Welcome to Korea!

It was along two hours that we waited! Even though we knew the mission president would be there to welcome new missionaries it was still a little scary. I remembered being in the Romanian airport 25 years earlier. I remembered Romania was a lot scarier than Korea. Several times I had problems in Russia (when working with the adoption work) at the airport. It was a lot scarier. I decided this experience would all have to do with my attitude. I am finding out so much of life has to do with our attitude about a situation. 

Finally, the doors opened up there was President Turner and Sister Turner. It was like they were old friends. Soon we were quickly walking across the airport to meet the new missionaries. It was almost like a reunion of old friends, only most of us had never met before that day. It’s amazing how the gospel makes us all one big family. We drove in the car with the mission president and his wife to the mission home. 

The new missionaries along with their new companions took the subway, over an hour to the Mission home. They were instructed to meet and talk to people along the way. Their mission had begun and they were ready to go to work. Dan sat in the front seat with the mission president, so he could explain the driving laws in Korea. 

I sat in the back seat with mission president’s wife, and she’d tried to explain some things about Korea to me. It seemed like we had known them for a long time. They are absolutely great. The mission home was quite interesting. It was five levels. The garage was in the basement. 

On the first floor there was a big activity room, and a Chapel. The next floor has class rooms, and offices. The next floor had the mission offices, and an apartment for the young office missionaries. The top floor was the apartment for the mission president and his wife. Sister Turner let us to the room we would be staying in that night. 

She said, “we are going to put you in the apostle’s room”. Wow, I couldn’t even begin to imagine who had stayed in that room. It was very humbling. There were 14 new missionaries that arrive that day, and their new companions. The mission home was full! The next morning after we had finished breakfast we were led to the garage. We put our suitcases in the car. The two office missionaries showed us how to set the GPS for the car. We were on our way when we got a call from the office telling us to come back. 

We had been driving for about five minutes, when the call came in. It was the mission office telling us that there was more paperwork for us to fill out and we needed to come back to the Mission Home. We have no idea how we were going to make it back there. The streets are very narrow; they park cars on both sides of the street which makes hard to get by. We didn’t even know what the outside of the Mission Home looked like. 

When we first arrived we were in the parking garage. We left the same way. We hadn’t even really looked at the front of the building. We called the office missionaries and asked them to stand out by the garage.  Just as we called and ask for the missionaries to stand outside there they were thank goodness! It took several hours to take pictures and fill out paperwork for our alien cards. It’s kind of like a green card.    

It makes it possible for us to stay in the country for a longer period of time. After we finished, we got in the car again and started our great adventure to find our apartment. It was an hour and a half away.    

There are so many people that live here, it’s one of the largest cities in the world. There is high rise apartment everywhere. Every so often you see a beautiful green hill but mostly just buildings. President Turner had only arrived in Korea a month before us. President Turner had a card for the toll that allowed him to pass though without stopping.    

We had to pay tolls we were so grateful that the missionaries before us had left money to pay the tolls. I don’t know what we would have done if they had not left money for us and we were stop at toll. We had not exchanged any money yet.

The GPS let us right to our apartment. We have no idea what to expect. We knew the apartment had three bedrooms, and two bathrooms.  One bedroom is used for an office. We were thrilled and felt that it was very nice.    

The apartment is Americanized. Isn’t that great. I’m sure it’s because a lot of military families rent these apartments. They have Korean plugs and American plugs which help alot. 

I still have no idea what the buttons on the microwave say or the washer but we just push them and somehow it works. The buttons are in Korean. So I just start pushing them until they turn on. It’s been okay our food gets cooked, and our clothes are washed.