On a fall day in Korea‏

This coming weekend is General Conference! Yay! It's too bad I won't see it for a week after that because it's the middle of the night when it's aired. I haven't seen the RS Broadcast yet, and I've been told that usually you just have to wait to read it :( . I love hearing from our Apostles and Church leaders. It's like Christmas or the Restoration of the Fullness of Times or something cool like that :).

This coming weekend is also the biggest holiday in Korea--known as Chusok (chew-soak). It's basically Thanksgiving, but the traditions are completely different and it lasts several days. The sisters have a conference in Busan while the Elders have an all-day P-day (usually you have to get back to work at 6 PM) on Friday and then we have appointments with members for Saturday. It'll be like eating 3 Thanksgiving meals at 12:00, 3:00 and 6:00, only instead of turkey and potatoes and rolls its squid and kimchi and rice. Pray for my stomach, please? I'm nervous about having that much food at once, but the elders scheduled us into this mess, I expect them to hold their own in consuming the food.

We cleaned the carpet in the Church this week. It was really fun. First you get a hose and you water the carpet with a hose--like a garden, only this time you pray nothing grows in it. Then you use a watering can to distribute the soap-stuffs. Then you use the fun brush machine that makes it all sudsy (unfortunately, in Korea the feminine role is so strong htat there's NO way they'd have let me use the machine--shoulda tried when he wasn't looking) and then you use a giant wet-vac to suck it all up. It was a blast.

We had a fun member meal appointment with the woman who was the first baptism in all of Ulsan. Her name is Lee Mu Jung. She was baptized back in 60-something. She's now this crazy old grandma and we just love her. She'd very lively. Elder Mann asked for water and she said no (in the really old days you never drank anything with a meal---now most people will offer water---especially to foreigners who are used to having a drink) because "Water fills you up and then you won't have any room to stuff yourselves with my food!" She was joking though and just being fiesty. She is an excellent cook, though. I wish I could just film a meal appointment for you to watch---they are quite entertaining.

We had an...interesting...miscommunication this past week. Last Sunday they announced that there would be a hiking activity in Relief Society. Later that week the Elders told us they were going hiking on Saturday so we assumed it was just a Branch activity--so we got permission to leave the house early and go on this hike. Well, it turns out that there were two separate activities. The Relief Society went to one mountain, and the Young Men went to another mountain. Well---we showed up to the wrong mountain. It ended up being the Young Men, their leaders, the Elders and---the sister missionaries. It was a little awkward, but we'd already come ot the mountain--so we just hiked with the young men. Next time we'd better as the Relief Society president. Last time I trust the Elders with such information (gee--I'm being hard on the Elders today---I really do love and appreciatey them, I promise).

Yesterday Sis. Montgomery and I had a sweet tooth. The only problem is that we had NOTHING sweet in the house and no ingredients and it was sunday. So, in an act of desparation we search the house for something to make a cake or cookies or anything. We eneded up finding the following (never ask what's in missionary cupboards---we just don't know): 1/2 cup sugar, hot cocoa mix, green tea?, yeast, baking powder and soda, coconut, cimmamon, cumin(much too precious to use), "salt substitute" whatever that is--probably MSG, and last but not least--a vast amount of this mysterious floury substance which tasted like very finely ground cheerios. So we decided to have a cooking contest. She made a chocolate cake and I made chocolate rolls/biscuits/cookies. Let's just say we won't be recording those recipes for ANYONE to repeat...ever.

Random: suddenly I have fall allergies---curse Korean wacky climate.

Anyway, I'm going to go take off. Life is great out here. Just stayin' happy and listenin' to the Spirit!

R