbeat and positive individual I've met. You have to love Elder Kaing. Only out over 6 months or so I think but is teaching Korean and everyone loves to get him as their companion. We are blessed to be in such a great district!! You can see me just sitting there... I do that a lot as they are all working on something in Korean.

 
That's a start. I will add more in a couple of days. We are taking pictures and we enjoy sharing them with you. If you know of anyone that would like to see these, please pass our site on to them. Love to hear from  you so please stay in touch.

Elder and Sister Howerton
Daegu Military Mission
Daegu, South Korea

First Blog - Ever!

Hello to our dear friends and family-  

Can you believe it, we're blogging!! ...and they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks!

This site will become the update page for everyone to have access to. You gotta love the world of technology today... We'll be able to keep all of our friends and family informed and be able to share some of our life here in the "Land of the Morning Calm''

We've been here a month already and that means one month less to do our work for the Lord. Many of you have had some news from us to date so some of this may be redundent... however, all have not so I'm going to briefly go back and come forward.

We arrived to a big welcome from the President and his wife of the Busan, South Korea Mission; President and Sister Jennings. Also there to greet us was Elder and Sister Bagley who are also serving a couple's mission. They are working in the President's office along with 4 missionaries. All together they keep all the missionaries in this area working and supplied with whatever they require. That would include just under 100 elders and sisters that are assigned to this area of Korea alone.

Daegu, Korea is where we actually live and work. It's about an hour and a half, by car, north from Busan. It's a BIG city but smaller than Busan, which is a port city right at the southern tip of Korea. We're about 2-2.5 million people here and we're the 3rd largest city in South Korea. It's a beautiful very 'western' city with skyscrapers everywhere. As the country is basically land-locked, everything here is vertical. They have the greatest underground subway that you could imagine.

We were inpressed with the trains when we lived in Germany. Germany doesn't have anything on Korea, time-table wise. If it's due to be there, it is. If it's due to leave you'd best be on board! The subway is air conditioned and has both seats and standing rails. One of the very different things we've discovered is that Koreans are soooo polite. They give up their seats immediately to anyone older and they have such respect and honor for their elders.

Now, having said this...Jim gets offered a seat before I do! I guess they revere the men more than the women. But they will literally jump up for a older man and they insist that you sit!

There are 2 types in trains in Korea. The fast train, called the KTX that gets up to over 250 mph. It's incredible but you really don't feel or recognize that speed. Beautiful train cars, some 4 seats have the capibility of turning so you have the 4 facing each other.... cards, anyone!! Curtains on the already darkened windows for those wanting to sleep while they're traveling. Small tv's overhead in the aisle every few feet for watching whatever they're airing. It's not tv, tv, it's ads or actually maps showing the train ride and where the train is now, type-of -thing. But hardly any voice with it so it's quite quiet.

The other is called the slow train. Not a lot of difference on the interior but it just makes more stops and therefore takes longer and is cheaper. We took the fast train already back to Busan and we've been to the Temple in Seoul already. It costs about $30 or so for a ticket on the fast train and probably half of that for the slow train. However, the neat thing is you can buy 'in groups' and get the fast train for the price of the slow train! When we go to Busan it's always for a meeting, etc, and the elders and sisters go too so there is always a group. We took the fast train to Seoul for the Temple and that was a Branch Temple Trip. They go the first Saturday of each month (it's in English at that time) and again, we have a group!

The Seoul Temple is beautiful, as they all are. The interior is done in Asian decor, as one would imagine. Very pretty. Walls, etc, are mostly in a very soft and gentle green. On the grounds of the Temple there is a connecting building that we stayed in. They have brother and sister rooms. Like big dorms they have bunk beds. I think I counted that 20 or 22 sisters could stay in that room at once. Also is a shower and bathroom area. If I recall it was $12 a night per guest. There is a kitchen there with vending machines. You have to have a temple recommend to enter, of course. From the dorm areas you simply take a little walk and go up some steps and you're inside the front entry of the Temple.

Anyway, the mode of transportation here is incredible. There are many ways to get around; city buses, taxi's that are literally everywhere... subways that are the best, and then they have the trains. Why America can't -or won't- get this figured out is beyond me!

Our job, if you will, is to reach out to the active members of the church and assist them however we can. We also have the responsibility to search out those here that are less active or totally inactive and see if we can assist them as well. Some of this has been quite hard to do. First of all the regular members are busy with their own lives, of course. Second there has not been a complete 'list'of who's here.

There is such a list.... it's handled through the Chaplain's office on any base or post. Prior to coming here we'd been advised to be careful in our approach. Chaplain's come in all denominations and beliefs themselves. We don't want to offend, certainly, nor do we want them to feel uncertain as to our time here.

Through a military member we were able last week to meet with the 'head' chaplain and his assistant. What a meeting it turned out to be! If we scripted it, it would not have gone any better. That meeting was an answer to a lot of earnest prayers. Bottom line, if the chaplain doesn't like you and/or your religion, they can make your life very difficult.

Major Johnson is the Garrison Chaplain. Seventh-Day Adventist himself, his assistant is a Southern Baptist. They simply could not have been more gracious. We have complete availibility of the chapel, itself, if we want. We already have our own building we meet in but we share it with the local Korean Ward and there can be some conflicts of scheduling, etc. I don't believe we'll change our meeting site, but there are other times and ways we could utilize the chapel. They have a HUGE what we would call, cultural halls. A few, in fact! The kitchen was unreal to us. Real stoves and 4-5 refigerators. A couple of stand-alone freezers. He also showed us a back area where they can block off cars to have a sort-of block party with outside grills, etc. Large meeting rooms to use complete with TV and DVD for showings.

Jim mentioned the meeting rooms and we might like to do a class; type of bible study... he mentioned the Bible, Old and New Testament, and the Major spoke right up and said, 'that's fine - but please do your own as well; The Book of Mormon...people come to that class should expect to hear Mormon doctrine!"

He also showed us a big rack in the entry way of the chapel that holds various pamplets, etc. He pointed that out to us and told us he would move some things around so we could display whatever we wanted from our faith along side the others. We could not have been blessed more than we were. He even wants to do some co-training with Jim at some kind of a work-shop when he found out that Jim has been Covey certified to teach the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.... the Major has also been certified and he loves the program! We offered to volunteer to help them in any way we can and that was discussed in detail.

Bottom line...we not only will receive the original list of who's who and their religion, which will help us immensly in our calling but he offered to get us the list for Area 4 in all of Korea! That includes the southern tip of Korea, north all the way to Daejon and includes east to west; literally the southern third of Korea. We will know any and all members in this area that are LDS. Many we can contact and those in outlying areas we can pass on to other senior missionary couples!

One of our major concerns was permission to wear our badges while on the military complex. There has been some concern in the past with various areas so the HQ Military Relations Mission in Salt Lake is rightly concerned. As our conversation was going so well I think both Jim and I felt impressed to bring the badge situation up. We mentioned the badge and he said he was surprised we weren't wearing something to identify ourselves... we discussed that, showed him our name badges we had with us - but not on. Bottom line; he has no problem with us wearing it at all. In fact he went on to say that he will check with the reg book to see if there is anything - he doesn't want to get in trouble either...  :-)  but he's pretty sure there is not and said he feels the truth is we need to wear them; otherwise how will our members (active or inactive) know us when they see us? We will hear from him this next week.

We've had 2 successes without our badges. One happened because we had the missionaries with us at the PX. We were to have dinner with a member family on-post and at the last minute they had to postpone. We took the missionaries on-post anyway and ate at Taco Bell. They were in 7th heaven! After eating they were throwing our papers away when a young man was standing there and asked the missionaries if they were in-deed missionaries from the LDS church? Long story he'd been here less than a month and didn't know we had an English church available to him. He's coming to church!

2nd story; again in the PX, a sister we didn't know asked us if we were in the church. She had been in the PX before and had noticed us talking to some people that she knew to be members so she decided to take a chance and ask us... They were at church yesterday as well.

The next 2 days here in Korea is THE biggest holiday of the year. It has to do with their ancestors but everything is closed. Even the military has restrictions about leaving post! The roads, they say, are a literal mess. So we received a call from President Jennings. He is bringing all the missionaries to Busan (we'll go the fast train) tonight and spend all day tomorrow doing something he has planned for all of us. As it will be a P-day for us it should be something fun to do. The missionaries can NOT prostlize on this holiday so that gives them all an extra P-day. This way the President can make sure they're all doing something as they can't be knocking on doors. We're meeting our group of elder and sister missionaries at the Yok (train station) at 5:00 pm.

Do we love it here? You bet we do! The Korean people are the nicest. They smile at you when they see you. Oh, you always have some that just ignore you but they do that in the states too! Those that are members are great members! They love the church and many literally walk away from their family to join. But they have such strong testimonies of the gospel and the plan of salvation! When we were at the big conference President Jennings had just a couple of days after our arrival, we were so blessed to hear from many of the Korean missionaries. Of course, we had headphones on for translation.... but they bore the sweetest and most heartfelt testimonies that I've heard. As many give up so much just to hold membership in the church they are so strong in their understanding of the gospel, the need for the restoration, the priesthood that is again on the earth as it was in Jesus's time and the blessings of eternal marriage and families in the sacred temples. I found myself sitting there wishing everyone I knew could have had the blessing of hearing them as we did. As members there are too many of us that get complacent and take what we have for granted.

We are 'trying' the Korean food. I'm slower to try things than Jim but we both really want to know what we're eating before we do. The missionaries have taken us to some restaurants and we've had good to excellent. Nothing so far we couldn't handle. Of course they're on such tight budgets they go to the cheaper places. We went to one restaurant for soup. It comes in a BIG bowl full of broth (good) and great vegetables. Then they put a big piece of pork in the middle of the soup. Now, the pork in still on it's bones so they give you a side dish to put the pork on and pick the meat off, put back in your soup and eat. It was delicious. This whole huge bowl, served with side dishes and always a bowl of rice was under 3 American dollars!

We've been to 2 baptisms so far in our month here, the 3rd coming up this weekend. The one this weekend is an 8 year old boy of a military family. One of the other 2 was an 8 year old Korean girl from the Korean Ward. But the other is a woman of about 27. She was born in the states but is half Korean and teaches here in Daegu; English speaking classes. She speaks perfect English but her friends, etc, are Korean. We actually were able to go through the last of her appointments with the elders prior to her baptism. She is a joy and her baptism was very spiritual. She is thrilled to be the 'newest' member of the Korean Ward! The Korean Bishop in her ward is the same that shares the building with us. He is so nice and he loves the missionaries! He is so ticked at Jim and me being here and will shake our hands and talk and talk to us all the time. Of course, we can't understand a word he says, and he knows that, but he just smiles at us, bows and jabbers on! He is so cute. A couple of times we've been blessed and a missionary will be close by and translate what he's saying to us....

So, after this espistle, I will wind down. Please know we are so happy in what we are doing. We're thrilled about the visit with the Chaplain and thank Heavenly Father for that gift. We know we will REALLY be getting to work in the very near future and that excites us.

We love each of you and ask you to keep the people of Korea in your prayers. As with America so many of them are searching for answers, most don't know where to look. Heavenly Father has truly softened the hearts of many here and the work goes forth.