Dill Art Gallery

This is our next missionary picture. I especially like Divine's womanly details!

Pearl's beautiful heart!

Olive's lovely abstraction

Azure's incredible color combination

And Clover's first step as an artist!
Thank you for enhancing our apartment with the best artwork ever!

A Site to See

I wonder if my eyes will ever stop being over stimulated. The area where I get my whole wheat flour, nuts and other goodies I can't find anywhere else, is also full of other treasures that we find by usually getting lost. And the nights bring on a whole different feeling. Katy, here are the TRIM STORE pictures I promised.

Where's The SAGE?

Thanksgiving is coming next week with a possible 26 missionaries in our apartment. I am a little worried about the sage. The dressing is NOTHING without the sage. I am waxing a little nostalgic about 2000 North and missing walking on the crunchy, frozen, grass to get my fresh sage in the garden. Oh well, missions are all about sacrifice, right? As you can see above I do have ROSEMARY and THYME.

Korean Man Hole Covers

I am fascinated by these man hole covers. I am sure the Koreans think I am crazy taking pictures of the ground and the missionaries are patient as I tell them to wait while I grab another man hole cover photo. They are beautiful and each city has their own design. Sometimes they paint them. So as we visit the missionaries in a different city I an anxious to FIRST get my man hole picture and then I can chat with the missionaries!

God Please Bless America

Although I would not vote for Obama I am praying that he will make a difference to this nation. I am impressed with his wife and her dedication to her family. I do remember the prejudice of my grandmother saying she would never want a black man as the President of the United States. This is truly history making. But I pray it is more than that.
Proposition 8 just barely passed in California. This is a proposition that never would have appeared on the ballot when I was child. I think the tide is turning where we are going to need to stand up for what we believe. There has been much persecution of the LDS community in Califoria. Read this quote from Elder Neal Mawell.
"Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and
years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether
or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more
difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many
years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the
Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional
or political life.' "This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly
vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short,
brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ
includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ. . . Your
discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are
discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow
certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious
convictions. "Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern
over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and
unenlightened.... Before the ultimate victory of the forces of
righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however,
let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do
as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be
times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step
forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know
the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the
decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious
of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves,
'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then
complain of the heat."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY VERY FIRST CHILD!

Do you have any idea how excited I was to have Ashley? That is pretty much all I wanted in life was a baby. And she didn't disappoint! I am so grateful that the joy of having her has never stopped. She is gentle, obedient, sensitive, a very hard worker, a good organizer and a great wife and mother. I love you, Ashley. I miss you so much. I wish I could fix your favorite meal, maybe egg rolls, maybe in 18 months? Have a wonderful celebration of your birth. Much love,
MOM

The Story of How to Get a Korean Oven

Our first day at our new apartment I panicked when I saw that I only had a toaster oven to fix meals. I shouldn't complain, really, but we are in a developed country so we requested an oven. To our delight they said yes! Whoopee! But was much more complicated than I thought. You see, we have a kimchee fridge. So, we thought, let's remove the kimchee fridge and put an electric oven right in it's place. It sounded like the perfect solution. But, we found out, electric ovens cost more than 3 million won! Yes, I thought that was alot too, so we opted on a gas one at 480,000 won and hooked it up to the other gas stove. So I made bread this morning, having faith that all would proceed as planned. The first man showed up and even though I said NO KOREAN he kept talking to me as if I understood--he even got louder and slower. Sorry, that didn't help. But then Brother Kim showed up, our wonderful helper from the church. And the flurry began:

Here is our space where the kimchee fridge was.

This is our stove and no that isn't the oven it is a WASHER!

Here is the kimchee fridge, selling it for cheap. Or maybe we will use it as a bedside table to keep our beverages cold.







Yes, faith works!

The Last Watermelon

If you look closely you can see Kurt carrying a watermelon in a sling. There are sidewalk stands EVERYWHERE, and I mean, EVERYWHERE. This one is outside the subway station. He is the only one I see that has watermelons even though it is not the season which means they are expensive. But I indulge because they are delicious and besides that they give you that cool looking plastic sling with handles to carry it home. But, alas, this will be the last one until next summer.

OK. Sometimes You Need to Eat Something OTHER Than Korean Food

We paid some bills (Which is a whole other funny story. You see you have to pay your bills at the bank but when you go into the bank you have to get a number. So Kurt goes to get a number and everything is in Korean and there are different numbers for different things but we don't what the different things are. So he took three numbers just in case we were at the wrong thing. But we ended up at the right thing, at least they played like it was because they don't speak enough English to tell you to go somewhere else so they just helped us) and then walked forever looking for a stationery store which we never found. But we did find some chestnuts--great big ones--to roast at home. We walked so much we decided to get some dinner but I couldn't eat Korean food tonight.
So we found this Italian place called Spaghettio Classico, or something like that. Here is what we had:

This is our Caesar Salad with yummy warm bacon on top.

This is the Gorgonzola pizza. The little dish is honey with little dried garlic chips. You drizzle the honey on the pizza. It was really yum yum!

On our way home we stopped in a book store and I saw "The Giving Tree" in Korean. You know you have made it when they publish your book in Korean.

What Are They Eating?

This is fresh corn (on the right with the pink scoop) stone ground into creamed corn below in the pot. They then proceed to make some kind of pancake out of it.

This market was huge. Everyone was doing the same thing, like this stall was meat parts, intestines, legs, everything!

These pots were all ready to cook up for the customer--tofu, enoki mushrooms, chilies, some kind of greens I don't know what they are, and the scary something at the bottom. I could not figure out what it was.

Here are the vegetable stalls. I can't quite figure them out. Some had broth and I think you can add the vegetables but other ones didn't so I needed more time to figure it out!

This market was off a stop where they have some whole wheat flour, chocolate chips, coconut milk, nuts, baking accessories, and cream cheese! Right before the food stalls were women sewing right there on the street. So Katy and Megan come on over and get a job!

Food at the Korean Folk Village

This is the the Feast of Noodles Soup. It had a yummy broth with I think some cucumbers, sea weed, and some fried egg strips.

And always, the side of kimchee.

We didn't realize they had actual tables until Kurt was settled, cross legged, sitting up to the tiny tables on these big platforms.

Ashley, I got this for you: leek pancake. It was really good but not as good as watching the lady actually make the pancakes.

Here she is making leek pancakes and also these tortilla looking pancakes FULL of vegetables and I think it must be squid.

Here is the beginning of one of those veggie/squid pancakes.
Yes, my motto contiues--it is ALL about the food!

Costo Hotdog Set!

We just finished checking these missionaries apartment. I am standing outside.....

They call it a hotdog set instead of a combo meal. The hotdogs were not the same but will have to do. We were starving so it did taste good. A lady comes along and lines up all the shopping carts of the people that are eating. This is a very orderly place. But a bag of pinenuts costs $31.00. Yes, it is true. I guess there will be some things we just won't buy!

Something's Fishy in Korea!

Can you believe these fish?

Elder K looking at all these dried barks--we think they are medicinal

We ran into this market on the way home from checking some Elder's apartment.

More silver fish

We are having a good time discovering Seoul. This is one big city and so much to see.
We had a good visit with a couple of missionaries this morning. We brought them chips and salsa and you would think we had brought them the world they were so excited!
Wish you could smell the fish!

Did You Know Jordan and Craig Were Sick?

Here's wishing them a healthy Halloween!