On Monday morning, Sister Sonksen, Sister Cannon and I went to an international women's event. It was like a craft fair from all the different embassies here. Lots of Christmas decorations and international crafts and foods. The proceeds were being given to a children's charity.
Kazakhstan was represented
Kyrgyzstan
Russia, Japan, Turkey, lots of fun places. I got to practice my greetings in several languages.
Monday night we had a FHE with the senior couples and got a report back on the Sonksen's trip to the mission president's seminar in Japan last week. President asked us to remind the young missionaries to "Keep their lines in the water." To keep looking and fishing to find those that are ready to hear the gospel. But first, we had dinner!
We have some members from Mexico that put this all together for us. They are from Mexico City, so it's not Sonoran style, but it sure tasted good! We enjoyed chatting about our visits to Mexico, and of course, the food!
We had a service project opportunity on Tuesday with the Seoul Zone. We were asked to help the Korean Red Cross prepare kimchi that will be given to the needy. This has been a staple food in Korea for ages. This is kimchi season. We see people making it all over town. And now we know how it's made!
This is a parking garage in the basement of a building. We wore our Mormon Helping Hands vests and over that, we were given a plastic bag to wear to protect our clothes, a hair net and mask. The men got some work gloves because they were hauling boxes all day, and the women got some rubber gloves. And we were glad to have them!
This is the ingredients: bok choy cabbage that has been cut in half and soaked in salt water brine. Plus, the sauce made of red chilies, onions, daikon (shredded radishes) and other secret ingredients.
The tables are all covered in plastic too. You take a cabbage and spread the sauce in between all the leaves.
And wrap it up like a cuddly baby. Then it's put into a styrofoam box that has been lined with a plastic bag.
It is weighed and then the top of the bag is twisted shut and sealed with a tie wrap. The lid of the box is put on and it is taped up nice and tight then hauled away to a secure location to let it do its thing for a predetermined amount of time. Then, viola! Kimchi for all!
I was corrected a few times because my kimchi skills are not so good. I even got kicked out of my spot for a while because the Mayor of Seoul came to do a photo op of him making kimchi. Apparently I wasn't putting enough sauce in there or something, because sometimes after I put it into the box, someone would pull it out and add some extra secret sauce. But towards the end of the project, when we were wondering if it was ever going to end, either my skills got better or their standards got lower, because they just let it be!
Seems like a good idea to have that mask on or I would have got red pepper sauce on my face when I had to itch my nose.
Alan was doing the tie wraps. His new best friend thought he was doing a great job.
Our awesome missionaries with a few members. We were all tired after this!
The next day, we had a special conference. Five of the zones came into the mission office and the other zone joined us via Skype. There will be a new Christmas Initiative by the church. A video will be released right after Thanksgiving with a different suggestion to serve like the Savior served each day until Christmas. Each district began planning for their service activities.
Then, we had a special visitor that came to speak to us.
Brother P J Rogers is a former Korean missionary that is now a professor at BYU - Hawaii. He was the first non-Korean to graduate from Yonsei University here in Seoul with an MBA degree. He is a well-known personality here and a great motivational speaker. He was in town to help place some of his students as interns in Korean businesses. He gave some great insights about relating to the Korean people.
We noticed that one of our senior couples was missing. Then we heard the news that they had returned to the states to be with their daughter and family after the loss of their grandson who was born prematurely. We are praying for their family.
We have lots of copies of the Book of Mormon for our missionaries to give out this season. They're fired up!
We had planned to go see what was happening at the city center on Saturday. We had heard that there was going to be something else besides a protest. But, when we saw all the police out in force again, we changed our plans and rode the subway out to Costco instead. The protest did not last as long as last week's, but we could still hear them going into the night.
After church on Sunday, we went to visit our friends from the Seoul South Mission. They will be going home to Texas this Thursday to continue recovering after a stroke last month. We will miss them! We were happy to see how well he is recovering.
Meanwhile, back at home, some of the fun happenings is that this weekend was the El Tour de Tucson bike race. It is a 100 + mile bike race around Tucson that we've been helping with since our kids were little. Now our grandkids are having fun serving drinks and snacks to the riders.
Yeah, helping and goofing off!
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