Celebrating 70!

                We started the week with a Chuseok celebration for the soldiers at the USO. The Korean employees of the Olleh store that has a desk in the USO dressed in their traditional Hangul clothes that they wear to the family Chuseok dinner to provide an authentic atmosphere.

                We mixed serving with celebrating with fellow missionaries, soldiers, and other volunteers from the post.

The celebration of my 70^th birthday began at Family Home Evening.  Our sister missionaries made me caramel corn with sweetened condensed milk and put Happy Birthday in candles in it so I had a cake I could eat. Only one of our member soldiers was not on duty but two of my favorite students were there to celebrate with me. I am their grandmother in Korea.     

          

On the day of my birthday in Korea we met with the missionaries in a new chapel in Seoul to celebrate the Korean holiday of Chuseok. It is similar to our Thanksgiving with a few additions. It is the biggest holiday of the year so the Korean missionaries call their parents on this holiday rather than our Christmas when the American missionaries call home. Sister Sonksen and Sister Anderson from the mission office made me feel like the whole celebration was for my birthday. It was a day full of fun games, good food, and a spiritual message. We even saw a little more of the beautiful mountains and countryside of South Korea. Since my birthday was a day later in America, I had opportunity to talk with a number of my family over two days. The two elders squatting in front are in our district.

While this was our week between classes, we still met almost every evening with soldiers working to sharpen their skills before taking their exam. We even began meeting with another soldier who came to the USO looking for our help.  It was also a time to prepare for our next class and listen to General Conference. On Saturday we attended the one temple session in English for the month with three of our soldiers and the new senior couple.

The soldier just behind me was in our September class and will be sent to Hawaii in two weeks. He was only here long enough to study with us, raise the score on his promotion exam, and return to his family. Our interactions with those we have met here were not coincidences. The Lord is in the details of our lives.