Hey president,
This has been a tough week. We've been working super hard, trying to find new investigators, but its been tough.
Anyways, study has been pretty great, I've been continuing reading Jesus
the Christ, and studying for investigators and members just to try and
figure out what they need. Its been a struggle to stay awake during
study recently, but I'm doing better right now. Study is something thats
pretty important to me and a lot of times I feel selfish about it. I
feel like I spend too much time studying for myself and not for our
investigators, but I've been having trouble picking out what their needs
are to tell the truth. All the same I feel if I just stay awake, I can
get all the study I need done, both for me, and for the investigators
haha.
Speaking of investigators, we have a baptism on saturday! I'm super
excited about it because to tell the truth, I feel like I did nothing
with the previous baptism, and this one I've played a much more active
role in. The investigator is pretty awesome in my eyes. At first it was
really obvious that he was just going to church and meeting us because
of the pressure his brother (the investigator is a referral) had been
putting on him. Now he has some real friends in the ward, and I think he
is really genuinely progressing in great ways.
Training is still going great, Elder Hunter and I get along really well.
Interestingly enough, this week, Korean has been super hard for me. I
am not sure what is is, but its just been harder this week. Maybe I need
to be more aware of it in my prayers, but regardless, its not the most
important part of the work.
One miracle that was awesome this week, is that despite the
difficulties, we did find a new investigator!! He came to english class,
and we shared a message with him, and we think he has interest. He is
being fellowshipped by another investigator actually, really interesting
haha. That other investigator is an amazing missionary and when he gets
baptized he will be amazing for 계산 ward.
Have a great week President and see you on Sunday!
Wooooooooo! Happy birthday dad!
I'm sorry I haven't sent anything, but I plan on sending things for Moms
birthday for all of you! Especially Mom and Dad though because of
birthdays and then Christmas too, but nonetheless, things will be sent.
Hopefully they are fun Korean things!
If you have any requests for things you want, I'd love to do my best to
try and find them. Still no dice whatsoever on a Korean nativity.
Christmas isn't big, but I could probably find you something with a big
fat schwastica on it because it doesn't mean anything bad in Korea! It
was really weird when I first came here and saw them all over the
place. It's some ancient symbol for something here. I'm not sure what
it is yet, but nonetheless, that can be sent if you so please. However
it probably will not be remotely well recieved in America so I
discourage having interest in that. Seriously.
This week has been tough to say the least. It was super hard to stay
motivated. We keep on recieving promises that we will find
investigators, and for the longest time, had not a lick of success. I
can street contact on my own now, and can more or less understand whats
going on when I call people on my own too, so between the two of us,
talking to lots of people is not a problem. The thing that is
problematic, is finding people who are genuinely interested, and don't
just want to learn english. We're supposed to be able to find three
investigators a week, and we have been pulling up zeros for weeks in a
row, BUT... this week we finally saw success, and we found a new
investigator!!!... as you already read in the part to president haha. I
don't know much about him really because the way he showed up and was
an investigator all the sudden was really surprising. I would be
meeting with him again tomorrow, but we're going on exchanges with the
zone leaders and I won't be here for his lesson :'( That's alright
though, as long as he gets taught by someone, I have no preference, and
the zone leader who will be teaching him with my companion is super
awesome anyways.
I want to give a huge thank you to Kari really quick for helping out my
sister with her bridal shower! That's so awesome that that could
work out, and it's so nuts how soon Lindsay will not share the same last
name as me... Kinda sad but cool at the same time. Just as long as
the first child's middle name is "waitforit".
I had heard about the shooting that occurred this week, I didn't know
that it was that many people that were involved. I heard about it at a
meal we were having with a potential investigator, who is awesome, but
unfortunately doesn't really have much desire to learn. Anyways, I
heard about it and was just immediately upset. It was like a two hour
long lunch appointment, and it took me like 20 minutes to be willing to
talk again. I feel so sorry for what happened. It makes me sad to
think that people are put in that state of mind to where that sort of
violence seems becoming to them. Reading about it only made it harder
to think about, and it was hard to maintain composure really as I read
it. I think this is the second shooting that I've heard about in the
past two weeks or so. I really hope that none of this has to do with
stupid theories about 2012. How are people doing with regards to that
anyways? Fortunately nobody in Korea believes in that by the way.
Well with regard to other things, I had a really good experience
yesterday at church. It was with the investigator who will be baptized
on saturday, and I lead the lesson. My companion was helping people do
something, not sure what , but it doesn't really matter, so I was with
some young Elders, like Kyle Merkley's age, teaching this young man. In
missionary work, you're always supposed to give commitments and such,
and there weren't many new commitments to give to the investigator, but
his older brother who referred him seemed in need of one. In Korea, if
somebody older than you in your family tells you to do something, you do
it. THats the way the culture is pretty much, but it's kinda
problematic in that regard for people to actually be converted.
Anyways, I told the older brother to make sure he's helping his younger
brother as best he can. I told the younger brother it was his
responsibility to himself to follow christ. Granted, his older brother
has stock in the situation, but that he should not be converted for his
brother. It was really cool in my opinion, just because it was the
first time I've played much of a role in the lesson and felt really
prompted to do something out of the ordinary.
This week has been tough, but awesome at the same time. There's always
something to learn from and I love serving here in Korea. It's tough,
but luckily our ward members are awesome, and seeing them is a great
motivation to keep working.
Everyone is so awesome and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to do
Korean time, it's just hard to teach for me haha. I can talk, and
usually understand, but teching via email is tough. If people are upset
at its absence let me know, and I will try and accomodate time for it
in the future
I love you all!
클라슨 장로
Monday, December 17, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
transfers happened this week, I refuse to be clever at this point...
We don't like when he's sad, but we sure do love learning experiences =)
Hey President!
This week has been a little tougher than the past few, but that's okay we keep on working. For study I've started reading Jesus the Christ a lot actually. It's really interesting to learn a bunch of the secular and kinda non church affiliated ongoings of the time around Jesus Christ's ministry, as well as learning more about the spiritual side of things. I though it was really interesting how Elder Talmadge takes a great deal of time to explain basically every facet of pre-birth Christ and what all went on with regard to that. I think it's really great to learn from in that respect and increase our knowledge of whats going on.
One of the reasons that this week has been so tough was because aside from the one investigator that we have that will be getting baptized in not too long, we have no investigators. This isn't because we haven't been looking for investigators, but just because we've had no success finding. It's really tough because we spend lots of time conacting, all to no avail. We want more people to teach but its just more and more hard. That being said we've been trying to work with less actives to help them and find investigators through them. No great success yet but we'll keep trying.
Training is going good as always. This week was cool because I got to see where I was six weeks ago and how far I've come. It really is amazing the progress that is made when the Lord has an active hand in the growth of a young man. While this week we did work pretty hard, there was one day that I definitely could have worked harder. Elder Hunter was working super hard on I believe last tuesday, and I just was being lazy. On the day there was a total of 41 contacts and during our contacting time where we split up, I only got 4 contacts. It really was a shameful experience, and I feel awful for it. While there have been days that were substantially more tough than that one day, that day was definitely the worst day of my mission thus far. Definitely was a day to learn from.
Have a great week president!
-Elder Clawson
Hey everybody!
Another week in Korea and I am still loving it here! So with transfers now, they have whats called the 12 week program, so usually new missionaries stay with their trainer for at least 2 transfers and dont move around really, so I hope that answers your questions about transfers. And yes I did kinda have a day of suck. I seriously had the worst feeling that night of my entire life. I know when I broke my collar bone that I joked around and said "I want to kill myself" and what not, but really having wasted time of both mine, the Korean people's time, and especially the Lord's time, that night I went to sleep hoping that I could feel the slightest bit better the next morning about my performance that day. I ended up not feeling better, but the next day was better nonetheless. The day I sucked we had like 3 hours of planned contacting time, and I didn't talk to hardly anyone, and the next day, we had not a minute of contacting time planned, nor did we do any of it, and I talked to the same amount of people. Needless to say I felt a lot better about myself that day.
A little more about the place we live at since you guys want to know. So the bathroom is also the place where we have the laundry machine, yes it is pretty small, but only kinda small by Korean standards. A huge apartment in Korea is about the same size as an Lindsays apartment in college was. Not big at all... So yeah kinda cramped, but thats okay. The bad actually is big enough for me, Koreans are relatively large with respect to the rest of the Asian community, but still lived in incredibly cramped living quarters. Actually when I first got here, we found a full mattress and I sleep with a 요 on top of that so it's pretty comfy. We talk to other missionaries pretty often. We haven't had a p-day we didn't and usually we do some contacting together at least twice a week, and always do english class together. English class is okay, nothing super crazy and is kinda fun usually, there's some people that come that are just english sucks as we call them, which means they have zero gospel interest and come just to learn english. Kinda tough to put up with usually too but thats okay.
So like I said in the attached thing up top, it is super cool to see the new missionaries come in! Well after the day that I sucked, I had been revitalized in my will and desire to talk to people and such! Thursday, when our district was contacting together, I took one of the missionaries (every companionship in our district is training now, its kinda crazy, I'm technically older than 2 missionaries in my district out of 6 total) and was showing him how to 전도. I ended up running into two people who wanted to bible bash. It really is irritating. It bothered me soooooo much. I seriously don't understand why people get so hung up on things that are of such a trivial nature like what these two people wanted to talk about, especially since later I looked up their arguments in true to the faith, and now I can rebut them, with the bible! Suck on that one crazy people who believe in "Heavenly mother", not with regards to the wife of God, but with regards to Jesus reincarnated as a woman. It's weird, don't worry about it too much. Anyways, yeah, I can understand people to the point where I know when they want to argue with me, but did not argue back! We aren't supposed to bible bash you know, so I just testified, and said that since I'm young I don't know how to answer their questions, and if they want to know why we believe the way we do, they can go to mormon.org ^^. That was fun for me hahaha.
Time is starting to go by pretty fast I would say. Also fun fact, I had totally forgotten that I spoke in the MTC. The new missionaries were saying that my Korean was better when I left the MTC than they are right now. I still don't think so, but my companion says I'm learning stupid fast which is always fun to hear!!!! Yay for self esteem. I like to joke around that my narcissism hit an all time high while I was in the MTC and is slowly being brought back down to a normal human level. It's fun out here and I am getting good at ping pong! Its sweet because my companion is pretty good so I have someone thats at least worth playing around all the time whenever we have time for it. Also, my companion is sick right now. He kind of reminds me of dad because he refuses to let it slow him down. He just always wants to work super hard which is awesome, but at the same time I don't want him to die. That would be problematic.
Well I don't have too much more to say of great note, but keep Korea in your prayers! Really just keep everywhere in your prayers haha, I find myself praying for other parts of the world with regard to missionary work all the time. I think as loyal and devoted that missionaries become to their field, that we just want the work to go forward in anywhere that it can. I simply have the opportunity to serve here in Korea as opposed to all the other places in the world that I could have gone. I love it here even though the weather kinda sucks, its still awesome.
I love you all and keep being awesome!
클라슨 장로
Hey President!
This week has been a little tougher than the past few, but that's okay we keep on working. For study I've started reading Jesus the Christ a lot actually. It's really interesting to learn a bunch of the secular and kinda non church affiliated ongoings of the time around Jesus Christ's ministry, as well as learning more about the spiritual side of things. I though it was really interesting how Elder Talmadge takes a great deal of time to explain basically every facet of pre-birth Christ and what all went on with regard to that. I think it's really great to learn from in that respect and increase our knowledge of whats going on.
One of the reasons that this week has been so tough was because aside from the one investigator that we have that will be getting baptized in not too long, we have no investigators. This isn't because we haven't been looking for investigators, but just because we've had no success finding. It's really tough because we spend lots of time conacting, all to no avail. We want more people to teach but its just more and more hard. That being said we've been trying to work with less actives to help them and find investigators through them. No great success yet but we'll keep trying.
Training is going good as always. This week was cool because I got to see where I was six weeks ago and how far I've come. It really is amazing the progress that is made when the Lord has an active hand in the growth of a young man. While this week we did work pretty hard, there was one day that I definitely could have worked harder. Elder Hunter was working super hard on I believe last tuesday, and I just was being lazy. On the day there was a total of 41 contacts and during our contacting time where we split up, I only got 4 contacts. It really was a shameful experience, and I feel awful for it. While there have been days that were substantially more tough than that one day, that day was definitely the worst day of my mission thus far. Definitely was a day to learn from.
Have a great week president!
-Elder Clawson
Hey everybody!
Another week in Korea and I am still loving it here! So with transfers now, they have whats called the 12 week program, so usually new missionaries stay with their trainer for at least 2 transfers and dont move around really, so I hope that answers your questions about transfers. And yes I did kinda have a day of suck. I seriously had the worst feeling that night of my entire life. I know when I broke my collar bone that I joked around and said "I want to kill myself" and what not, but really having wasted time of both mine, the Korean people's time, and especially the Lord's time, that night I went to sleep hoping that I could feel the slightest bit better the next morning about my performance that day. I ended up not feeling better, but the next day was better nonetheless. The day I sucked we had like 3 hours of planned contacting time, and I didn't talk to hardly anyone, and the next day, we had not a minute of contacting time planned, nor did we do any of it, and I talked to the same amount of people. Needless to say I felt a lot better about myself that day.
A little more about the place we live at since you guys want to know. So the bathroom is also the place where we have the laundry machine, yes it is pretty small, but only kinda small by Korean standards. A huge apartment in Korea is about the same size as an Lindsays apartment in college was. Not big at all... So yeah kinda cramped, but thats okay. The bad actually is big enough for me, Koreans are relatively large with respect to the rest of the Asian community, but still lived in incredibly cramped living quarters. Actually when I first got here, we found a full mattress and I sleep with a 요 on top of that so it's pretty comfy. We talk to other missionaries pretty often. We haven't had a p-day we didn't and usually we do some contacting together at least twice a week, and always do english class together. English class is okay, nothing super crazy and is kinda fun usually, there's some people that come that are just english sucks as we call them, which means they have zero gospel interest and come just to learn english. Kinda tough to put up with usually too but thats okay.
So like I said in the attached thing up top, it is super cool to see the new missionaries come in! Well after the day that I sucked, I had been revitalized in my will and desire to talk to people and such! Thursday, when our district was contacting together, I took one of the missionaries (every companionship in our district is training now, its kinda crazy, I'm technically older than 2 missionaries in my district out of 6 total) and was showing him how to 전도. I ended up running into two people who wanted to bible bash. It really is irritating. It bothered me soooooo much. I seriously don't understand why people get so hung up on things that are of such a trivial nature like what these two people wanted to talk about, especially since later I looked up their arguments in true to the faith, and now I can rebut them, with the bible! Suck on that one crazy people who believe in "Heavenly mother", not with regards to the wife of God, but with regards to Jesus reincarnated as a woman. It's weird, don't worry about it too much. Anyways, yeah, I can understand people to the point where I know when they want to argue with me, but did not argue back! We aren't supposed to bible bash you know, so I just testified, and said that since I'm young I don't know how to answer their questions, and if they want to know why we believe the way we do, they can go to mormon.org ^^. That was fun for me hahaha.
Time is starting to go by pretty fast I would say. Also fun fact, I had totally forgotten that I spoke in the MTC. The new missionaries were saying that my Korean was better when I left the MTC than they are right now. I still don't think so, but my companion says I'm learning stupid fast which is always fun to hear!!!! Yay for self esteem. I like to joke around that my narcissism hit an all time high while I was in the MTC and is slowly being brought back down to a normal human level. It's fun out here and I am getting good at ping pong! Its sweet because my companion is pretty good so I have someone thats at least worth playing around all the time whenever we have time for it. Also, my companion is sick right now. He kind of reminds me of dad because he refuses to let it slow him down. He just always wants to work super hard which is awesome, but at the same time I don't want him to die. That would be problematic.
Well I don't have too much more to say of great note, but keep Korea in your prayers! Really just keep everywhere in your prayers haha, I find myself praying for other parts of the world with regard to missionary work all the time. I think as loyal and devoted that missionaries become to their field, that we just want the work to go forward in anywhere that it can. I simply have the opportunity to serve here in Korea as opposed to all the other places in the world that I could have gone. I love it here even though the weather kinda sucks, its still awesome.
I love you all and keep being awesome!
클라슨 장로
Monday, December 3, 2012
Another week, no clever subject line...
I continue to struggle with not spell-checking these letters. Red squiggly lines bother me. Love love love him! Pictures also will be up shortly.
Hey President!
This week has been pretty great, as far as really everything goes. My study this week was either focused on what we had aimed to teach our investgiators, (I don't think one lesson went as planned) or I was reading our Heritagae from the Missionary Library. I really like that book just because it helps me to know more about what the early saints had to go through. I have known a lot I would say abou the history of the church but it's always cool to learn more and see where we came from really. Also it was super cool to see my last name in a church endorsed book!! Woohoo Rudger Clawson haha
The investigator I will talk about this week I think I may have talked about last week but I'm not totally sure. He's an older guy and really has a lot of interest in the church. He is fluent in English so he actually helps us teach english. He really likes everything about the church, in fact its the man you met last week at church. He really enjoys it, and everything feels right to him, the only problem is that he has a lot of ties to the church he is attending right now. His wife is a 전도사 for that church in fact, so it may be very difficult, but we're really trying to help him out, he's a super great guy.
Training is still coming along pretty awesome. I'm learning in many ways all the time. One miracle I think I saw this week was just when we were contacting yesterday. There was a man I started speaking to and he spoke English, but it was easier for me to converse with him in Korean than in English. I wouldn't say that is the miracle so much as the evidence to an ongoing miracle. Korean is so tough, but some how it keeps coming. Elder Hunter helps so much all the time, and does his best to keep me motivated. He's a great guy, but more importantly a great missionary.
Have agreat week president!
Hey President!
This week has been pretty great, as far as really everything goes. My study this week was either focused on what we had aimed to teach our investgiators, (I don't think one lesson went as planned) or I was reading our Heritagae from the Missionary Library. I really like that book just because it helps me to know more about what the early saints had to go through. I have known a lot I would say abou the history of the church but it's always cool to learn more and see where we came from really. Also it was super cool to see my last name in a church endorsed book!! Woohoo Rudger Clawson haha
The investigator I will talk about this week I think I may have talked about last week but I'm not totally sure. He's an older guy and really has a lot of interest in the church. He is fluent in English so he actually helps us teach english. He really likes everything about the church, in fact its the man you met last week at church. He really enjoys it, and everything feels right to him, the only problem is that he has a lot of ties to the church he is attending right now. His wife is a 전도사 for that church in fact, so it may be very difficult, but we're really trying to help him out, he's a super great guy.
Training is still coming along pretty awesome. I'm learning in many ways all the time. One miracle I think I saw this week was just when we were contacting yesterday. There was a man I started speaking to and he spoke English, but it was easier for me to converse with him in Korean than in English. I wouldn't say that is the miracle so much as the evidence to an ongoing miracle. Korean is so tough, but some how it keeps coming. Elder Hunter helps so much all the time, and does his best to keep me motivated. He's a great guy, but more importantly a great missionary.
Have agreat week president!
-Elder Clawson
Hey rest of the world!
How have you all been? Great? thats great, me too. I talk to
myself but I guess thats my problem, anyways, yeah Korea, about that
thing! This week has been pretty fun! We went to another meat buffet
on monday, and I still cannot eat as much as Koreans, but thats okay,
they can eat all they want. It actually got to the point to where I had
eaten so much meat, that everything I put in my mouth tasted like
meat. With culture you kinda have to eat more than is humanly possible,
so needless to say I struggled a little bit. I don't think I've eaten
that much in a single meal in soooooooo long. Probably not since some
crazy conditioning time in water polo. It's almost unpleasant how much
you have to eat.
Oh, I just remembered, I think I'll do a christmas list right now!
If you don't want this in the email thats fine, I have no preference.
Mac and Cheese (not easy mac), the boxed kind
Ecco shoes. Theyre european, one of my pairs of shoes are dying, I need another kind of. My Euro shoe size is 43
Kinda long fleece scarf (they only have knit ones here, and I can't rock knitten scarfs)
So I'm going to keep referring back to that as things come to mind
because I can't just bust out a perfect list immediately after being
asked, I'm not that awesome. Thanks so much for the pictures by the
way! They're perfect! I think if you come across pictures you don't
think I have and send them than that would be perfect too. Koreans
always love more pictures!
That's so scary that Lindsay gets married in like no time at all!
It's just straight nuts! Slash kinda cool I guess, Tony's a pretty cool
guy, he knows that though. Lindsay better be excited by now! I feel
like she wouldn't get too stressed about the wedding and everything, I
don't know for sure but shes not that kind of person generally. However
with marriage all bets are off I guess.
Side note, I wonder how many people start their emails home with
"Well, another great week in (insert mission field here)". I noticed I
didn't but that's always the first thing I think of when I begin to
write a letter. That'd be a fun stat to here.
So I kind of want to talk about one of my investigators. He's the
guy I talked about in my email to president. He's such an awesome guy.
He's like 70, and has a jacked up leg from from crashing on a bike, not
sure what the nature of the injury is, but nonetheless has an injured
leg. He used to be a math professor at Northeastern Illinois University
and is super smart. He speaks English obviously and just wants to
always learn and teach people. There's this other investigator that he
became friends with and he is teaching her English and she is teaching
him Japanese. He also wants to teach me and my companion how to play
chess super well and then how to this other game called badu. They're
both pretty fun and he thinks I suck at chess which is probably true,
but that's not that big of a deal. He was actually at the baptismal
service last week. We invited him to come to church and he said that he
would maybe only come to church for like 2 hours, and ended up staying
for 5! It was so cool. Really I think he genuinely meant it when he
said that he would only be there for 2 hours, but when he felt the
spirit and heard what was being said, he couldnt leave. It took him
seriously like half an hour after everything was all over to leave. He
did not want to leave the church! It was soooooooooo cool. We met with
him tuesday night and asked him what he though about church. He said
that he really enjoyed it and loved it all, but he has a whole bunch of
ties to another church. His wife is a proselyter for another church
(they're kinda crazy in Korea, we're really calm compared to them), and
he met her through a friend that is a pastor for that church. I feel so
bad because there truly are a lot of relationships that he could lose
if he were to join the church, but I know its the right decision for
him. He is seriously the nicest person I've met in Korea and just wants
to help people. He wants me to tech him guitar and there was another
missionary he wanted to learn piano from, but she's going home so I will
probably actually teach him that too. He's so awesome, I think he's my
favorite investigator right now.
Oh yeah, I don't think that I said this in my last email, I think
it happened after that day in the week. I had a dream apparently that
resulted in me sitting up and yelling at my companion in Korean. He was
a little upset, but now I dream in Korean I guess. If Peter gets to be
able to read this, now you have a whole new dimension of scary to deal
with if you spend a night in the same room as me again haha. Also if
you do read this, please right me bud, I want to hear from you!
Sorry there's no Korean time this week, I have to go for lack of
money to pay for computer usage, I love you all and stay safe! I also
pray for you in the mornings too!
클라슨 장로
Thursday, November 29, 2012
yayyyy!!! wait for it...
Oooops... We forgot to post last week... BUUUUTTTTT That means you all get an added bonus of Scott in your life this week!! We love and miss him dearly, but there's only another couple weeks till we get to speak with him ON THE PHONE!! Other notable things: we are concerned that he continues to address his Mission President in such a casual "Hey President!!" manner, but trust him. Maybe... Let's all hope he really does send us a video of him speaking Korean though!!! Thanks for your continued interest in our sweet young man!!
Hey President!
It was so cool that you could come to our church meetings this week! It was awesome to have your spirit and Sister Christensen's Spirit there too! I know it helped with our other investigators that were there.
For my personal study recently I've been reading the missionary library, and finished Our Search for Happiness, and am moving on to our Heritage. From what I've read in Our Heritage it seems really cool and I'm already learning a lot of neat things about the church that I didn't know about prior.
Our investigators seem to be doing pretty well. One of our investigators that was at church yesterday, the older man that you and Sister Christensen were talking to, seems to be doing really really well in my opinion. He seemed to really enjoy the whole thing, including the baptism and meal after. I'm really excited to see the progress that he will make in the future and hope to see him in the baptismal font in not too long!
Training continues to go really well, Elder Hunter is doing great as always. He pushes me hard which is very good for me and it really helps my Korean. He says that by the end of the two transfers I'll speak better Korean than him, I don't believe it, but he's adamate. His spiritual influence is so awesome too, he does such a good job, and I know he's an awesome missionary and he's seeing the fruits of his labors.-Elder Clawson
Hey family and other folks!
Yeah that's right! I got my first baptism! Even though really I didn't even do anything to be completely honest, but nonetheless, I still got a baptism! Anyways, this week has been pretty good and actually went by pretty quick too! So I guess I have neglected to tell everyone the nature of what it's like here in Korea. First, the area I'm serving in is in Incheon which is substantially less cold that seoul. I'm getting a coat today but previously I haven't really had too much need for one. Also tomorrow I'm getting a new suit too because we have to wear suits everyday, and to be honest, I'm tired of wearing the same suit everyday for over a month, now approaching two. Anyways, so our house is just me and my companion. It's cool I guess, sometimes I wished that we had more people and other times I'm glad we don't. There's good and bad to it I guess. If I had to compare my area to anything I'd probably say its like LA pretty much. Probably most similar to the garment district, not in that everywhere people are selling things, but in just the way it looks and such. In that way it kinda reminds me of home and sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm in the opposite hemishpere from everything I've known prior. I guess 계산 is more like a suburb though. It doesn't take too long to get to real city though. One of our neighboring areas has like 30 story tall buildings all over the place and what not. It's pretty sweet, the difinition of city and suburb are substantially different for me now than they were before hahaa.
To answer some questions of yours, no I am not losing weight, in fact I am gaining wait. I hate it! So if you go to have a meal with a member and you don't eat like a mountain of food, they think you hate them or something! I didn't eat much before my mission, and now there's all this crazy food, which really isn't that crazy, that I have to eat even more of?!?! It makes no sense and a lot of sense at the same time. Culture here is crazy but that's okay. The last package you sent is totally intact and having some of provo around was pretty sweet hahah. We did have thanksgiving dinner actually. It was at the home of an American family who are members and wanted to host a bunch of missionaries some they had 20 something people in an apartment. Granted it was a bigger apartment, but that's still pretty small here in Korea. It was pretty awesome having some american food though. There's no costco around us so we can't really get anything from there, but maybe later it will be in my area. That's fun to hear about your thanksgiving! I missed home a little bit thursday even though I know that I probably went to sleep before you guys even woke up. That's super cool to hear about the turkey bowl! That was something that I really really missed. I've played football once here, and I was pretty much at the bottom of the heap of people. When you have a gang of college athletes in your mission all playing, it gets tough to keep up, not to mention me being without cleats when other people have them, but thats okay it was fun. Sorry dad, I don't know where your cleats are but I'm pretty sure that the air mattresses are towards the front of the rafters, kind of by the face of the house but I'm not sure, sorry I can't be of more help with that.
Also I'm not sure where the sprayer is either, if I had to guess I'd say the storage unit, but its probably behind somewhat of a wall of stuff.
Also, what up about being the only one from our ward serving in the eastern hemisphere! I know its all the lord's work but still!! haha, no not really, everyone else hopefully is just as happy about where they are. I know that I am! There's times that I just kinda one be sitting back home, but usually i'm pretty happy being here. The bishop here plays guitar too, electric guitar! I talked to him once and he liked some of the same players that I like so that was kinda a funny thing to hear about hahah. Also, there's this guy that's supposedly following the mission president around and is kind of a creeper, but he's from fullerton! Despite all stalkerness it was kind of cool to see him too! haha, fun little tastes of home all over the place.
One problem that I have begun to face here is kind of entertaining, and I accidently dug myself a bit of a hole as a result of it. So a couple of weeks ago, we were at a members house, and they found out that I play guitar, and said that I should perform at their Christmas talent show thingy mabobber. I said sure, that will be fun, I'll just need to borrow someones guitar. They said that I should get it soon so that I can practice. Here's where the sarcasm comes in, I started saying that I don't need practice. Koreans don't get sarcasm folks. It's a problem, but I'm learning to stop it. Mind you all of that was in Korean, so that was kind of fun for me to learn to be me just as much in Korean as in English hahaha. Mom, maybe I will be less sarcastic when I get home, were you praying about that when I put in my papers? hahaha
Oh yeah, totally forgot about this for a while. While we were at thanksgiving dinner, president authorized the family to let us watch BYU football games. We watched a couple, both of which BYU lost, but there was a couple shots that I totally saw Desi doing the cheerleading thing! It was so weird, I'm just sitting there, and I'm like, oh there's cheerleaders, wait, isn't desi a cheerleader? Oh theres desi, this is kinda strange...
It was super funny and it was pretty cool to see the game, and watch it with two people who will be playing on the BYU football team when they return home hahaha.
The area here is doing super, super awesome. Everyone works so hard and the ward is really dedicated to missionary work. Our previous ward missionleader even has a guy that he's trying to turn into an investigator. He basically runs the equivalent of a hot dog stand, and is a super nice guy, it'd be really cool to see him get baptized and then he'd give us even more free food! We have another baptismal date next month and were hoping to get two more in the next week or two!
quick Korean time real quick.
so this one is more of a concept than a phrase really. basically if you conjugate something in middle form (do "yoh" as an ending instead of "im-nee-dah"), and then instead of just ending in "yoh", you end in "yong". so if your saying hi "an-nyang-ha-say-yoh", you would change it to "an-nyong-ha-say-yong". Basically this just makes everything really cute. it turns from "hi" to "heeyyyayyyayyy", it hard to do with out voice, maybe i'll send a video of the difference at some point.
Love you guys, stay awesome, and keep Korea in your prayers. I pray for you every night!
클라슨 장로
Hey President!
It was so cool that you could come to our church meetings this week! It was awesome to have your spirit and Sister Christensen's Spirit there too! I know it helped with our other investigators that were there.
For my personal study recently I've been reading the missionary library, and finished Our Search for Happiness, and am moving on to our Heritage. From what I've read in Our Heritage it seems really cool and I'm already learning a lot of neat things about the church that I didn't know about prior.
Our investigators seem to be doing pretty well. One of our investigators that was at church yesterday, the older man that you and Sister Christensen were talking to, seems to be doing really really well in my opinion. He seemed to really enjoy the whole thing, including the baptism and meal after. I'm really excited to see the progress that he will make in the future and hope to see him in the baptismal font in not too long!
Training continues to go really well, Elder Hunter is doing great as always. He pushes me hard which is very good for me and it really helps my Korean. He says that by the end of the two transfers I'll speak better Korean than him, I don't believe it, but he's adamate. His spiritual influence is so awesome too, he does such a good job, and I know he's an awesome missionary and he's seeing the fruits of his labors.-Elder Clawson
Hey family and other folks!
Yeah that's right! I got my first baptism! Even though really I didn't even do anything to be completely honest, but nonetheless, I still got a baptism! Anyways, this week has been pretty good and actually went by pretty quick too! So I guess I have neglected to tell everyone the nature of what it's like here in Korea. First, the area I'm serving in is in Incheon which is substantially less cold that seoul. I'm getting a coat today but previously I haven't really had too much need for one. Also tomorrow I'm getting a new suit too because we have to wear suits everyday, and to be honest, I'm tired of wearing the same suit everyday for over a month, now approaching two. Anyways, so our house is just me and my companion. It's cool I guess, sometimes I wished that we had more people and other times I'm glad we don't. There's good and bad to it I guess. If I had to compare my area to anything I'd probably say its like LA pretty much. Probably most similar to the garment district, not in that everywhere people are selling things, but in just the way it looks and such. In that way it kinda reminds me of home and sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm in the opposite hemishpere from everything I've known prior. I guess 계산 is more like a suburb though. It doesn't take too long to get to real city though. One of our neighboring areas has like 30 story tall buildings all over the place and what not. It's pretty sweet, the difinition of city and suburb are substantially different for me now than they were before hahaa.
To answer some questions of yours, no I am not losing weight, in fact I am gaining wait. I hate it! So if you go to have a meal with a member and you don't eat like a mountain of food, they think you hate them or something! I didn't eat much before my mission, and now there's all this crazy food, which really isn't that crazy, that I have to eat even more of?!?! It makes no sense and a lot of sense at the same time. Culture here is crazy but that's okay. The last package you sent is totally intact and having some of provo around was pretty sweet hahah. We did have thanksgiving dinner actually. It was at the home of an American family who are members and wanted to host a bunch of missionaries some they had 20 something people in an apartment. Granted it was a bigger apartment, but that's still pretty small here in Korea. It was pretty awesome having some american food though. There's no costco around us so we can't really get anything from there, but maybe later it will be in my area. That's fun to hear about your thanksgiving! I missed home a little bit thursday even though I know that I probably went to sleep before you guys even woke up. That's super cool to hear about the turkey bowl! That was something that I really really missed. I've played football once here, and I was pretty much at the bottom of the heap of people. When you have a gang of college athletes in your mission all playing, it gets tough to keep up, not to mention me being without cleats when other people have them, but thats okay it was fun. Sorry dad, I don't know where your cleats are but I'm pretty sure that the air mattresses are towards the front of the rafters, kind of by the face of the house but I'm not sure, sorry I can't be of more help with that.
Also I'm not sure where the sprayer is either, if I had to guess I'd say the storage unit, but its probably behind somewhat of a wall of stuff.
Also, what up about being the only one from our ward serving in the eastern hemisphere! I know its all the lord's work but still!! haha, no not really, everyone else hopefully is just as happy about where they are. I know that I am! There's times that I just kinda one be sitting back home, but usually i'm pretty happy being here. The bishop here plays guitar too, electric guitar! I talked to him once and he liked some of the same players that I like so that was kinda a funny thing to hear about hahah. Also, there's this guy that's supposedly following the mission president around and is kind of a creeper, but he's from fullerton! Despite all stalkerness it was kind of cool to see him too! haha, fun little tastes of home all over the place.
One problem that I have begun to face here is kind of entertaining, and I accidently dug myself a bit of a hole as a result of it. So a couple of weeks ago, we were at a members house, and they found out that I play guitar, and said that I should perform at their Christmas talent show thingy mabobber. I said sure, that will be fun, I'll just need to borrow someones guitar. They said that I should get it soon so that I can practice. Here's where the sarcasm comes in, I started saying that I don't need practice. Koreans don't get sarcasm folks. It's a problem, but I'm learning to stop it. Mind you all of that was in Korean, so that was kind of fun for me to learn to be me just as much in Korean as in English hahaha. Mom, maybe I will be less sarcastic when I get home, were you praying about that when I put in my papers? hahaha
Oh yeah, totally forgot about this for a while. While we were at thanksgiving dinner, president authorized the family to let us watch BYU football games. We watched a couple, both of which BYU lost, but there was a couple shots that I totally saw Desi doing the cheerleading thing! It was so weird, I'm just sitting there, and I'm like, oh there's cheerleaders, wait, isn't desi a cheerleader? Oh theres desi, this is kinda strange...
It was super funny and it was pretty cool to see the game, and watch it with two people who will be playing on the BYU football team when they return home hahaha.
The area here is doing super, super awesome. Everyone works so hard and the ward is really dedicated to missionary work. Our previous ward missionleader even has a guy that he's trying to turn into an investigator. He basically runs the equivalent of a hot dog stand, and is a super nice guy, it'd be really cool to see him get baptized and then he'd give us even more free food! We have another baptismal date next month and were hoping to get two more in the next week or two!
quick Korean time real quick.
so this one is more of a concept than a phrase really. basically if you conjugate something in middle form (do "yoh" as an ending instead of "im-nee-dah"), and then instead of just ending in "yoh", you end in "yong". so if your saying hi "an-nyang-ha-say-yoh", you would change it to "an-nyong-ha-say-yong". Basically this just makes everything really cute. it turns from "hi" to "heeyyyayyyayyy", it hard to do with out voice, maybe i'll send a video of the difference at some point.
Love you guys, stay awesome, and keep Korea in your prayers. I pray for you every night!
클라슨 장로
yay!! over 100 days as a missionary
Hey President,
Hope all is going well at the mission office! This week in study, I started to read Our Search for Happiness, and I really enjoy it! I think I'll probably be done with it soon, and I look forward to gaining more insight from it. I also have continued to read the Book of Mormon and try and apply it to the investigators. I think because of my lack of understanding of what exactly the investigators are saying, I don't really understand their needs that well, and that's something I hope to improve upon in the future.
Our investigators are doing pretty well from what I can gather. We had 4 investigators that either went to the celebration last night or stake conference yesterday. One of the investigators is a members younger brother and I feel like he's someone that really shows a great deal of promise as an investigator. He's a really nice kid and it seems like he really likes his brother and wants to follow his example and be baptized.
Training is still going really well. I think I'm doing pretty well with the language, or at least as much so as I could be being that I've been around the language for just a little over 3 months. I think I'm getting a great deal better at using the spirit in my teaching, and have really been working on teaching people. This is something that I think Elder Hunter really excels at and is doing a great job at passing on to me.
Have a great week!
-Elder Clawson
Hello everybody!!!!
hows life going for everyne? Great? awesome, that sounds really good. I honestly don't know if there's too much I'll be able to respond about from previous emails right now, I usually end up just talking about Korea all over the place in these emails, so if I do that too much and you want me to talk more about things you've emailed me about, by all means let me know. Otherwise, I will continue in my narcissism with Korea and the awesomeness therein.
First of all, this week has been stinking crazy awesome. So when I first got here, we had like half an investigator, because he was going to get baptized regardless of how good or bad of missionaries we were, he was a referral and had been active in attending church since april. Now, we have like 9 investigators, and I think that 4 of them have a really good chance at being baptized. Tuesday, we had 7 appointments for lessons. Granted only 5 of them actually happened, but even still, it is getting crazy busy over here. People say that Korea isn't a very high baptizing area of the church, and I believe it, but hey, we could be getting there. President is awesome and has a great vision for this mission. Under his direction I think the baptisms here really can shoot up. Remember that one time my roommate from school said that he thought Japan was just about to shoot up in baptisms like Brazil did a while back? Well he was right, but thats not the point, I think that Korea is getting on its way for that too!
Church here is a business and a lot of what people think of your church is very contingent upon the money your church has, the size of your building, and how many members it has. That being said, once we get this country going, I legitimately think that we may have to on some level, start slowing down people's interest as a result of the people who join a church for its business. That's a trial for a later date and the mission will worry about it then. For now though, I think we're really on the right track and can get up our baptism count. Even the goal isn't numbers, it definitely helps to measure some things, and helps with self esteem a whole lot, but lets be real, thats never been a problem for me, hence calling these emails narcissistic.
We have a baptism on Sunday!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, even though again, we didn't really do anything for it, but we still get to count it as a number! I guess my first non member baptism is a pretty good milestone. That's something my companion from the MTC was big on was milestones, so I've kind of picked up on it a little bit hahahaha.
Also big thing to Koreans! I would really appreciate it if you could send me some pictures of like our family and stuff, just things that help me seem more personable to the people of Korea, and instead of just having a tag to a name, they can put some personality to it too! So if you could do me a huge favor and send some pictures of growing up-ness and the family, that would be super sweet! You can send them through the email and I'll just put them on my camera and can go print them and put them in a photo album I can show investigators and members! I promise I'm making an effort to be better about pictures, but we know I suck at pictures so bad. I've never been much of a photographer.
I'm going to do Korean time now for lack of mind to think of anything else at the moment.
역시 (yuk-shee)
This one is fun, it more or less translates into "typical." It can be used in a lot of circumstances where if I were to ask where someone learned English, and they responded in high school, you could say, oh typical. It gets really fun to use when you're kind of making fun of people though. For example, my companion, and one of his roommates from the MTC, use it all the time. Say one of them misses a shot in basketball or soccer by a super big margin, the other will say 역시. I think you can gather the general meaning of it, if you need more clarification, let me know!
Oh, other way fun thing from this week, we went to whats called a 김장! we made Kimche! It was really fun, and I'm actually starting to like Kimche, I don't know what that means with my progress as a missionary, but I still can't eat enough to keep up with other missionaries, let alone Koreans.
The work continues to be tough here, but that's just missionary work, its not easy. Salvation is not easy because salvation is not a cheap thing, and boy is that ever true. David A. Bednar sure had it right, provided thats David A Bednar. If I'm wrong so be it, but the point remains, people are slow to accept the gospel here, and it can be irritating. We have two, rather had two, younger investigators, about 17 and 18. Both of them expressed a whole lot of interest in the church and meeting with the missionaries. Both of their parents have forbidden them from meeting with us. It's so sad to see things that way, but I guess its just the way it is. One of them said that it doesn't matter the cost, if he gets kicked out of his house, the day he no longer needs a permission slip, he will get baptized. I wish I had that kind of faith in anything. I want to thank everyone back home for being the awesome people that they are and not forbidding their kids from going to the mormon church. It's sad to see, but it's culture here. I hope as the church becomes more reputable and people become more generally familiar with the way the church ACTUALLY is, this sort of thing will happen less often. I love being here, and I know it only gets better as I actually get to being able to speak to people, and understand what they're going through.
I love you all and keep me updated on things from back home! Wedding stuff is particularly entertaining, and Lindsay! I haven't heard from you since I was in America! I wanna here from the person who I will shortly hereafter no longer share the same last name as! You're really busy though, I understand
Love you all!
클라슨 장로
Hope all is going well at the mission office! This week in study, I started to read Our Search for Happiness, and I really enjoy it! I think I'll probably be done with it soon, and I look forward to gaining more insight from it. I also have continued to read the Book of Mormon and try and apply it to the investigators. I think because of my lack of understanding of what exactly the investigators are saying, I don't really understand their needs that well, and that's something I hope to improve upon in the future.
Our investigators are doing pretty well from what I can gather. We had 4 investigators that either went to the celebration last night or stake conference yesterday. One of the investigators is a members younger brother and I feel like he's someone that really shows a great deal of promise as an investigator. He's a really nice kid and it seems like he really likes his brother and wants to follow his example and be baptized.
Training is still going really well. I think I'm doing pretty well with the language, or at least as much so as I could be being that I've been around the language for just a little over 3 months. I think I'm getting a great deal better at using the spirit in my teaching, and have really been working on teaching people. This is something that I think Elder Hunter really excels at and is doing a great job at passing on to me.
Have a great week!
-Elder Clawson
Hello everybody!!!!
hows life going for everyne? Great? awesome, that sounds really good. I honestly don't know if there's too much I'll be able to respond about from previous emails right now, I usually end up just talking about Korea all over the place in these emails, so if I do that too much and you want me to talk more about things you've emailed me about, by all means let me know. Otherwise, I will continue in my narcissism with Korea and the awesomeness therein.
First of all, this week has been stinking crazy awesome. So when I first got here, we had like half an investigator, because he was going to get baptized regardless of how good or bad of missionaries we were, he was a referral and had been active in attending church since april. Now, we have like 9 investigators, and I think that 4 of them have a really good chance at being baptized. Tuesday, we had 7 appointments for lessons. Granted only 5 of them actually happened, but even still, it is getting crazy busy over here. People say that Korea isn't a very high baptizing area of the church, and I believe it, but hey, we could be getting there. President is awesome and has a great vision for this mission. Under his direction I think the baptisms here really can shoot up. Remember that one time my roommate from school said that he thought Japan was just about to shoot up in baptisms like Brazil did a while back? Well he was right, but thats not the point, I think that Korea is getting on its way for that too!
Church here is a business and a lot of what people think of your church is very contingent upon the money your church has, the size of your building, and how many members it has. That being said, once we get this country going, I legitimately think that we may have to on some level, start slowing down people's interest as a result of the people who join a church for its business. That's a trial for a later date and the mission will worry about it then. For now though, I think we're really on the right track and can get up our baptism count. Even the goal isn't numbers, it definitely helps to measure some things, and helps with self esteem a whole lot, but lets be real, thats never been a problem for me, hence calling these emails narcissistic.
We have a baptism on Sunday!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, even though again, we didn't really do anything for it, but we still get to count it as a number! I guess my first non member baptism is a pretty good milestone. That's something my companion from the MTC was big on was milestones, so I've kind of picked up on it a little bit hahahaha.
Also big thing to Koreans! I would really appreciate it if you could send me some pictures of like our family and stuff, just things that help me seem more personable to the people of Korea, and instead of just having a tag to a name, they can put some personality to it too! So if you could do me a huge favor and send some pictures of growing up-ness and the family, that would be super sweet! You can send them through the email and I'll just put them on my camera and can go print them and put them in a photo album I can show investigators and members! I promise I'm making an effort to be better about pictures, but we know I suck at pictures so bad. I've never been much of a photographer.
I'm going to do Korean time now for lack of mind to think of anything else at the moment.
역시 (yuk-shee)
This one is fun, it more or less translates into "typical." It can be used in a lot of circumstances where if I were to ask where someone learned English, and they responded in high school, you could say, oh typical. It gets really fun to use when you're kind of making fun of people though. For example, my companion, and one of his roommates from the MTC, use it all the time. Say one of them misses a shot in basketball or soccer by a super big margin, the other will say 역시. I think you can gather the general meaning of it, if you need more clarification, let me know!
Oh, other way fun thing from this week, we went to whats called a 김장! we made Kimche! It was really fun, and I'm actually starting to like Kimche, I don't know what that means with my progress as a missionary, but I still can't eat enough to keep up with other missionaries, let alone Koreans.
The work continues to be tough here, but that's just missionary work, its not easy. Salvation is not easy because salvation is not a cheap thing, and boy is that ever true. David A. Bednar sure had it right, provided thats David A Bednar. If I'm wrong so be it, but the point remains, people are slow to accept the gospel here, and it can be irritating. We have two, rather had two, younger investigators, about 17 and 18. Both of them expressed a whole lot of interest in the church and meeting with the missionaries. Both of their parents have forbidden them from meeting with us. It's so sad to see things that way, but I guess its just the way it is. One of them said that it doesn't matter the cost, if he gets kicked out of his house, the day he no longer needs a permission slip, he will get baptized. I wish I had that kind of faith in anything. I want to thank everyone back home for being the awesome people that they are and not forbidding their kids from going to the mormon church. It's sad to see, but it's culture here. I hope as the church becomes more reputable and people become more generally familiar with the way the church ACTUALLY is, this sort of thing will happen less often. I love being here, and I know it only gets better as I actually get to being able to speak to people, and understand what they're going through.
I love you all and keep me updated on things from back home! Wedding stuff is particularly entertaining, and Lindsay! I haven't heard from you since I was in America! I wanna here from the person who I will shortly hereafter no longer share the same last name as! You're really busy though, I understand
Love you all!
클라슨 장로
Monday, November 12, 2012
Still adjusting to Korea =)
This letter was just so so much fun. As a family here in Rancho we read the letter together, out loud. At one point he literally predicts my thought process & comments (I will add what I said in {funny brackets}to show what excellent siblings we make.) Fact. We love love love that you can already see his love for the people, especially how much he cares about the people that help take care of him. We are all so grateful for those people and already have a Target bag full of random Reese's products with images of Lane Kim "Connecticut Yank in Puson" in our minds. Thank Heaven for missionaries, Americans in Korea, and the Gilmore Girls. We are so very lucky that we have a missionary that writes good, well rounded, fun emails.
This past week I studied from preach my gospel in the teaching skills section. Some of the things in that section I could still use some work on so I've been trying to improve my teaching skills. I really think it has helped me especially with regards to teaching people not lessons. That is something that I have been really trying to work on so that I can help people gain a testimony more than just to learn.
Our investigators are doing well. We now have 8 I think with 4 of them progressing. One of them really has a genuine interest in the church, and under different circumstances would probably be baptized. His family, however are 장로교, and he has family that are clergy in that church. He's moving to a different area soon to go to church however, and we think when he moves that we may be able to get the missionaries there to baptize him.
Training is all going well. Elder Hunter continues to be a great trainer and sets an awesome example. My knowledge of the Korean language is still obviously lacking but I continue to learn. Elder Hunter helps me to learn to do things on my own so that is really helpful. I think I could almost order a meal at home plus and get it on my own now! The gospel side of things is going really well. Elder Hunter really has his mind set in the right place and it effects me in a positive way.
-Elder Clawson
Hello everybody!!!!
There's always a whole lot to talk about as a missionary, just comes with the territory!! So i was going to send a bunch of pictures, and then realized that all of them are just the faces of other missionaries and such, and I doubt you want to see that. Not to say these people are bad to look at, I just don't think it's particularly important for you to see pictures of random people you don't know. Also, yes I suck, I have no pictures of Korea really, except that one in the airport, that exists. And mom! You saw a picture of me in Korea with the mission president and his wife so ha! Your cello may not exist still, but I certainly am in Korea!
On to the rest of the week. So one thing that was really fun this week, we we're proselyting and I started talking to this guy carrying a downhill mountain bike frame around and he had the forks in his backpack. Bosco I'm not sure about this but it was an easton from. I've never heard of that, yes the same easton as hockey sticks and such. You know more about that sort of thing. Also, said guy may try and add you on facebook Bosco. Do what you please with him, but he's really nice so thats that. super nice guy who rides downhill in Korea, now my friend, possible gospel interest, pretty solid at english.
I think the next day, we were proselyting in a similar area, and as we were walking home, there was a store that was totally playing a Sanjae Lerche song! I have no clue if that's how you spell his name, that's what happens when you're not french I guess. {Awwwe! I LOVE Dan in Real Life!And Sondre Lerche, he's just so good.} Anyways yeah! Heard that song and it was super cool, nobody in America knows this guy, but apparently people in Korea know his music, it was kinda really cool and nostaligic. {I should watch Dan in Real Life again- it has been a while...} Knowing Lindsay she's probably watched Dan in Real Life in the past month or so, maybe she's too busy, acutally no, she's too busy, she hasn't watched it, but she might now that I said that. {What a creeper! How does he know what I'm thinking?!? I love that kid...}
The package showed up in perfect condition! It is a way awesome package! You guys are the best, if only yoohoo was very shippable. I'm really having some yoohoo/nacho cheese bugles/sriracha/monster/del taco withdrawals. The food here is nuts. Enough said. I can get by and eat, but apparently in Korea everyone eats like they have the appetite of a tyranneasourus rex. I do not fit in in that regard haha. I'm trying to think of what I've eaten. Lots of rice, a little meat, kimche every now and then. I can do normal kimche, last night we had a dinner appointment and I genuinely thought that the Kimche was good!
That dinner appointment was so awesome. It was with a family from our ward and they are so awesome. They lived in the US for about 10 years and moved to Korea just pretty recently. I feel bad for their kids, they're American kids, they look Korean,they speak Korean and English, but culturally they're American. They are all just the most amazing family, but the father and mother felt that they needed to move back to Korea for some reason. I think to some degree, they may have moved back to be the amazing support family that they are for a lot of missionaries. They have 5 kids ranging from like a year and a half old to 14. The dinner we had was super nice, they even had funeral potatoes!!!!!!!!! Cheese is super expensive in Korea so I felt kind of bad that they made that for us. On that note I just remembered something! So I don't like candy, but their kids do! If you could, it would be super super cool, if you could in the next package you send, send some reeses, maybe some other candies too. They really like reeses though. The father was just released as the ward mission leader, and he is seriously one of the greatest men I've ever met. It would mean a lot to me if you could send that so I can reciprocate the love he's shown me even just a little bit.
I can't think of anything right now that I want for me in my next package, thanks for finding those cleats mom, you remain the best. It's the purple, pink and green cleats by the way, I think I have a pair of football cleats too, but I don't really want those.
So dad has expressed interest in a phrase/word of the week, I must brainstorm for a minute as I conjure up a fun word or phrase to leave with you.
왜 그래???? (wae gguh rae)
So in Korean there's like for levels of speech. There's king form, high form, middle form, and panmar. Each of those is varying levels of respect. panmar is the lowest, you use it for people that are of lower social status than you, your children, people younger, or if you're super friendly with someone, or you just want to be really rude to someone. That phrase is panmar (반말). literally it means "why is it that way?", but in reality its more like "really?..." So contextually, you would use it if somebody did something stupid, or is really weird. So like when on the young mens trip, half the young men decide to go jump off the cliffs at copper canyon in speedos, you could say 왜 그래. My companion taught it to me, when people were being rude to us while we were proselyting. White people reading this, DO NOT USE THIS TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND KOREAN. It can be super rude so practice great disrection when saying this. If it's somebody that's way younger than you, by all means go for it, but do not use it on anyone close to your age or older than you.
So I guess I have some more time, so I'll talk a little about peole for a bit. My district is pretty awesome, we have six people in our district, and they're all really awesome. We're the only district in our zone with sister missionaries too. They're both really awesome, and are super fun to be around. The other 2 missionaries are the district leader and a guy from my companions mtc district. We all get along pretty well, except when scattergories gets involved, then I tend to take it a bit too seriously. It's a problem, but I'm growing past it hahaha. My zone is pretty sweet too, we have 16 missionaries total, and 2 guys who will play football for BYU when they get home. One is a safety, and is like 6'2, maybe 185, I don't know hes pretty cool though, and a way good singer. The other football player, is wait for it... 6'10! It's crazy, basically when you walk around with him its one of the most entertaining things cause everybody just stares at him. It's way great. There's like 4 missionaries who go home after this transfer in my zone, so it will be fun to see who comes in as well.
Well I love you all and will talk to you in a week!
클라슨 장로
This past week I studied from preach my gospel in the teaching skills section. Some of the things in that section I could still use some work on so I've been trying to improve my teaching skills. I really think it has helped me especially with regards to teaching people not lessons. That is something that I have been really trying to work on so that I can help people gain a testimony more than just to learn.
Our investigators are doing well. We now have 8 I think with 4 of them progressing. One of them really has a genuine interest in the church, and under different circumstances would probably be baptized. His family, however are 장로교, and he has family that are clergy in that church. He's moving to a different area soon to go to church however, and we think when he moves that we may be able to get the missionaries there to baptize him.
Training is all going well. Elder Hunter continues to be a great trainer and sets an awesome example. My knowledge of the Korean language is still obviously lacking but I continue to learn. Elder Hunter helps me to learn to do things on my own so that is really helpful. I think I could almost order a meal at home plus and get it on my own now! The gospel side of things is going really well. Elder Hunter really has his mind set in the right place and it effects me in a positive way.
-Elder Clawson
Hello everybody!!!!
There's always a whole lot to talk about as a missionary, just comes with the territory!! So i was going to send a bunch of pictures, and then realized that all of them are just the faces of other missionaries and such, and I doubt you want to see that. Not to say these people are bad to look at, I just don't think it's particularly important for you to see pictures of random people you don't know. Also, yes I suck, I have no pictures of Korea really, except that one in the airport, that exists. And mom! You saw a picture of me in Korea with the mission president and his wife so ha! Your cello may not exist still, but I certainly am in Korea!
On to the rest of the week. So one thing that was really fun this week, we we're proselyting and I started talking to this guy carrying a downhill mountain bike frame around and he had the forks in his backpack. Bosco I'm not sure about this but it was an easton from. I've never heard of that, yes the same easton as hockey sticks and such. You know more about that sort of thing. Also, said guy may try and add you on facebook Bosco. Do what you please with him, but he's really nice so thats that. super nice guy who rides downhill in Korea, now my friend, possible gospel interest, pretty solid at english.
I think the next day, we were proselyting in a similar area, and as we were walking home, there was a store that was totally playing a Sanjae Lerche song! I have no clue if that's how you spell his name, that's what happens when you're not french I guess. {Awwwe! I LOVE Dan in Real Life!And Sondre Lerche, he's just so good.} Anyways yeah! Heard that song and it was super cool, nobody in America knows this guy, but apparently people in Korea know his music, it was kinda really cool and nostaligic. {I should watch Dan in Real Life again- it has been a while...} Knowing Lindsay she's probably watched Dan in Real Life in the past month or so, maybe she's too busy, acutally no, she's too busy, she hasn't watched it, but she might now that I said that. {What a creeper! How does he know what I'm thinking?!? I love that kid...}
The package showed up in perfect condition! It is a way awesome package! You guys are the best, if only yoohoo was very shippable. I'm really having some yoohoo/nacho cheese bugles/sriracha/monster/del taco withdrawals. The food here is nuts. Enough said. I can get by and eat, but apparently in Korea everyone eats like they have the appetite of a tyranneasourus rex. I do not fit in in that regard haha. I'm trying to think of what I've eaten. Lots of rice, a little meat, kimche every now and then. I can do normal kimche, last night we had a dinner appointment and I genuinely thought that the Kimche was good!
That dinner appointment was so awesome. It was with a family from our ward and they are so awesome. They lived in the US for about 10 years and moved to Korea just pretty recently. I feel bad for their kids, they're American kids, they look Korean,they speak Korean and English, but culturally they're American. They are all just the most amazing family, but the father and mother felt that they needed to move back to Korea for some reason. I think to some degree, they may have moved back to be the amazing support family that they are for a lot of missionaries. They have 5 kids ranging from like a year and a half old to 14. The dinner we had was super nice, they even had funeral potatoes!!!!!!!!! Cheese is super expensive in Korea so I felt kind of bad that they made that for us. On that note I just remembered something! So I don't like candy, but their kids do! If you could, it would be super super cool, if you could in the next package you send, send some reeses, maybe some other candies too. They really like reeses though. The father was just released as the ward mission leader, and he is seriously one of the greatest men I've ever met. It would mean a lot to me if you could send that so I can reciprocate the love he's shown me even just a little bit.
I can't think of anything right now that I want for me in my next package, thanks for finding those cleats mom, you remain the best. It's the purple, pink and green cleats by the way, I think I have a pair of football cleats too, but I don't really want those.
So dad has expressed interest in a phrase/word of the week, I must brainstorm for a minute as I conjure up a fun word or phrase to leave with you.
왜 그래???? (wae gguh rae)
So in Korean there's like for levels of speech. There's king form, high form, middle form, and panmar. Each of those is varying levels of respect. panmar is the lowest, you use it for people that are of lower social status than you, your children, people younger, or if you're super friendly with someone, or you just want to be really rude to someone. That phrase is panmar (반말). literally it means "why is it that way?", but in reality its more like "really?..." So contextually, you would use it if somebody did something stupid, or is really weird. So like when on the young mens trip, half the young men decide to go jump off the cliffs at copper canyon in speedos, you could say 왜 그래. My companion taught it to me, when people were being rude to us while we were proselyting. White people reading this, DO NOT USE THIS TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND KOREAN. It can be super rude so practice great disrection when saying this. If it's somebody that's way younger than you, by all means go for it, but do not use it on anyone close to your age or older than you.
So I guess I have some more time, so I'll talk a little about peole for a bit. My district is pretty awesome, we have six people in our district, and they're all really awesome. We're the only district in our zone with sister missionaries too. They're both really awesome, and are super fun to be around. The other 2 missionaries are the district leader and a guy from my companions mtc district. We all get along pretty well, except when scattergories gets involved, then I tend to take it a bit too seriously. It's a problem, but I'm growing past it hahaha. My zone is pretty sweet too, we have 16 missionaries total, and 2 guys who will play football for BYU when they get home. One is a safety, and is like 6'2, maybe 185, I don't know hes pretty cool though, and a way good singer. The other football player, is wait for it... 6'10! It's crazy, basically when you walk around with him its one of the most entertaining things cause everybody just stares at him. It's way great. There's like 4 missionaries who go home after this transfer in my zone, so it will be fun to see who comes in as well.
Well I love you all and will talk to you in a week!
클라슨 장로
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Herro!!!
From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
To: clegmaker <clegmaker@aol.com>
Sent: Sun, Nov 4, 2012 6:58 pm
Subject: Herro!!
Hello everybody!
So I've deemed it appropriate to copy my letter to President and send it home to you, there's nothing too crazy, but I think it'll be helpful in answering some questions to everybody!
Hey President,
During personal study this week, Elder Hunter has printed off a bunch of talks for me that helped him out at the beginning of his missions, so I've been reading a lot of those. They really have helped just to stay motivated and focused. I'm sure you understand better than most how tough it is for new missionaries seeing that you get more every six weeks. It really is tough to stay motivated and keep from letting tiredness get the better of you, but I know its definitely doable.
We have the same investigators as before. All 3 of our investigators seem to be progressing, one more than the other two, but progressing nonetheless. Our most progressing investigator has been actively coming to church for months and we're just making sure he has all the lessons taught to him because he is going to be baptized the day that you come visit 계산 ward! The other two are doing well but haven't come to church yet. I feel they'll get there, they just need a little more time.
Training seems to be going well. Korean is coming along and everybody has been telling me that I'm good at it for some reason or another. I was able to pass off first lesson last friday. It was tough, but I'm proud of myself for passing off. My district leader has told me that because of my skill with the language, he is going to be very tough on me with pass off. Not so much in my meticulousness with the language, but in my ability to keep things simple, and teach people not lessons. I'm super grateful to him for that and am excited to continue to pass off as time goes on. Elder Hunter is awesome and works soooooo hard. He's a great trainer and I am deeply thankful that we could serve together.
Thanks so much President!
Elder Clawson.
How is everybody?!?! This week has been tough, and a lot of work. I'm going to just say what comes to mind when it does so this email is probably going to seem all over the place, but hey, that's missionary work. So, that Chakham place you talked about mom, thats whats called a 고기 부페, or meat buffet. I don't eat enough in Korea apparently. My companion, Elder Hunter, justs puts food away like it's nothing, while I just sit around and eat a little, and everybody's like "what's wrong, do you feel sick" no I just eat like somebody who is normal and doesn't eat copious amounts of food by some inexplicable means. So yeah I don't eat enough still hahaha. With regards to the cold cereal, AWESOME IDEA! I was actually going to talk about that in this letter. Fun coincidence right?!?!
But more about my companion I guess. He's from Alpine, Utah, but lived in Cleveland before that so he likes the Cleveland Indians. He plays baseball and post mish will probably go play at this school in Hawaii. Again, he eats a lot of food, is a way good guy and really doubts his skills with Korean, even though he's super good.
Mom, about Gangnam style that you emailed about last week, so yes I have heard about it, but there are some things about your story I need to correct. So Gangnam is an area in our mission, and is a pretty affluent area. The guy who made the video is a comedian, and he was actually making fun of Americans and American music with that video. No one in Gangnam really dances like that for the record as well hahahaha. The song is making fun of American songs like California Girls by Katy Perry, that song New York by JayZ, Beverly Hills by Weezer, and so on and so on. He figured Korea didn't have anything like that so he would make a song on his own. Turns out to be way more successful than anything else that was serious. Go figure hahahaha.
On Saturday we had our first service project, which was pretty interesting. We were moving like 5 tons of coal blocks from one place to people's houses in this kind of poor area of our area. I never recognized it before, but the way that we have service projects organized back home in hillside ward is unreal! These people were okay, but it could have gone soooooooooooo much faster if we had our leaders back home in charge of it, not to mention the youth from back home. They decided to make this stupid long assembly line to move the coal instead of just having people carry it which I guess is kinda reasonable. The problem was that in the harder uphil parts, they had the young women and young men. Now one thing to know about Koreans is that they study hard, every last one of them, but not one of them has lifted a weight in their whole life. They had to keep taking breaks so they could rest. Also when they took breaks they just had everybody stop instead of just some people at a time, which I think would have been better just so they could have work going on all the time, and said assembly line was a little crowded in the first place. Anyways, it was a good service project, but a touch of Hillside organization would have cut the time in half.
Saturday we also had this singing thing we got to do. We were singing Hark all Ye Nations for this meeting thing of what nature, I'm not sure but we sang nonetheless. Another thing about my companion, he cannot sing. I say I can't sing, but man it is hilarious to listen to him try and sing. I was singing tenor cause I can kinda do it alone, and pretty decent when there's people around me, and there wasn't too many singing it so I decided to do so. My companion was singing melody and there was this one time we practiced and as soon as he started singing everybody just started laughing pretty much. Bless his heart for trying, but it definitely was hilarious on multiple levels.
Another thing about Korea, there are a lot of cars and I don't think people change brakes very often. I seriously want to change like half the ward members brakes but I don't think anyone has tools so I'm not sure how well that would work. If I get a chance to I'll let you know, but also, I'm not sure if Hyundai's have weird brake systems or something, if so, let me know. Fun fact for you guys, Hyundai, means modern day so next time you see one bear that in mind! Also Samsung makes cars here, I'm pretty sure it's just Hyundais with different tags on them though. They have Kia and Daewoo here too, but let's be serious who takes daewoo seriously as a car manufacturer, Heaven knows that I don't.
BOSCO! That's a big bummer about Mitch Luker. I'm gonna guess that he wasn't wearing a helmet though so take that as a warning for yourself! If you ever ride a motorcycle without a helmet, I may come home from Korea just to slash said motorcycles tires. Hope everythings going well for you bud. I'm not sure when your having your surgery on your other shoulder, but let me know and I'll pray for you bud! I'm a missionary, my prayers have special powers hahahaha.
MOM, you did not buy a cello, no pics no proof. I'll believe it when I see it! Also I played guitar for the first time in Korea yesterday, I suck now hahaha. I guess I can buy a guitar and play it while I'm here though!!! How exciting is that! Really exciting for me in case you didn't know.+
Also, today we're playing football! American football! Kinda excited/kinda confused on how to feel because everyone apparently takes it way too seriously here. I mean I'm a good athlete, but there's two guys who have scholarships at BYU when they get home, and I think 2 with scholarships else where. It might get a little too serious for my preferences, but we'll see how that goes. On that note, Mom! Something that would be way amazing for you to send me would be my soccer cleats. They have cleats here but they're all way expensive so that would be sweet. I think they're in my closet on top of the lower hanger bar thing. Don't rush it, but they're pretty light so weight shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The work in this area is tough, but it is moving forward. I've heard mixed reviews about my zone actually. I've heard that everybody wants to be here but I've also heard that it's like the hardest zone in the mission, I'm kinda confused on what to think, but will work hard nonetheless. There is nothing I've ever done that is this tiring, but that's okay. I know the harder I work the more blessings I, and my family for that matter, will recieve. I'm excited for my first baptism to come, but even more excited just to get to know the people of Korea. Side note, Kimche is okay, not bad, not good, its just kinda there. I wouldn't choose to eat it but its a cultural thing so I guess I will. I know that as I continue to strive to help these people that I will see blessings from my work. I love it here, but it is getting cold. I guess I'll have to buy a coat soon hahahahaha. I love all you guys and stay safe!
클라슨 장로
From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
To: clegmaker <clegmaker@aol.com>
Sent: Sun, Nov 4, 2012 6:58 pm
Subject: Herro!!
Hello everybody!
So I've deemed it appropriate to copy my letter to President and send it home to you, there's nothing too crazy, but I think it'll be helpful in answering some questions to everybody!
Hey President,
During personal study this week, Elder Hunter has printed off a bunch of talks for me that helped him out at the beginning of his missions, so I've been reading a lot of those. They really have helped just to stay motivated and focused. I'm sure you understand better than most how tough it is for new missionaries seeing that you get more every six weeks. It really is tough to stay motivated and keep from letting tiredness get the better of you, but I know its definitely doable.
We have the same investigators as before. All 3 of our investigators seem to be progressing, one more than the other two, but progressing nonetheless. Our most progressing investigator has been actively coming to church for months and we're just making sure he has all the lessons taught to him because he is going to be baptized the day that you come visit 계산 ward! The other two are doing well but haven't come to church yet. I feel they'll get there, they just need a little more time.
Training seems to be going well. Korean is coming along and everybody has been telling me that I'm good at it for some reason or another. I was able to pass off first lesson last friday. It was tough, but I'm proud of myself for passing off. My district leader has told me that because of my skill with the language, he is going to be very tough on me with pass off. Not so much in my meticulousness with the language, but in my ability to keep things simple, and teach people not lessons. I'm super grateful to him for that and am excited to continue to pass off as time goes on. Elder Hunter is awesome and works soooooo hard. He's a great trainer and I am deeply thankful that we could serve together.
Thanks so much President!
Elder Clawson.
How is everybody?!?! This week has been tough, and a lot of work. I'm going to just say what comes to mind when it does so this email is probably going to seem all over the place, but hey, that's missionary work. So, that Chakham place you talked about mom, thats whats called a 고기 부페, or meat buffet. I don't eat enough in Korea apparently. My companion, Elder Hunter, justs puts food away like it's nothing, while I just sit around and eat a little, and everybody's like "what's wrong, do you feel sick" no I just eat like somebody who is normal and doesn't eat copious amounts of food by some inexplicable means. So yeah I don't eat enough still hahaha. With regards to the cold cereal, AWESOME IDEA! I was actually going to talk about that in this letter. Fun coincidence right?!?!
But more about my companion I guess. He's from Alpine, Utah, but lived in Cleveland before that so he likes the Cleveland Indians. He plays baseball and post mish will probably go play at this school in Hawaii. Again, he eats a lot of food, is a way good guy and really doubts his skills with Korean, even though he's super good.
Mom, about Gangnam style that you emailed about last week, so yes I have heard about it, but there are some things about your story I need to correct. So Gangnam is an area in our mission, and is a pretty affluent area. The guy who made the video is a comedian, and he was actually making fun of Americans and American music with that video. No one in Gangnam really dances like that for the record as well hahahaha. The song is making fun of American songs like California Girls by Katy Perry, that song New York by JayZ, Beverly Hills by Weezer, and so on and so on. He figured Korea didn't have anything like that so he would make a song on his own. Turns out to be way more successful than anything else that was serious. Go figure hahahaha.
On Saturday we had our first service project, which was pretty interesting. We were moving like 5 tons of coal blocks from one place to people's houses in this kind of poor area of our area. I never recognized it before, but the way that we have service projects organized back home in hillside ward is unreal! These people were okay, but it could have gone soooooooooooo much faster if we had our leaders back home in charge of it, not to mention the youth from back home. They decided to make this stupid long assembly line to move the coal instead of just having people carry it which I guess is kinda reasonable. The problem was that in the harder uphil parts, they had the young women and young men. Now one thing to know about Koreans is that they study hard, every last one of them, but not one of them has lifted a weight in their whole life. They had to keep taking breaks so they could rest. Also when they took breaks they just had everybody stop instead of just some people at a time, which I think would have been better just so they could have work going on all the time, and said assembly line was a little crowded in the first place. Anyways, it was a good service project, but a touch of Hillside organization would have cut the time in half.
Saturday we also had this singing thing we got to do. We were singing Hark all Ye Nations for this meeting thing of what nature, I'm not sure but we sang nonetheless. Another thing about my companion, he cannot sing. I say I can't sing, but man it is hilarious to listen to him try and sing. I was singing tenor cause I can kinda do it alone, and pretty decent when there's people around me, and there wasn't too many singing it so I decided to do so. My companion was singing melody and there was this one time we practiced and as soon as he started singing everybody just started laughing pretty much. Bless his heart for trying, but it definitely was hilarious on multiple levels.
Another thing about Korea, there are a lot of cars and I don't think people change brakes very often. I seriously want to change like half the ward members brakes but I don't think anyone has tools so I'm not sure how well that would work. If I get a chance to I'll let you know, but also, I'm not sure if Hyundai's have weird brake systems or something, if so, let me know. Fun fact for you guys, Hyundai, means modern day so next time you see one bear that in mind! Also Samsung makes cars here, I'm pretty sure it's just Hyundais with different tags on them though. They have Kia and Daewoo here too, but let's be serious who takes daewoo seriously as a car manufacturer, Heaven knows that I don't.
BOSCO! That's a big bummer about Mitch Luker. I'm gonna guess that he wasn't wearing a helmet though so take that as a warning for yourself! If you ever ride a motorcycle without a helmet, I may come home from Korea just to slash said motorcycles tires. Hope everythings going well for you bud. I'm not sure when your having your surgery on your other shoulder, but let me know and I'll pray for you bud! I'm a missionary, my prayers have special powers hahahaha.
MOM, you did not buy a cello, no pics no proof. I'll believe it when I see it! Also I played guitar for the first time in Korea yesterday, I suck now hahaha. I guess I can buy a guitar and play it while I'm here though!!! How exciting is that! Really exciting for me in case you didn't know.+
Also, today we're playing football! American football! Kinda excited/kinda confused on how to feel because everyone apparently takes it way too seriously here. I mean I'm a good athlete, but there's two guys who have scholarships at BYU when they get home, and I think 2 with scholarships else where. It might get a little too serious for my preferences, but we'll see how that goes. On that note, Mom! Something that would be way amazing for you to send me would be my soccer cleats. They have cleats here but they're all way expensive so that would be sweet. I think they're in my closet on top of the lower hanger bar thing. Don't rush it, but they're pretty light so weight shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The work in this area is tough, but it is moving forward. I've heard mixed reviews about my zone actually. I've heard that everybody wants to be here but I've also heard that it's like the hardest zone in the mission, I'm kinda confused on what to think, but will work hard nonetheless. There is nothing I've ever done that is this tiring, but that's okay. I know the harder I work the more blessings I, and my family for that matter, will recieve. I'm excited for my first baptism to come, but even more excited just to get to know the people of Korea. Side note, Kimche is okay, not bad, not good, its just kinda there. I wouldn't choose to eat it but its a cultural thing so I guess I will. I know that as I continue to strive to help these people that I will see blessings from my work. I love it here, but it is getting cold. I guess I'll have to buy a coat soon hahahahaha. I love all you guys and stay safe!
클라슨 장로
Monday, October 29, 2012
Google v Bing Challenge!!!!
We've seen all the commercials about the Bing/Google challenge so we decided to do our own! Which one do you think will translate Gus's Korean into English better???????
Conclusion- Google wins because it is better. Fact.
Scott Says-Korean
|
Scott Says-English
|
Google Says
|
Bing Says
|
Winner
|
계산
|
Gyaesan
|
Calculation
|
Calculation
|
Tie
|
전도
|
Proselyting/Contact
|
Inversion
|
Evangelism
|
I guess Bing…
|
안녕히 계세요
|
Goodbye
|
Goodbye
|
Tie
|
|
글라슨 장로
|
Posts Larson elders
|
Glasson elders
|
Google wins!
|
Sunday, October 28, 2012
"Holy Cow! I'm in Korea!!" Yes, yes you are Elder Clawson! He sounds great!
Holy Cow! I'm in Korea!!
So this has been easily the most overwhelming experience in my life, but I doubt that's news to anybody at all really. The area that I'm serving is called 계산 (Gyaesan) and it is an interesting area. We have like half of an investigator that was there before I came into the area. It is a tough thing to come into your first area and have virtually nothing to work with. I say we have half an investigator because he's pretty much already an active member of the church, we just need to give him the lessons and then we can babtize him. In all honesty from what I understand the missionaries didn't really do much in regard to the conversion of this man. I'm going to call him George cause we're not supposed to use names and I think and he is in his sixties I believe. I'm not a hundred percent because it's virtually impossible for me to tell age here. I still am of the disposition here that virtually everybody looks the same. I guess I have a ways to go in that regard.
So my trainer is pretty awesome! I'm still not sure about the names thing so I'll get back to you about that at a later date. This is his first time training as well as his first time being senior. Before this transfer he never really had to speak Korean much just because he didn't really need to with his previous companions. He's been out for just under a year I believe and despite what he believes his Korean is way good. My Korean on the other hand, well that's a different story. I may have been good in the MTC but I guess what everybody says is true and we learn two different languages really on our missions. Today while we were on our way here, I did my first full subway 전도! 전도 is proselyting, you basically use that word for contact too. So the guy I talked to was the first man I've ever met who knew anything about the church prior to us talking to him. My companion gave me the cell phone with a text that had a bunch of mistakes asking him if it was correct. Unfortunately it was correct or so it seemed to the guy that was checking it. I was just like oh... well I came to Korea on tuesday, can I practice my Korean? So basically that's the way I use to talk to Koreans all the time. It's a pretty solid strategy I think but it's life time is limited.
This first week of ours as a whole was crazy busy though. So I got here to the area on Wednesday and I was just so beat. Jet lag rocked me those first couple days and it showed. I played ping pong with an investigator who had gotten baptized in July but hadn't been confirmed yet. He has some difficulty with some of the commandments so I think he's slow to kind of accept what's going on in the church. Our ward also has pretty much nobody that is close to him in age so he feels lonely sometimes. One of the older members with a kid wants to try and fellowship him though so I hope that goes well. The investigator is a way cool guy and wants to be good, but has little direction so he's kind of confused with what he should do a lot of the time.
Korean food is a bit of a chore for me at this point. I can eat this meal thats called 비빈밥 but much more than that gets tough. On friday we had a real Korean meal and they served it with hot water which was just about the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced. I was looking for something cool to quench my thirst and I get hot water!!!! So grody. Anyways, it's going to take some time to get used to whats going on with this food mess. There's a lot of really easy to eat stuff we've tried, but once you get to any home cooked meals, I'm toast. In time I guess I'll do better.
It's good to hear about stuff from home though! I'm glad everyone is doing well pretty much! The wedding sounds like its been pretty fun to try and get ready for and yes, I agree Bosco should have one of me, provided no mutilation will be involved. Granted it is cardboard, but I guess its the thought that counts. I was wondering about the harvest festival a little bit actually! It sounds like it went pretty well which is way good! We had this halloween party and it was okay I guess. Nothing is quite as good as an American party for an American holiday. Also glad to hear that Brother Evans can still scale trees in order to take down the lights.
So about the mess that was travel! Well our flight ended up being delayed a total of 2 hours out of Salt Lake. We didn't arrive until 20 minutes after the first groups flight left. They did get to go to Korea that day however, but they had to have a layover in Narita Japan. Everybody on that flight kept saying "Yay! We get to go to Japan!" But come on, lets be real, it doesnt count unless you get a stamp, airports do not count as the country. At least I dont think they do. So Korean air was simply put. nuts. So the first thing, right as you get on the plain and go to your seat, on the seat is a blanket, pillow, headphones, toothbrush, toothpast, and slippers. Also, instead of just some programmed TV thing, you had a personal control with a gang of programs and stuff to watch, a bunch of music, and video games to play whilst on the flight. The Branch president in the MTC said that we could go ahead and watch documentaries and use the games if we wanted to. My game controller however was broken so I didn't get to use that feature, but that's okay with me. I ended up just reading the scriptures, and we were allowed to listen to classical music if they had it so I was just listening to a bunch of orchestra stuff and what not while I read the scriptures for a while. I also watched a documentary on Giant octupuses which were way legit.
The biggest thing I've noticed in Korea is just how tough missionary work can really be. That stat from Elder Beck is way depressing though. Only an 11 percent retention rate of members is way tough, but I guess they just weren't ready for it. People in Korea are really slow to learn and take lessons and stuff. Its not quite like finland where the average investigator takes 3 years to be babtized, but its a lot longer than other places. I'm not too sure what all to expect as far as stats go, but we do a whole bunch of contacting which is amazing practice for Korean so that's way good.
Well I'm now just going to try and address shorter answers to questions that family has asked. I have no idea what my address is and we will have to tell you later. For packages, buffalo pretzels and jalapeno pretzels are always awesome, not so much honey mustard and onion. No I am not jet lagged anymore but I am always tired just cause of the work. It does not smell all like garlic all the time, nor did the airport, but half the time it does smell like balboa beach. Yes I did sleep on the plane, it was way nice and I slept like a rock. The service is unreal and awesome on Korean air. I'll try and have fun things to tell every week but until next week 안녕히 계세요!
글라슨 장로
Holy Cow! I'm in Korea!!
So this has been easily the most overwhelming experience in my life, but I doubt that's news to anybody at all really. The area that I'm serving is called 계산 (Gyaesan) and it is an interesting area. We have like half of an investigator that was there before I came into the area. It is a tough thing to come into your first area and have virtually nothing to work with. I say we have half an investigator because he's pretty much already an active member of the church, we just need to give him the lessons and then we can babtize him. In all honesty from what I understand the missionaries didn't really do much in regard to the conversion of this man. I'm going to call him George cause we're not supposed to use names and I think and he is in his sixties I believe. I'm not a hundred percent because it's virtually impossible for me to tell age here. I still am of the disposition here that virtually everybody looks the same. I guess I have a ways to go in that regard.
So my trainer is pretty awesome! I'm still not sure about the names thing so I'll get back to you about that at a later date. This is his first time training as well as his first time being senior. Before this transfer he never really had to speak Korean much just because he didn't really need to with his previous companions. He's been out for just under a year I believe and despite what he believes his Korean is way good. My Korean on the other hand, well that's a different story. I may have been good in the MTC but I guess what everybody says is true and we learn two different languages really on our missions. Today while we were on our way here, I did my first full subway 전도! 전도 is proselyting, you basically use that word for contact too. So the guy I talked to was the first man I've ever met who knew anything about the church prior to us talking to him. My companion gave me the cell phone with a text that had a bunch of mistakes asking him if it was correct. Unfortunately it was correct or so it seemed to the guy that was checking it. I was just like oh... well I came to Korea on tuesday, can I practice my Korean? So basically that's the way I use to talk to Koreans all the time. It's a pretty solid strategy I think but it's life time is limited.
This first week of ours as a whole was crazy busy though. So I got here to the area on Wednesday and I was just so beat. Jet lag rocked me those first couple days and it showed. I played ping pong with an investigator who had gotten baptized in July but hadn't been confirmed yet. He has some difficulty with some of the commandments so I think he's slow to kind of accept what's going on in the church. Our ward also has pretty much nobody that is close to him in age so he feels lonely sometimes. One of the older members with a kid wants to try and fellowship him though so I hope that goes well. The investigator is a way cool guy and wants to be good, but has little direction so he's kind of confused with what he should do a lot of the time.
Korean food is a bit of a chore for me at this point. I can eat this meal thats called 비빈밥 but much more than that gets tough. On friday we had a real Korean meal and they served it with hot water which was just about the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced. I was looking for something cool to quench my thirst and I get hot water!!!! So grody. Anyways, it's going to take some time to get used to whats going on with this food mess. There's a lot of really easy to eat stuff we've tried, but once you get to any home cooked meals, I'm toast. In time I guess I'll do better.
It's good to hear about stuff from home though! I'm glad everyone is doing well pretty much! The wedding sounds like its been pretty fun to try and get ready for and yes, I agree Bosco should have one of me, provided no mutilation will be involved. Granted it is cardboard, but I guess its the thought that counts. I was wondering about the harvest festival a little bit actually! It sounds like it went pretty well which is way good! We had this halloween party and it was okay I guess. Nothing is quite as good as an American party for an American holiday. Also glad to hear that Brother Evans can still scale trees in order to take down the lights.
So about the mess that was travel! Well our flight ended up being delayed a total of 2 hours out of Salt Lake. We didn't arrive until 20 minutes after the first groups flight left. They did get to go to Korea that day however, but they had to have a layover in Narita Japan. Everybody on that flight kept saying "Yay! We get to go to Japan!" But come on, lets be real, it doesnt count unless you get a stamp, airports do not count as the country. At least I dont think they do. So Korean air was simply put. nuts. So the first thing, right as you get on the plain and go to your seat, on the seat is a blanket, pillow, headphones, toothbrush, toothpast, and slippers. Also, instead of just some programmed TV thing, you had a personal control with a gang of programs and stuff to watch, a bunch of music, and video games to play whilst on the flight. The Branch president in the MTC said that we could go ahead and watch documentaries and use the games if we wanted to. My game controller however was broken so I didn't get to use that feature, but that's okay with me. I ended up just reading the scriptures, and we were allowed to listen to classical music if they had it so I was just listening to a bunch of orchestra stuff and what not while I read the scriptures for a while. I also watched a documentary on Giant octupuses which were way legit.
The biggest thing I've noticed in Korea is just how tough missionary work can really be. That stat from Elder Beck is way depressing though. Only an 11 percent retention rate of members is way tough, but I guess they just weren't ready for it. People in Korea are really slow to learn and take lessons and stuff. Its not quite like finland where the average investigator takes 3 years to be babtized, but its a lot longer than other places. I'm not too sure what all to expect as far as stats go, but we do a whole bunch of contacting which is amazing practice for Korean so that's way good.
Well I'm now just going to try and address shorter answers to questions that family has asked. I have no idea what my address is and we will have to tell you later. For packages, buffalo pretzels and jalapeno pretzels are always awesome, not so much honey mustard and onion. No I am not jet lagged anymore but I am always tired just cause of the work. It does not smell all like garlic all the time, nor did the airport, but half the time it does smell like balboa beach. Yes I did sleep on the plane, it was way nice and I slept like a rock. The service is unreal and awesome on Korean air. I'll try and have fun things to tell every week but until next week 안녕히 계세요!
글라슨 장로
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Hooray for week ten!!!! This letter arrived today and I copied the header of this email in with the text because we can easily tell how excited Scott is by that subject line! Ready to gooooooo.... Can't wait to talk to him next week, and yes I would be ever so slightly tempted to fly to San Francisco just to catch a glimpse. Well, maybe a little more than a glimpse. Love that boy so much and I miss his smiling face. So incredibly grateful for the choices he has made in his life, for his willingness to serve the Lord and to share a portion of his life with the Korean people. They have no idea what is coming their way. =)
From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
To: clegmaker <clegmaker@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 16, 2012 7:57 am
Subject: Week 10, LAST EMAIL FROM THE MTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
인녕하새요 !!!!! Google translate - "Hello"
Last week in the MTC! I have less than seven days before I get on a plane and head to San Francisco and then Korea! That being said there's a whole lot of bitter-sweetness going on here what with missing all the other missionaries that will be going to other missions as well as the younger transfers. Regardless I'm way excited to head to Korea, plus I'm one of the 7 of 37 missionaries that are flying to Korea that gets to go on Korean Air!!!!!! Basically Korean Air is the equivalent of PanAm, but with Korean people! It's so crazy, they have like a college program for people who want to become stewardesses which is nuts! You have to be fluent in at least Korean and English, you have to be Korean of course, and if you're not pretty enough or fit their exact definition of attractive, they'll tell you to either go get plastic surgery to "fix" something, or just kick you out of the program. It's way cool and nice from what I understand though. Soooooooo excited about that.
Also, since we are getting our lay over in San Francisco as opposed to LAX, that means I won't be able to see anyone, though I'm not entirely sure how likely that is in the first place. With regard to the phone thing however, I have no preference whether its a prepaid phone or a verizon phone, which ever one is more easy for you guys! I'm way looking forward to talking to everyone, so make sure that everyone is in the same place so I can talk to more than just a few of the family! I'll be in San Francisco from I think about 10 am to 1 in the afternoon, so plan accordingly! I'm only supposed to talk to family from what I gather which is kind of a bummer but I know it'll just be that much better if when I get home I can talk to people for the first time in two years.
Also, I won't be sending an email for the next two weeks from what I understand. Tuesday more or less doesn't really exist for me so I most likely won't be able to email next week because I'm pretty sure the P-day in Korea is on tuesdays as well. Also big side-note, DearElder services only work whilst in the MTC, so in the future just email me and I'll try to get back to you. Speaking of getting back to people, Nolan and Sasha, I did get your letters, and they were awesome. As the case may be I got them like 8 weeks ago but I kept on forgetting to say anything about it in my emails. I wrote back but I may have put the wrong addresses so if you never got a response I apologize for my suck at putting addresses on letters, however they didn't get returned to me, so if you didn't get it, I recommend going on scouring the globe in search of my letters.
On the note of letters, family, I'm aware I'm terrible at writing letters, it's a fact, it's basically like at school how I'd just would never call people because I forget things like that which tend to be kinda important, however today I have a firm resolve to write home! It will happen! Also we're only supposed to write on P-days so that kind of inhibits me in the letter writing game as well.
Bosco, I'm putting you on blast real quick. You better go to Lindsay's wedding reception! I want a picture of you and "me" so that at least part of our awesome yoohoo, seeds, bugles companionship can be there. While I may only be in two dimensions, I'll still be able to smile in a picture from what I gather. Let's be real here, I would probably be more fun as a cardboard cut out than as an actual person. Okay, blast moment over, thank you for your time.
Also there's this one Elder here in the MTC right now that's also learning Korean, looks sooooooo much like Kevin Davis, and acts like him pretty well too. So weird to be around him, half the time I catch myself calling him Kevin. It's sooooooo weird hahaha.
Oh yeah! Last tuesday, we had our weekly devotional as usual. You know how you'd think that after General Conference there wouldn't be a GA at the MTC for a while? Wrong. Elder Bednar came and talked and it was so cool! Usually he comes and kinda rips into the missionaries for a little while, they have a bunch of talks they play on Sunday nights of him doing that. This time he didn't though, he taught us his way of how he likes to try and pick apart and recieve revelation from the talks that he hears at conference, or really anywhere. Basically it goes in 3 steps.
1. Doctrine
2. Invitation to act upon doctrine
3. Promise blessings that come as a result of the doctrine.
It's really cool because you know he was also talking about that just so we could do better in our lessons with investigators. Pretty much, that's exactly what we're supposed to do when we're teaching, and it's so amazing how so much and so little can change from the time that someone is taking the lessons to the time that they are long time members and have been going to chuch for years.
I'm pretty low on time, so I think that I'll try and spit out some Korean really fast, also my spelling is terrible, so I apologize for weird translations.
저는 한국에 가는 것을 기데합니다! 저는 한국 사람을 사랑합니다 그리고 그들에 방사하고싶습니다.
저는 열오분을 사랑합니다
클아슨 장로님
Google had a hard time with this one and so did we... Basically we got "I love the Korean people. I'm glad that I'm going to Korea." Something in there was "radiating", we weren't really sure what, so we took a little literary license and just left that out...
At least to start off with, I am glad that when he is up and about, I am pretty much sleeping and while I am up and about, he will mostly be sleeping. I like that. Some kind of peace. There is a dateline between here and there. He will leave Provo on Monday October 22 and arrive in Seoul on Wednesday October 24.
Also, my phone can follow the weather for a handful of cities and I have added Seoul to that list - of course I am interested in the weather there. When we were shopping before he left, his list of suggested items to buy included an umbrella. He absolutely did not want one, but eventually conceded that maybe he might use it. I really have to wonder if he ever will... However, today it is raining in Seoul and the high is 57 degrees.
From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
To: clegmaker <clegmaker@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 16, 2012 7:57 am
Subject: Week 10, LAST EMAIL FROM THE MTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
인녕하새요 !!!!! Google translate - "Hello"
Last week in the MTC! I have less than seven days before I get on a plane and head to San Francisco and then Korea! That being said there's a whole lot of bitter-sweetness going on here what with missing all the other missionaries that will be going to other missions as well as the younger transfers. Regardless I'm way excited to head to Korea, plus I'm one of the 7 of 37 missionaries that are flying to Korea that gets to go on Korean Air!!!!!! Basically Korean Air is the equivalent of PanAm, but with Korean people! It's so crazy, they have like a college program for people who want to become stewardesses which is nuts! You have to be fluent in at least Korean and English, you have to be Korean of course, and if you're not pretty enough or fit their exact definition of attractive, they'll tell you to either go get plastic surgery to "fix" something, or just kick you out of the program. It's way cool and nice from what I understand though. Soooooooo excited about that.
Also, since we are getting our lay over in San Francisco as opposed to LAX, that means I won't be able to see anyone, though I'm not entirely sure how likely that is in the first place. With regard to the phone thing however, I have no preference whether its a prepaid phone or a verizon phone, which ever one is more easy for you guys! I'm way looking forward to talking to everyone, so make sure that everyone is in the same place so I can talk to more than just a few of the family! I'll be in San Francisco from I think about 10 am to 1 in the afternoon, so plan accordingly! I'm only supposed to talk to family from what I gather which is kind of a bummer but I know it'll just be that much better if when I get home I can talk to people for the first time in two years.
Also, I won't be sending an email for the next two weeks from what I understand. Tuesday more or less doesn't really exist for me so I most likely won't be able to email next week because I'm pretty sure the P-day in Korea is on tuesdays as well. Also big side-note, DearElder services only work whilst in the MTC, so in the future just email me and I'll try to get back to you. Speaking of getting back to people, Nolan and Sasha, I did get your letters, and they were awesome. As the case may be I got them like 8 weeks ago but I kept on forgetting to say anything about it in my emails. I wrote back but I may have put the wrong addresses so if you never got a response I apologize for my suck at putting addresses on letters, however they didn't get returned to me, so if you didn't get it, I recommend going on scouring the globe in search of my letters.
On the note of letters, family, I'm aware I'm terrible at writing letters, it's a fact, it's basically like at school how I'd just would never call people because I forget things like that which tend to be kinda important, however today I have a firm resolve to write home! It will happen! Also we're only supposed to write on P-days so that kind of inhibits me in the letter writing game as well.
Bosco, I'm putting you on blast real quick. You better go to Lindsay's wedding reception! I want a picture of you and "me" so that at least part of our awesome yoohoo, seeds, bugles companionship can be there. While I may only be in two dimensions, I'll still be able to smile in a picture from what I gather. Let's be real here, I would probably be more fun as a cardboard cut out than as an actual person. Okay, blast moment over, thank you for your time.
Also there's this one Elder here in the MTC right now that's also learning Korean, looks sooooooo much like Kevin Davis, and acts like him pretty well too. So weird to be around him, half the time I catch myself calling him Kevin. It's sooooooo weird hahaha.
Oh yeah! Last tuesday, we had our weekly devotional as usual. You know how you'd think that after General Conference there wouldn't be a GA at the MTC for a while? Wrong. Elder Bednar came and talked and it was so cool! Usually he comes and kinda rips into the missionaries for a little while, they have a bunch of talks they play on Sunday nights of him doing that. This time he didn't though, he taught us his way of how he likes to try and pick apart and recieve revelation from the talks that he hears at conference, or really anywhere. Basically it goes in 3 steps.
1. Doctrine
2. Invitation to act upon doctrine
3. Promise blessings that come as a result of the doctrine.
It's really cool because you know he was also talking about that just so we could do better in our lessons with investigators. Pretty much, that's exactly what we're supposed to do when we're teaching, and it's so amazing how so much and so little can change from the time that someone is taking the lessons to the time that they are long time members and have been going to chuch for years.
I'm pretty low on time, so I think that I'll try and spit out some Korean really fast, also my spelling is terrible, so I apologize for weird translations.
저는 한국에 가는 것을 기데합니다! 저는 한국 사람을 사랑합니다 그리고 그들에 방사하고싶습니다.
저는 열오분을 사랑합니다
클아슨 장로님
Google had a hard time with this one and so did we... Basically we got "I love the Korean people. I'm glad that I'm going to Korea." Something in there was "radiating", we weren't really sure what, so we took a little literary license and just left that out...
At least to start off with, I am glad that when he is up and about, I am pretty much sleeping and while I am up and about, he will mostly be sleeping. I like that. Some kind of peace. There is a dateline between here and there. He will leave Provo on Monday October 22 and arrive in Seoul on Wednesday October 24.
Also, my phone can follow the weather for a handful of cities and I have added Seoul to that list - of course I am interested in the weather there. When we were shopping before he left, his list of suggested items to buy included an umbrella. He absolutely did not want one, but eventually conceded that maybe he might use it. I really have to wonder if he ever will... However, today it is raining in Seoul and the high is 57 degrees.
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