MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY NEW YEAR! AND THE HALF WAY MARK!
WOWSA! What a crazy busy wonderful time we have been having this past month! I hardly know where to start! We have had family from home visit and taste a little bit of what we do here in Korea - we have had many friends of other faiths join in our activities and come to church. We did a nativity walk on the 12 of December for all the base at the base chapel. It was a very special event. I organized a bit of a branch choir to sing Born to Bring us Joy in Sacrament meeting the Sunday before Christmas - you have to understand, I feel like I am sitting in the middle of a ward choir every Sunday - the voices in our branch are awesome! It was fun for me to do a little musical number with them and made me hone up a little on my piano skills. We helped with the USO children's' Christmas party. We did story time with our special Mrs Santa visitor! We fed ninety missionaries on the 23rd for Zone Conference and then fed about 18 people the next day on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day we had a Nacho party at the base chapel. On the 26th and 27th we visited some cool places in Korea with our Son and his wife and our oldest grandson. We hired a driver and he took us to the Ice Mountain, The Miracle of Gapyeon Monument, Nami Island and the Garden of the Morning Calm. I wish we could have gone around Seoul as well and seen the lantern festival lights, but we needed to be back to our Sunday responsibilities and FHE and District council. It was fun to have a couple of days to visit beautiful Korea! Today is New Years Eve and we have invited a few of our unaccompanied military personel to have dinner with us at a Japanese Style Buffet called Qoo Qoo's. (Elder Lowe's favorite place!) It's in a mall called British Goedoeck - which is a fairly new area. The mall is patterned after England with a very tall Guard and Big Ben outside. Tomorrow we have a make your own pizza event and on Friday night we will have our regular game night! So we have not lacked for celebrations this holiday season! But the best part has been remembering the Lord Jesus Christ, and recognizing He is the key to our peace and joy! We love being able to share our joy with all the people we have met. It's an interesting mission in that we don't really teach the gospel discussions - but we teach the gospel by the way we live and love others. Sometimes I wonder if we are doing all we should - because there is no set pattern for the Senior Military Relations missionaries - but we have definitely gained powerful experiences and friends for life in this experience. Not a day goes by that we don't see some sort of Celestial Collision or Divine Coordinations taking place.
We have passed the halfway point of our mission and time keeps running away from us! We are sad to have missed many family events and know there are more we will miss. We missed our Granddaughters mission farewell but we were able to watch her talk on you tube. What a blessing! She gave a talk that I would normally expect from a return missionary - I am so excited to see what experiences she has! I hope eventually our stake in Pocatello will allow the meetings to be on Zoom or you tube. It is such a blessing for people who can't attend.
We have another grandchild who graduates before we get home and potentially could be on a mission - it's sad for my grandma heart to miss - but it also brings such great joy that they are choosing good things to be involved in. Our grandson Carson also has the potential to be baptized one month before we get home. Our daughter informed us on Christmas day that she is having a baby in July - that one is really a gut puncher to not be able to go and hold the new born baby! But .... I wouldn't trade this experience because I know we are where our Heavenly Father has need of us for our own growth at this time in our life and it has been such a joy to see my family support each other even if we aren't there to gather them around. We love them deeply and they truly are showing us what the fulness of joy is - but we are experiencing joy here as we serve this branch and meet the many people from so many walks of life! I have not kept a good journal - hopefully, Elder Lowe's journal will have our spiritual experiences recorded in a better fashion. I think I have said before that sometimes I feel a little bit more like Martha than Mary and get caught up in the busyness and sometimes miss the moments of calm- but I also have felt that I am doing what the Spirit is guiding me to do and definitely had helped me to fulfil.
If I told you there haven't been hard times, I would not be honest - the adversary has worked overtime on me at times but if we aren't having some sort of struggle - then I don't believe we are growing.
We love it when we get old fashioned snail mail which we got a little of over the holidays! We also live updates on what is happening in your lives! Please feel free to take a minute to update us! We love you and hope that 2026 will bring you the best growing experiences and testimony building experiences yet! Elder Cook counseled the missionaries here that disciples of Christ need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I challenge you all to stretch yourselves in your Commitment to Christ this year - As Elder Holland told us after his near death experience - Pray More - Testify more!
Find where you can give more to the Lord and make the Sacrifice - whether it be in a calling or serving a mission or serving your neighbors - But Stretch yourselves - I promise you will see an abundance of blessings - seems as though we always get more than we give!
Bunco game night and White Elephant exchange!
View on our Journey there
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