Woohoo!  First Investigator Found in the New Area!!Yayyyyyyy!!!

Hey President!
First full week in the new area! For study this week I've been reading that book I told you about. It seems that in a lot of regards that it is tuned more to state side missionaries but there are still good things to learn from it. I think something really cool I learned was not to judge anybody regardless of their circumstance. The author said that he even had found investigators in gangs. I also have been reading the gospel principles book and studying because I have a lesson next week! Exciting!
We picked up an investigator this week! He's this 16 year old student, who is strangely outgoing. He had lots of questions the first time we met about a whole bunch of different things. I was skeptical at first but he seems to be pretty promising, also he's our only investigator so I have to think good thoughts for him haha.
I think finding that investigator is a huge miracle we saw this week. We were starting to become somewhat sceptical about this area and a little confused, but I think that this is just the start of a much bigger work to come. I really hope we can continue to find new investigators in this area. I know there is someone here that I was sent to help out.

- Elder Clawson

Hey everyone!
So here goes by another week in the land of the morning calm! It's really cold in this emailing place and this keyboard is kinda bad, so my typing skills are somewhat sub-par right now. For that I apologize. However, this has been a fun week regardless. I found the first food in Korea that I don't like this week! It's called 순대국, (soon-dae-guk) and it is really nasty. It may have just been the place I went to, but once I explain more what the food exactly is, you will understand. So it is a soup, that really doesn't taste like much of anything, except for the pieces in the soup that are wrapped in pig intestines. The stuff that is wrapped, is some combination of pork and rice, that is cooked in the blood of pigs. Needless to say it is somewhat nasty. Through out the whole meal, I had this continuously sinking feeling that I was eating poop. Not a good feeling to have, especially in a country like Korea, where it doesn't really matter if you don't like something, you pretty much just have to keep eating it, or else you're really rude. That being said, I've gotten really good at eating foods that I don't like, but all the same it was disgusting.
I feel like a bunch of stories this week may be centered around food... On to the next one, we went to this soup place with a recent convert before we taught him one of the post baptism lessons. The soup was reall good, but I have discovered my latest pet peave. Being treated like a child, because I am white. It was ridiculous, people are walking around thinking I can't understand what they say, and given the chopsticks that are easier to use because apparently I cant eat right. I'll have you know I'm pretty good at using chopsticks by now being that I've lived here for over three months. That and the fact that people think that I have no clue what anything means, or that I can't speak a lick of Korean can get irritating. Stop trying to baby meeeee!!!!!!
Enough rage comments... The soup was really good though! And pretty cheap too!
Oh, other really fun news! My companion has no money whatsoever for this entire pay period. It's only two weeks, but it can be kind of a problem when you have to live off of your companion and members for two weeks. Fortunately we get money again on thursday I think, but it was kind of entertaining to me for some reason or another hahaha. At first it seemed like he was really worried about it, and obviously it would be upsetting if a banking problem was making you be broke for two weeks. It certainly has made for an entertaining first bit of the transfer that could make us go eat poo soup... But someone else bought it for us so we saved money in so doing!
Mom in response to your cello-ness and progression therein, I don't care how good it is! I want to seeeeee!!!!!! Remember how bad I sounded when I was first learning guitar? I know you do because it was amplified hahaha. It's fun to see things in their growing stages, otherwise I will just think you were all the sudden awesome at cello with not much effort (not to say that would be a bad thing, but it certainly would cultivate envy). And I feel you on the awkwardness of the bow, I feel like most instruments, proper technique is awkward at first. I know it was with guitar, and certainly with piano. Heck, I can't even use proper technique on piano still! Also, I'm starting to practice piano a lot more because my companion likes to play too. It's pretty fun! At our church we have a baby grand because its the stake center, whereas most normal churches just have upright pianos. It's so nice to play on!
Another fun story, yesterday I woke up with a rib out of place. That was fun... I didn't notice how irritating it was until I was at church, and I couldn't do anything about it. So irritating. Also my companion has a straight neck, instead of a c-curve, so I somewhat felt his pain for a little bit. I was complaining so much that it got on my nerves. I can't imagine how much it would have annoyed him hahaha. When we got home from church though, I was able to have it put back in place, which was amazing, and now I'm all better! It was super relieving. Stinking Korean beds...
Korean time!!!
I can't think of anything super profound, so I will tell you about this thing called honorification, whichis exaclty what it sounds like. If there's something that is of a higher status than you, or someone you should be polite to, you honorify them.
This is done by when conjugating a verb, putting 시 (shee) into the verb ending. I'm sure this is really abstract and confusing right now so I will demonstrate with the phrase that equates to hello
안녕하세요 unhonorified an-young-ha-sae-yo
안녕하십니까 honorified an-young-ha-SHEEm-nee-ka
It's really confusing if you don't speak Korean at all, but it makes sense to me haha, maybe I can explain better in person later hahaha.
That story about the Baker family is so incredible! It really is amazing the love that the lord shows to those who have decided to concecrate their lives for two years to his service. In fact I think the Lord's love is amazing in general, but the blessings that can be seen are just unreal. I can honestly say that I don't think i've experienced anything that compares to that, but I can say that I know how the love feels. I think every missionary does and that will be a powerful experience that can be used to share a lot of love with peple in the mission field. Truly amazing.
Well I think that's about it for this week, I'll do my best to write good letters as you know. Also, I plan on writing some letters home, and Sister Aussef that's definitely no fun to hear about your hand. The socks you sent are awesome though! I look forward to hearing more about awesome exploits in parts of the world that happen to be less Korean haha

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Christmas pictures!!

We have a whole bunch of new pictures!! Most are from Christmas =)

This is soup Scott made all by himself- I think it looks tasty, but I'm not entirely sure!

 The lady in the picture made the scarf for him- AWESOME! Also that is a really cute orange bag in the background if you're reading this Scott *cough cough*

 We all like Christmas a lot

He just pretends to make a Grinch face, we know he's fibbing...

 See??? Super jazzed =)

 And apparently has a new set of priorities =)

 Nevermind, there's my same old brother ;-)

 All the guys in Lindsay & Tony's families got different mostly red ties. This is Scott's wedding tie. He's so cute!

yay!!! new area!!!

We continue to be so proud of this kid- always amazed at his goals and the things that you can tell are so important to him. He is obviously still our Scott, but has grown so so much in the past 5 months. The countdown till Mother's day and our next chance to talk to him over the phone begins!! 109 days =)

Also don't forget Scott's birthday is March 2nd- I'm sure any cards from his adoring fans would be appreciated! 
-Lindsay

Hey President!
This week has been good as always.  For personal study, I've really been going through PMG and the Liahona issues a lot recently.  I think on some level I just got a little burnt out on the scripture language for a little bit and just wanted some more modern wordings.  It's been super good, it was the first time I read an issue of a church magazine all the way through which was super cool.
As far as investigators go, coming into this new area, we had one investigator and he got baptized on saturday, and comfirmed sunday.  He is a pretty great guy, and I think he really wants his head to be set in the right direction.  He has some problems, I think they mostly just fall to the fact that he speaks English really well and doesn't really understand what swearing is that much in English, but aside from that he's pretty great!
One miracle that I saw this week occurred yesterday in church.  I had never blessed the sacrament before in Korean, and the fact that I was able to say the prayer correctly really was a blessing.  I was pretty nervous at first, but it turned out to be just fine.  I think as I serve here in 산본, I might need to look a little more to little things for miracles, just because the ward is so small and we have no investigator pool whatsoever.  I look forward to progressing the area more!

-Elder Clawson

The news is out!

I'm in a new area!  This new area as you may have read earlier is called 산본.  I'm somewhat tempted to not tell you guys how to actually pronounce it.  It's a little more fun that way, and then Brother Lanier could be able to read it and like blackmail people so they could know how to pronounce my new area, but I feel like that's a little bit ridiculous.  It's pronounced san-bon when directly romanized.  It's a fun area and we have ZERO investigators.  It's so great!  Just gives us more opportunity to try and meet more of Heavenly Father's children I suppose.

This area is pretty great I suppose.  It's ridiculous the amount of apartment buildings that they have here.  My last area was pretty city-ified for the most part, and this is too, but I would aline it more with a suburb.  SOOOOOOO many apartments, each of which having a couple hundred apartments probably.  It's crazy.  CRAZY awesome.  I don't know why I keep on throwing in those moments of random excitement, it's kind of beyond me haha.  So yes, this area has a whole bunch of apartments, our house is really nice though!  Random tangents for the win.  Our house is a little smaller than the last, but I like it more.  It's warmer, and has a washer-dryer combo for laundry!  So cool!  I don't know if I had said so before, but usually you have to hang up your clothes to dry in Korea, but not here!

My new companion's name is 이준석.  He is what is called 교포 which means that he is Korean, but lived in America or just elsewhere aside from Korea.  He is more than fluent in Korean, and speaks English just as well, so that's super convenient for me.  His name is pronounced ee-joon-suk in romanized Korean.  He would go by the last name Lee in america, so he shares the same last name with just about half of this country.  He's been out in the field for a year longer than me, but since he spoke Korean before his mission, he only had to stay in the MTC for like half the time that I did, so he's like 11 months older than me in the mission.  It seems like the two of us will get along pretty well, and it's just te two of us in our house again.  I might get a little frustrated if I only live in two man houses my whole mission.  The thought has entered my mind yes hahaha

The new ward is pretty tiny.  Yesterday at church we had about 30 people I think.  That's why my compnion and I ended up blessing the sacrament, giving talks, and he taught gospel principles class.  I get to teach it in 2 weeks...  So exciting!!!!!  Truth be told that might be a little bit of a nightmare hahaha.  Oh yeah, we have no investigators now, but we had one 3 days ago.  I got another walk in baptism that I feel like I did nothing for haha.  He's a pretty cool guy though, same age as me in Korean, and I guess in American age for the next couple months until my birthday, we would have been in different grades though.  We do a whole bunch of calling old records right now just to try and find someone to talk to that we might be able to possibly, maybe, perhaps meet.  And then get punked...

Fun news!!! There's this lady in the new ward, who I swear is a Korean rendition of Janet Williams!  It's crazy!  I first saw her and was tripped out for a second, I was thinking to myself "you speak Korean too and shrunk 4 inches and now have children that are 2 and 4 again?"  It was an interesting experience to say the least.

For Korean time I think I may have to do a bit of contemplation...  I'm going to teach you my least favorite word in the Korean language!

빨리  (bah-lee)

This directly translates to "quickly", but it is usually contextually used more to mean "hurry".  I have come to discover that I hate the word hurry... I just feel like it's something that shouldn't be in a missionary's vocabulary.  Anyways sometimes I say it to make fun of myself though for my unreasonable feelings towards the word hahaha.  Koreans also like repetition so if you repeat it a couple times that's pretty Korean too hahaha

I can't think of much else to talk about the new area, it's pretty awesome and I hope that it continues to be pretty cool in the future.  It may be hard here, but you can't grow from something that is overly easy.

Have an awesome week and I love you guys!  You're all awesome!

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How do you pray for a crazy person???

Clawson, Scott Hey Presdient!
This week has been super awesome! It's kinda made it a little harder to accept the fact that I have to leave, but it's the Lord's will not mine, so I'm not too worried about it.
As training comes to a close I become more and more grateful that I could serve with Elder Hunter. I look around at other missionaries, and while there are so many other amazing missionaries, I don't think there is a single on who could have been a better match for me than Elder Hunter, and I'd like to think I'm the same for him. There's no question in my mind that the Lord is involved in the decision making process, and it is not just something of man.
Study has been pretty cool this week. I studied Jesus the Christ again, and it's just as awesome as ever. I know I've said it so many times before, but it is still just as awesome to learn more in depth about the savior and his ministry. I have a question real quick though. I recieved this book from my family to read, called "How to become a Great Missionary". It's not in the missionary reference library, but I wanted to know if it would be okay to read. It seems like it could be very helpful, but I just wanted to get your okay before I went about reading it.
One miracle I saw this week that was really incredible happened on Saturday. We were having a lesson, 30-30 program, and I was going to get a Book of Mormon from another room real quickly, and all the sudden there was this random man, standing in our church. He asked when we worshipped, and that he wanted to worship with our church. It was incredible because just like that we had another potential investigator show up out of no where.
I really want to thank you so much for this opportunity I have had to serve in 계산. This area is amazing, and I know that my new area has just as much potential to be amazing. I just have to make it that way.

Thanks so much President!

-Elder Clawson


Hey der hi der ho der bob... slash family
So right now you might be wondering, why that subject line?  Well your first thought may be correct, but the reality of the matter is probably just as fun.  Last night, right before we were about to retire to bed, a ward member called and told us that a friend of hers was in a mental hospital, and she was asking us to pray for her.  That was definitely a first to say the least.  I decided to pray about it just cause she asked me to, and I thought my prayers would help as much as any.  After I prayed and Elder Hunter finished praying as well, I turned to him and asked "How do you pray for a crazy person?"  It really is a good question.  I mean it's not something that falls under your everyday list of things you may pray about.  Do you ask to make them not crazy, to find their mind, what do you do?  Any suggestions are welcome.
Also there is another thing that may or may not be more pertinent than learning how to pray for a crazy person, but as you could assume if you've read my letter to president, but I'm being transferred!!!!!  It's kinda hard to leave this area, especially since in the last two days even, a ridiculously large amount of things have come up that are awesome, but it's okay, such is life as a missionary, and then you go home...  So the area that I'm being transferred to is called 산본, pronounced san-bone.  I'm going the with an Elder who is from America, but it Korean and speaks fluent Korean and we're white-washing the area.  If you don't know what that means, it's when you put two new missionaries in the area at once, instead of leaving one who was there the transfer previous.  I have no clue whatsoever what this new area is like, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.  Also my new companion is almost dead in the mission too, so that'll be interesting to try and combat.  Regardless, I look forward to a new area and serving with new missionaries too though!
So the grandma that we had been teaching a while back that we handed over to the sister missionaries is indeed getting baptized this weekend, and had I not been transferred I would have gotten in the water to baptize her, but because I'm going to a different area, the opportunity now falls upon someone else.  As long as it's not the brand new missionary that Elder Hunter will be training (Yes he's training again), I will be just fine.  Call me un christlike, but he can't learn to love her enough in the 4 days between arriving in country and he baptism to baptize her.  Regardless of who does the dunking, the change that has been brought about in this woman, is miraculous.  There is nothing I have ever seen like it.  She used to just sit in lessons with her head down, and he eyes would glaze over, and she would just feel bad about herself.  Now she is always smiling and laughing.  She has found true happiness, and there is nothing that compares to having been able to see the change that has come about as a result of meeting with her.  I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to take part in that wonderful process.
I was thinking about it this past week, and people always told me that Koreans are super nice and such, but for a while I felt like they were so mean.  Really when I think about it, having some random crazy american come up to you on the street aand ask to shake your hand and if they can share a message that will bring happiness into your life, is pretty intimidating, and warrants being angry at this crazy american.  The fact that any of these people even take a second to consider shaking your hand is incredible.  I know for a fact if I had some guy come up to me in broken English, ask to shake my hand, and tell me he is sharing a happy message, I would write him off as crazy immediately.  The people in this country are so nice it's unreal.  I don't get it.  It makes no sense, but it's really convenient for me hahaha.
As far as Korean time goes, I can only think of one thing, and I'm not entirely sure how to spell it.
그녕  (kuh-nyung)
It doesn't really have a literal meaning.  It's kinda tough to try and explain, but it means something like "just cause".  I probably use it wrong all the time, but that's okay, it makes me look like I know what I'm saying more hahaha

I got the package from mom and dad, and susan as well!  Thank  you guys sooo much!  I appreciate it a lot!  It took me a while to finally eat some of the mac and cheese because we never go shopping, but I finally got milk and butter, so I ate some and it was awesome!

I have also gotten the letter from the young women, truth be told like 3 weeks ago, I'm just super bad at remembering things.  In response to all your questions, yes Korean is hard, yes I love it here, and probably to most other questions, yes.  Also, members of the self-named "couch", I got your letter too, it was super fun, and I'm so impressed that you took the time to personalize a letter just for me! 

I don't have much time so I have to go, but I love you all, and you're all awesome

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Scott hasn't sent us pictures of his live body in a couple weeks, but here are a couple pictures of his cardboard body. We had three Elder Clawsons at the reception and we gave one of them to his friend Bosco. He will be taking pictures of their adventures together. Just like flat Stanley. Very Fun =)

I was chastised by Scott for not being completely up to date with his blog.  So sorry sir!  We did have a big fat wedding recently!  So here are his last two letters and a handful of pictures too.  I love this boy and I really am sorry that Lindsay's wedding was a slight distraction to a 100% current blog.  I will not let that happen again...

From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
Date: January 6, 2013 7:08:05 PM PST
To: clegmaker@aol.com
Subject: Katchow, and I've been a missionary for 5 month

Clawson, Scott

Hey President!
This week for studies I've been focusing on investigators a whole lot more, and reading PMG. I was reading PMG a bunch to try and see if anything stuck out for finding, and some other things that I think that I can improve upon, but mostly in finding. I keep reading Jesus the Christ little by little, it's a really great book and it's cool to learn a lot more abuot the savior's earthly ministry.
Learning about the Savior's earthly ministry is especially helpful right now with regards to one of our investigators. She has virtually no church background whatsoever, so we're teaching her from very baseline beginnings. She is a really genuinely interested, but has some problems with drinking. She came to church yesterday, smelling like alcohol, and truth be told you could see her progression from a little drunk to hungover. I think if she can follow the Word of Wisdom, everything after will be much more simple. I think the fact that she came at all was a great miracle.
Training is awesome, and I'm a little sad that it's almost over. I have really enjoyed this time with Elder Hunter in 계산 ward. Everything here is awesome, even though the work is a little hard.
I do have a question with regards to street lessons. We have been told to count any interaction where you get a return appointment as a street lesson, regardless of whether or not, by the definition of the word lesson, it had been a lesson. I've seen other missionaries that count that as a street lesson, and I was just a little confused over what the actual definition of a street lesson is. I figured you are the best person that there is to ask so if you could get back to me about that, I'd really appreciate it!

Have a great week!

Elder Clawson

Woohoo!!!

I'm almost not considered a greenie anymore!! How neat is that? So transfers are on the 15th of January, so I'll definitely be able to get that shirt to Elder Hunter just fine! You guys are the best with this package thing, I feel so spoiled, and so lame that I haven't found anything worthy of seding you guys yet... aside from the blessings of having a missionary from your home serving in the missionary field! But really I want to try and find some fun things to send home in the not too distant future. I am going to the place to buy suits and such tomorrow, so ideally I can find something for everyone. If anyone has requests for something they think I can find in the future, I'd appreciate it.

Well at any rate this week has been pretty fun. So one investigator that we had been teaching that we gave to the sister missionaries in our district no has a baptismal date. She will end up attending our ward which is awesome! She's this really sweet old lady that initially just wanted to learn english but has made so much progress since we met her. The biggest struggle for her was just getting her to come out to church. When it comes to Koreans, they consider the smallest headache to be super sick. They kinda overeact to a lot of things like that, but since she's like 85, I don't thinks it's that much of a problem haha. The fact that she's been coming out is awesome though. It's super awesome to see the progress that comes forth even if I don't get the number to put in my planner. It's kind of sad but there are missionaries who think that way. I think that if that were the case, it would be a lot harder to accept the fact of going to a place like Korea versus anywhere in africa or south america. Did you guys know that Africa has the highest baptizing rate relative to the amount of missionaries there by a huge margin? It's super cool to hear about things like that in my opinion.

The investigator that I talked about in my letter to president is super awesome too. She is this really nice lady and, wants to find truth in a religion, she just doesn't know where to go. We hope that since we were the first to kind of catch her in that mind set, she'll be willing to see the lessons all the way through.

This other investigator that we have right now is so awesome. I know we aren't supposed to play favorites, but it's hard not to. In Korea there's whats called 정 (jeong) and it's when you have a good relationship with someone and its basically just that you become really good friends. So we've known her and her family for about 2 months because her younger sister is someone that we reactivated. The investigator had studied theology in college and that was her major, but she didn't follow that path for some reason or another. Instead she owns this clothing shop that I guess is decently successful. We had been trying to get the opportunity to teach her a lesson for like a month, and she was kind of avoiding it. On Thursday we went over with the intention of teaching her, but she kinda weasled her way out of it. We told her right as she was leaving that we were coming back the next day to teach her. At first she didn't think we were serious but we did it!!! When we came back friday we taught her kinda briefly the first and second lessons. She really likes it and has a lot of similar beliefs! It's so awesome, but the only problem is that she too, loves alcohol. Her and her husband drink a lot, but we think if we could teach her husband too, that he might follow what we're teaching in the lessons just about as well as she could. Fortunately we have a really good relationship with both of them so they value what we say and such. They're awesome, but it's hard to see where to direct our efforts sometimes with regard to what we should teach next.

I don't have a whole bunch of time, but I'll try and do some real quick Korean time, but I'm kind of in a slump of what to think of, so I guess I'll tell you how to say something that's really valuable for when you try and visit Korea!

화장실 (hwa-jang-shil) BATHROOM!

Don't tell me there's anything more valuable to know than how to find a bathroom, it could be very problematic if someone were to lose that battle with the Korean language I'd say hahaha.

I want to share an experience i had this week real quickly too. So we met with our ward mission leader, who we already though was this awesome guy, but our thought in that was reinforced this week. So he actually served in the area that we are in right now. I know I said that numbers shouldn't be the way to measure a mission, but it can still be a good indicator, especially within a mission, and knowing how it goes in the area. He had crazy stats, baptized a bunch of people, but what's even crazier is that from his explanation, all his converts were actually converted. It's especially hard to do that when you're a Korean missionary serving in Korea. Because of culture, it can be incredibly difficult to follow the instructions of the prophets, and Open Your mouth, to spread the gospel. The standard the mission has set for us is to get 140 contacts a week, but it changes based on your area. He had gotten 500 contacts a week, 20 lessons, and didn't go a month without a baptism. I think just the diligence that this shows, especially with a native Korean missionary is unreal. I've met his family and I think one of the blessings of his diligent service is how awesome his family is. I want those blessings for myself, so I will continue to work hard!

I love you all!!!!

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December 30, 2012
Subject: boom da boom boom, and a happy new year

Hey President!
It was great to be able to talk to you on friday! For that reason, on some level I feel like I have nothing to report to you haha. Anyways everything is still going pretty good, normal missionary trials are still present obviously but nothing huge. For study I have been going over my notes journal from the MTC that has my study and my notes from a bunch of the devotionals. It's amazing how I seem to remember a lot of these talks, with regards to the words that were said, but not the spirit that spoke. I really am glad that I was able to write those down when I recieved that inspiration.
We have one investigator in particular that is pretty great. She seemed like she has no needs whatsoever, which kind of scared us, she was just perfect and kept commitments, but now we found out that she drinks some, so that kind of made us feel better about her. Unfortunately that drinking did result in her missing an appointment, but she's really interested in the gospel, so I don't think we'll have to worry about it being a consistent problem.
Training is going great still, almost over though. I'm kind of glad it's almost over, yet sad because that's the only time I'll be a new missionary and still be a trainee. Elder Hunter does a great job despite what he thinks, and I think he'd be great to train again in the future, provided the Lord also wishes it to be that way.
I think a huge miracle I saw this week is just the spirit that all the missionaries brought to the Christmas conference. I don't know really how to explain it or if it even really needs more explanation, but it was great and I really enjoyed it!

Have a great week President!

Elder Clawson


Hey everybody!!!
This week has been pretty great, even though it has also been kinda abridged. Truth be told I don't know why I'm saying it's been great, cause it was incredibly hard, and there were lot's of trials therein, but I still feel like I should say that it was a great week.
First thing it snowed again, on one of the days that we were counting on to be a big contacting day, so we didn't get to talk to as many folks as we had initially intended, but it was still a pretty good day, all things considered. We were handing out flyers for our english clas, and I bet you can understand that the last flyer you give out is always way awkward. When you have a bunch left people are really inclined to take it, but when you just stand there with one flyer, people get creeped out hahaha. The fact that I gave out all my flyers was super cool though, the last one I kinda had to pawn off on this maybe 4 year old kid, but his mom seemed like she had some interest so it's all good. The last time that I was handing out flyers before this time, this guy came up to me and says that I am a bad person and almost everyone around hates me. Fortunately I didn't understand him because he was trying to say it in English, which didn't make sense, and then when he spoke Korean, he was missing so many teeth, that it was impossible to understand a single word he said. Fortunately that didn't happen this past time, so I think that was a blessing haha.
We also started using our latest idea of conatacting which is ping pong contacting! That was legitimately pretty fun, even though I was by far the worst player there. It's really interesting because the level of play when it comes to ping pong in Korea is just so much different. Granted it has never really been one of my strengths, but nonetheless its crazy! Anyways, we did a test run a couple weeks ago, and we made some friends, so this time, we kinda already had an in so that we could meet new people. we don't get a lot of contacts, but we get some, and those we do talk to, we build a better relationship than those that we would just get raw stats from on the streets.
Oh yeah, we had President interviews on Friday too! That was super awesome, President is such a cool guy. It was really funny because there were two elders, one that was with my companion at the MTC and his greenie, who is a transfer younger than me. They both say "for days" a lot, and it bugs my companion sooooo much. They for a pretty good while were doing it just to bug Elder Hunter, and then President came in, and by some way or another, he figured it out, and said "for days" in the same context and it was super funny. If you have any questions on how "for days" works, you'd be better off asking someone who knows how, than me because it's hard to explain via email. Anyways, aside from people making fun of my companion, it was pretty great just as a spiritual experience too. While President is super funny, and just a great guy to be around, he's a super caring, and spiritual guy too. I guess that goes without saying, considering that he is a mission President, but I feel like my mission president is the best one!
As far as packages go, you're doing awesome mom! Everything is great, in the future I would like to request peanut butter though. Peanut butter is awesome, and as far as cereal goes, I think just send cinnamon toast crunch. It's the best cereal, and it's still my favorite, even since I was like 5. It's amazing how that works haha
That's cool that you got a new car mom! I'm sorry the other one had to go, I know just as well as you do that it was a super awesome car, but hopefully this new one will be just as good as the last! Also holy cow about that picture of you guys! You guys all look so great, especially Lindsay! She looked so awesome! Nate's hair is wicked gnarly long too, but that's beside the point, Lindsay was just an awesome looking bride! I'm so glad everything came together so well! Also that tie you guys sent is super cool! I really like it, maybe I can send home some ties from here too, there's this place that literally has tens of thousands of ties. It's absurd.
Also, it is absurd how I am never around or able to remember when there is snow in Rancho. Lucky you guys that its not acid snow!! I guess it's fun to have that experience under my belt though. How many of you can say that you were proselyting in snow that can make you go bald!? Not sure how braggable that is to tell the truth though...
Oh, so I have a fun fact for the day too! Did you know that the English QWERTY keyboard setup is the slowest possible setup that the keyboard could be in? They had to make it as slow as possible because originally people writing on typewriters were going so fast that it just constantly caused the typewriters to jam. That being said, I'm kind of upset because I feel like I would be able to share more information with you guys if it weren't for the dang QWERTY keyboard...
Oh well, it's not that big of a deal.

So for Korean time, this week is kind of inspired by another Elder. At Christmas Conference, he was asked to share some remarks, and he said the word "right?" like 40 times, and therein lies my inspiration
-죠 ( jyo ) -- right
So this goes at the end of a verb when conjugating and is used contextually in a sentence like "You've eaten lunch, right?" or "Your birthday is next week, right?" So that has kinda become a joke amongst our district now. We just end every sentence in korean with that when we speak to each other, and then sometimes just say 죠. It's pretty fun haha.
I'm not entirely sure what else to share, just that its still tough, but I still love it here. It becomes really evident, that you are where you belong as far as being a missionary goes. One, I'm in the only mission in the world where you can go swimming, granted the pools are only like 3 feet deep and its not really swimming, but your still in a pool. Also everyone here is super nice, half the population plays guitar, they all talk really really fast which works really well for me, and is hard at the same time. I look like Edward so that gives me an edge on other people for building relationships haha. I swear there isn't a place that would be better for me to go in this world. It really becomes evident how perfect the mission is for each missionary. On that note there's a saying that's really cool/funny that says that if the church wasn't true, the missionaries certainly would have destroyed it by now. It's so awesome being able to see the work progress and help others progress towards greater happiness.

I love you all and keep Korea in your prayers!

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