We share with you the lovely Korean Temple

How blessed we were to be able to stay on the grounds of this holy edifice. What a grand spirit was there and each time we came back from the hustle and bustle of the city, we felt the quiet peace that the gospel brings into our lives.

The Korean Temple

Here we are at the entrance to the driveway of the Korean Temple. We are truly blessed to have Temples in our lives to help keep us on track... the right track back to Heavenly Father.

Where is the Korean Temple?

We are walking up this street and looking for the Temple..at one point we finally see Moroni on the left high above the buildings and know we are still on the right path! Family and friends, the next time you go to one of our temples, please remember my thought...'We are still on the right path'!!!

Looking for the Korean Temple

This is Elder Magill pointing the way. Notice the sign with Moroni on it to announce to us the 'turn onto the street' way of the Korean Temple. It is kind of fun for us to show you the sights in Korea that we saw.

The people would stop on the street and offer their help when our looks were puzzled or we would be looking at our hand written instructions and trying to be reading them!!! Adventure, Adventure!!

Gotta renew Visa - Visit to Korea!!

Family and friends - we had to leave Russia for visa renewal. Can you believe we have been in Russia for 3 months? Time certainly flies! We got to ride the train again, the one that travels at night to Vladivostok (our mission headquarters), had a meeting with the office people to train us how to use our 2nd visa. (With a second visa, we do not need to stay out of our mission country for two weeks, just a few days.) Then we had a short meeting with our CES young couple who has been called to be the Young Single Adult Committee Chairman/Woman. Wow, talk about a calling that you have to be in contact with YSA as much as 500 miles away. No, wait, there are some way up north in Magadan and that is about 2500 miles away!! No, wait, again..... that is us, Elder and Sister Sartori!!!!! :) :) Okay, I hadn't thought of it that way, this is wonderful!! The Lord needs all of our help, and we want you all to seriously think about serving as Senior Couple missionaries!! We ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS WORK!! We love our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. We know without a doubt that He sent us here to Khabarovsk, Russia, because He thinks we can help in this part of His vineyard. Look how large His vineyard is. He loves each one of His children just as we love each one of ours and we as Latter-Day Saints can help this teaching happen. Okay, I must tell you about our trip to Korea. What a delight! We were blessed to go with another couple who we met at the MTC, Elder & Sister Magill. They are so fun and we were constantly laughing and crying and laughing! This is our great blessing to meet wonderful people! The Korean Airport that we flew into is called the Incheon International Airport. Seoul, Korea has 24.5 million people! We arrived in the airport terminal and was amazed at it's beauty in architecture and moderness and cleanliness. The Korean people are respectful and courteous...they have the oriental habit of bowing to elders. Guess what...Elder & Sister Sartori are elders!!! The airport is HUGE! Elder Sartori commented on the largeness while we were still in the airplane and taxi-ing to the terminal. It looked like the airport alone extended for miles and miles. An example is the commuter (subway-like) trains that are within the terminals [yes, that is plural] that transport you to and from the designated gates you need. This airport is modern and IT HAS ENGLISH ON EVERY ONE OF IT'S SIGNS AND DIRECTIONS. Wow, how thoughtful is that!! Our instructions were to go to the ATM (after retrieving luggage), purchase bus tickets and proceed to the 6002 bus that would take us to within walking distance of the Korean Temple. The bus ride was about 1 hour. When we arrived at our bus stop, we followed directions that took us to the street that our Temple was on...we couldn't see the Temple, but as we walked up the small, narrow, busy street, we watched for it. The first known object was Angel Moroni greeting us from high up in the air. The Korean Temple is breathtaking!..................wonderful!..............felt like home! We were able to stay in the dormitories that they have for out of country guests like us. We were literally sleeping down the hall from the Temple! Humbling!! Our stay was short (3 days), but wonderful and the people we met on the streets were even more friendly than our Russians, and we thought they are so nice!!! I will attach pics and share a spiritual experience next time. Our love to you all....keep praying, studying the scriptures...AND... magnifying your calls! Elder and Sister Sartori in the Russia Far East!!!

PICS TO ENJOY !!!

When we walked to see this WWII memorial, we found a class of students practicing military march. Notice how high they kick their legs and how they mark position with their arms. This was interesting to watch. WWII is called the 'Great Patriotic War' here in Russia. This Memorial Stone of gray that you see in the background has all the names of those who sacrificed their lives in this war. Notice the 'eternal flame' that is lit under the brown stone.

This is a great picture of our Khabarovsk! Notice the 'hills' we walk on. We are staying in shape to tackle these hills!

This is a great shot when looking down one of our streets. Khabarovsk is a city of about 600,000. It is spread out so it takes awhile to get to different areas. For our missionary purposes, the city is divided into a central area and a north area. Our south area had to be combined because we 'lost' two elders last transfer.

WHAT HAPPENED TO LAST WEEK?

Time flies when you are anxiously engaged in good works!! Fun works!! I have absolutely no idea where last Wednesday went!! We have been able to see more of our beautiful Khabarovsk, Russia. I will share pics of architecture from here. It really is beautiful and since Spring has come the city workers have been cleaning up, planting new grass, painting the garbage cans, and making everything really nice!!! Sister Sartori finished an audio recording of a text that will be used in the schools here. That was a nice project and we learned a lot of history from the experience. We were able to introduce two more people to the gospel through the experience. The people here are amazingly nice. We are planning our Institute Graduation right now. We have 4 students who will be graduating in some way...1-2-3 year certificates. Seminary & Institute are great programs to help young people stay connected to the church. Out here in the 'mission field' they are musts!! We love being busy with the elders as they schedule discussions with members and investigators. The spirit is always strong in these meetings. Our apartment is in central Khabarovsk, so it makes it convenient for them and a blessing for us. We cannot say enough about these elders! The Lord really has sent the best to our mission! (Doesn't every senior couple say that?) But the Russian missions are extra hard with the disbelief in our Heavenly Father. We must start from the 'ground up' in our teaching with helping them believe in God. We even had a couple of people tell us that when they received their diploma from institute/university, they had to deny the existence of a God, or they were afraid that their diploma would be denied. Communism must have been so hard on the person's spirit. How hard this still must be for the soul, but as you know, the further we stay away from spiritual things, the harder it is to come back to them! We are trying to spark that light of the gospel in their hearts and it is very difficult for some of them. Our Family Home Evenings are each Monday and we had 16 people come this week and 6 come last week. They are varied, the people love them and the missionaries get to come alive in a different way when they lead us in the activity!!
We had a Branch activity and attended a Theatrical Musical. It was based on a story about pirates. We cannot tell you the name nor the story - it was all in Russian!! We enjoyed it the best that we could. It is always nice to be with our Branch Members and share friendships and love. We invite investigators to these activities as well. One of our investigators was a singer in the musical production. We found a cute little oriental lady who does alterations. In this process, we needed to shop for some buttons. This turned out to be quite an adventurous excursion! Our time was limited, because we needed to meet at a bus stop to go with the elders and we thought we had an idea where the business to purchase buttons was... but as in all things here in Russia...we have found they are not what they seem to be or look like what they end up being! Example: Nice looking bakery goods - look good, taste not so good. A store - you don't know what they sell or what is inside a building until you open the door and walk in...AND THEN IT IS A SURPRISE EVERY TIME!! You are looking for a certain item to purchase - it is located in the most unexpected areas of a business!! So you see, our adventures continue!! English Club is one of our favorite times, because we actually get to talk to people and have them share their "favorites" - movies, things to do, family memories, etc. Some have great family memories, others seem to not have any good memories, or they just do not share them. Family structure, good family structure is not the norm here in Russia. There seems to be a lot of single men and single women. We hope that there is more good family structure than we see. There are few children, in fact, when on the holiday May 1, we walked through the children's park by our apartment and were able to see lots of families. It was a most pleasant sight! The gospel is true, the gospel will help us return to live with our Heavenly Father and Elder Brother, Jesus Christ and all that we sacrifice to do this IS WORTH IT!!! Our love, Elder & Sister Sartori