January 8, 2017 National Palace Museum

Our office elders showed us how Korean children wish Happy New Year to their elders.  Then they expected some gifts!

We had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) this week with Zone Training the following day.  After the training, we went to help some sisters move into their new apartment.

We had several sets of elders and some members from the ward, so the move went quite fast.

We walked to the Costco after the move and let the other senior couple take the van so they could get ready for the addiction recovery group.

I wondered what Pigeon scent was??  It's actually a rose scent, not like a dirty bird.

We got these sodas with our lunch.  Can you read this?

On Friday, we went out to visit three of the missionaries' apartments to do some repairs.  We were wandering around a bit looking for the sister's place which we had been to before, but we came from a different direction.  Then we noticed a church with no cross on the steeple.

Hmmm.  Looks like a Mormon building.

It was!  The sisters came and found us and we were all OK.

The weather has been nice, so on Saturday we went to the National Palace Museum of Korea.  We were headed to a different museum, but the street was blocked off by police buses, so we went to this museum instead.  These turtles are stamps on the bottom.  Official seals or signatures for the royals.

This is the genealogy of the king.  That would be hard to index!

This is a serpent or dragon head that was on the roof of a palace.

They had some amazing royal costumes.

Front

And back

This carving was used as a pattern for the medallions on the gowns.

This is a wedding gift wrap with two phoenix birds in the center.  It is called a bok.  Which means, tied up gift of good luck.  The dresses are called han boks which are also tied???

Beautiful hair ornaments

These are pieces of wood to show how the roof supports are made for the palace.

These braces fit inside the holes to hold it together.

You just have to put the pieces together like Lincoln Logs.

How about these cool cars.  This is a 1907 Cadillac.

Now the slaves don't have to carry them around any more in this.

They had some neat musical instruments.  This is a tiger shaped wooden scraper.  The stick is rubbed on the back to make noise.

Very colorful drum

Bells

Jade or granite chimes.  See the duck feet?  Since jade is not affected by temperature and humidity, it is used as the tuning standard for traditional Korean instruments.  Who knew?

This is a restoration of a water clock.  The water is regulated to cause it to chime.  When the water reaches a certain level, a ball is released that hits a lever and rings the clock.  The bell rings every two hours, a drum every 90 minutes and a gong rings every 20 minutes.

This is a screen of the sun, moon, and five peaks that was placed behind the king's throne as a symbol of royal authority.

So, my photos are not the best, but if you want to see better views, you can go to https://www.gogung.go.kr and see some good photos.

The protest did not last as long last night.  It was only loud for a little while.

At church today, one brother told about his mission to the Philippines.  He was excited that one of our elders in our branch is from a family he worked with on his mission 15 years ago!  How in the world?

Merry Christmas! and Happy New Year!

Our Christmas Eve this year was spent with the unaccompanied service men.  We were able to use the US Embassy housing facility, so it felt like being in a home,  We even had Christmas Carolers!  This sweet family from our branch came by to sing for us after dinner.

We had fun visiting with the servicemen and playing games.

Sunday morning we had just Sacrament Meeting.  It was fun to see the children dressed in their new Christmas clothes and happy (and sleepy) after their exciting morning.  It was great to remember the Savior's birth on the Sabbath.  Plus, we were able to have a baptism service for a new member.

Christmas night we had dinner again after the Sacrament Meeting on base for those who are not able to come at the regular church time.  The elders were able to come too.  They're happiest when they're being fed. (Or having baptisms!)  Thanks to Elder and Sister Cannon for inviting us.

When we were waiting for our bus to go home, these two semi trucks came down the street.  They were all lit up and had Christmas carolers spreading good cheer.  We got to see the back side of the truck, but we could tell they were very enthusiastic!

We had a later staff meeting on Monday.  That gave us time to make our Christmas calls.  Instead of Monday morning, we met in the evening and had dinner at the mission home.

We had zone conferences during the week.  For one of them, the office elders traveled with the Sonksens and held the conference out of the city.  But we had them at the mission home on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  We helped serve them a lunch of breakfast foods.  Pancakes, egg bake, sausages, and fruit.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it very much.  We were too busy to take photos though!

We received an email from a missionary couple that has been called to our old assignment as humanitarian missionaries in Astana.  We were excited to know that the work there will continue to be in good hands.

As we went to bed on New Year's Eve, we were trying to decide if the noise from outside was a celebration or one of the usual Saturday night protests.  We decided that it sounded more like a protest than a celebration.  Koreans celebrate Seollal (solar new year) which will be January 28.

But, Happy New Year to all.  We were asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting today.  I was asked to speak on how to get answers to gospel questions and Alan spoke about gaining a testimony.  We've had our turn for the year already!

Party Time all over the Place!

We had a couple of lucky finds recently.  After we left the temple one day, we saw this cafe "Taco Loco".  We had to give it a try and it was pretty good.  Not too much to look at but tasty.  The lunch special was a burrito, soda, and ... french fries!  Why not?

This little piece of Cache County found its way to my freezer!

One Saturday evening we were headed to a devotional / dinner for the temple workers.  The crowds were beginning to form.  It's been more like a celebration recently because the president has been impeached.  Still not removed from office, but the crowds are getting smaller.  But our bus never came due to the streets being closed, so we had to take a different route.

At church, we had a special Relief Society meeting last week.  We had some talks and music by the members.  It was focused on giving service.  There were several nativity sets from all over the world.  Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Hawaii, etc.  Our members have traveled to and come from all over the world.

The Sonksens had another open house at their home last Sunday.  Here are some of the shoes of the people that came.  There were lots more shoes outside the door.  Alan and I were making hot chocolate as fast as we could!

Someone gave these cakes to Sister Sonksen, so we had a treat for our staff meeting.  These beautiful cakes actually tasted good too!

This past week was transfers.  We picked up 11 new missionaries, all from the US this time.

Places like Kansas, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Utah.

And we sent 15 home!  So it was a busy week.

This Saturday we had another party!  The senior missionaries from both Seoul missions were invited to Elder and Sister Black's apartment.  We all found our way there and had a great time together.

This "Gangham Style" dancing Santa was in my possession during the White Elephant game for a while, but he ended up going home with somebody else.

Sisters Park, Grey, Nielsen, Black, Robinson, Cannon and Anderson.  Two of the couples will be returning home soon.  Elder and Sister Park work with housing in the South Mission, Sister Grey works in the temple and her husband is also the mental health representative for the area.  The Nielsens work in the temple.  The Blacks work in the South Mission office.  (Sister Black got a new hanbok dress for Christmas.)  The Robinsons are public affairs missionaries for Korea.  Elder and Sister Cannon are working in Military Relations plus she is our mission nurse.  And we work in the Seoul Mission Office.  We're a pretty diverse group.

Here are some of the goodies at the Open House.  The Sonksens opened their home three Sunday nights in a row, plus a Saturday morning one.  The Koreans enjoyed learning about Christmas traditions, seeing nativity sets and nutcrackers.  And eating cookies!

And how do you like this amazing ginger bread house?  Sister Sonksen has great skills!

Our Arizona kids were able to get together this weekend for a Christmas party.  Here's our three daughters!

Light The World

This chapel is next to the temple in Seoul.  We had Zone Training on Wednesday and were happy to see this huge banner on the building.  It's nice to have a reminder of the reason for the season!

This is our Seoul Zone.  We love these missionaries!  They are planning their activities for December to share the light of the gospel and Light the World.

The missionaries had planned a special surprise for Elder and Sister Cannon to show our love to them.

After our meeting we rode back to the office with the elders.  After they delivered some Book of Mormons to an area, we noticed that traffic was slowing down.  So, we got out and walked the rest of the way home.

There was a small group of protesters coming up the street.  It seems that the police were prepared.

 Police buses lined the street to keep anyone from getting closer to the "Blue House" or President's Mansion.  The buses were very close to each other so no one could get past them.

These buses had stickers or notes all over them.

We did hear some noises from the street that night, but it didn't go too late.

We were a little concerned about going to the branch Christmas party on Saturday afternoon.  We saw some crowds beginning to form.

But when we got into the subway, there were mobs of people coming out to join the crowds.

We had a nice time at the Christmas party though.  There were service projects and crafts for the kids then a nice dinner.

We left before the program ended because we wanted to get off the streets before it got late.  When we came out of the subway, there were mobs of people going back in plus many more coming out.

This is the same intersection from a few hours earlier.  Now they had torches and were marching up the street.  So, we went home and stayed inside.  At least they're peaceful!  It was interesting that we saw much more police presence on Wednesday than on Saturday.

As a service for the members, the Sonksens had an open house for the Seoul Stake Sunday evening.  Everyone enjoyed seeing the Christmas decorations and having cookies and hot chocolate and learning about different Christmas traditions.  They wondered if anyone would come, but lots of people came!  It was fun to meet some more of the Korean members since we usually are with the English branch.  Alan even got to use his Japanese!

This cute little girl's name is Song Ye.  Her English name is "Sunny".

We told her parents that we have a daughter named Sunny too!