The
price of one grapefruit at the commissary was $3 so I took Yeji up on her offer
to show me how to shop for vegetables at the Korean market around the corner.
She met me with her baby and umbrella, to shade from the sun which peeked out
at least once since we arrived. I came home with a few vegetables that I am
used to cooking and a few she suggested she enjoyed. Now Wayne is smiling
because the food I cook tastes more like home.
We
needed to go to Seoul to apply for our foreigners cards so we hopped a fast
train, well it was almost that easy. No one in the station seemed to understand
what we meant when we told them we were going to Seoul. I’m thinking it is a
pretty hard word to mess up and it is the capital of the country. An angel in a
red dress who spoke English took us to the train and then had us switch trains when
another arrived. Both went to Seoul but the second was the fast train. She told
us that you always define your trip by the last stop on the train line which is
Incheon if we want to go to Seoul. Another angel in a blue shirt asked us our
destination just a few stops before we needed to switch trains and I pointed to
the stop on my map. He said, “Same place. Follow me,” so that’s what we did.
After
we applied for our foreigner’s card, with help from another senior missionary,
we were told to go visit the sights in downtown Seoul. That sounded easy
enough. We had umbrellas and a map and a basic idea of where to walk. We found
the old Presidential Palace. The picture is taken from inside the palace
looking out to the modern skyline of Seoul. The buildings went on and one with
one courtyard after another. The rain increased so we went in the Folk Museum
and walked around learning more of the Korean history and culture. The rain
hadn’t let up so we walked around a bit more and finally decided to brave the monsoon.
We had to laugh because we were both soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes
even with umbrellas. At least it was a warm rain and we were able to change
into dry clothes at the mission home. We did more giggling as we reviewed our
Korean vocabulary words because our pronunciation is so comical, but we keep
trying.
On
Saturday morning the Pres. Sonksen insisted the missionaries drop us at the
temple. He did not trust our orienteering or the weather. The missionary drove
through back alleys, took U-turns that reversed our direction a couple of times
and then there was the temple. Our stake president forgot to activate our
recommends so our entry wasn’t assured. It took a member of the temple
presidency to review the signatures and let us in. It is a lovely small temple
filled with the peace of the Lord’s spirit and the session was in English.
Our next adventure was to find the
train station and a train to bring us back to Dongducheon. We found a No. 1
train headed north and jumped on. It was a crowded train with lots of
interesting Korean people. We were the only foreigners. We watched the train
empty as we made our way north. When we reached Uijeondo where the nearest LDS
chapel is located but about 20 minutes by train from our stop, the people on
the train shooed us off the train. It didn’t make any sense to us until the
train reversed itself and headed back toward Seoul. Then we had to figure out
how to cross the rail lines to catch the train to Dongducheon. By the time we
reached the right platform our train was just pulling out. We figured we had
about a 30 minute wait for another train so we watched the children playing on
the train platform and tried to ask directions from a Korean couple who spoke
no English. We showed them our stop on the map and they kept us from catching
the first train that came. The second one brought us home. We were smiling when
we entered our own apartment again.
Sunday
was the first baptism since we arrived. The elders had been teaching Andrew
Eggers, a soldier, who was our first military friend here; we support each
other. This was Andrew’s fourth baptism (fifth if you count that his toes came
up the first time and they baptized him again). His father was Catholic so he
was baptized Catholic as a baby. His mother was Baptist so he was baptized
Baptist as a boy. He was baptized, Non-denominational when he joined the Army,
and now he was being baptized again by one having authority. He will only be
here a few more months.
What a
blessing to be on the Lord’s errand and to see the Lord’s hand in our life
daily. We love and miss each of you. Elder Wayne and Sister Genan Anderson
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