In Which Kim Jong Un Needs Religion...

This week I remembered that South Korea is actually kind of close to North Korea. It's something you kind of forget. Unless North Korea decides to throw a tantrum. Then we hear about it.

This week for instance. We were at a member's house eating an AMAZING meal when our Zone Leader called. We ignored it as the member was telling us this story (and also our mouths were full of delicious food) but he called again so I took it out in the hallway. 

"Where are you?"

"We're at a member's house eating, why?"

"Can you please head home? Nothing is wrong, just everyone needs to go home right now and stay there."

Yes, that's believable.

Add that to the fact that I could hear our mission president's voice in the background saying things like "If we have to evacuate we'll be ready" and "of course they warned us first" and I slowly started to panic. I headed back to the table and my sweet Korean companion was like "What???" She said I was scaring her because my eyes were so huge. I was like "I DON'T KNOW BUT WE HAVE TO GO!" So after making a fumbled apology to the poor sweet member we skedaddled right out of there.

It turns out that the myth about every missionary house having an emergency backpack is TRUE. It was the first time I've seen it. We were told to make sure it had everything we would need for 72 hours. Meanwhile I was like "SISTER EE IT'S NORTH KOREA" and, bearing in mind that I was trying to explain what had happened in Korean, she started laughing and I was like "SISTER EE THIS IS LIFE AND DEATH! WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING"

In English, she responded "Bell Chamenim. Calm down." Apparently North Korea does a lot of this kind of stuff. Anyways, at least our 72 hour kit is finally updated. 

My hastily-assembled 72-hour kit

As long as we're talking about funny/seriously sad stuff. There was this guy that came to English class the other day. We all went around and introduced ourselves and when it was his turn he stood up and said in flawless English: "My name is Kim Seong Seok and I am very, very drunk." And then sat down. I could feel the elders just dying a little inside.

Having a Korean companion is interesting because sometimes I'm not sure what's happening. For example, we visited our branch president's mom, who's not a member, and talked about the youth of today and then somehow we ended up in this room just filled to the brim with CORN. You could not see the floor because there was so much corn in this room. She sat us down and we started shucking it. I still have blisters. I'm not sure what happened but it got us through the door!

I finally acheived my mission-long goal of throwing up at a member meal. It happens to every foreign missionary in Korea. It's a mark of bravery and longsuffering. I think it was the octopus that pushed me over the edge. I looked at Sister Ee and was like 'bathroom', her eyes went wide and we hustled right over there. And then after that I went right back and ate more octopus because it would have been rude not to. 

A little piece of very exciting news: a sweet investigator that Sister Olsen and I taught in Choongrang-gu was baptized on Saturday! 

Anyway, quite a week and I am planning to title my memoirs "I Don't Speak Korean and So Can You" because I have no idea what my companion is saying but we still manage to communicate. The gift of tongues is real!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes and letters and prayers! Love you all!

xoxo

Sister Bell

A chocolate chip cookie oreo waffle. it's real, folks!