HEART AND SEOUL Oct. 9 - 16, 2005

HEART

Tomorrow begins our second week of our semi-annual temple close down cleaning period. Many of our friends have kept us busy with special invitations. On Monday, Tah Sook, who was our host to China, took your mother to her dressmaker in Itaewan. Your mother had previously bought silk material to have a dress made with a wool jacket to go with and is looking forward to the finished product next week. Monday evening with our other temple missionaries, office couple missionaries and mission presidents joined together via van, subway, auto, etc. joined
as we occasionally do, on FHE nights, and enjoyed dinner at the Drangon Hill restaurant on the military base where we also purchase our "wheat bread".
On Wednesday, Heather Willoughby who is a professor of music at one of the Women's University here in Korea, took us to lunch. We went to a place called "The Social" which was a particularly fancy Italian restaurant but served by Koreans. The food was delicious and even though the prices seemed high, Heather who paid for all of our lunch, seemed perfectly capable of "paying the price" and all of us had a delightful time together. She is a member of our branch and in our RS Presidency. She is unmarried and was on a mission here in Korea when Nancy's friend "Buff" was here and they were in the same mission. She has a brother in Alpine who is currently running for mayor.
Thursday, Brother Na, who is a frequent patron in the temple acted as our guide on a trip to the Seoul Tower and surrounding park. Brother Na brought with him his aged mother who surprised us by keeping up the fast pace that was set. We have for some time planned to go to the tower and he provided the opportunity. Even if it weren't sitting on a high hill in Seoul, it would probably be the tallest structure around. The tower has a revolving restaurant on top, similar to the space needle in Seattle. We were somewhat disappointed that the tower was closed for repairs but enjoyed the large number of school children of all ages on their school excursions and within the park surrounding the tower. It seems the children here are quick to observe Americans and are not shy about mingling and trying out their English on us. On the way down, we stopped at a Korean restaurant and had black bean noodle soup which sounds awful, looks even worse but is quite delicious.
Friday night your parents watched a marathon of John Wayne movies made in the early 1930's. We enjoyed a good laugh at these early attempts of movie making. Saturday evening we joined with Hess's & Kastendicks for a dinner and our weekly movie night. This night was watched "My Dog Skip".

SEOUL

During the day on Friday, your mother joined with Hess's and Kastendicks to view the largest Open Market in Korea. (Your father stayed home nursing his "foot" which causes problems when he walks too much.) The market was most interesting as it covered literally acres of ground and the vegetables and fruits were beautiful that were on display for sale. They are in large quantities to purchase and many of the Koreans came with their trucks to load up and my impression was that they then took their purchases elsewhere to sell on the streets or other smaller markets.
Koreans are interesting people and their conversion stories are equally interesting We have written Brother Na's conversion for the journal and a copy of it can be found in our journal. We are ever amazed at their simplicity of the basic truths of the gospel. They are truly choice children of our Father in Heaven.
We are currently teaching the temple preparation class composed of Phillipines, Korean, Americans and French. This we know, Heavenly Father loves all of his children.