"It Is Better to Look Up"

This month's visiting teaching message was your choice of a General Conference talk. It's funny how when that Ensign comes out I read it almost like I only really remember a couple of the talks. Which is actually nice because then I feel like I'm learning all over again. When I looked over the titles the one I wanted to share stuck right out to me.

"It Is Better to Look Up" by Carl B. Cook
(Please click this link and read...It's better than what I have to say :))

I don't normally share these kind of things besides at visiting teaching, but this message was so perfect for me and I felt like others might feel the same. It's so simple and easy to understand and it's a concept I think about and struggle with everyday.

"Why is it a challenge to consistently look up in our lives? Perhaps we lack the faith that such a simple act can solve our problems." 
I think this every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to bed. Why is this such a chore to me sometimes? It's as the children of Israel who were told that if they looked at the serpent, they would live and be saved.  Those who didn't would be turned to dust, and yet some people still did not put forth the effort. The effort to look up.

Elder Cook says:
"Experience has taught me that if we, like President Monson, exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy.³ We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. But we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow His direction."
So something that might take time to make an effort, actually makes life easier.

The talk says it all. We need to look up- to our prophet, to our savior, to a better/more meaningful/easier life. And even if you have no religion, it' still better to look up. To a positive, optimistic, more "can-do" attitude that ultimately will lead us all to a brighter and happier life.

The last reason I loved it was the meaning that I want to connect it to my Christmas season this year. It's my favorite holiday. I embrace every single part of it all season long. But I know I can focus more on my Savior and celebrate Him in all his perfection, by alway's looking up.

Korea- THE END (finally...I know)

 Our last day in Korea we ran around getting our last souvenirs and soaking up everything we could. We ate our favorite treats and rode the subway with ladies adorned in mullets. After our awesomely fun long flight home in which our in-flight entertained included a ton of movies we always wanted to see and music and games. Yeah like super nintendo games on my tv in front of my face. 

Spence and I played Street Fighter old school against each other on different screens. So rad. Street Fighter! I hated it though cause I forgot I've always sucked at and my brothers always used to destroy me in that. But the fact that I was playing it on a plane made it ok that I, Blanca, was killed by Ryu 15 times. Whatever.

Did I mention how adorable the stewardesses are on Korean Air? They wear old school flight attendant outfits with adorable hair bows, inspiring me to buy 10 of them. Spencer said that is like the most coveted women's job for Koreans. And they have like a ton of requirements to be one. These boys are real real rad. I adored them. 

My cream one was in my hair as we were greeted at the airport like return missionaries. 

Missionaries were actually right behind us. Made Spence's 3 months seem pretty weak sauce.

I was only gone a week...but I'll accept the love anytime.

"Look I wrote it in Korean"- Julie "Yeah, thats...close"-Spence

 I was happy to have my Korean cutie back in America with me

He was happy his parents got him Sugarhouse BBQ as a welcome back. Obviously I was too...

Thanks Korea. We loved you. Hope to be back one day. But always only together.

Korea- Day 7

Monday was a day of recovery and a day for actual relaxing vacationing, like we were anywhere, but happened to be in Korea. We slept in like mad. We woke up and ate in bed while watching Yes Man. Pro'ly watched it like 2.5 times...it was so magical. Such a recovery period from the long train and bus ride the night before. We LOVED the fact that we could just do whatever we wanted all day, it was our trip, we had free reign.

When we finally decided to get going we wanted to go for a run about the town in our new Korean running hats. We ran to this big fancy mall called Coex that was huge and cool and popular. We got some grub there, got our people watch on, and made our way back to the hotel.

The one and only thing we had planned to do that day was go to the Namsan "N" Tower. It was in the heart of the city and so we hopped on the bus. Well, where we got off...pretty much the wrong stop. We walked through random cute areas. Areas that had some very practical cut outs for use. We walked past a Korean Hostel. A swanky little street with fancy hip restaurants. It was nice weather. Funny thing though...no tower. Towers are big right? I'm pretty sure they're hard to miss. We stop enjoying the walk and started getting pretty annoyed. It's like a REAL big tower! Well we walked and sassed and grumbled. FINALLY...signs, and...TOWER. Completely confused as to why it was so not where we got off that bus. 

Favorite part of the entire trip, most memorable, wonderful, perfect part was going to N (Namsan) Seoul tower. I had seen it all over the town from everywhere we went all over Seoul. It sat on that mountain for all to admire. Up close it was even more amazing.

So lovely. So cool. Stood as a special part of the city Spence served in and loved so much.

When we decided I would spend a week in Korea with Spence we knew were using it as our time to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. For that Spencer knew the one thing we would do that would make it like August 9, even though it was actually the 29th. And he knows how cheesy and sentimental I like things. So this place was perfect.


N Seoul Tower has a plaque explaining what it says...
"A Promise for Endless Love “I Love You.”.
From old times, there was a story that if lovers make a wish at a shrine on Nam-San (Mt. South), it comes true. Since that, this place became a symbol of the place of promising an everlasting love for couples with hanging a lock together. A Lock of Love, already famous by media, is not just expressing couples’ love by hanging locks, but meaning endless love with experiencing unforgettable moment in the place you can see a view of Seoul.
Now N SEOUL TOWER is the icon of love and friendship with family and friends as well as love stories of “A Lock of Love.” We will remember your precious moment @N SEOUL TOWER.""Thousands of locks adorn the fences, hung by couples both young and old, with the keys thrown away to ensure that the sweethearts’ vows to never separate are kept forever."

Can I tell you how insanely giddy I was watching this cutie local couple finding a place to put their lock. Finding the perfect place where their symbol of love would reside. He actually ended up holding up and putting on top. LOVED IT. Had to do it...absolutely had to.

Yep...I loved it.

VIEW...I loved seeing the 7 bridges, so cool. Seoul is pretty rad.

SO excited to lock our love

This is where we left our vows. And then we made our wish and throw our key together.
Seriously, such a sucker for this cheeseball lovefest. 

 English side of our heart

 Korean side and translation of our love

<3 FAV <3

(Oh and...The next days papers declared what we had witnessed! Literally every single paper had it.) 

YEAH YEAH YEAH LOVED IT. Great day. 

And side note, Happy Anniversary to us 3 months later as I look back. Seriously ADORE being married to my little Korean cutie. Best thing ever. 

Korea- Day 6 (SUPER LONG WARNING)

Alright I know, get over Korea by now, move on to move recent things in life. BUT I have to finish this to complete our Here and There journal. Therefore...Day 6. 

We woke up early and went to Seoul Station where we took a Bullet train to Daegu Korea. This was the city that Spencer worked and lived for the summer. We were staying in Seoul, his mission area and also a better location for a tourist, but I really wanted to witness everything Spencer had that summer. So we boarded at Platform 9 and 3/4 on the Hogwarts express. It was complete with treat cart where we would have purchased Bertie Botts Every flavor Beans...but they were out.  Then there was this dude next to us. NO JOKE---A straight up horse. Every THREEEEE seconds he made a snot sniffing sound. EWWWUGGHHHEWWWBLAH. I could not keep my jaw form dropping and constantly giggling at how ridiculous he was. I recorded video to share in my video post. Be excited.

I adored riding the train, which was about 1.5 hours, because I got to see so many different parts of Korea. And FYI Korea is SO green and lush. I felt like I was going through the country. Which...I guess I was, in a different country!

Daegu Station

When we got there we got on the bus and went straight to Spencer's ward. I really wanted to check it out and meet the people Spencer spent his Sunday's with. It was a military branch and I had no idea what to except. Again, the beauty of the church, always the same. Sacrament meeting, sunday school, same spirit same gospel, and didn't hurt it was the same language. 

 

 Across the street was a park and river Spencer had told me about so we checked it out. 

 There were little work out machines at lots of the parks. Real funny machines. Spencer and I got our fit on real quick. A lil sweat ne'er hurt no one. 

I was SO excited to go to Spencer's apartment. We got off on his bus stop and walked all around his  neighborhood. I had him tell me which routes he took and he'd throw in fun stories of things he would do and places he would go. His apartment was cute and fancy and nice with all the upgrades. Sadly, his roomie wasn't there, but I left my love.

We went and explored the area more. It was such a cute neighborhood. Trees line both sides of the little roads. There were street markets and local shops. We stopped at a Kim Bop and got some of my favs. Oh ramen, how you rule my life. 

 We walked down to the park he used to run at and saw some interesting things on the way. This motel A4 was AMAZINGLY RiDiCuLoUs. It was all modern and fancy and had sayings written on the wall like "drop it like hot" and "love long time". All in perfect english :) Video to show it's craziness. There were also bath houses and golf places. Their golf is basically just video games. You go to a golf places and do 18 holes with your clubs, but on a simulated screen. Who needs nature right. 

This was the cute park Spence spent lots of time at. It had ducky paddle boats, running paths, b-balll courts, tennis courts, goodness and beauteous mountains.  

After trolling around the town Speene took me to Taegu Tech so I could see where he worked. I know he showed me pictures, but I loved follow his steps and seeing all of it in person. It was Sunday so we couldn't go in, but he showed me the "campus" tucked up in the green mountains.

His building in the middle. 

(Side note...at this point we got ice cream bars and had a bathroom break. It was a convenient store tucked down an alley. Getting to the point- the bathroom had holes in the ground for toilets. Squatters. Spencer had some pics from his mission making fun of these. I didn't love it. But it was pretty funny)

While Spence was there he had heard there was going to be some sort of big track meet after he left. He didn't pay much attention because he wasn't going to be around, but when we got there there were signs everywhere. It was the biggest deal and we had no idea. People were all over town in shirts for it and all these foreigners were there. So we decided, hey lets go to the stadium and just check it out, explore. So we took a bus from one end of town to the other and got off on Daegu Stadium stop. When we got off there were people walking everywhere, to somewhere. Then we look up the street. Huge giant lit up stadium sitting on the hill. What? It's like a real stadium not just like at the local high school? And it's like a legit stadium!? So we started the long walk up the hill. It was like we had our eyes on it and wasn't real, but we kept getting closer and closer. More and more people started around and finally...

 In 2004 South Korea hosted the FIFA World Cup (soccer) and this was one of the stadiums. No biggie. 

 We were so surprised when we showed up. Like oh, so this is kind of a big deal. 

We knew we had to go when we first got to Daegu and I picked up a schedule at the train station. It was the IAAF World Track Championships. Meaning, these athletes biggest races were this and the Olympics! These were Olympians. Specifically, USAIN BOLT.  

When Spence and I were on our honeymoon it was during the '08 Beijing Olympics. Sports=we love, so I love remembering watching Michael Phelps at 3am in Hawaii when he won his gold medals. Also our favorite part was the cocky, crazy and INCREDIBLE Usain Bolt. He's a Jamaican non-human and declared "The fastest man in the world", holding almost every record possible for what he does. He's a phenomenon and would that day be running for the world title!!! That day was the men's 100 meter semi-finals and finals. 

So when we got there we found a scalper, had a funny shady deal go down, and went. In. We had pretty stellar seats and were surrounded by a sea of black hair. Koreans packed the place and LOVED it. Cheering for anything that happened. 

This was the semi-finals of the 100 meter race. Usain in yellow in lane 3. He won.

 We watched relays, long jumps, discuss, bunch of other field events and races. This is the 1600 meter race. Watching all these peeps run like a million laps and some how the crowd was always cheering. 

 The Koreans were cheering we noticed because of the wave. THEY LOVED DOING THE WAVE. Honest to goodness, once it started it went around 8 complete full out times. 

 This guys loved it! He loved us and would turn around and say, "Where u from? Oh Uhmerica! I wuv it!" He shook our hands and would always turn around and smile when I cheered. 

 I yelled and cheered a lot because the USA won 4 gold medals out of like 5 and a bunch of silver and bronze too. I was a proud American. Koreans don't yell like we can, so I got some eyes, but they were good eyes. I was hilarious to them, of course. 

The big story was that as the last race, the 100 meter mens finals rolled around every was ready to watch Usain set a new world record, to just WOW us all. Spence and I were on the edge of our seat SO stoked and excited that we were watching this, randomly happened to be in Korea, in Daegu that to see this historic event.

 He's the tallest bum sticking up in the middle, lane 5.

Well, it sure did turn out to be historic because the gun shot to start the race, Usain Bolt jumped the gun! He jumped the gun! The crowd went crazy. He was disqualified. Trains every day his whole life for that moment, it's his job, and in .02 seconds, he blows it. He was so mad. It was so dramatic and dragged out and cameramen were storming the track as he took of his jersey and yelled. Our jaws were dropped. WE WERE SO SAD! We wanted to see the lightning! 

Replay. It was bad. Like SUPER obvious.

 This was the race AFTER the jump. His Jamaican brother won, and USA came in 2nd. 

 I'm sure many of you aren't interested in this at all and have glazed over, but this was SUCH A COOL once in a lifetime type thing for us. For anyone really. Super random. Super rad. And now I have it documented. And luckily and Korean teen came up to us and starting speaking English just because he wanted to use it. (Which I actually do whenever I see a Korean in America, so I get it). You could totally tell he had what to say memorized and thought out. He knew how to "take picture", letting us get one together finally. 

After getting souvener shirts we took a long bus ride to down town and hopped on a cushy bus back to Daegu. The bullet train was too expensive to take twice. Therefore...3.5 hours sleeping on bus and getting to Seoul around 4am. Needless to say the next days post is a short one. 

ok. I'm done now.