GOODBYES AND HELLOS AND THE USO! - Zone Conference

So we have shared many experiences about our unaccompianied friends "the Darrens" they have been such a big part of our mission. Darren righty (Right handed) left in January to go to England and appears to be loving every second. Could it be because he has been reunited with his sweet wife and his four sons? Well May came along and we had to say goodbye to our Darren lefty (left handed - one of the few differences in these two-) it was a little bit hard for me.  He is my son Jordan's age and was very good to me while here - he truly did become very much like a son to us. A couple of weeks before he left a young man who served a mission at their last base and Darren was the ward mission leader with him, was sent to a two week training here at Osan - he happened to have a birthday on our FHE night - so we celebrated with him.  Below are some of the pictures from that last FHE with Darren and his friend.

The above pictures are a bit bittersweet because shortly after this FHE, our young missionaries have been given a new assignment for Monday nights.  It kind of switched up our plans on how to serve on Mondays.  So at the present, we are welcoming in the new families and saying goodbye to the ones leaving. It's PCS (Permanent Change of Station) Season - so we are losing about five families and getting about that many in.  They are making most of the assignments here at Osan command sponsored which means they can now bring their families with them. This has caused us to reflect on what we have been doing and what we need to adjust.  This mission has been special but one of the hard things about it has been always asking ourselves if we are meeting our missionary purpose. Our lives have been very blessed, we can only hope that we have been a blessing  those we have served.

The below pictures are from zone conference.  The first one is the missionaries who are new to the mission.

We had zone conference around Cinco de Mayo and Sister Gooding, the office missionary who is about to go home wanted to have a Mexican theme,   She went to a lot of work with decorations, food planning and then she ended up in the hospital with pneumonia.  We all felt very sad for her - but we carried on with her theme.

Pictured are our office missionaries, Sister Lackley, Sister Sunmi Lee, Sister Stafford and Sister Kim (one of our new Korean couples. The second picture is the Kims (Our branch presidents in laws and the Lowes)

Below are a few of the missionaries who have served with us in our district.  Elder Will McBride, who just went home this last week, Elder Lucas Squires.  Sister Tongia from Laie Hawaii, and Sister Clegg, Lehi, Utah

Above the sisters who lived below us the last couple of transfers, Sister Clark from Georgia and Sister Christensen, from Pleasant Grove, Utah.  Below is a part of the Mitchell family.  They are amazing!  7 boys and one girl and soon to be 8 boys and one girl.

Our Friday night game nights are always a surprise at who will actually show up!  In May was had quite a few so we had to take a picture of the crew!

It is tradition to take a picture with our district on the last district council before Transfers and then we go out to lunch together.  Quite a few of our missionaries transferred out of our district and the Neuffers (the couple who served at Humphreys) went home.  So we are glad we got this picture.

So I don't forget names 

Front Row Elder and Sister Neuffer, Sister Clark, The Lowes, Elder Rocque, Elder Limberg

Back Row: Sister Christensen, Elder McBride, Elder Nivera, Elder Coder, Elder Moser, Elder Osmond

Since we have been here in Osan, we help with the Red Cross Briefing at the Newcomers Briefing.  We have also started to do a USO table.  It's a fun time for us because we are able to meet many of the people who are new to the base.  And we have also been able to help some of the members who move in and don't know where the church is.  We have a Veteran friend who runs the veteran table names Ernie.  He has become a very dear friend to us. He is married to a Korean lady and has no desire to move back to the United States.  

This is a picture of Earnie with our adopted granddaughte, Rachel Morrison.  They had a sweet connection while she served here. 

Well - trying to keep these a little shorter - so I will go work on getting caught up with my other posts!

THE AZAELAS! OH MY! /DISTRICT RELIEF SOCITY EVENT

Korea comes alive with color beginning with the cherry blossoms but then comes my favorite!  THE AZAELAS!  They are everywhere.  In the rocks on the fence, in the mountain trails, on the freeway, literally everywhere in April!  I am so blessed to have been here another Spring to walk among the flowers and feel the beauty of God's world. After the azaleas come the roses and many other flowers until the fall when we have the pink mull grass and the brilliant fall colors. What a wonderful World!

These are two of my adopted daughters, Page Wellburn and Krista Mathis Linderman.  They have been such a joy to me and I believe I was put here to have the opportunity to know them!  I feel a special connection to them - the two little sweeties on the rock are their youngest daughters - Rosie and Rubie

As you can tell I couldn't get enough of the flowers!  The red one and the one with Elder Lowe and I were just outside our apartment and they were the later blooming ones!  If you want to come to Korea, April is a beautiful time to come!  Cherry blossoms and then the azaelas!  

Our district had a District Relief Society Social in Seoul to celebrate the Relief Society.  We had some fun classes and we learned how to do BOJAGI gift wrapping. It looks hard but it was pretty easy and so fun to learn!  I enjoyed it so much that I bought a lot of the Bojagi fabric to mail home and wrap Christmas presents in this year!  I went up on the Subway with these other adopted daughters, Wendi, Cass, (ME) Mette, Meagan and Eliza.  It was a very fun day.  We went up very early so we could get a session in at the temple.  It was my first time going to a Korean Session.  Pretty sweet day!

We ran into Mette at the temple.  She is married to Roger Park and he is from Korea, she is from California so they came to our branch until about January - darling family.  Well now they are trying the Korean Ward up near where they live because the commute isn't near as hard on their little family.  Fun fact - Roger's parents are now serving in the southern part of our mission.  It is so exciting to have the Korean couples step up and serve here - I am sure it will help this mission grow exponentially.  Another one of the Korean couples has a daughter that married and Airman and they are also serving in our mission.  The daughter's husband is the ortho surgeon on the base and helped me when I broke my back and he has recently been called to be the branch president.  They are a darling family!

It was really fun to go to this event - the district Relief Society went to a lot of effort to make it a very special day.  Our military district covers all of Korea, so some of the people came a long way to participate. I know I will really miss the association with all of these people.  Even though I am the oldest sister in the branch - I never feel like it - they treat me just like I could be their best friend! Such love and power in the military families here.  I forgot about the esprit de corps that exists among military families and it is especially sweet while being overseas so far away from their families.  We really do try to be mom and dad or grandma and grandpa to whomever seems a little lonely.

Well, since I have started at least three other posts I need to finish, I will sign off from this one!

Love you all!

 

46th Wedding Anniverary in Korea with the Tulips

So this is just a recap of a lovely day in Korea.  We went to a famous tulip festival and it was amazing.  They didn't just grow flowers but they made designs with the flowers in the middle of the flowers and they made buildings and animals and all sorts of cool things out of tulips, and any other kind of flower you could imagine that grows in the spring.  It was such a delightful day.  Around 430 we took the tour bus to a resort on the beach for dinner and they brought us back to the festival to see the light show. a whole different experience than wandering through the tulips. However, since we had seen the Garden of the Morning Calm light display at Christmas time - this one wasn't quite as impressive.  It was a nice way to celebrate 46 years of marriage.  The pictures speak for themselves. So I will just let you browse through them if you like!

I'm guessing you already know if you want to enlarge the pictures for a better view, just click on them

                                Notice the large tulip in the center of the tulips - pretty cool!

Notice the people on the ground to give you some perspective of how large this panda bear flower arrangement was!  Pretty incredible

Notice the beautiful cherry blossoms in the background.  The park was full of cherry trees - just so amazing!

                                                                        The trojan horse

        I couldn't resist this picture of the small child totally enjoying her day at the festival!!

 I hope you enjoyed this little taste of Korean creativity - they always go all out on anything they do!  Very industrious and creative and just plain old hardworking people.