MIRACLES HAPPEN - CELESTIAL COLLISIONS - March 28,  2025

WOW! What a day we have had! We got up and did some routine maintenance, made Scotch a Roos for the Singles Activity tonight and then said a prayer.  We did as we were counseled and prayed for miracles-then we went to work to make it happen.  We never know in what form the miracle will come, small or large, or if it will even be recognizable - but today there was no doubt that God was in the details of many lives!  

Everywhere we go we hear about the couple that served here before us - she is famous for her treats especially her cookies. People have been so happy to see us show up to be volunteers at the library, Red Cross, USO, Thrift shop and anywhere else we can find - but last night I was feeling a little  bit like the shoes they wore were too big for me to fill - especially since I haven't even figured out the oven yet. We are supposed to work with the Chaplain, but we haven't been able to make contact with him. We made treats to take to him and the Chapel was closed today - we went back to the Red Cross to take them cookies and meet the lady that runs the office and she wasn't there - we were feeling a little discouraged and Elder Lowe said, well we're supposed to be in the food court basically trolling during the lunch hour to just be visible so we went into the BX to pick up a few things and we hadn't been there more than five minutes when a young man approached me and said "Sister, I see that you're a missionary and I just got here yesterday.  I looked up the church and the Branch President, but I don't know how to get there on Sunday. Can you help me?" 

Well we have a car but because of liability, we are not supposed to give rides except to other missionaries. The sweet thing was, while I was visiting with him trying to figure out the bus to get him to the church, I remembered that we had met John, our friend who is getting baptized when he gets back to his family in July and John has a car - so we hooked him up with John and now he will be able to come to our activity tonight and we will have him and John over for dinner on Sunday.  It was a tender mercy for our new friend Darin Lunt and a great big tender mercy for us as it helped us know our purpose here is just to love and support and serve!  We bought him lunch and then went our separate ways and as we were walking, this darling couple stopped us and said you must be the Lowes (They weren't close enough to read the nametags, they just saw them)  we said yes and he was the branch Presdent - he said "We've been waiting for you!' We told him about our new friend and were about to pull out his phone number and up he walked - anyway as I put this to words, it doesn't sound as incredible as it was - but this is a day I will always remember to help me get my feet going in the mission responsibilites! 

Oh, and BTW, I did ask Darin if it was okay to post his picture!

It's such a unique experience to be set apart as a missionary. I have always felt like people were important.  But as we have met people, I feel like the Savior is using not just my hands, but my heart and eyes to convey the Love He has for them.  I don't know that I have ever felt quite this way before! At some moments, I feel like my heart could burst right out of my chest!

If you are able, don't deny yourself the opportunity to serve the Lord on a Senior Mission - you are needed desperately in so many ways. It is very hard to leave those you love and your possessions but when you get half way around the world and feel the Love the Savior has for these people - it's PRICELESS!

Oh and I forgot to add that Our new friend served a mission in South Salt Lake City where a young man Named Robert Chanbers was his mission president - interesting fact - Robert and I grew up in the same ward and our dads served in the bishopric together - who would have ever guessed!

Service Begins!! March 24, 2025

In the interest of priivacy of the people involved in this post, I have chosen to not post pictures at this time.

We have a much nicer apartment than we anticipated.  It is  the Hillstate apartments, brand new, near Osan Air Base. It has Two bedrooms, a large study, two bathrooms, a nice pantry and a walk in closet.  We have a washer and dryer which is nice because many of the missionaries don't have a dryer here in Korea.  We did have to sacrifice having a dishwasher - but that is so ok!!
We had hardly got into the apartment before the Sister missionaries that we will work in invited us to Family Home Evening. We were exhausted, but decided we needed to go get a grip on what was being done here - we were so happy we went.  There was a convert there from Sri Lanka who was just baptized last Saturday, another gentleman who is getting out of the air force in July is getting baptized as soon as he returns to the states.  He wants to get baptized right now, but his wife and family aren't here and they are members and would be so sad to miss his baptism. He is an amazing person and we are looking forward to working with him.  There were other people there, very loving! They all seemed so grateful that we are  here.  There was a sweet Korean Sister who is not yet a member of the church but she brought us all korean chicken and popcorn!  Just a very delightful evening!  We came back to our apartment and collapsed!

TUESDAY MARCH 25

This morning we walked with the sisters to the church for district council.  It was SOOO amazing!  Mostly in Korean, but the Spirit was very strong.  These really are amazing missionaries with such a desire to bring joy unto others and Invite others to come unto Christ - I was so impressed with their language skills - they have worked so hard to learn the language and on the way gained an amazing testimony. They have been trained so well by their mission president. The district goes to lunch once a transfer after their meeting but we weren't able to join them because we needed to be back at the apartment to wait for a dining table to be delivered. After the table was delivered, the sisters came over to help us figure out the people that the people we replaced were working with - they were so helpful. As soon as they were on their way, the elders came over to help us with some technology. By the time they left it was 630 and we were famished - I went to the kitchen to fix some dinner - we hadn't done a lot of shopping yet - but there was some frozen chicken and french fries left in the freezer - I tried to start the tabletop oven and had no clue how to get it to start.  There is not a free standing oven in the apartments, so the mission provided us with a countertop one. It was very frustrating, all the directions were in Korean and I just threw my hands in the air and decided we would have another sandwich for dinner and then we both crashed - ....

WEDNESDAY MARCH 26

We woke up with the intention of going to the base and fanilarize our selves with the places we would be offering service.  I couldn't figure the stove top out - we came out the wrong direction from our apartnment and we both felt completely lost!  We were feeling a little discouraged and I must admit I was ready to just go home .... but the afternoon was amazing and I realized if we keep trying God won't let Satan's minions drag us too far off!

I went into the post offie to get our APO and had two awesome encounters with people.  It's interesting, when you wear the nametag, they either want to talk to you or they turn their heads before you can talk to them. One gentlemen told me how much I was going to love being in Korea and just get out and orient yourself.  As he was talking to us, a young airman was standing by.  He came up to us and said "Can I please take a picture with you?"  we, of course said yes! He told us he had a friend serving a mission in California and she wanted him to take a picture with anyone he saw wearing a missionary nametag so he could understand this was a worldwide church.  I asked him if he was a member of our faith - he said no but that he had another friend who was serving a mission. He wanted us to tell him our purpose at Osan and we told him we were there to help wherever we could. I was caught off guard and didn't have any contact cards to give him - so I'm praying for a miracle to run into him again and invite him to our Friday night activities which are generally held on base at the chapel.

We also had a wonderful experience with the two sales people in the CPAP store of all places!  They were so helpful and curious about what our mission entails.  It turns out one of them lives in a complex across the street from ours.  She actually gave me her phone number - I definitely plan to follow up with her - just to be her friend! It's such an amazing feeling you get when your whole purpose is to bring others to a knowledge of Christ - I love our church's approach now of LOVE, SHARE, INVITE We are really enjoying the love part and I think that is what most people need!

We shopped at the commissary which was nice - people were speaking english and there was american food on the shelves! We spent a lot of money - but we want to be able to invite people to dinner and LOVE them!

When we finally found our way home, I cooked spaghetti and we both felt like crashing!!! Remember, we've only been in the country three days by now and jet lag is REAL !  We were invited to join an english class the church offers on a Zoom meetinng.  It was so tempting to say, "We'll catch you next time". But we didn't, THANK HEAVENS! It was such an overwhelming powerful time - who would have thought an English class could be so Spiritual!  There were five Korean ladies on the Zoom from various parts of Korea - they were DARLING! They all had picked a christian name but one Sister said she picked "Sister Bae" because she wanted to be able to tell people why we call each other sister and brother.  She has been a member of the church since 1988. One of the ladies has not joined the church but has an amazing spirit about her!  Two of the ladies have joined the church over the last two years by loving this English class - their spirits were so strong - I wanted to reach through the screen and give them all a hug! So many tender blessings and we've only just begun!

THURSDAY March 27

Today I got up and we took the trash downstairs - it has to be separated into  hard plastics, soft plastics, styrofoam, cardboard, glass, cans, and regular garbage and we don't have a garbage disposal so we have a little net that catches the food an it goes in it's own place so taking care of the garbage is quite the process!  It was raining a little so Elder Lowe didn't want to walk with me but I walked around the very large complex and found a few grocery stores and oriented myseld a little. I walked down the thirteen flights of stairs, but since I haven't bee to the gym for a while, I decided to walk up the thirteen flights! SO proud of myself!  WELL THATS ENOUGH FOR NOW! HOPEFULLY I WILL BE ABLE TO POST MORE LATER - we need to get over and introduce ourselves to the chaplain.

Be happy but more importantly find JOY!

WE MADE IT

We started out bright and early from the SLC airport on Saturday March 22 at 5:00 am We felt excited and a bit overwhelmed!

Boarded the plane at SLC and we had the exit row! Hurray! It gave us a little more leg room! Nothing exciting here !

Landed in LAX and  had three hours so we found some Panda Express, not realizing that Korean Airlines would feed us three times on our 13 1/2 hour flight to Incheon.  WE love Korean Airlines - the service is like stepping back into the 60's and They all dress alike and are so very kind! We forgot how LONG the flight is to Incheon and we were very restless by the time we got to Korea.  Going to look at upgrading our flight on the way back for Sure.   We flew on a double decker plane! and another double decker flight on Asiana Airlines left ten minutes after us! PEOPLE are definetly flying to Korea these days!

Elder Lowe at the Incheon Airport. We arrived about 530 pm Sunday March 23, while you were all sound asleep at about 230 am.  Time travel to the future is possible!😍 We were met by the office staff, Elder and Sister Bodine -they are truly faithful servants of the Lord! They took us to their home fed us dinner and put us to bed!

In the morning they took us to the Mission Office and we met Pres Hong and Sis Park they were so amazing and inspiring! You can tell how much they love the missionaries and the people. He is a second generation member of the church and when he met Sis Park - he told her she might want to learn about what he believes and the rest is history. In Korea, the wives keep their maiden name.

The Bodines from Smithfield Utah - they are amazing! They only have one other sister in the office helping them with the temporal needs of close to 140 missionaries!  And yet, they took time to make sure we felt welcome and they tried hard to set us up for success!

Elder Hong and Sister Park! We love them already!

So Korea here we come - ready or not!  Oh I also learned that Annyeonghaseyo means "Peace be with you".  So ....ANNYEONGHASEYO TO ALL OF YOU THAT WE LOVE!
 

Preparing to say goodbye to our family!

In preparation to leave my sweet family for eighteen months - I made a Grandma's helping hands quilt! It is very hard to think of leaving them for this long as I will miss two graduations and a baptism - but there are so many blessings promised to those who leave their families for a short time in the eternal scheme of things to serve other and invite them to come unto Christ!

We learned this week in our MTC class of blessings promised every day for our families as we dedicate our time and service to the Lord.

A great promise is found in the Doctrine and Covenants 31:1-6

As we studied this, I felt a peace wash over the me concerning worries I had been experiencing for my family!

The weekend before we left, we tried to support our family in whatever ways we could.

Kate was in Newsies so we were lucky enough to watch her cute performance! Her brother Matthew had a volleyball tournament we watched on Saturday and we were able to meet Conner for lunch at Holy Tacos in Provo!  Very nice day

On Sunday, my sister Shannon hosted a  nice dinner for all of us at her home. We missed seeing Jordan and Hannah - but we will hook up with them while we serve in Asia. We also missed Brittany and Michael. But we tried to get pictures of everyone but I think we missed a few 

And so I leave you with this - Annyeonhaseyo (hello) from Korean Bound Elder and Sister Lowe