snowy day and blindness‏

So, this is an even shorter email period than usual because it's
not Preparation Day. Yesterday there were about 2 inches (if that) of
snow outside when I woke up. I was ECSTATIC!!!! LIke a little girl.
It NEVER rains here. It has been a decade or so since they last saw
snow, according to a lot of people I've talked to....and it snowed.
:) My package that Mom sent had come the night before (thank you!) and
it was like Christmas....I put on some Christmas music and danced
around the house for my morning exercise and then I made the hot cider
packets you had sent. It was amazing!!! Yayness!

Then, to my suprise, during personal study we got a phone call
informing us that our Zone had opted to move P-day to Wednesday
(yesterday) on account of the snow. Seemed kinda silly to me, but it
meant I didn't have to go out and get my feet wet, so I went along with
it. We were, however, given the option of waiting to check email until
Thursday for those of us whose families are mastered in the art of
procrastination. I decided I qualified for that---so here I am---a day
late.

The snow day was fabulous. I took a nap and stayed in my house,
which, in my opinion is how EVERY p-day should be...I need the time to
regain my strength for the week.

Then, as p-day was coming ot a close (it ends at 6:00 PM...then
it's back to work) I was getting ready to leave te house and I noticed
that my mascara had gotten clumped as a result of my afternoon nap. i
searched, in vain, for my little eyelash comb that I've been carrying
all over Korea and never used, but I couldn't find it....so---like the
mechanical engineer that I am---I improvised. I bit the soft rubber
thing off of the end of a bobby pin and then I used the end of it to
gently separate the eyelashes. This plan was fine and dandy until a
particularly stubborn clump refused to budge, so I put in a little more
force, and...dohk...there goes the sharp end of my bobby pin right into
my eye. It hurt like the dickens (though I'm not sure what that means)
and my eye was all blood shot and watering like crazy (thankfully no
blood). We had a member meal appointment in an hour, but I figured the
pain and such would go down in that amount of time. I was wrong. When
I was still in severe pain and involuntary tears 20 minutes later I
finally tried to call Sister Jennings to ask for advice, but she didn't
answer. So, I went to the meal appointment and tried to be congenial,
but frankly, it just hurt too much to keep my eye open. I had
scratched the surface of the eye (the white part) pretty good and
moving my eyelid just hurt like crazy. Eventually I just decided to
keep both eyes closed through the whole appointment. After finally
talking to Sis. Jennings about the injury and the various parts of the
eye we decided that it probably wasn't imperative that I get to a
doctor that night and that a morning appointment would suffice, if it
came to that. So, because I was extreme pain and I couldn't even look
at people when they spoke (I never realized how much of my
understanding Korean relies on facial expressions and mouth shapes til
I couldn't see it) I asked te Elders to give me a blessing, for which
I'm very grateful. I went home and closed my eyes and didn't open them
til morning. This morning the pain was gone---completely gone---and
after what it was the day before I can't even tell you what an
incredible miracle that is. However, my vision in that eye is blurry.
I spoke with Pres. Jennings about it and we agree that it is likely
that it's my already existing astigmatism being flared up by the injury
and the tiredness of the eye from the whole ordeal. It's probably also
kinda bruised and such. So, before panicing and going to a doctor I'm
just gonna rest my eye (I'm gonna go get an eyepatch---argh!) and if my
vision doesn't return in a couple of days I'll get there. The most
likely situation is that it's fine and if it's not I'll just need a
little bit of a stronger prescription for my glasses. It's a good
thing glasses are way cheap in Korea and I was planning on getting some
new ones before I come home anyway. If it comes to that I'll be
sending an email home requesting money for those and possibly for any
Doctors fees not covered by the mission (the rules about medical
eyecare are always fuzzy-pardon the pun).

The whole experience has really opened my eyes though. I could
complain about a slight loss of vision, but how selfish would that be
when there are people who can't see at all? I'm so grateful I've ever
even been able to see sunshine or flowers or mountains or trees or the
sky. That's amazing! And it just opens my eyes to the wonders of
God. Man can study the eye, and even, to an extent, figure out how it
works or even how to fix it, but we cannot create one. Even in the
best laboratories of science one cannot simply contruct an eyeball that
can see colors and shapes and shades simply from raw materials. We
simply can't do it---to say nothing of the rest of the amazing parts of
the body. Mankind can learn infinite wisdom. A woman can learn to
make bread. She can even learn to grind the wheat---and to build hte
machine to grind the wheat. She can learn how to harvest the grain and
even purify the ore materials for the machine to grind the wheat. It
could even extend so far as learning to sow the grain and help it grow
and how to best mine for the ore. But when you get down to it, mankind
can neither make ore nor create a seed that has the spring of life in
it. It all must be found at the grace of God. I could be upset that
for this temporary time my sight has been slightly hindered, but
instead I'm just glad I ever had it at all.

Moving on from my 3 second lapse in wise judgement...here are some humorous highlights this week:

My companion, Sister Park, is Korean, but she doesn't look it. In
fact, she looks quite Latino. Several of the Elders have taken to
calling her Hermana Park. She also happens to make delicious tacos
(which is not easy to find in Korea).

I was walking down the street the other day and we walked past
this underwear store (of which there are many in Korea) with manequinns
sporting their goods. I usually pay no attention to them, but I
couldn't help but notice the male manequinn wearing red underwear that
had the letters "T-E-M-P-T-A-T-I-O-N" printed across the waistband.
Now if that doesn't spell trouble, I don't know what does.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now. Prayers for my eye would
be appreciated. Thank you for your prayers regarding me learning the
language. These last few weeks have been magical and I've really felt
a lot of really cool things fall into place in my brain. I love this
language--and I love that Heavenly Father helps me learn and speak it
everyday. I've met so many foreigners who have been here for years and
they dont even have what I had coming out of the MTC. The gift of
tongues is real-- but I still have to work for it. I'm just grateful
to be able to serve this people.

Love to all!

~R~

P.S. The guy next to me just got onto his Church's website and it
has the slogan "Set te stage for Jesus" printed in English at the top.
Interesting thought. All of us missionaries are the stage runners (or
as Coronado Techs lovingly call it "Quick-Like-Bunnies") for the second
coming. Sounds like the beginning of a great object lesson :)...