Serving The Lord With Heart and Seoul: Blindfolded Birthday and Stars

Not very many missionaries are lucky enough to have their birthday on Pday. But I was. And it was one of the most memorable and fun birthdays of all time. :) After we emailed home for the week, the sisters blindfolded me and took me to the nearest train station. They made me walk down stairs and escalators without being able to see. I was honestly totally embarrassed and humiliated, but I wanted to make it a memorable birthday so I just went with it. I mean we already get stared at as foreigners enough in Korea... I can't imagine the stares we got when there were 3 white American girls walking around the station, leading their friend around who is wearing a blind fold (actually, one of those masks you put over your eyes to go to sleep). But hey, you only get to celebrate your 20th birthday in Korea once. On one of the trains, I heard an older Korean lady ask if I needed to sit down. The other sisters just told the lady no and that it was okay. I have to admit I would've given the sisters a death glare if I could have seen where they were at. ;) They all just laughed afterwards. You see, Koreans get plastic surgery on their eyes so much, that the lady just thought that I had had plastic surgery and needed to sit down. But no, I was just blindfolded on train. Ha-ha anyway, the blindfolded journey continued for about an hour in all. We walked around the city for a minute and ended up in an elevator. I heard the elevator say we were on the 8th floor of a building. We stepped out and they took the blindfold off me. We were at Ashley's Grill and Buffet! :) And the other sisters from our zone were on their way. So fun! Ashley's is as close to American food as you can get in Korea. It was seriously so fun. And at the end of the day, the sisters told me the only one who stared at me when I was blindfolded for a long amount of time was the 1 other foreigner that they saw. Ha-ha
oh boy, this birthday won't be soon forgotten. :)

Last night we got to see the stars! For me, this was the first time I have seen them in over 10 months. We went to our ward mission leaders house for dinner. And he lives in a house. Yes, a HOUSE. Not an apartment building. This is a rarity in Korea, and the house probably costed something in the million dollar range. He lives in a house up in the country away from the city. When we walked out of his house, we looked up and saw STARS. I mean the light pollution from the city was still blocking most of the stars out, but we could see about 10 really clear ones. And all the sudden, the world didn't seem so large anymore. The stars that I saw in Korea were the same stars I saw in Utah, or so it seemed. When you look up at the stars, just remember that I can see them from here too. You can see the stars from anywhere in the world. And the stars don't look any different in Korea than they looked in Utah. It is kind of cheesy to think of it that way, but that is honestly how I felt when I saw the stars. :)

I remember looking up at the stars at home. I would lay on the trampoline, wrapped in a blanket, looking at the sky and all of its beauty. I would watch shooting stars with their long sparkling tails fly across the sky. It always made me stare in awe at the creations of our Heavenly Father. The Lord, under the direction of Heavenly Father, created absolutely everything on this earth. He created each of the stars. He created you and me. He created the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. He created the trees and the flowers. He created everything. There are so many people on this earth, each one that has been made and created by the Master Designer. And the thing is, so many of these people don't know who their Creator is. And that is why I am here, spreading the gospel in this amazing country of Korea. Everyone on the earth deserves to know why they are here, and who created them. It is probably one of the hardest things you could ever do, but missionary work is definitely the most rewarding thing I have ever done. With love always, Sister Maughan.