No Coincidences

You can tell by the late post that missionary work is super busy here in Dongducheon. Our soldiers are rotating so we’re saying farewell to almost every soldier in our church group and looking with anticipation to meet new ones coming in. We begin teaching a new BSEP review class this week and I have created a battery of review materials to supplement what we did to help the soldiers review their reading comprehension and vocabulary. While I was working there, Wayne has been at the desk at the USO taking care of the soldiers who are rotating. Not being together everywhere we go upset the fabric of our “dong” from the grandmothers outside the shops, to the shopkeepers, and gate guards. The tradition in Korea is “Where the needle goes, the thread follows.” Our Korean neighbors really watch out for us.

                Wednesday, I passed the Garrison Chaplain, Lt. Col. Lee, while I was running an errand and he asked if my husband and I could have lunch with him. We were delighted and had a nice lunch at a meat buffet while we enjoyed informal conversation. It was fun to watch him grill the meat in the middle of the table. He even asked us for advice on a domestic problem he was having.  We felt honored to have been elevated to the status of friend.

                The remainder of the week was equally as busy and Saturday we rode to Seoul with a USO sponsored tour hoping to become better acquainted with one of the soldiers we met at the USO who is new here to Korea, a member, and in a tough place personally right now. We visited a lovely aquarium complete with sharks, rays, seals, otters, and penguins. It was very relaxing to watch the beautiful variety of tropical fish. We were able to watch both the penguins and otters being fed. Our soldier offered to take a picture of the two of us on his phone so he needed to email that to us after we returned. He now has contact information for us if he chooses to use it.

             Our second event was a short cruise on the Han River. There was a stiff wind blowing along the river making it ideal for the children to fly kites. The skyline is beautiful along this stretch of the river. The tall gold building in the background is where we explored the aquarium. There was just a sprinkling of rain to keep the temperature cool, but not the monsoon rain that drenches you in seconds. During the first half of the cruise the upper deck was packed with people looking at the skyline and feeding the gulls. Then everyone else went to the lower deck to listen to some live musicians. Only Capt. Reil remained on deck with us. We had the opportunity to listen as he shared a little of his story. We hope he left knowing that we love him and that his Heavenly Father loves him, too.

                We had three nonmembers join us for our church meetings on Sunday and a fourth slipped in to enjoy the fellowship afterwards. We had three soldiers come for the first time since they arrived in Korea, too. We’re excited to begin working with the new rotation of soldiers. It will still be several weeks before all the soldiers leaving are gone and the replacements in place. A volcano in Russia has been spewing ash and delaying flights much to the sadness of the soldiers and their families.

                We also had visitors on Sunday from Seoul. The Robinson’s arrived in Korea one week ahead of us. They found time to catch a train up north and we enjoyed the delightful opportunity to get to know them better and share our very different mission experiences with one another.

                The Lord is still guiding this work. We never cease to be amazed at the small part he lets us play in reminding his children of his love for them. Being a missionary is awesome with all its twists and turns. God loves us; He watches over each of his children and sometimes he uses humble missionaries to share that message with his children.

Twist and Turns in Missionary Life

                One of the highlights of the week was the passing score on the promotion test of our soldier, SPC Teel-Owen. She was in our BSEP review class and has met with us two or three times a week for over eight weeks determined that this time she would make the score she needs to change job classification. She passed her review board for 3-stripe sergeant while we were studying together so she will pin that when her number comes up.

               

Twisting and turning to adjust to the people and circumstances around us seem like the norm for us as missionaries. Last week our little chapel was bulging with members and investigators. This week our total was under twenty. Last week we had four young children running wild around our building and this week we had one toddler playing quietly by her parents. Last week we had food after our meeting. This week Wayne and the branch clerk had a district meeting via video transmission after the meetings. Last week two of our most active soldiers returned to the United States. This week we had two new soldiers who just arrived from the United States. The rotation will continue through the summer.

                Promises from investigators, soldiers, and even members are very fluid. I invited a sister to church today who hasn’t been for six months and she promised to come. She wasn’t there, but her husband who left the chapel six months ago vowing never to return came in with everything patched up with the branch president. My student promised to meet me at the chapel this afternoon and then called and said he will meet me at Family Home Evening tomorrow night.

 Two weeks ago when we had Relief Society, I taught a lesson on the fly for two sisters. This week I attended with the Korean sisters and pretended that I understood what they were saying because I was the only woman from our branch. I lead the singing in the morning and play the keyboard in the afternoon. I gave the talk on fathers in both meetings. In the morning, I used Wayne as the example and in the afternoon I used my own father. Seven of the ten people in the afternoon heard the talk in the morning so I needed to change it up a bit.

                The missionaries meet at our apartment for District Meeting and for the greenie sister to pass off her language milestones to the district leader. They have such bright smiles and positive attitudes that it is a joy to work with them. We also share funny stories like the man with ear hair so long that it looked like caterpillars coming out of his ears. Two doors on the side of the hospital: Emergency Room and Funeral Home. The grandmother dressed all in red that wanted the sister missionary to sit in the handicapped seat on the train because she thought her bulging stomach was a baby.

                We enjoy walking the waterways to see the birds, the flowers, and the fish. There are two families of ducks living in the stream we cross every day. One set is older than the other. These cormorants fish in the river and dry their wings in the sun. They fly in and land on the water and then swim over to the rock to climb on. They like their space but they also like being in close proximity. The blue herons and great white egrets fish alone. They like lots of space. We saw a young egret with its mother in the stream this week. Many of the flowers have faded, but others have begun to bloom. Sometimes you either laugh at the new twist or it will bring you to tears. We laugh a lot. It's the Lord's work and He takes good care of us. There's always a reason for every twist and turn we see them every day. It's amazing! It's awesome! We love being on the Lord's errand!

Listening ear

           All the practice Wayne had listening to students who had low scores on their exams came in handy this week. He listened for over an hour to a soldier who has been here for eight months and decided this week to tell Wayne that he was a disaffected member of the church. We have encountered him almost every month and some months multiple times and he has always been friendly towards us and the church and usually promised to join us at church each time we met. After Wayne listened to him, he met me on my way to the USO and talked for another ten minutes.

Listening with our fingers to the ringing bell.

Later in the week, a soldier hanging out at the USO waiting for his transport back to the U.S. the following day lingered near the front desk for nearly an hour asking questions about Utah, the church, and sharing his path into the Army through West Point. I’m pretty certain he was raised a member of the church, but he wasn’t willing to share that with us. That makes three LDS soldiers deployed here living without the full blessings of the gospel that we have visited with in under a week. The Lord puts them in our path because he trusts us to remind them of the good feeling they had when they were close to Him. He really does always have his hand stretched out reaching for each of his children to come home.

                We were able to connect with a Navy chaplain who is at the Rod Range for a few weeks with some Marines. The Marines do not have their own chaplains. He said that he has three marines who are members of our church so we talked to him a little while about how he could meet their spiritual needs. He did not have any hope to be able to bring them to the Casey Chapel on Sunday for church, but I think he will try.

   House in the Historic District of Seoul

             We met multiple times with our regular tutoring students this week. They are working hard. The soldier who was in our class took her GT predictor test again this week and her score jumped another four points to 118. Her goal is 110 and she began at 104. She will take the exam for real next week so we will meet with her one more time. The other soldier took the predictor test and learned he still has some progress to make before he is ready to take it for real. He is so determined to make something of himself that you want to do all you can to help.

My Korean who comes for English tutoring wrote about her desire to make reading her Bible a regular habit. She has enough English vocabulary and grammar to convey the basic meaning of her thoughts, but translating them into standard English is a challenge. She is making progress and wanted to exchange favorite Bible verses when we finished our editing. Our fourth student was in the field this week.

Historic District street with Seoul Tower in the distance.

                Our major task this week was renewing our Korean foreigner’s card, our car registration on post, and our permission to have access to the post. The international driver’s licenses my sister, Mary Gay did the legwork to obtain for us were totally acceptable--$20 each plus a little postage vs. about $100 each, mountains of paperwork, a driving test and multiple trips to the Korean DMV hidden away in Uijeonbu thirty minutes away. Mary Gay is a hero in our mission to have figured out that shortcut.

The foreigner’s card took us to Seoul where we met our fellow senior missionaries, Elder and Sister Joel Cannon and used the day to celebrate Sister Cannon’s birthday. We did some shopping in two of the major markets and even made a purchase. Wayne has a pair of black dress pants so lightweight that he wonders if he remembered to dress in the morning. They were $10.

We rang the noon bell with our native Hangeul outfits and visited the historic district in Seoul and museums. It was a super fun day, 21,000 steps, and 39 flights of stairs.

The Korean sisters planned a luncheon to follow our church meetings on Sunday. I have been designated the official dessert provider because they love the sugary Betty Crocker cakes. They bring rice, vegetables, meat, and fruit. It was the last Sunday for some of our soldiers who will return to their families this week and we had four investigators with us today.

Our new sister missionary is from Deweyville from a family Wayne’s brother Keith home teaches. It’s a pretty small world. She will train with awesome sister missionaries in a trio for a while. This soldier is one I have been fellowshipping for several months. She slipped into the back of the chapel to listen to our meeting today. Sister Rhodes made an instant connection with her. We were super busy missionaries today in a wonderful way. The Lord is able to do His work and somehow uses even humble missionaries like us.

Angel's Errand

                We had such a wonderful week full of so many opportunities to witness the love of our Heavenly Father for his individual children that I will try to give you the Cliff Notes without leaving out the richness of the plot.

On Monday, Wayne found his next off-road vehicle. He thought he could go most anywhere in this big boy! There was a barbecue at the USO for the soldiers to celebrate Memorial Day with hamburgers, hotdogs, coleslaw, baked beans, chips, and cheesecake. It was a treat. We saw lots of soldiers and the elders came to help clean the grills and meet the director of the CAC where they are volunteering as teachers of a Korean language class for the soldiers.

 Young Austin Crocket came to our Family Home Evening for the first time and he added a sweet addition to the group. He joined the military out of high school instead of serving a mission and he is working hard to build a testimony and be a strong member. He had lots of stories to share.

On Tuesday as we walked home past our wetland our great blue heron was back on his fishing rock; there was a snowy egret with black legs and bill and the bright blue swallow. We saw our first group of ducklings swimming in the small stream, and the water lilies have started to bloom.  We love those few minutes with nature each day.

Then we passed the parade grounds that are usually used as a golf course and took pictures of the soldiers in formation pending the change of command ceremony that was about to begin. The soldiers are supposed to “fall out” before they pass out, but that doesn’t always happen. They had an ambulance there just in case.

                On Thursday, I spent most of the morning marking scriptures about Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon I hope to share with Shin before I go. In the meantime, it is a good review of the roles, attributes, and love of Jesus Christ as witnessed in the Book of Mormon.

We had lunch with some of the Korean members who meet with our branch. The restaurant was a lovely building in Dongducheon and the meal was interesting. There was a mixture of rice and a pot of boiled duck and another of boiled chicken. There were also the various kimchi dishes, too and an acorn pancake.

On Friday, I felt too tired to go with Wayne to the USO but I needed the walk for exercise plus I promised Elder Shepherd’s mother I would bake him a cake for his birthday. As I was wondering when we might be free to go, a captain came in looking for information on a DMZ tour. He and the other soldier with him were new to Korea. They kind of hung around the desk asking questions. There was enough in his conversation to hint that he knew a lot about our church. Finally, I asked him what experience he had had with our church. He confessed that he was a return missionary. He served in Denmark. He said he couldn’t remember the last time he attended church on his own. He had already pulled out of me where and when we held church services on post. I invited him to sign up for a free USO tour sponsored by the Camp Casey USO at the end of the month. He and his buddy both signed up. I didn’t tell him that we would be going, too, or that I planned to invite all the LDS soldiers. I felt like I had been an answer to the prayers of a mother and father today and they may never know that Heavenly Father reached out to their precious son today and invited him back.

Teel-Owen wanted to begin studying with us near 5 p.m. so I started working on word recall and reading comprehension with her. I was just finishing and Wayne started to work with her on math when Sam and Shin arrived for English tutoring. We went through Shin’s writing first. I try to have two positive things to say about their writing for every correction. Sam’s writing was a cover letter he is writing seeking an internship at a hospital. We spent more time talking about the content of the cover letter and how he might formulate it to help highlight his strengths than on the actual grammar. I had a delightful time with them. Broady stopped by asking for homework. His buddies wanted him to go with them rather than studying so we made an appointment and he took the homework. It was a wonderful evening with students but it draws deep on adrenaline.

               

On Saturday we were in the Seoul Korea Temple with four of our soldiers. As I pondered today, I tried to think of all the things I do know and understand to offset the many parts of the plan that I don’t understand and need to accept on faith. Maybe if I can strengthen my testimony of the things I know it will help me strengthen my faith and trust in Jesus Christ that the end can/will be a “fullness of joy.” Pres. Hinckley phrased that as, “In the end it will all work out.” We found this delightful dragon as we wandered the back streets of Seoul between the train station and the temple.

This morning I watched two hawks with their two fledgling hawks on the ledge of the building near our own. They young birds were teetering on the ledge with their wings open a little to steady their steps. First one adult and then the other left the ledge, spread wide their wings and glided to our building. We watched the two young birds gather courage to follow. I thought about my own fears. I would fear most the landing. I would be afraid to stop too soon or too late; fall or crash. One of the two left the ledge and beat its wings rapidly as it flew toward the building. The second soon followed with less wing movement and more gliding. Later, we saw one fledgling on the ledge of the building across from us and then the second one. One of the adults had taken a perch on the top of the building opposite us and the other was on our building. The two young birds had their first experience with flight this morning. It was a blessing to witness the wonder of nature.

Precious, a refugee from Liberia, came today, the second time this year. She came after the meeting began so I went quickly to the rear of the chapel at the end of the meeting to greet her before she left to go home. She just held me. She needed the strong arms of an old woman and the feeling of love inside them. Rachel, a refugee from Uganda, came alone and brought her two young boys. She took her boys to the Koreans Primary and asked me if we were having Relief Society. I hadn’t prepared a Relief Society lesson but I told her we would meet; Precious came with us. We found ourselves a room, opened a window so it wouldn’t be too hot and I prayed for us. We opened the manual and decided to review the lesson on faith together. While I took the lead, it was amazing to listen to these two pioneer women share their faith, ask questions of one another to know how to be strong with the unique challenges they face. “…Be not afraid, only believe.” (Mark 5:36) This statement was made to Jarius who had come asking Jesus to heal his ill daughter just as a servant delivered the news that his daughter was already dead. Rachel shared an experience she had this past week with faith and answered prayer. What a blessing to be among these two daughters of God and be strengthened by their faith.

Afterwards, the two sets of missionaries and Victoria came over to eat cake and ice cream. They did lots of giggling. We did some translating for Victoria, but she was good just to enjoy the wonderful spirit and love we share together. She said that Americans do lots of talking when they eat but Koreans eat in silence. The Koreans miss wonderful bonding opportunities with that tradition.