Dear father:
Seoul, Korea,
June 28, 1936.
y
Have just come back from church, and while waiting for
lunch will start my letter. Tour letter of May 31 came yesterday;
also one from Miss Ahlemeyer. A few days before I had a let+er from
Uncle Victor written at Crescent City. He says you are fine in your
correspondence; the only one of the family that he hears from often.
I always wonder at how you keep up with ail your letters so well.  I
have a way of letting some ?et behind. He wrote that he never saw
the rhododendrons so^beautiful in aHi the 25 years of driving.  It
would be fine flf you could get away some spring and ride with him on
one of those northern trips. He would be glad to have you go along
for company, and it would not be a difficult time to leave Bonnivue.
The hills o^ Kofea would be beautiful with azalea and many
other wild flowering shrubs if they were not cut down for firewood
every -fall.  I think it is a pity they cannot be left.  mhe wood they
yield really does not make so much.  In very rugged places where not
many people live and where the shrubs are difficult to reach, the
flowers are very fine. Our hills here at Suchulli have many azaleas
and forsythia which are kept cut to the ground.Y But hereafter close
to our house we shall protect them, and hope soon to have a beautiful
display every spring. F
The outing at Long Beach was by way of giving a little
cheer to the Hamlin family I suppose. I would have enjoyed seeing
the pictures Lionel took on their trip, especially vellowstone and
the old home at Winsted. Is there anything at Epworth, Iowa which
you knew? Did!they find the house in which you were born? If you
start taking movies I think you will find it very fascinating, and
I think you can avoid the mistakes Lionel made. Professionals seem
to movie the camera very little, and if they do it is in one direction
only and very slow.
For about two months, I think, we have scarcely had any
rain at all.  I never saw it s& drv, and the reports have it that §
it has not been sofdry since the last Pyung-Ja year sixty years ago.
I don't credit th^t statement with too much assurance; I think it is
largely superstition. The Oriental calendar runs in cycles of sixty
years for a "century" with a name for each year; and this .is Pyung-Ja.
There is an ancient system of prognostication based on the names of
the years, months, days, and hours.
f     Thank you for the clipping from Pentecostal Herald about
the M.E. G-eneral Conference.  It was thn first news I had had ofji it.
vour copy of Bernie's letter was also much enjoyed, and I thank you
for taking the trouble to copy it for me.
I see I got off my subject; starting to speak of the rain
I went off on Korean customs and then started another paragraph.  To go
back, I meant to say we were having a good rain.  It started last night
and has kept it up steadily ever since.  It has not poured heavily, so
that nearly every drop has soaked into the ground. The farmers had
almost despaired; the price of rice was going up in anticipation of
a scarcity. When I left Haiju the early apart of this month we had the
first rain for a long time then.  It was fairly good at Haiju, but