Rick worked with Elder Lim, an Office Elder to get a moving truck.
Jackie headed out on a cross town subway ride of 57 minutes to help organize the moving. Some items had been packed when the senior couple had moved out and they left the apartment very clean. Sister Groesbeck had the elders go get some boxes and started packing kitchen items. She soon ran out of boxes. In the mean time the movers had come. The apartment is on the 13th floot so that means they put up a lift from ground level to the 13th floor.
You can see in this picture the platform with the items going down. There are no sides on the platform and many items are packed in plastic baskets. All items were lowered like this even the fridge, stove and washer.
There was a concern that we did not have enough boxes. But we soon learned that the movers would place the household items in reusabe plastic containers. Then tape is put across the top to hold items in the container. So we didn't need boxes after all!
We do not know the height limit of the lifts but many apartment buildings are 20 stories and more. In Seoul the population density is 45,000 people/sq. mile. Compare this to New York City, the largest city in the US. It has 27,550 people/sq. mile. Complexes of 20 or more, 20+ story, apratment buildings are very common in Seoul.
The move went smoothly. It took about 2 hours to clear the apartment. All items were delivered safely an hour and a half later to the mission office where Rick oversaw the unloading. These items will be used to help furnish other apartments. It amazed us that we could call on Thursday to set up a move & disconnect utilities the next day. But it was all completed within 24 hours. We thought it a very efficient way to move without a lot of waiting. The total cost was $430 for the lift truck, two moving trucks, and the people to pack, load the truck at one end, deliver & unload the truck in our office storage area.
A BIG job for Elder Groesbeck is to find and rent apartments for the mission. He has learned a lot of Korean vocabulary for finding apartments. In Korea you use a real-estate person to find rental apartments. You put down a 5,000 to 50,000 dollar security deposit and pay a monthly rent along with a monthy gualie fee for upkeep. At the end of the lease you get the security deposit back to use on your next apartment. The term apartment refers to building of more than 5 stories, Villa means 3 to 5 stories, and Jutecks 1 or 2 stories. We live in a 5 story Villa. Ours has an elevator. Many 5-story places do not. Elevators are required for buildings with more than 5 stories. Most elevators are small and could not be used to move large furniture items. Our missionaries live in a variety of places. The mission furnishes the apartments with a yo (sleeping pad), desks, chairs, kitchen table and chairs, dishes and cooking utensils, rice maker, fans, washer, and clothes drying racks . Clothes dryers are not common. Almost all small apartments do not have closets so one room is used to put up a metal clothes hanging system to hang clothing along with a chest of drawers. 
This is our clothes drying rack. We put a fan on the clothing to speed up the drying. Our towels take a long time to dry. We put our sheets over chairs in the kitchen/living area to dry while we are at the office. We will also put items on hangers and hang them in the door way to dry. We do miss a dryer but everything gets dry and we save energy.
Nineteen new missionaries are coming on February 4th so we are getting ready for them. Some 2-person apartments will now have 4 people, i.e., 2 companionships. The additional items are being moved into the apartments. President Morrise, Sister Morrise and the Assistants to the President will determine changes to companionships. Transfer calls will be made February 1st. All the changes will happen on February 5th. We will then have about 172 missionaries in the Korea Seoul South Mission.
We love our missionaries and pray for then in our family prayers. They are hard working and trying very hard to do missionary work. They work constantly on the language and still struggle to talk with Koreans. Korean is the second hardest language to learn. They have been talking with people in the cold this past month. Last week they talked with over 7000 people on the street, on buses, on subways and as they wait for the light to change.
It is great to associate with devoted young people and the senior missionaries in surrounding missions. All have left their homes and families to come to Korea to serve The Lord as his missionaires. They feel the importance of letting people know that building a relationship with their Savior will bring peace, happiness and a knowledge of what this life is all about. Our missionaries wear a black name tag all the time telling the world who they are and who they represent. They pay their own way, live humbly and want nothing more than to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We hope all will listen to the message of joy they bring and consider if they want to learn more. Those who prayerfullly seek to know the truth will have it manifested, by way of the spirit, to their hearts and minds.
We love serving as missionaries and helping His work go forth to the Korean people. Coming to Korea has been a great experience to see the hand of The Lord in this work.
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