Sa j ikkol, Seoul,
September 1, 1929.
Dear father and mother:
Last Monday a letter from mother came,
Just twenty days after it was mailed.  It was quite a surprise
to know Nelson and Helen were actually on their way to California
and by this time there.  I guess you will be having figs'now and
many other things; and I know you wiUndoing everything to show
them California hospitality. But I think no one gets a real idea
of California short of a year.  Imagine forming an adequate picture
minus a glimpse of San Diego at Christmas time and Pasadena on
New Year's!  Think of claiming to know California without having
seen the desert robed in its April glory of flowers. Think of
omitting the chrysanthemum season, or the Navel oranges and the
snow-clad peaks. Whenever; anybody visits, I always have a sort of
hopeless feeling at the prospect of satisfactorily shov/ing so much.
Last night I came back from the meeting of
missionaries at Wonsah Beach, having gone up Thursday morning.
The bishop arrived in Seoul Wednesday evening, and a number of us,
mostly Korean pastors, met him at the station. He and Dr. Hardie
and I and some others went to 7?onsan and came back together on the
same train.  Nearly everyone but the Southern Methodists had already
left the beach, and most of them left on the afternoon train yestarday
right after the meeting closed.  It rained all day Friday, and was
most disagreeable and cold.  They say it rains every time the meeting
is at ftonsan, and on that account the bishop does not like to go
there.  Oh Friday he said during the meeting- that Wbhsan could not
stand his coming very long; ^yesterday was fine, but I always bring
this kind of weather with me!.*1.
The men who are members of the Korea Annual
Conference did not report at this meeting nor receive their appointments.  I have heard no rumors other than that I was to remain in
Seoul, however. The women were all re-appointed to their former
work.  I met Miss Cooper and Miss Wagner and Miss Howard, who have
just returned from furlough, there for the first time.  I was greatly
impressed with Miss Cooper; thin &nd white-haired though -she is, she
is the redoubtable evangelistic itinerater all up and down the rugged
east coast.  It seems to me I have heard you mention her; but perhaps
it was some other'missionary by the same name.
I told Miss Bertha' Smith about' your knowing
her, and almost right away she exclaimed, "I must have taught you in
Sunday Schooll'1  Then I explained' what you had said.  She said she had
not thought of any connection before, because she had heard I was
from California.  Then she told about how afraid she Was of the boys
in the class, and how kind you and Mrs. Lindsay were to her, and that
Nelson had given her a book on Lincoln.  As a result of this new
bond, she invited me to dinner Thursday evening. About ten or twelve
were there, and she put me at her right and announced that I was the
honor guest. We had a fine dinner and a most pleasant evening afterwards..  Miss Smith,told about receiving a letter this summer from
some girl in America wanting to correspond,, and asking whether to
call her Miss Smith, Miss Bertha," or just Bertha, andosaying she was
sixteen.  Miss Smith did not like "to disillusion the child as to her
age*, and replied that she "liked to be called Bertha and that she was
only nineteen herself-- that is, nineteen as a. Korean,1 just learning
to talk. "When she read that one of the new missionaries' coming out