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!