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.