#8 Lock Smith (By Grandma)

I know you are all very excited to hear about our Saturday night here.  As I mentioned previously we usually go out to dinner but not until about 8:00.  It is too hot earlier.  So we'd been putting off our hunger pains and finally decided to venture out.  I always carry my purse with keys attached. Dad always puts his in his pocket.  I can tell you already know where this is going.  

So as the door closed we noticed dad didn't have his keys.  We were relieved because trusty me had hers.  So we tried to open the door and it wouldn't open.  We twisted, turned, pushed removed and reinserted the key.  Nothing.  A quick prayer and still nothing.  How can you be locked out of your apartment in Turkey?  And BTW the cell phones were in the apartment.  

We thought of calling the apartment manger but we didn't have her phone number and being Saturday evening she wouldn't be there anyway.

So we went down to the street.  There is shop below us.  We are level 4 and the shop is ground level.  The shop was still open. We tried to explain out plight.  Someone in the shop spoke a little English and thought we just didn't know how to open our apartment.  So he came back upstairs with us and tried.  No luck.  I tried to explain that we needed a locksmith.  After several minutes of baffled looks and trying to understand he put us on a phone to someone who spoke a little more English.....but not much.  I was finally able to type out "lock smith" in google translate and they knew what I needed.  So they made some more phone calls and put a man on the phone who said he'd be there in 1/2 hour.  Then they closed up shop and drove away.

Dad and I sat on the curb wondering if it would be our place of residence until Monday morning.  But along came a locksmith (or criminal) on a bike with a black box.  We led him up to our apartment, he swiped some sort of wedge along the doorframe and it flew open in 2 seconds.  We would have paid him the moon.  He only charged us 50 Lira  which is less than $20.00.  

When we entered the apartment we could see dad's key in the keyhole inside the apt.  That is why my key wouldn't unlock it from the outside.  Our door is pretty safe.  It takes five turns from 2 keys to open it.  But only one swipe from a "locksmith". 

We celebrated by feasting again a Burger King. 

Please thank everyone you know who help provide for the meetings you attend.  We get to do all of it.  Dad and I have to take everything for the Meeting in the hotel.  This means sacrament bread, water, cups, cloth, etc.  in addition we have to print copies of hymns in Turkish and English.  We have to take our electronic devices to play music or conference talks.  And this week we had to take cookies because the members like to be fed.  And we need some paper and pencils and laptop. We carry all this stuff and walk about 1 mile.  And it is hot.

But we are surviving. This week we rode the metro, the buses, a taxi and a ferry.  And we still walked 1,000's of miles.  

Love you all,

Mother