Chuseok

We had a couple of friendly reminders of Japan this week.  The other day, some brothers from the church came by to see the office.  One of them was from the Tokyo office.  He was surprised to see us.  He helped us get the new computers and printer hooked up in Sendai.  It was fun to see him again!

We also had an earthquake(!)  I thought there were no earthquakes in Korea.  But when we noticed some funny movements while we were sitting on the sofa, we wondered if it was a real earthquake, or something else???  I'm kind of glad it was a real earthquake.

Aren't these sisters adorable?  We had a holiday here called Chuseok.  It is a mid-autumn festival to remember your heritage and family.  Kind of like Thanksgiving?  (Some of the Korean missionaries made their phone calls home now instead of at Christmas.)  But since most everyone leaves town and all the stores are shut down, the missionaries don't have very many opportunities to work with people.  So one of the days was their day to do deep cleaning in their apartments.  The other day was a mission conference.  We had it on two different days, half of the mission each time.

We started at our own "Sacred Grove".  This is the location of the original mission home.  President Sonksen and some of our senior elders remember staying here back in the day.  (One of President's companions was Mack Wilburg from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.)

Our heritage in the church all goes back to Joseph Smith and the Restoration.  The senior couples were asked to share their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.

Then we went up (and up and up) the mountain behind the office and sang "High on the Mountain Top".  After we caught our breath, that is.  

There's an amazing view up there.  This is part of the old wall around Seoul.

For lunch, Subway Sandwiches!

After lunch we learned about traditional Korean activities and played games like

Arm Wrestling

And jump rope!  And no one got hurt!  

We finished up by watching "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration"

It was a great two days!

On Saturday, we went out to explore a different area.  A lot of the shops were closed due to the holiday.  But we still made a couple of good scores.  My friend Sheri would love shopping here!

We did see this old city gate Dongdaemun

This food court was seeing a lot of traffic.  We got some little sushi rolls of rice, carrots and pickles.

On Sunday night, we had a musical fireside on base.  Two of our elders are especially talented and have worked together on some special arrangements of hymns.  We were able to use a chapel on base.  We had a very good turn out.

One of our sisters sang also.  It was a wonderful night.