Cherry Blossoms Everywhere!

It was absolutely gorgeous here last week. We went on a cherry blossom hike with hundreds of other people through the hills close to my house looking at all the trees. I imagine it is the same where many of you live right now too. Beautiful beautiful.

The assembly came and went last weekend. Twelve foreign men were baptized, so that was nice to see. Here are a couple numbers for you from the assembly: Apparently there are only about 200 English speaking foreigners in the Truth in Korea. Actually that number seemed a little lower than some of us were thinking it would be. Many teachers and other expats (from North America, the Pacifc Area, Europe, and South East Asia) that I know that live here, live here for many years on end, and apparently there are about 20,000 in the country, so that means Truth-wise there is a lot of room for growth. However, there are three long term foreigners that weren't able to attend the assembly this weekend that I know of, so maybe the number could be a few higher. Also, what I learned from reading the Korean Herald newspaper this morning is that apparently there are TWICE as many Thais living here than English speakers - approximately 45,000. They are pretty much the slaves of the factories. The newspaper was really good at outlining their working conditions. Now that really appears to be where a need is great.

The special talk was yesterday. It was really nice for me because my co-worker Gina came along. After that meeting we had the ministry school. There is a brother that conducts it and his English is REALLY bad. Anyways, before the school commenced I explained to Gina the purpose of it and she listened attentively. However, after it was finished she leaned over and said, "the brother conducting that school needs to join it himself." She wasn't being mean, but she said later that she couldn't help but notice that he kept calling the sisters "him" and "he", and mispronouncing as he was giving counsel on pronunciation. Anyways, I just explained that we actually truly do really wish we had native speaker brothers that could give counsel and conduct the school, as it would be so much more understandable and beneficial for the students but we just have to work with what we have for the moment. However, there is a huge need for native speaker brothers to take the lead in the congregation(s), so anyone that can come this way would be MUCH appreciated...any of you adventurous ones reading this. :-)

Well, I am having my first dinner party on Friday night. This has been something I have missed terribly living in such a small apartment, so now that I have a little room I thought I wouldn't waste any time. Going to make a good ol Canadian meal - spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. The only spaghetti eaten in Korea has sugar in the sauce and sugar sprinkled on the garlic bread...almost makes my lips curl and my eyes squeeze everytime I eat it...but that is how they think Westerners make it, so this will be a bit of an eye-opener. Anyways, I can hardly wait!..Harvey and Pearl are getting lots of exercise running around the new apartment, and are thoroughly enjoying the extra leg space. Pearl is completely healed up now and is hopping up on the bed. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I thought since I have a bedroom now it would be nice to sleep on a bed so I ordered one online. So now my place is looking more Western and less Korean. I told my boss that I was ordering furniture for my place and he said to me, "why? do you have a hidden husband?" You see in Korea, a single person lives at home with their parents (kind of a death til we part pact...or marriage). I explained that in the West single people live on their own and are expected to maintain nice homes, with furniture and food in them. Anyways, I have arranged a dinner for the administration also so they can see how a Westerner lives. Okay, must run, class starts soon. Love, d :-) Have a wonderful week!

Was anyone else surprized by the CNN homepage this morning?

Morning my time that is. I always kind of wondered how religion might be squashed according to Bible prophecy when I read and watched news clips of how the previous president was having prayers before cabinet meetings, etc....but now it appears something else may be on the horizon. It's going to be very interesting to watch...

We have the circuit assembly this weekend. I will share any little highlights with you all when it is over. Country-wide I am guesstimating there will be 300 foreigners present.

Talk to you later,
Love, D :-)

118 at our Memorial

There were 38 foreigners present. It was at 9pm so I was surprized that we had a good group. It worked out really nice. Brenda found a taxi driver that I made a deal with to take me to the Kingdom Hall and then pick me up again at 10pm and take me home. It's a really long drive but it was worth it. Anyways, I look forward to hearing from all you how your Memorials went also.

Lots of love,
d :-)

People Amaze Me...

We didn't know the missile went off yesterday until we got home from service and the meeting. I thought is was just really cool that everything was nice and calm and there was no need to 'hole up' in our apartments. I would have thought that all people would feel the same. But no, this morning I wake up to the news of people in Seoul rioting and burning Kim Jon ils face! Good grief! Common sense dictates one would feel happy to be alive, with no missiles whizzing by, but instead they find the time and effort to run around trying to provoke a fight?? I guess we won't see true common sense happen until the New Order arrives, but in the meanwhile often peoples' thought process amazes me, as I am sure it does you too.

We had a good meeting day yesterday, and I was able to speak with six foreigners and give them invitations in Suwon Station on the way home, so I was extremely happy about that. The last one made me smile though. He was a man in his forties from the US who was the VP of sales and marketing for his company before the economy dived and he decided to come here. He is going to have a HUGE adjustment. He was so upset that he was living in a small apartment and not making the wage he thought he was worth back home. I just kept telling him that he was going to have to change his perspective on life and stop thinking about things in terms of money anymore. I think I was able to help him realize his "plight" was not as bad as he thought it was though. First he showed me his palacial home back in Georgia and pictures of his massive bedroom, and said he couldn't believe he was living in an 18x16 apt now - then I told him the living area of mine was 10 x 10. His eyes bugged. Then he told me they had given him a single bed to sleep on and how he had always slept on a King Size - then I told him I slept on the floor. Anyways, the next time I run into him, I think my best advice for him would be to delete those pictures off his phone and just start living life for what it is today.

Okay, must run to get ready for work. Love to everyone, d :-)

Dancing Politician

I had to show all of you this. Politics is sooo different here than the West. Wednesday is election day so here is a politician campaigning. They have stopped their rig in an intersection and are dancing to entertain people. He went on to do high kicks and the works.

Waiting to See What Happens....

Waiting…

Well from what we all understand here, Saturday is the day North Korea is launching the missile. It has been such a build up over the last month that it really should be interesting to see what happens. I generally do not under estimate crazy people so I fully expect something to go up...hopefully though it just won't come down too soon...or at least wait until it is over the ocean somewhere. From what I have heard most of foreigners have made preparations of one sort or another. I was telling my mom that the biggest goof I made was buying a second water jug that was too big to move. I set it in the middle of the bathroom and put a hose in it to fill…it didn’t occur to me that it would be too heavy to move after it was filled. Anyways, it is a nice blue colour so I will just leave it there for the time being. If all goes quiet and smooth on Saturday then I can just tip it over.

Classes are all going great. I am really enjoying teaching my English Focus class. They made an official class for about 30 boys that really want to concentrate on improving their English. I modeled it after the Theocratic Ministry School. We just study one chapter of the Education book per week, then a select amount of boys give speeches to work on the point. The only thing we do different is that even though I give the main counsel and fill out their slip, each person in the audience also has to give a constructive comment about the person’s delivery. Just makes the boys all feel involved. Anyway, the Education book is really working fabulous in the class setting, and we are having great lively discussions using it.

So, my school got me a new apartment! Yay! It is 350sqft, which is double the size I have been living in up til now. It is on the ground floor with a door that is street level. Koreans don’t like this type of apartment, but works out wonderful for foreigners. Now I don’t have to walk up three flights of stairs and when I take my little cart to go grocery shopping I can just drag it out the door, so I am truly thrilled about this. I thought that since it is a door on a sidewalk that now I will make a photocopy of a meeting invitation and stick in on my door because there are literally hundreds of people that pass it daily. I am on a school route with kids and parents that walk by, so hopefully someone will stop and read it. My door can be like my own personal poster board for literature. J

Well, this weekend, I am going up to the old city. I found a little shop that has two sizes of frames in it. No other supplies, but I thought this is better than nothing, and I will be able to frame some of my artwork. One thing about Korea is that it turns a person into a “McGuyver”…nothing that you really need exists so you just keep hunting for something that you can make into what you need. ;-/ HOME DEPOT or LOWES would fail miserably here because Koreans wouldn’t know what to do with supplies that make things. They are used to buying EVERYTHING pre-made. This can be sooo aggravating sometimes, but it also forces a person to be more creative and inventive…I’ll have to use some hidden brain cell power for some projects I have in mind…just well hidden. :-)

Anyways, everyone have a wonderful week. Love ya all, d

*ps. I have attached a picture of some school uniforms. Kids in the US and Canada don't know how good they have it in this regard. I have seen all types of uniforms here, but these ones certainly are a couple of the funniest.

Korean Spring Sprung...Then Sprang Away Again.

It was so warm a couple days last week that I thought FOR SURE that Spring had come early. We even went hiking with just light shirts on. So I took Harvey to the groomer and got him all shaved - totally - balder than a baby's behind. Then winter returned. :-( Now poor Harve is shaking in the park. In fact, this morning when I got us up to walk he wouldn't even get out of bed and I had to drag him out the door. Tonight I put his parka on him to make it more bearable. Anyways, hopefully Spring will be back soon...or Harve will grow some hair. :-/

Well we had our first Musical Theater class this year and surprizingly 13 boys joined. What amazed me more than anything is that a boy from last year, who is deathly shy, joined again. He reminds me of myself at his age. But when he read for the part of the bad queen he read with such feeling I just knew that he is going to be great this year. Their eyes all went wide though when I played the STOMP video from YouTube and told them that they were going to learn the routine. It is the one with the brooms so it should be A LOT of fun. :-) ...the girl in the picture is my assistant Miss Kim...really nice person.

It is so nice at the congregation these days. A young man from South Africa has started attending the meetings. He is also over here teaching. Brenda and I are really appreciating just having another foreigner to talk to. That makes four of us now, including the brother from Estonia. This week I am going to the printer to have personal cards made up to hand out to foreign factory workers that I pass at Suwon Station which is the big train station here. Often we will see them on their day off but they are going somewhere so quick that they really don't have time for a conversation, so we thought just handing them our card with a number on it, may encourage them to call. Will see. We meet several nice people in passing but it is really hard to connect again because often Sunday is their only day off. Anyway, just trying to think of ways to help these ones.

Well, I should run. All is good here. We finally got handbills for the Memorial so hopefully I can hand a few out over the next couple weeks. All of you, take good care,

Lots of love,

d :-)

Satan sure has these political leaders right where he wants them!

Hey hi everyone! This has been an excellent week here, albeit a vvverrry cold one too. Classes are into the swing of things, I have finally got my apartment somewhat organized, and my sleep pattern is back to normal. When we first got back, the first week Pearl was up at about 1am every morning crying for food. She was definitely still on LA time. :-( ...and since I have the spine of a jelly fish when it comes to those two, I was up whipping things together in the kitchen during the wee hours.

Well, things are tense in the news here. There is lots of "blah blah turn you into dust bowl" talk, with lots of "huff huff blah blah...will shoot your puny missile out of the sky" blather. Everyone...as in the politicians...are trash talking the other countries. I, on the other hand, am taking them all serious. :-0 Just in case they decide to test their strength I have stockpiled a few bags of dog food, some cans of beans, a few bags of bread in the freezer, and water. Hopefully it will all blow over very quickly but this is the most serious their arm wrestle has been in about the last 50 years apparently. If somehow something does happen though, this blog will probably turn into an account something like that lady from the Middle East - you know that woman that wouldn't leave without her daughter - mine would be called, "Not Without My Dogs", and you would start reading accounts on here of us traveling with our dogs overland to get to good ol North America. :-) All kidding aside, Brenda and I have a pretty solid plan of what to do if any of the rheotoric actually turns physical. We've both decided that the very moment we either hear "We..hate...you...war..now!" or see the glow of a missile trail whizzing by our apartments, we are on the next plane. :-)

Well, it is meeting day, and I better get busy and study the WT. This morning I was listening to the story (the audio download from the Watchtower.org site) about the brother from the Cambodian Killing Fields. What an excellent account! Really found i itnspirational. Anyways, I hope everyone has a wonderful week. Love ya, d :-)

Back Into The Swing of Things

Since arriving back, I have been super busy. The school year in Korea starts March 2, so this week I have been welcoming all the boys to class and telling them about how they will be learning computer animation this year. It is really cool to hear all their oohs and awhs.

Also. I am teaching the musical theatre program again this year and have pretty much decided in my head to rewrite Snow White and call it "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Stomp, Rattle and Roll Edition". In my head it looks good, but I thought it would be fun to include some routines like Stomp or Taps Dogs into the story - you know music from common objects. Anyway, I will keep you posted as to how it all transpires. :-) ...I will find out how many victims I will have to work with this week. :-)

I thought that maybe I had arrived back in Korea to some show of defiance or something. You know all that huff huff blah blah between the North and South right now. There are flags hanging everywhere right now. But anyways, apparently the libertion day from Japan happened this week and that is what it is all about. Woooh! Much rather it be that than the other. :-)

The weather has been cold and icy, but mostly beautiful blue skies. In the early early mornings, Harvey and Pearl can only walk for about 10 minutes at a time before they start "seizing up", so I throw them in the buggy and just keep going pushing it through the park. Good exercise for all three of us then. :-)

The congregation was all fine upon my arrival back, but with a few interesting tidbits - two marriages coming up - maybe three I hear. Because many Koreans still do the introduction marriages, lots of times things will happen very quickly, especially in the congregation where basically they don't even talk to the opposite sex. So it goes something like this - Introduction, talk for a bit, "yup I will marry you", and then a wedding about 4 weeks later. Especially if they hit thirty and are not married - that is like the BIG D day. One sister at the hall today said she came to the hall specifically to ask her friend if it was true she was getting married, because they are very good friends and she had no clue her friend was getting married. Most of the time in the West usually at least your closest friends know what is going on. :-/

Brenda and I took the furbies walking this weekend, around the wall. By the way, Pearl's back leg is healing pretty good now - it helps that all the furniture is pretty much on the floor level here, so she doesn't have to do any hopping. I just got the camera working so not many pics today, but here is one of Harvey eating his favourite toy...and one of me, Marcelle, and Mom in Mex one evening.

Okay, love to everyone,

d :-)

What a gorgeous day to arrive in Korea!

We landed at about 7am this morning after a 13 hour flight to a beautiful sunny day, with a blue sky, and icy cold. Couldn't have been more gorgeous weather. After haggling at the airport for a few minutes with taxi drivers I was able to get one that agreed to drive us an hour to Suwon for 100,000w. Thankfully he drove like Mario Andretti and it seemed we were home in no time. Even with all it oddities, Korea is still very nice. I went around to all the local shopkeepers this morning and said anyahaseo, and told them I had been abroad for two months and not dead. :-) One gave me a chocolate bar to welcome me back and and elderly man in the park raised his cane and yelled he was so happy to see the three of us walking there...or at least I took it as him being happy, could have been that he was crying at the sight of us again, but I don't think so. ;-/ One thing I really appreciate about Korea when I arrive here each time is that everyone is so neatly dressed - a person just does NOT see slovenly dressed people, whether they are young...or old. This morning when I was walking around the park I was watching a group of young boys walking in their karate uniforms, and some other older people walking in their hiking uniforms - sure Koreans seem to have uniforms or styles of dress for many things, but the upside of that is that they always really neat and well put together. Anyways, tonight I was out with Brenda to do a little shopping for the fridge. I COULD NOT believe one item though...I bought a bottle of wine in Mexico for $5, and that exact same bottle was on the shelf here tonight for $16!

Anyways, I am looking forward to being in front of the class on Monday. I am teaching a course this year that will help the boys to create high tech animation movies, and then we will have a film festival "contest" in the Fall and select a winner. Should be lots of fun. :-)

Well, I am off to the meeting at the Kingdom Hall tomorrow to see what all of the brothers and sisters have been up to. I will share all the interesting tidbits with you all later.

Okay, love to everyone,
d :-)

*ps. now that I can recharge my camera...forgot the plug adapter when I went to America, I will take more pics and post them for you.