The Korean Children's Grand Park... free admittance

Visit to the zoo

Jordan's week 49 response

Sorry to hear about the challenges with plumbing. That reminds me of the time in Imun that the bathroom sink rusted out. I had to form a make-shift pipe out of yogurt bottles and a 2-liter. I guess there are a couple ways to do house repairs. ;)

Great to hear about a fun stake conference! I look forward to understanding it fully again. Maybe next year. ;) It's really great to hear that Benn is going to do a mission. I can't wait to see what happens with him! 

Also, I'm willing to bet the Pilot is going to be quite the blessing. ;) 

This week has been the coldest yet. This last Saturday was apparently -5 degrees Celsius. That was quite an experience. Still no snow, though. The humidity is mostly gone now. It is still much more humid than Utah, but it is not even close to the levels we saw in the summer. That has been quite helpful since extra layers don't exactly help with wet air. ;) We have been able to do a lot more street contacting this week, doubling our goal of 140 people given gospel material. I guess it helps speed things up when people really want to get out of the cold. I have no idea what dad did in the heat all year round. I think it's nice to have a bit of cold to split up the heat. Any fun stories there? 

Things are going well. The people are still as nice as they have ever been and the weather is letting my trench coat get the most usage it's had in nearly a year. The suits are doing well. The sock and shoes are holding on. I realized the other day that I can sew the socks back together if I really need to... so I've done that for a while. I will survive until the whole socks come to replace the "holey" socks. I am very grateful for your help on that front. :) I will be buying a jacket for something lighter than a trench coat and a hat for my ears, so if you could transfer maybe $100 that should do it. Thank you so much. :)

It is really great out here. I wish you could come visit! I would recommend early summer or autumn, but it's great all year-round. :) I hear it is even better down south. It's at about the same longitude as St. George down there, so I think that's a safe bet. 

Not really anything out of the ordinary to report this week. The language is still coming. There are fewer and fewer misunderstandings between Elder Ahn and I, and he is having daily revelations about English grammar. It's good. ;)

I will try to send some pictures right now. :) Love you all! Thank you!

Press forward with steadfast faith in Christ.

Best wishes,

Elder Jones

Week 49 - Doctrine and Covenants 42:49 He who hath faith to see shall see.

Dear Jordan,

 

 Happy Birthday this week! You are no longer a teenager. We hope you have a great day on you birthday.

 

How are you doing? We finally got a little bit of snow on the ground on Saturday. It was gone by midday. We still have snow in the mountains and it is cold (at least to us). The highs are only in the 40s. When we were walking from Stake Conference last night the wind was blowing so it felt very cold. I know in MN they received more snow and had much colder temperatures because they had a big storm roll through from Alaska and it had Arctic wind with it.

 

 On Monday we had Family Home Evening and everyone was there. It has been a little while since everyone has been able to attend. Most of us are still fighting colds. We are coughing quite a bit. On Tuesday it was Veteran's Day so I had the day off. I still had to wake up early to put out the flags. None of the young men came to help so it was just Bruce and Ann and me. The ground was hard because it was so cold. All the the girls had school so they couldn't help. I then had a doctor's appointment and since I am 50 years old, I had him check everything as well as fill out the scout health form. 

 

I then went to lunch with Trent Goddard, one of my old co-workers at CoreLogic. We ate at Crown Burger and talked about our callings, our families, and how we are doing. He is the bishop in his ward now. I told him about when I was the ward mission leader and we had the ward FHE. He liked that idea. I then did some shopping for some plumbing material to replace the shower handles in the upstairs bathroom and the faucet in the downstairs bathroom. 

 

It was a training session on anger management. 

 

Trying to remove the old stuff was a pain and I had to go back to the store a couple of times to get the right materials. I had turned off the water to replace everything. When I turned it back on, we didn't have any water pressure. At first I thought there must be a leak because of the replacement parts but I checked everything. Fortunately, there were no leaks. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the pressure regulator. I wasn't going to play with that so I called Dan Merrill (Dan the Man Plumbing) to find out what the issue was. He came over and said that he could work on it on Wednesday. I had asked him to teach the plumbing merit badge a while ago and he was teaching it that night. We then went to the church and he made it through all of the requirements that night but it was about 9 pm when he finished. 

 

On Wednesday I went to work, the girls went to school, and mom went to work. Dan was able to take care of the problem. We now have better water pressure. That night the girls did homework and I went to bed early to try to get rid of the cold. On Thursday we didn't do much either. On Friday after work I cut some of the long pieces of rebar from the flags in half. Pete was able to bring me a big bolt cutter to use. It still took a lot of strength/weight to cut the steel. Robert bought a new Pilot but it won't be delivered until next week. We get to buy his used Pilot when his new one arrives. On Saturday I bought the merit badges for the scouts because we will have a court of honor this coming week. I had to make a couple of trips to get everything. I also bought the groceries. When I came home mom asked if I bought clothes detergent. I hadn't so I had to make another trip. 

 

We had the adult session of stake conference that night. It was about "hastening the work." They had three families talk about what they are doing. It was interesting to me that they are setting good examples to their neighbors but they aren't doing anything special. President Cook talked about a family trip they took this year to Scotland. They were having trouble finding information on a particular person who lived in Scotland so they went searching. They didn't find anything where they thought they would. They took a drive and were inspired to ask if there were any cemeteries nearby. There was and in the cemetery was the headstone of the person they were looking for. When they got back to the hotel they were staying at, they talked to the host who had the same last name from the headstone. He brought out several inches thick records of family history for them to use. 

 

On Sunday the speakers talked about faith, hope, and charity. President Hilton talked about the rules of three with time. For example 3 seconds to change a thought, 3 weeks to make a habit, etc. We will go to Robert's house early because we are doing the burritos and we will cook them at his house. One final thing about stake conference but not our stake conference. Mom said that Karen and Lance took Benn Stamps with them to their stake conference which also happened to be on "hastening the work." After the conference Benn decided that he will submit his mission papers.

 

 I asked the girls to send you emails for your birthday but to send them today. Hopefully they will.

 Keep working hard and studying the language. How are your language skills now? Do you hold your own conversations with others or do you still want others to help? How is Elder Ahn doing?

 

 We love you. You are always in our thoughts and in our prayers. You are great.

 

Love,

Bekah, dad, Mom, Sarah, Hannah, Rachel

Week 48: Jordan's reply

Great to hear about everyone's fun autumn. Sorry there's still no snow. We haven't had any yet either, but the humidity sure makes it feel like something's coming. I was bundled up in my suit, scarf, and trench coat yesterday to walk to our appointment. We had quite the conversation about why on earth I was wearing so many layers. It was fun... and cold. :)

This has been a good week. We have had a lot of opportunities to street contact and find some fun people. It's been a great week of seeing us do our very best and having absolutely no results, then waiting a bit and seeing God come through and do things we couldn't do if we had a thousand years. We had one man come up and ask us where and when we worship and what time English class is. Another day we tried door approaches and had literally no one give us more than 2 seconds except for some old woman who took more than that to close the door after seeing us. However, we decided to try one more building. On the basement level (yes, spiderwebs all over) we tried the last door. A middle-aged woman opened the door and invited us in. She gave us very tasty (not against the Word of Wisdom!) tea and asked us about Jesus. She has been Buddhist, but wants to learn about Christ and really loved the family focus of our message. The sister missionaries will take over, but I hope to hear great things. :)

Outside of those special experiences, nothing particularly extraordinary happened, but it was a great week, nonetheless. Just because something is not out of the ordinary doesn't mean it isn't a wonder to behold. ;) The Koreans really don't like another Korean missionary, but the people willing to talk are always impressed by our message. We don't always get to teach them again later, but we do get to plant seeds. Every little bit helps. :)

As far as your questions are concerned: we don't give very many priesthood blessings currently; my Korean is okay, but I am still enjoying the challenges of learning; I am largely studying vocabulary right now to continue improving; Elder Ahn is doing well and is becoming an even better missionary; the weather is cold, but no snow, yet; we're learning a lot of lessons in patience lately. ;)

Things are great. :) I hope you all keep doing well and continue to enjoy your autumn! Thank you for everything and I love you all!

Press forward with steadfast faith in Christ.

Best wishes,

Elder Jones

Week 48:Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Dear Jordan,

 Hope you are doing well. I can't believe how fast the week goes by. It feels like I just barely sent you the last email. I don't mind sending the emails but it feels like I am sending them every other day (which I am not because then you would only spend your P days reading emails).

 On Monday we had Family Home Evening. On Tuesday the girls stayed home to do homework and to get over a cold but I went to YM/YW combined activity. It was a scavenger hunt where we would go to houses in the ward and take pictures of different genealogy items such as photos of your mother's grandfather or photos of an ancestor serving the country. It was fun. It was also Voting day so Mom and I voted. On the way to school with Sarah I mentioned that starting next year, she would be able to vote and that she would be able to vote for the president in 2016. Her eyes got a little bigger when I said that. On Wednesday Bekah and I watched some shows. 

Bekah asked if she could go with Kara to her mom's house in Nevada. Kara called about 7 times and left messages on the home phone each time. I kept handing the phone to Bekah to listen to the messages. Summit doesn't have school this Friday so that is why Bekah was hoping to go. On Thursday I started getting a runny nose. I guess I caught it during the scavenger hunt or from Rachel who is still fighting a cold. Bekah went on her trip. Mom finished teaching her evening classes for this quarter. I went to bed early. On Friday I called in sick and spent the day trying to get better. Mom took Sarah to the train for school and picked her up in the afternoon. Mom also made some home made chicken noodle soup. It wasn't like what you get from the Campbell's cans but it was pretty good. Mom also went to see The Giver with Lareesa (spelling). She enjoyed it. 

I slept upstairs so that I didn't get mom sick. On Saturday I spent the day trying to get healthy. On Sunday we were home taught and went to church. We then went to Robert's house for dinner. When we were being home taught, Ken Wood was there as Fred's companion and he taught the lesson. It was about the difference between genealogy and family history. He started by giving us a names and some dates of a person. He asked us our thoughts about it. He then gave a brief story about the person. He then showed some pictures. He then showed a journal of when he was a prisoner of war in Europe during WWII. He said that the difference between just having a name and some dates versus all of that information and more is the difference between genealogy and family history. He said that when his father passed away a couple of years ago, he found some talks that his father wrote as well as a letter that was written to Ken while he was on his mission but the letter had not been sent. He said that those documents are precious to him because it helped him know his father more. It was a good lesson. I also asked for a blessing to get over my cold. Do you offer to give very many blessings each day?

 How is your Korean? What are you doing to improve you language skills each day? How is your companion doing? We have a bit of snow in the mountains but not on the valley floor. How is your weather? Hopefully you are teaching discussions every day. What are some of the lessons you are learning every day?

 Please keep working hard and doing what the Spirit asks you to do. I know that you are enjoying the experiences. Hopefully you are being grateful in your prayers every day for the experiences, both good and bad. We continue to pray for you. You are important to us and we know that Heavenly Father will bless you with the things you need to do His will. We love you very much.

Love,

Rachel, Bekah, dad, Mom, Sarah, Hannah

North Korea?