LIVING IN A FORIEGN COUNTRY CAN BE STRESSFUL - BUT ALSO A LITTLE HUMOROUS!

My daughter asked me today if I was keeping a good journal!  I said not really, only my blog.  So I guess if I'm going to count this as my journal - I better get busy and catch up on some of the funny things that have happened to us in this beautiful country!

This picture is of our escape room - this is where you go in an emergency. This first one is the picture of the door on the floor and the next picture is of the door on the ceiling.  Inside these doors there is a ladder so in the case of a fire - you escape through the escape room. Now you need to know that everything in our apartment is written in Korean or is some kind of high tech buttons that you push to turn on the lights, let someone in from the downstairs, or garage - regulate your heat - turn on the fan- you get the picture.  There is a speaker in our apartment that regularly gives updates or notices reguarding what is going on in the area or warnings of bad weather etc.  We have no idea what they are saying!  We try to keep our phones close by to turn on the translator and catch whatever they are trying to tell us.  Well, the first week we were here, I got my phone out a little late, and the last couple of sentences the translator said something to the effect that the chickens were on the roof.  Well, seeing as we live in a massive complex of 14 story apartment buildings - about 20 in ours and at least that many in the ones across the street - in other words - I don't think the chickens are on the roof was the correct translation!😂

Well, that sets the stage for what happened to me today.  I held google translate or papago (the app they use in Korea) over the paragraph on the front door of our escape room to see what it said and it told me that there shouldn't be anything blocking these doors as it was our way to escape in case of a fire.  We had our suitcases iin there and the previous people had left a Christmas tree and it's box in there - so clearly there was no access to the escape hatch.  I carefully found a new home for these items and then I was curious what was under the door - because I didn't want to have to find out in an emergency.  Anyway, I opened the door and saw the ladder and how to get to the other apartment and immediately I set off an alarm to the whole building!  15 FLOORS!!!  I didn't know what to do.  Our panel that controls everything that I was telling you about above was flashing orange and kept saying the same thing over and over - I had no idea what it was saying and I took out my phone and it kept telling me it couldn't detect a voice.  Elder Lowe went down to the management office and no one was there

I was playing around trying to see if there was something I could do with the panel and it asked for my password - of course, we didn't know anything about a password - while I was playing around with it, the lady who lives in the apartment by us let herself into our apartment ( Yes they are very trusting in this country - so I think everyone knows the code to everyone else's apartments.) (I think it's because everyone knows there are cameras everywhere and we are all being watched - so they feel safe!)  (We call it a free country with a nanny - not a bad way of doing things) ( There aren't many police on the streets - just cameras you may or may not see - it's not a question of if you will get a traffic ticket but when will you get a traffic ticket.)

Anyway, back to my story - this sweet little Korean lady who knew a little English, helped me shut down the alarm!  Crazy day! I'm glad most of the apartment complex was at work or out and about! The next picture is of the ceiling in the escape room!  Anyway, there's a chuckle for you today!

This country is really high tech - and they place a high priority on education and work!  They have really brought this country to a high standard after the Korean Way decimated it! They should be very proud.  Anyway, the next two pictures are of lights on the edge of the sidewalk - letting you know when you can walk and.....
 When you

                                                                should not walk!

These pictures are of the massive store called E-Mart.  It makes WalMart look like a 7/11 store. The picture below is the drive through the tunnel to the five story parking lot - the store is also about five stories!  Pretty amazing!  They have a bit more of a free market here than I think we have in the states - their selection is massive - but I'm pretty tall and large for the Asian clothes market

This is a wall of just grains and such - there's a very large area with rice, beans, millet, etc just to give you an idea!

Here's a picture of the Costco being built about ten minutes from us!  The parking lot alone is bigger than any other Costco I've seen.  I've been told that this will be the largest Costco in the World and I believe it! It's scheduled to open in June.  So excited!  

One more little funny story - we were brave last week because we had to be! We were given the assignment to inspect five missionary apartments.  Two were by us and two were up in the north end of the mission and one was about 45 minustes south of us.  Luckily, they put an app on our phone with directions to all of the churches and apartments in our mission.  This is necessary because when you are looking for something - you can't necessarily just put in the English name - you have to have the actual Korean address. Google maps really doesn't work here in Korea - you need to use Naver or Kakao.  Naver appears to be the preferred. Anyway, we were very successful with this app.  It was hard for Elder Lowe, because if any of you know him, he doesn't trust the navigation apps.  He was a maps guy in the army and if he doesn't see it on a map - he doesn't trust - well, Heavenly Father has put him in a situation where he has to trust the app - even the locals don't go anywhere without it!  It's a small country but a massive road system.  We made it to the apartments and had very sweet experiences with the younger missionaries.  They had worked very hard to clean their apartments and take care of them - they also have worked hard to be obedient!  We know we are military relations missionaries - but we love working with these young missionaries!  They are the cream of the crop! Well, I guess that wasn't really a funny story ... but, our adventure on the way home was a little bit funny now in retrospect - we were driving along and traffic was a nightmare!  We hadn't seen bad traffic yet but this was bad and we were about to enter a tunnel that was anywhere between two and five miles long. The picture is when we drove there in the morning without much traffic - while coming home there had been an accident in the tunnel.  Emergency vehicles were squeezing by and by the time we got in the tunnel - there was a LOUD speaker with a woman's voice saying the same thing over and over - we tried to pull out our phones and again they told us there was no voice detected - not sure why because when I say loud - it was very loud!  We could see all the traffice pulling over into the right lane - so we decided she must be saying stay in your vehicles and move to the right.  We eventually got out of the tunnel and made our way home! What a crazy time!

I have more stories to tell - but not enough time at the moment - so I will update more later!  If you are reading this, know that we LOVE you but more importantly, we KNOW that our Savior, the only begotten Son of the Father, loves you! That's why we are here - to invite others to Come unto Christ and to help others remember how much He loves them!