Shortly after arriving in Korea to serve with my husband, Paull, who was called as president of the Korea Seoul Mission, I scurried through the mazes of the market and worked late into the night to reproduce the accouterments of celebration and to communicate Christmas warmth.

But Christmas in Korea is largely without native tradition. We soon learned that a Korean Church member smiles and watches his missionary friends as they trim a branch or ward Christmas tree, bake Christmas cookies for refreshments and exchange gifts. Feeling the holiday spirit, our Korean brothers and sisters often participate in and even imitate these "borrowed" customs. But in reality, New Year's Day is the deeply felt and joyously celebrated holiday for Korean members and non-members.We learned to value differences, realizing both the Korean and American holiday traditions convey a spirit of love for Korean or American missionaries, members or friends.

This valuing of differences became increasingly clear to us in Korea through our close, daily encounter with Sister Lee, Chong Sun. Middle-aged, she stood just 4-foot-2 with bobbed black hair, big eyes, a round face and a round body. She served as our housekeeper and cook for three years. She served us, as well as nine other mission presidents before us, accumulating 30 years of loyal, self-sacrificing service to the daily grind of the Lord's work.

One day as we sat at our kitchen table and ate with Sister Lee, she shared her life story with us. To eat together, according to Korean custom, is to embark on the first stage of genuine interchange, of intimate or spiritual encounter. And so it was that day.

We listened to her tell of the poverty and deprivation of the Korean War, her slow conversion to the gospel through the example of the missionaries she worked for and careful study of the Book of Mormon.

She told her story with wonderfully alive facial expressions and body language, yet she spoke in simple, often broken, English.

She told of her love for the small creations and service of life and of her earlier struggles to understand Western ways. We heard a history vivid of glimpses of the basic paradigms of Korean culture combined with the Mormon way of life. What a wonderful balance of East interspersed with West, transcended by gospel truth and love. We deeply felt the worth of her place and her mission on earth. And she was our example.

This small woman brought about a sense of unity combined with diversity for us. We desired our Korean seasonal celebrations to touch one another's lives with the delight of our differences, the joy of our similarities.

This meant that we would honor and participate together in the traditions of each cultural celebration - an American traditional Christmas and a Korean traditional New Year, placing Christ and our caring for one another at the center of both.

What a delightful observance of Christmas closeness and New Year rejoicing those first Korean festivities were as leaders, members, missionaries and friends joined together in true holiday happiness!

We had turkey dinners and pumpkin pie, packages of Christmas cookies, talent shows and skits, spiritual messages and testimony meetings and, of course, presents from under the Christmas tree.

One special moment occurred when we honored Sister Lee before the Christmas conference congregation. Our gifts and public praise were rewards in some small way for her loyalty and unobtrusive being that had freed us to fully fulfill our mission.

At the first of the year, we again spent days staying up late, shaping hundreds of mandoo (meat and vegetable-filled dumplings similar to won tons) and song peing (sweet treats), steaming rice pudding, filling trays with spicy vegetables, and storing crates of mandarin oranges, Korean pears and apples for the traditional Korean New Year's feast.

Early in the morning of the New Year, we dressed in our brightly colored hanboks (native Korean costumes) to greet the streams of guests, both excited Koreans and curious Caucasians, who, open house style, arrived throughout the day. According to Korean ritual, centuries old, each would bow and offer their respects to the honorable members of family and community. Exchanged cries of "Sahay pokmani padusayo" (Please receive much happiness in the New Year) ended the ceremony.

Soup and sweets, gifts and treats, prepared together, were the day's worldly recompense for honors given, but the real reward of all our holiday jubilation, indeed of our whole mission in Korea, was a deep-felt sense of united discipleship and love.