Memories

On Sunday I visited the neighborhood where I lived for about two years before I permanently moved to America. It's amazing what the brain can remember because this looks exactly as I remember it. So many memories were at this home. It's a strange feeling because wasn't really nostalgia. The picture above is the driveway where I used to jump rope and hula hoop as my mom, then pregnant with Rebekah, counted how many times I jumped or hula hooped. I remember I got to a thousand hula hooping once, haha. My big accomplishment.

We lived in the basement. Koreans often sleep on the floor as a family and apparently when I was little I told my mom I needed a bed (Someone told me this story. I don't remember it at all!). So my mom put a mattress in the one small room we had and I slept there. I do remember a mattress in a room, but I don't remember making this request!

This was my elementary school for first and second grade! (:

I haven't kept up with any of my classmates but I wonder how they are doing.

I went to church on Sunday and a lot of the scenarios went like this but of course, in Korean.

"Grace! Do you remember me?"

*shaking my head* "No..."

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes."

One weird thing for me is to tell them my age. Korea has a weird age numbering system where you're one the year you're born. Then every January you gain another year. Since I was born in December I was two by the time I was actually less than a month old. So whenever people ask me how old I am, I have to add two years to my age in America (which I think makes a lot more sense). It's weird telling people I'm twenty because I don't feel like I'm twenty, haha.

After my one week stay in Korea, I want to say that God is the same wherever I am - in America, Mexico, or in Korea. He is continuing to work in people's lives all over the world.

On Sunday I was surprised by how much of the message I understood. I thought I would be completely lost. I could assume what some things meant if I didn't quite understand what was being said. The message was on Genesis 21 on how God fulfilled his promises to Sarah and Abraham. It was a reminder that God never fails to fulfill his promises to us!

"Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like the olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord." - Psalm 128: 1-4

God is teaching, again, that I have everything in him. When I seek him, he will give me everything I need. When I seek everything else, although it may appear that I will have wealth and happiness, I have nothing.

The pastor told a story during his message that really stuck with me. I couldn't understand exactly what it was, so I'm just going to say it was peanuts.

A boy and his mom was passing by a peanut stand and the boy really wanted peanuts. However his mom couldn't afford to buy him any So the boy decided to stand in front of the peanut stand because he really wanted peanuts. The vendor saw the boy and because his heart was moved, he told the boy to take a handful of peanuts with him. Yet the boy kept standing there. After some time, the vendor took a handful of peanuts and put it in the boy's pocket. When the boy and his mom arrived home, his mom asked him why he didn't take a handful when the vendor told him to. Why didn't he? He answered that his hand was small and the vendor's hand was bigger. Analogously, God's hand is far greater than mine. He has so much more in store for my life than I grab for myself.

 I went to the King's palace with my cousin yesterday. It was interesting meeting her after ten years.

I've also been having good Korean food, but being in Korea has made me realize that I'm not foreign to Korean food at all. I had almost everything I had in Korea back in America because my mom makes all kinds of Korean food.

And the rainy season begins today.