Hello all my friends and family - as usual - there is never a dull moment here in Osan! Today we took the day to stay at home and catch up. Randy's Aunt Hughlene Workman passed away on July 24 and they had the funeral today, August 8 at 10:30 am here in Korea, but Aug 7 at 6:30 pm in Arizona. It was lovely that they had an evening funeral so that we didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to participate. What a blessing modern technology is! We were able to see the attendees and feel a little sad we weren't there to give hugs, but still feel a part of Hughlene's celebration of life! She lived a wonderful life with a great posterity!
Tomorrow morning, we are hoping to be lucky enough to watch our friend John Herrara get baptized - we don't know if they are going to zoom the meeting or not but we will definitely be there in Spirit! We will have to be up quite early if they do zoom the event! This is truly one of the greatest moments of our mission! We have loved watching John's journey to baptism - we didn't get here until he was ready to be baptized, but we had the opportunity to go over all the principles with him and make sure he had an understanding of what he was preparing for. I'm telling you - HE TAUGHT US! His wife has been a lifelong member of the church and they agreed to disagree on religion. They have been married about fifteen years and together for around seventeen. So she didn't want him to get baptized here in Korea, because she had been praying for this for all those years! I'm so happy for her and their four daughters! We are hopeful that we may be able to go through the temple with them when we get home next year! He decided while he was here in Korea on an unaccompanied tour that he would dig into the church - the good, the bad and the ugly and his testimony was strenghtened - he has been reading the Book of Mormon on a regular basis and studying the conference talks - the light of Christ just bounces off of him! When I asked him if I could share his story on my blog his response was, "Of course! Faith isn't to be held private and I'm proud of mine!" That just gives you a little glimpse of how wonderful it was to be part of his journey!
John - if you are reading this - we love you as if you were our own Son! You will forever be in our hearts!
In my last blog I told you about the new families that have moved into the branch - we have tried to have dinner with them or visit them - the picture below is of the Richards children! They are delightful. Their mother Marci grew up in Alaska - so if you know Elder Lowe at all - you know there was an instant connection! We are so excited to have these strong families around us that are trying hard to raise children in an ever increasing world of confusion. The future is bright!
On the first Saturday of the month the Seoul temple does two english sessions. We have to be up by 5 a.m and to the train station by 630 to make the 9 am session. A little different than walking down the street from our home in Pocatello. Anyway, last Saturday we went with two mommies and their 13 year old daughters! It was so fun to be with them! The family pictured in the middle is our Relief Society President. They came to Korea the same month that we did. She reminds me very much of my daughter Alisa, and has helped fill the void when I miss my daughters! Her four girls have made me feel special! We were all so excited when the Hull family moved in (The mother daughter on the left) with a sweet young 13 year old friend for Emeree! When you take the subway to the temple you walk a short ways but the last way if a pretty steep hill - the weather was in the 90s and the humidity was just as high so we were all soaking wet when we got to the temple but they let us in anyway!
The pictures below are of our Pyeontech District Council. We meet every Tuesday morning with this group and on the last council of the transfer we all go to lunch together - it's quite a sight in Korea to see us all walking down the street together to a restaurant but it's such a lovely tradition. The military relations couples stay where they are called their whole mission, but these young missionaries get transferred every few transfers! We absolutely love working side by side with them and being trained by them. They are amazing! We are always sad to let them go to their new assignments - but it's also fun to get to know more of the missionaries. We interacted with the missionaries in our last mission but it was such a different kind of interaction than working side by side with them. Such an awesome blessing for us!
I just thought it would be fun to include a picture of some of the food we have been enjoying. I keep forgetting to take pictures, but the cuisine here is pretty amazing! The little side dishes tend to be pickled radishes, kimchee and sometimes soup - of course, you can always plan on rice and it's very sticky heavy rice here! But oh so good!
Last week we had a very fun adventure with a sister in our branch, She had a friend of another faith visiting from Utah (Actually, she is from Brazil but she lives in Utah for the time being) We loaded up in Sister Dadiva's van with her friend, Mariana, her cousin Norman, and a sister in the branch from Haiti and her two children and Lola, Sister Dadiva's mother. We went about 45 minutes south to the oceon and a fun restaurant called Road 1950/. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to find lots of memorabilia from the 1950s in England and America to place all around the outside and the inside of the cafe. It was a very fun experience and the food was incredible! There was also things from more recently such as bumblebee from Transformers and Shrek - but it was just a lot of fun! Couldn't decide which pictures to share - so I just sent a bunch of them!
The picture above on the right is awesome to me - if you had told me a year ago that I would be enjoying lunch with friends from Brazil, Haiti, The Philipines and Korea - I would have thought you were dreaming! What a great experience it has been to get to know my brothers and sisters from around the world!
I have mentioned before the fun times I get to have on Thursdays when I go to the library and story/singing time! Well this last week we celebrated Harry Potter's birthday! This is a picture of the Librarian who did the potions section. The two hooded capes are our young missionaries- Elder Lowe and I got to do the craft which was a monster book. It was pretty creative - this library does some really cool things. If you want to see some of the other pictures of fun things we have done there you can follow the Osan Library Page on facebook. They always post pictures of the fun we have!
Well, this past week was a little bittersweet! We said goodby to the first sisters we worked with - Senior missionaries don't get trainers, but the younger missionaries do their best to help us learn the ropes and adjust to the culture - so these two sisters were pretty Special. Luckily, we were given the opportunity to go and pick up Sister Morrison in her area about and hour and a half south of us and take her up to the mission office to prepare to fly home to St. George Utah. Her apartment was about two hours from the mission office, so we got to have some fun times visiting with her before she left for home! The picture below is of her companion and the other set of companions that came to pick her up so she wouldn't be alone until Friday when the new missionaries showed up and everyone got there new companions. The sister on the right, Sister Lee, was in the MTC with us! The other two sister I knew about but was able to visit with them and get to know a little more about them! It was really a fun day despite the time we had to spend in the car!
The pictures below are of the first sisters I "adopted" as my grandchildren! My nickname at the library and with some of the missionaries is "Grandma Osan" Sister Lacee Burrell, on the left, is from Gilbert Arizona and she will be attending BYU-Idaho so we hope she stays there until we get back from our mission - so we can have a little mission reunion. Sister Rachel Morrison on the right is from St. George, Utah - so I told her we would for sure see her again since I have six grandchildren in Southern Utah.
The sister above on the right is Sister Livia Brady - we spent our first ten days with her before she was transferred. She has had back problems and had to leave to go home early. She is from Logan, so I am certain we will see her again. The Elder below is Elder Jensen - he and Elder Lowe are so similar and have become very good friends. He has been in our Pyeonteck District the whole time we have been here and was our first district leader. He is also from Arizona and will be attending BYU-Idaho. We are so excited to see watch all these and other missionaries we served with go on with their lives! They are great future leaders and righteous parents - the world is in good hands!
This is Sister Steveson from Washington area, she will also be at BYU-Idaho - It will be fun to host a reunion with all the ones we can find close to us when we are back in Idaho. The relationships with these young missionaries are only a part of the blessing we are receiving! We love the branch members, the library staff, the Red Cross Volunteers, the Chaplain Staff - I'm learning that when I come home, I need to be much more involved in the Community.
Well - we are having an amazing experience- but sacrifices along the way - the picture below is our family at the Preston Night Rodeo Parade with our awesome Grandma Dorothy - SHE'S IN HER 90's! I'm always a little sad when I miss these events - but I'm so glad that they all gather ( Not everyone made the picture) The older I get, the more I realize the importance of family gatherings / reunions! I can't believe how big they are all getting! It's amazing!
But in the meantime, while I am away from my family - I have adopted a whole lot of sons!! Our unaccompanied airman come over for dinner and we do game nights and family night and a spiritual night - I'm generally outweighed in the gender department - maybe this is what it feels like to be a boy mom! We're missing a few in this picture but we sure love them all!
We pray for our friends and family every day and we miss you and love you! Would love to hear a little bit more from everyone and how things are going in their lives - but I know you all have very busy schedules! Always remember you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you! We just need to turn to him, I heard a great quote at our district council this week - I think it's a good one to close with
GOD DOES NOT CHOOSE THE QUALIFIED - HE QUALIFIES THE CHOSEN!
WE LOVE YOU!
ELDER AND SISTER LOWE
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