30 October 2016

This week has flown by!  Our friend Jake has been assigned here with the Army, so we met him and spent some time together.  This is part of the Korean War Memorial near the Army base.

We went to City Hall to see what was happening.  It's always something.  This time it was a culinary festival, which was kind of nice since Jake's been to culinary school.  Lots of students showing their talents.

These carved pumpkins were amazing.

And free bowls of kimchee rice for everyone!

Then we went across the street to the Gyeongbokgung Palace.  This is the closest to our home, but we have never actually gone inside the gates.  It turned out that it was some kind of a holiday and all admission was free!  There's probably signs all over town about this, but we're pretty clueless.

Lots of people were dressed up as usual.

This little guy was more interested in Alan than in the zodiac carvings!

And we were able to watch the changing of the guard.  Jake also wanted to find a martial arts studio and it turned out that it's just up the street from us.

Then we went over to the shopping area to take Jake to the tie shop.  They were selling some fancy cotton candy here.  This guy was taking a selfie with his duck!

Friday afternoon, we went with the real estate lady looking for an apartment for some sisters.  The place they are in has a neighbor that smokes, so we are trying to find a better location for them.  This took us to a different area of the city.

They have street markets too.

Saturday, some of the senior couples got together for dinner after a temple session.  It was great to spend some time getting to know them better over some bibimbop.  (That's just fun to say!)  We were able to say goodbye to our temple presidency.  This was their last day.  We will meet the new presidency on Tuesday.

This was our first time to meet Elder and Sister Park.  They are Korean, but moved to Australia several years ago.  Now they are serving in the Seoul South Mission.  He likes to share his conversion story with people every day.  He has a website  http://whylds.com/ that has had over 67,000 visits!  His son visited our branch today and he works with his father to promote sharing the gospel online.  He is a website designer.

We also met a couple from South Jordan, Utah.  They are traveling around the world trying to visit all the temples.  So far they have visited over 100.  In this trip they have been to the three Japan temples, Korea and next they are going to Hong Kong and Taipei!  They expect it will take them a few more years because there are several in South America and Europe they still need to visit.

After dinner, we passed some street entertainment on our way to the bus stop.

These guys were amazing!

We had our primary program at church today.  It was very sweet.  One little guy broke the microphone, but they got it put back together.

We saw this display of random stuff on the stairs of the concert house on our way home from church.

This is how it looks through the lens they have set up in front of it.  You have to have the right perspective!

This is a popcorn machine.

They spin the corn around for a while in this heated tank which is under pressure.  Then he hooks the bag up to it and releases the pressure and it pops all at once!

When the smoke clears, pour it into the basket

And scoop it into bags with a soda bottle scooper!  Gamsamnida!  (Thank you!)  This is real popped corn!