Celebrations

                We had lots of things to celebrate this week. On Tuesday the sister missionaries from Uijeonbu celebrated their first baptism the day before Sister Morillo completed her mission. We have watched the diligent service of Sister Morillo as she loved and served the people in her area. I have so much admiration for the Filipino missionaries who learn English and Korean and work with all their hearts.

                At the baptism Jessica, from our English class, came to see Sister Hale one more time. She was pretty sad with lots of tears. I held her and told her in Korean that I loved her. I told her that she hurt because she loved and that loving was good. We could cry together because Sister Hale has become another granddaughter to us.

                Sister Hale returned to her family and then to BYU-Provo to return to school and Sister Engebretsen came to be Sister Rhoade’s new companion. To celebrate, I took them to meet one of my favorite people at Camp Casey, Amanda, at MWR to complete the registration as a volunteer. We could have registered online, but then we would have missed Amanda’s smile. Some people just make you feel happy when you are with them and Amanda does that for me. It made a positive introduction for Sister Engebretsen to Camp Casey.

                The month of training exercises ended on Friday and we celebrated by taking a birthday cake to a soldier and his unit. Families can contact the USO and request a cake delivery and the soldiers are always surprised and smiling from ear to ear. Their buddies are smiling, too, because they get to share in the cake. This soldier wasn’t as happy about the silly hat and glasses for the pictures.

 Everyone looked forward to a four-day weekend even those who still had duties that kept them on or near the post. Gabe came to the USO to study with us and the soldiers filled (ten soldiers up from four) the Casey Chapel on Sunday.

The one event we didn’t want to celebrate was the departure of our good friend, Trixie Delacruz, who has been the director at the education center where we have been teaching the soldiers. She has worked so hard to provide educational opportunities for the soldiers and to make our experience as teachers as pleasant as possible. We will miss her, but the soldiers whose lives she has changed will miss her most.
Wayne and I were able to attend the Seoul Temple on Saturday and then district meetings in the afternoon. Going to the temple always gives us an opportunity to fill our spiritual buckets with an eternal perspective of God’s plan of happiness. We also see other senior missionaries and share our stories. Although we see one another infrequently, we feel very close because we do similar tasks in the same country in the Lord’s service.

Wayne joined the soldiers in their 10K Labor Day Race. This soldier finished third overall. Wayne finished in the top 40 with more than twenty soldiers behind him. I don’t think any of the other soldiers were older than thirty. He ran fast and recovered quickly. He’s a bit of a celebrity here. He said that many of the soldiers who were ahead of him and looped back first encouraged the “professor” as he ran. This time they gave him a shirt as a prize for the “special category” since he does not fit any of the other categories where prices are given. He’s just thankful he can still run among the hills and with the soldiers.