HEART AND SEOUL February 12 - 19, 2006

HEART

Dear Family,
This past week has brought to us many emotions. We first received the information from Karen for the Henry Freeman Cook Family Reunion. She had all of your addresses and we assume each of you also received this same letter. We hope you grandchildren realize this is as much for you as for your parents and will reserve this date. If you need to know more please secure link: https://www.pgvhosting.com/CookFamily/. This reunion is a FIRST. The first attempt to gather all of the descendants of Henry Freeman Cook, Sophronia Strobridge, JULIA ANN BERCIER (from whom we come). PLACE: Cedar Fort, Utah, DATE: Saturday, July 15, 2006.
We celebrated Valentine's Day last Monday at the home of President & Sister Sellers with our other fellow missionaries and it was catered by Sister Glory, a Phillipine sister in our branch. Your parents presented the Valentine Day message on Celestial Marriage, which preparation brought us to the thoughts of our "family".
This weekend was the Korean Conference on which Elder Eyring was the visiting General Authority. We were privileged to attend with reserved seats for all temple missionaries. Saturday nights meeting supplemented our feelings regarding "families". Elder Eyring acknowledged his responsibility for the huge undertaking of all the computerizing of family history. We understood it would make available to everyone throughout the world all of the information contained in the mountain vaults plus anything in the family history library. It will be the largest computer program in the world. Though he didn't give a completion date, he acknowledged it's ongoing progress. He ask us all to pray for the spirit of Elijah to touch the hearts of people throughout the world and particularly within our own " families".

SEOUL

With the thousands of stakes in the world, it is more and more unlikely to have a member of the twelve apostles attend your stake conference, yet this year we have had the presense in Korea of Elder Nelson, President Hinckley and now Elder Eyring. Our introduction to Elder Eyring came Saturday noon as he came to the temple to set apart Elder David Chon as an additional Sealer. Hopefully this will relieve your father of some of the sealing expectations that are presently upon him. Then in the company of the temple missionaries and few of the temple workers, upon request of Temple President Lee, he spoke a special message for us of which helped all of us to realize more the sacred and important service we are rendering.
Your mother made a suggestion of a menu for the afternoon luncheon and the Stake RS President in charge, spotting us in the hall, invited us to join Elder & Sister Eyring along with the Stake and Mission Presidents and a few other dignitaries. We felt honored to be in their presense and enjoyed delightful conversations. We then joined the other temple missionaries in the chapel where we were spiritually fed in the Saturday night conference meeting.
Sunday morning we traveled back to the Stake Center where we attended the morning session of conference. President & Sister Eyring both spoke about families and their importance for their eternal happiness and you could feel the impressions being made on all in attendance.
As we have mentioned in past letters, the Korean saints have a special gift for music. Prelude music by two outstanding young violin players and a large choir made up of many of our fellow temple workers, along with about twenty primary children, performed in a magnificent manner, bringing tears to many of us. Of special interest was the reverance of these primary children all through conference and the message our Temple President gave that tied in so well with Elder Eyrings talk on "families."
We returned home for a few hours before returning to an even larger building for a Sunday night Fireside. The church does not own a building large enough but it was announced by Elder Walker that one was in the planning stage. The building on which we met, was a theater that comfortably seated about 1400 people. Because other stakes, including our military district, were invited approximately 500 more people came than was seating available for. The young missionaries from both Sellers and Ringwoods missions were ask to stand next to the walls, while many others sat in the isles and in the back of the building. The invitations to attend included friends and investigators, so we suspected there were a large number of non-members. Elder Eyrings remarks were highly motivating for member and non-member alike to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.