THE JOY WE FEEL HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OUR LIVES AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE FOCUS OF OUR LIVES - PRESIDENT RUSSELL M NELSON

I certainly don't know how I waited so long to make another blog post - I'm glad that Elder Lowe is keeping a journal - because I am failing!  If you are reading this, thanks for your interest in our experiences!  We have had so many simple little "celestial collisions" and meetings with people that we never would have had if we had not chosen to come serve this mission!  Heavenly Father has put some marvelous people in our lives and we are so grateful for that.    Just one little example, Elder Lowe thought we should go to the BX the other day - I was dragging my feet, not wanting to go eat another processed meal for lunch (LOL) but I put on my shoes and away we went because we are getting much better at listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We set down for lunch and a gentleman walked up to us and introduced himself.  He was from Kaysville, Utah.  Just down the road a few miles from where we lived for 15 years.  He was just here for a couple of weeks as a contractor but we told him when church was and he came on Sunday.  He had a very familiar face and we couldn't figure out why we should know him. Fast forward to the end of the story and after church, he and Elder Lowe were looking at the family tree app ( an app that has a relatives around me feature which helps you find your relative if they are in the same area you are in) Turns out this gentleman was Elder Lowe's third cousin and they had stories to share with one another.  Now, I don't know why we never met him when we lived along the Wasatch front and why we had to come halfway around the world to link up - but it was definitely a celestial collision! We have them on a regular basis!  

We are not necessarily bringing people to baptism as much as we feel like we are on a good will  mission, just sharing the light of Christ and letting others know there is still good in the world.  We have been so blessed with the people who have crossed our paths.

When we work at keeping our lives Christ Centered instead of just adjacent to Christ, we can open so many doors of faith and hope.!

Yesterday, as we were sitting around the table with a few of our unaccompanied airman, whom we have chosen to adopt them into our family, we learned of the news of our Sweet Prophet, President Russel M Nelson's passing through the veil.  I actually felt such joy for him as he had lived such a marvelous life and left us with so much good! I noticed many sad faces on fb as they learned of his death, which is understandable, but I felt such joy for him as he had to have been exhausted from such a wonderful life well lived.  I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in heaven as he was reunited with his beloved wife Dantzel, and his two daughters, but most of all his beloved Savior Jesus Christ!  Below are two of the many tidbits he left for us!  I pray that I will always look at the world a little differently now that he has left such an imprint of my heart!

 

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-russell-m-nelson-memorial

I have attached the link to his memorial for those of you of other faiths that may wish to read more of what he taught and shared with the world.

Ok - it's been awhile since I have written, so this may seem more like a novel than a blog - so feel free to sign off at anytime!😇

Our branch has been asked to donate thirty five baby quilts for abandoned children that need to be sent to orphanages here in Korea - so we found a very fun fabric store and joined with a few of the relief society sisters and started making the self binding blankets.  It was fun to be doing something productive with a group of ladies,  The first picture is the three littles that behaved so nicely while we worked! We took turns ironing the fabric, cutting and then sewing.  It was a productive morning!

So I have made an effort to find out all the birthday in the branch and do something special for them.  Well, we have a friend of another faith that joins us on our game nights and he brought me a sack of Snickers candy.  I decided I needed to do something special with it.  Well, one of our guys just had surgery on his leg and it was his birthday and it just happened to be the same day as my youngest, Jordan.  So I went all out and caused myself undo stress as I made this four layer Snickers cake. I put the layers in the fridge and tried to level them and thought there was no hope - I got up the next morning and added the caramel and peanut butter frosting and it actually turned out pretty good!   This is a picture of Darren on game night with his cake!   I'm going to try the effort again this week for another guy in our branch.  Their family lives in the apartment complex across the street from us and they have been so amazing to us!  We love them!  So hopefully the next one won't be quite as lopsided! 

We played Bunco for Darren's game night - I think it was a success!  I'm always looking for new ideas for groups - so if you have any suggestions - please send them to me!!

Well, this fall seems to be full of birthdays for our single people in the branch.  We have a sister here from Columbia who is a nanny and we never know for sure when she will be able to make it to Family Night. But, I tried to tell her at church that I would have a cake for her birthday and I thought she was coming - so I made this jello cake for her - but she wasn't able to come that night - we still have a bit of a language barrier but she is coming to our English classes trying to learn the language. 
In Korea we are one of only two military districts left in the church the other one is in Japan - so our District President is tasked with the steward ship over all the foreigners in Korea.  So that is why we have the different languages at our Family night on Mondays.

We share our building with the Korean ward and the young missionaries were trying to have an activity where the Military branch and the Korean ward would have an activity together - we were the only ones who came from our branch but it was a super fun day.  It was a potato party and everyone brought something made out of potatoes.  There were some interesting things there but the potato selection here in Korea is not as good as in the states.  I was able to contribute a decent potato salad but the funny thing was the dish that won the prize was the frozen french fries cooked in an air fryer!  The Koreans loved them

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So every six weeks or so we have transfers where we send some of the junior missionaries to other areas and receive new ones in.  The Tuesday before we take a picture together at district conference and then we do lunch together.  This transfer we lost Sister Natalie Parker, who had been here in our district for about 18 weeks and Elder Centano from the Philipines who had been here for 12 weeks.  We were sad to see them go.  We also lost our Elder Murphy from Australia, who has been here with us in the district the whole time we have been here,  He and Elder Lowe have become quite the good friends - In fact he left Elder Lowe some vegemite as a going away present.  I'm afraid we will have to take a trip to Australia and New Zealand when we are released to check on him!

Elder Centano!  Such a great missionary! 

Elder Ainsworth, from Texas!  Our tech Elder who helped us

too many times to  count!!

Sweet Sister Parker from Salem, Utah - if you noticed the beautiful painting of the Seoul Temple at the beginning of the blog - she is the one who painted it - she knew I loved it, especially since the one I painted looked more like an F-16 than a temple - so she left it for me - such a Treasure!  She is very talented and I am grateful we won't have to drive to far to visit her in Utah once we are released from our mission!

Sister Gaono from Clearfield, Utah - we will definetly be

seeing her again!                                         

Four of the Elders we have come to love, Elder Frances from Texas, Elder Webster  from California  (His sister was in our mission in  the Idaho Pocatello Mission) Elder Centano, and Elder Willis (From Colorado)- he has been here with us since May!  

These are just some of the pictures of the Starfield Mall where we went to have lunch. It's a very large mall - and there are a few of them here in Korea . In fact the one in Seoul is the one that had the Gangnam Style Hands in front of it.  And a couple of them have massive bookstores/libraries in them.  Definitely a must see when coming to Korea

A couple of weeks ago we helped the Korean Red Cross make dinner for the elders (Senior Citizens) in the community.  It was amazing to watch these Korean people get to work at making this happen.  A very wonderful experience for us to participate in!

When school started in August, the Library provides a homeschool club - we volunteer to help with the projects.  Below are pictures of the Lotus Flowers we learned to make!  It was a fun day the next week we learned about Monet and they did some fun paintings.  We are enjoying helping with this project and it gives us a chance to meet more of the families on the base.

The rain comes down hard and heavy in Korea

There is a lot of humidity in Korea in the Summer months - we put out these little boxes and they fill will water quite quickly.  The picture below is of a package I hung in my closet to keep the moisture off of the clothes - you can see how much water it collected.  We also run a dehumidifier  - tis a little bit crazy!

It has finally cooled down enough for us to resume our walks!  The fall and spring are amazing here in Korea!  I am hoping to go get some pictures of the pink grass in a couple of weeks.  The pictures below show what a great day it was for a hike last Saturday - hopefully, we can get back into a routing of sorts for some exercise!

When we came out on the other side of the mountain they were having an International Festival - we were a little too tired and sweaty to check it our but it looked like it was amazing!  We could hear the childrens choirs practicing - they sounded awesome - it helped that they had an amazing sound system

Considering our view is mostly high rise apartments and businesses, we really enjoy it when we can get a minute to take this walk - you would never guess by looking at these pictures that we live in such a populated area.

THIS PICTURE MADE ME SMILE! I WOKE UP ONE MORNING TO A TEXT MESSAGE WITH THIS PICTURE FROM MY GRANDDAUGHTER KALLIE SIMPSON - SHE HAD GONE TO PREACH MY GOSPEL - AND HER TEACHER WAS SISTER RACHEL MORRISON!  OUR SWEET SISTER WE WORKED WITH HERE IN OSAN BEFORE SHE WENT HOME!  WE WERE SO EXCITED!  WE TOLD KALLIE WE WERE SO HAPPY THAT SHE HAD MET HER ADOPTED COUSIN!  😊

The pictures below will make you think all we do is go out to eat and eat and eat - well, that's exactly what we do! The Linderman family has also been adopted by us!  They have four girls and have been so wonderful to us!  They live in the apartment complex across the street from us - so when I need a little girl time away from Elder Lowe- Sister LInderman is always up for it!  It's her husbands birthday so we took them out to lunch this week!

So these are my sweet beautiful Asian Moms - except for me and Sister Hull - I feel like I can all them that because that's how they refer to themselves!  They have included me in their birthday lunch outings and it has been such a fun time!  Two are from Taiwan, thtee are from Korea, One is from Vietnam and then two of us are from the States.  I love seeing that the more I get to know people - the more I see that we are all just one big happy family!  The other thing I love is if you look closely, you will see our bibs - most of the restaurants have them available for you to use!  A great blessing for me!

These are the sweet sisters serving At Camp Humphreys - Sister Canlas and Sister Glouser - we had our district meeting at Humphreys last week so we took them to lunch last week so we could get to know the new sister in our district!  They are precious and we love them to pieces!

Today after district meeting we took two sets out

There was some trouble with their missionary support fund being sent to them today - so if you know anything about missionaries - they look forward to that money for food and necessities. - so instead on one set we took two today. We had dukgarbi - one of my favorite Korean dishes! 

So as you can see we are not going hungry - but we are learning how to order our own food! 

I have so many more things I need to blog about - but I think I will get this out there and then maybe I can get another one started later this week!

Last week we kept very busy at the base and I felt like we were keeping the schedule of the young missionaries!  Out the door by nine or earlier and not home until nine.! WE CRASHED BY SATURDAY!

I  do want to close with a special experience - I am not the best at being consistant with my scripture reading - I am a little bit more of a Martha than a Mary as I have said before.  On July 10, Our mission President challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in three months with the question in mind of how does the Book of Mormon help me be a better missionary.  I set an alarm on my phone to go off every evening at 9 - that's generally the time we get back to the apartment - this was to remind me to read if I hadn't already made it happen that day - sometimes we leave so early in the morning to assist on the base that I don't get it done before we are gone.  Anyway, this was a great reminder to keep me on track - I am not sure I got as much out of it as I should have - but at least the habit is coming together for me - I am praying that I can do better at this and develop a great love for the scriptures! I am happy to report that I have reached the goal a week early! I am going to continue you reading - this time my plan is to mark everywhere it talks about the Savior - I think it's pretty much every page!

Our hearts are heavy at the violence that is taking place in the world right now - but the Book of Mormon is such a predictor of what we are seeing- our hearts go out the families that have been affected! I must admit - my heart has been heavy for the Kirk family and for the families of the school shooting victims and the horrible massacre at one of our church buildings! We pray for them and for you!

I know many were sad at the passing of President Nelson - I have to say I felt to rejoice for him!  I wish I could have been a witness to his reunion with his sweet wife, Dantzel and his two daughters in heaven - but mostly I would have loved to see him in the arms of His Savior Jesus Christ!  Amidst all the sadness in the world there is great good!  I am so incredibly blessed to have been raised with the knowledge of my elder brother Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father! And to have an understanding of the plan of Happiness! I look forward to the day when Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ! I pray that my life will be lived in such a way the the Savior will say to me, Well done thou good and faithful Servant - I know I am still in need of daily repentance - but I also know that I can be a recipient of the grace provided through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His infinite atonement!

We love you all and lest I forget - here's a plea sent out to all of you at the retirement age - the Lord needs you in the Mission field - do all that you can to answer the call!