I am just so proud of this kid!!! Why he thinks we don't read the letter to his president I don't know, maybe you don't... ? Anyhow, the countdown to Mother's day begins & we just can't wait to hear his sweet Korean voice again! Happy Easter dear friends & supporters!
Hey President!
Man, three weeks in a row that we have had the opportunity to attend some of the same Sunday services! That's exciting! On top of that the news that I'll be training this upcoming transfer is really exciting too! I hope I can fulfill the expectations that you have for me, and help the new missionary I will be serving with be the best that he can be too.
This week for study I've just been going through things for study as normal I suppose, trying to accomodate the needs of investigators and looking for what they may need. It was interesting because today I ended up in the addiction recovery section of PMG and I didn't really know why. I had intended to study for one particular investigator of ours, but I'm not sure how that pertains to her really.
In regards to that investigator, it's that same one I've talked about the past couple weeks, and my opinion of her has changed greatly. It seems at this point that all she wants to do is throw scriptures from the Book of Revelations at us. I think it might actually be fortunate that Elder Lee won't be there to understand all she's talking about. It may lead to use being able to teach with the spirit much more present, and for that opportunity I thank you.
I think one miracle that occurred this week is that I have somehow averted being sick, amongst Elder Theobald getting sick, as well as Elder Lee seemingly coming down with something right now. I'm not sure how, but for some reason or another, I have had the great fortune of avoiding any real illness of any kind on my mission thus far, yet have seen a lot of other missionaries that have had to deal with a lot of health problems. It truly is a miracle in my eyes.
I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, as well as meeting the new missionaries!
-Elder Clawson
Hey Everyone!
So I have a sneaking suspiscion that no one actually reads the part to my mission presdient so I have a hunch that there's a big secret that you all don't know about yet! I kinda wish that I knew how to make the font all bigger and stuff so that it's all fancy for the next statement that I am about to make, I AM TRAINING!I figured it out in case you didn't notice. Anyways, yes I am totally training. Fun story actually, it was really anticlimactic the way that I found out. So Saturday night they call everyone in the mission and say what's up with them, and since we're in a somwhat new area sort of and our number is really confusing to try and find, we thought it might be really late before we found out what was happening to us. Well, we waited up for a while, and no call came, not even at like 11 o'clock, but we live in the same house as the zone leaders, so they already knew, I just asked them not to tell me. Well I gave up at 11 and asked one of them to tell me. He said "Elder Lee, you're going to bongcheon and Elder Clawson you're staying and training." No inflections what soever, no emotion or anything, just "... you're training." SOOOOOOO LAAAMMMMEEE!!! I guess it helped to get rid of the nerves about it a little bit though, so that was fortunate. The next day president was supposed to speak in our ward, so I asked him about it and he apologized and said that it was just a misunderstanding between him and the APs so that's okay. I kinda want to mess with the APs on wednesday at transfers, but I shouldn't. Also, I don't find out who my companion is until wednesday at the trainers meeting thing where we pick up the greenies.
Other fun stories this week, I feel like there aren't that many so I may have to drag it out a little bit on the stories that I do have. One of which being that this kid we met and are starting to meet likes to play bass and I said I play guitar so his first thought was that I play bass too, which I don't really think I do, but that goofy august rush style playing really lends itself to playing bass so I'm not as bad as I thought! I have inadvertantly learned how to slap the bass, so now I can tell people in a very loose interpretation of the word that I can "slappa da bass". This week that kid wants to meet again, but he has an electric guitar too, so he might bring that. It will be the first time in the entirety of my mission that I have played an electric guitar. That'll be so fun!
Other things relating to music, this week we had another music thing that we had to prepare for, and I was really underwhelmed with how the ward prepared for it to be honest. It was something that we had organized in the last area last transfer, and since we still kinda have some tenure so to speak over that area since there are no members to help the sister missionaries teach, we got permission to help with it still. Anyways, it was originally supposed to be this talent show thing that was supposed to help the youth of the ward since they were having trouble staying active and expressing interest in the church, but the bishopric totally changed it. Instead it was about 15 minutes of things that the missionaries and one recent convert had prepared that were related to the original thing, and then an hour and a half of random things about Korean culture, that the kids paid legitimately no attention to. I learned a lot so I wouldn't say that it was bad in it's teaching aspects, just that it was bad with regard to the targetted audience. I think there was just a lot more room for things to help the ward where they needed, instead of where they wanted.
Another experience that came up this week occurred on the subway back home from a thing that was called a mission tour. We were coming back to our area and we were on exchanges so I was with a missionary who is from Cambodia who really struggles with the language since he only has had material to learn from english, instead of cambodian, so it brings a whole new level of difficulty into the mix. On the subway home, the other Elder set his backpack on the ground, and this drunk dude got on the subway, and got all upset about his backpack being on the ground. I really didn't want to get yelled at a whole bunch the entire train ride home, so I tried to sooth the situation a little bit, and it worked way better than I thought, because the moment I said anything in Korean this guy got soooooo stoked. It was pretty funny because he kept on speaking to me in english, well if you want to call it that, and I only spoke in Korean. I was not going to be stared at and thought bad of by everyone on the subway so I made sure that everyone around me understood every word I said hahaha. It was pretty funny because there were these two guys that came on the subway that were talking about me at first, and then as soon as I started speaking Korean, they somehow slithered away and kinda tried to hide from me, and I will teach you what they said!
잘 생였다 (chal saeng-yeot-da) It means attractive!
Yeah that's right, they say I'm attractive! Well really they say it about just about anyone who's white so it's not that big of a deal really. It doesn't really mean I'm attractive it just means that they noticed that I'm white and that I look different. It's really interesting the different reactions that you get from all the people in Korea. It's impossible to explain, you'll just have to visit one day when you have more time or want to go on vacation or something.
This week has been pretty good, and I always look forward to my correspondance with America, so thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope fortune smiles upon both you (all the readers) and me as we go through this week, and especially the new missionary that I will be paired up with come wednesday. A week ago, I wouldn't have thought I could train a new missionary, but given the experiences I've had in the past couple days, I know that it's do-able. I know that regardless of Korean ability, and really anything else aside from desires, that there's nothing the Lord won't give us strength to do! I love you all and have a great week!
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I love when his letters are happy and exciting =) If you happen to find his picture on the Korean webspace, please post it on the Facebook & tag him!!!
Hey President!
Man, two weeks in a row that I have had the opportunity to see you and Sister Christensen at church, not to mention that we get to see each other next week too!
This week for study, I've been going through Alma, and since I started kind of late on the reading of it, I've been reading just to read, not to mark the scriptures or anything, and it's way cool to read it that way! I've never really read it in this regard before and I feel like I'm understanding the stories a whole lot better as a result. One thing I have noticed is that it's interesting that some verses in scripture can be very small, but have incredibly wide meaning and repercussions. The one that comes to mind is the statement about the stripling warriors and how they learned everything from their mothers. It's only like 8 lines of scripture, but it means a lot. I think it's kind of cool the influence that something that small can have.
The investigator I'd like to talk about is the same I've talked about before. Last night we met, and she was all excited to meet. This became really apparent when I asked her one questiong, "what does faith mean to you," and she responded in a 45 minute discourse about a whole slew of different things. This also brings me to the miracle that I would like to talk about this week.
In that whole discourse of what seemed to my understanding as very random, she was basically preaching to the member we had. By the end, I was pretty frustrated, and I know that Elder Lee was too, but this member was so awesome. He just calmly and level-headedly addressed any and all of the things she addressed. She had been kinda trying to rip into us, and this brother just kept calm, and did a way better job as a teacher than I could have. It truly is a blessing to be able to teach with members.
I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday and Sunday this week!
-Elder Clawson
Hey there everybody!!!
Are my subject lines fun or obnoxious, feedback on this matter would be appreciated. I try and have fun with it and draw your interest but I'm not sure how well I do. If you have any ideas about how to improve this, wait for it... You can totally contact me via email now because church policy changed and now I can email whomever I please. Well pretty much whomever I please, as long as they fall under the category of friends, church leaders, or recent converts. I'm pretty sure that covers just about everyone, so if you have a desire to email me DO IT!!!! Or you can write letters too, that's still cool. Seriously this is not a joke about the email thing, it's legit a change in church policy so GET AT ME!!!!
Anyways this week, and the explanation for the subject line. I guess I'll just share the experience. So the other day we were going to take out some of the trash, and we got in the elevator and started to go down. We started down, and the elevator stopped on the floor below us. A few people got on. We went down a floor or two more and this other kid gets on. Kind of a bigger kid wearing this big jacket. He immediately proceeds to stand right in front of me at a maximum of 18 inches away, pulls out his pink archaic cell phone, and snaps a picture of me. He looks at the picture, presses a couple buttons, and then what do you think he does next? He takes another picture of me. What do you know, now I'm popular on Korean social networking sites probably. again, GET AT ME!!! Also, no words were exchanged between the two of us in this entire interaction. On a scale of 1 to Barney Stinson not wearing a suit how awkward is that?
Other news from this week that's kinda fun, we picked up this investigator who wants me to play electric guitar with him! We have whats called a 30/30 program where we do 30 minutes of help with something usually like English, but if he wants to play guitar, that fits the bill too, and then 30 minutes of gospel time. His Mom is a super devout Catholic it would seem so it'd be cool to teach her too. I don't know, there's always a lot of cool potential to be found it seems.
Another thing that reminds me of, this week in our English class we talked about dinosaurs! It was so fun for me! Those of you who have spent time around me know about my random knowledge of subjects that aren't particularly applicable to anything, not to mention dinosaurs! It was so fun for me because everybody was talking about things, and all these dinosaurs and it was like I was a child sitting at home watching Jurassic Park again. As a result of that, for the past 4 or 5 days, virtually everything has reminded me of Jurassic Park. I think I could pretty much watch that movie in my head if I just sat there and thought for about two hours hahaha.
This wednesday we have another mission conference thing, and we get to hear from another area 70 I think. I'm pretty sure he's from the 2nd quorum of the 70 and he's in the General Conference listing of general authorities. I believe his name is Elder Aoyagi, and he's an area 70 in Japan. I'm not sure exactly what's it's supposed to be about, but I'm excited nonetheless.
Other big note, happy birthday in two days Mom!!!! I'll teach you how to say happy birthday in Korean!
생일 죽하합니다 (saeng-il chug-ha-ham-ni-da)
Woohoo! Happy birthday Mom!!!!!!! I hope you spend it extra well for me!
Well I'm running out of time so I have to go. No super awesome closing thoughts, except for with regard to that lessons referenced in my email to president, that it's wayyyyy better to just stay calm, and approach things as nicely as you can in the presence of things that bother you, or could present troubles. Kinda another one of those grin and bear it sort of things!
You guys are awesome! I love you!
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I, Lindsay, Sister of Scott, accept full responsibility for not updating this blog last week. I have no excuse. I have been reprimanded and chastised, but just think of how much Scott you get to experience today!!!
Hey President!
It was great to see you at stake conference this week! It seems like we just seem to be running into each other all over the place! This week has been pretty great. I feel like I always say that, but retrospectively there's always something to make the week seem cool it seems.
As for study, I've been continuing to read through Alma and Preach my Gospel as requested. I had never really read through Alma as intensively as this. I feel like as a missionary when you study things, the true message just seems to pop out at you. I obviously knew the missionary stories about Ammon and his brethren, but I didn't realize how similar and applicable they can be to our lives as missionaries. Missionary work is basically the same regardless of the setting it would seem. If we focus on the right things that's the way it should be.
Yesterday we met with that lady who approached us last week with a desire to meet with us. She had been pretty open, but seemed to have no desire to keep commitments, kinda just wanted to see what we believe and didn't understand our intentions. Last night we met and we totally cleared everything up. She really has good intentions, but we were unsure of the direction that the lessons were headed in. Now we are a lot more certain about how to approach things in the future.
Thanks for everything President. See you again on Sunday!
-Elder Clawson
PSYCHE!
Haha, it wasn't me! I fooled you sooo good! You thought I got sick! But really, someone in our house was throwing up two days ago. It was kinda funny, he came running into the house at like 9 and was already half way undressed than ran into the bathroom. This was our zone leader by the way, and he goes home in about 18 days. Great time to get sick don't you think?
Quick one word answer news, no we do not do daylight savings time in Korea, yes I wear my retainer and I always brush my teeth.
So this week has been not a long one, but a lot of stuff was going on. First off we had stake conference this weekend, and it was pretty great. They had Eleven speakers including President Christensen and his wife. The stake president, the 2nd counseler, president Christensen and his wife had about 30 minutes for all of them to talk. It's really begun to bother me when people go over their allotted time. I can only imagine how irritating it can be for the people speaking.
Pretty much everyone spoke on member missionary work actually. It was interesting because in missionary coordination meeting, we tried to talk about it and boy did that blow up in our faces. One of the zone leaders (we share the area with them) tried to talk about it, and he kinda struggles with korean, and it blew up super hard in his face. I felt so bad for him. He's still technically in his first area, and he's two transfers my senior, and his ward mission leader kinda ripped into him. It was hard to sit through. People, it's hard for missionaries to try and bring up member missionary work and be polite about it. Just do it and then we don't have to worry about upsetting situations like that and ruining relationships and the reputations of missionaries. Please just make it easer for us =D
What the heck?!?! Lindsay you got a relief society haircut already?!!!?!?! You're way too young to get you're hair cut short like that! I speak for all men when I say that long hair is better. Granted, a pretty solid balance of member males in the world have had the sam hair cut their whole life, so this argument is kinda silly but hey! Rants are fun from time to time!!!!
This week we were given a couple investigators from the zone leaders since we're in the same area, and I've only met one of them (my companion went on splits to meet the other) and they both seem pretty cool! It's kinda hard because one of them literally talked for 35 minutes straight about what he's thought about with respect to religion and God, but never said what he believes. Weirdest experience ever. I don't think I have ever been in that onesided of a conversation in my life. That seemed to be a trend actually this week. In two of our lessons, I think I said a total of like 8 words each lesson. I simply did not have room to talk! In one of them, the member we were teaching with apologized to me after though so it was okay. Also, he explained a bunch of stuff I never could have so it made it really nice in that regard.
Yesterday when we were on the subway from somewhere we met this guy and he was really cool. The guy lived in Canada for 10 years and he speaks perfect English, and is a boss at fighting. He showed us this video of him doing jiujitsu and he toar that stuff up! He won in legitimately like 15 seconds. Crazy. He was super cool and doesn't like rice! He's korean by the way. Anyways he was a cool dude to meet!
I'm kind of in a bit of a hurry today, so I will leave you with my closing remarks. Sorry for the lack of Korean time today, but I'm low on time, and that takes a while to think of.
Anyways, my last thought is kind of something that I've learned a lot recently. My companion said that when he was little, if he got hurt he used to just start laughing because it would make it better. I've kinda adapted that to life as a whole. If life gives you a hard time, if you run into a tough situation, just grin and bear it, and before you know it, you'll actually be smiling because you're happy. It's hard to do, and takes practice but with time, it's a skill to be proud of. You can almost trick yourself into being happy. I have found it works so often when you need it!
I love you all! If you take time to read this, I love you! Don't be deceived, it's true! I love you!
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Hey President!
That conference this weekend was an awesome conference and a cool birthday present to receive!
As for this week, it's been pretty good. For study, I've been reading from the Liahona again, as well as from Alma. I seem to have hit another of those moods where I have a hard time staying interested in the ancient scripture lexicon. I really like reading the Liahona articles just because they're so real and at us it seems. I know the Book of Mormon is written for us too, but the modern language helps to keep that in mind.
In the new area, we found two new investigators already, or rather they found us. We were walking down the street to visit a member, and this lady stopped us and asked if we could meet soon. When we did meet them, she said that she was brining a friend, and we became slightly worried that they were 전도사s and were just wanting to bash with us, but they weren't! They both just have genuine interest in the church and we haven't even told them about the English program! So cool!
I think that also is the biggest miracle I've seen this week. It feels just like one of those stories that you hear about in a conference talk. Granted there is a lot more ground to cover before it can reach that level, but hey, who's to say that it can't get there!?
Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to hear from Elder Yamashida and Bishop Davies this weekend! It was awesome!
-Elder Clawson
Hey everybody!
For the record I did not cry on my birthday, whoever would have thought that would have happened must just be silly! This week has been pretty great, and I have a lot to tell you, but oh so little time. We have an appointment in not too long, and we showed up at our email place lot later than we thought we would, so I will probably have a whole lot of spelling errors, and forget even more things that I had intended to include in this email, so I apologize in advance.
We had a conference this week like I said in my email to president if you actually read those haha. It was super awesome, we had Bishop Davies from the presiding Bishopric there, and An area seventy named Elder Yamashida, as well as their wives. They were so cool! It was super fun to hear from them and the messages that they shared were way awesome too. I suppose it was a pretty awesome birthday present!
In regards to my birthday, I suppose that the conference counts as something special, and we also went to this fireside afterwards, where I met my companion's parents. While he's been on his mission they have since moved to Korea and come to see him about every four months. I don't know how he does it, but he somehow does haha. It's funny because my companion is about six foot, and his dad is legitimately a whole foot shorter than him. Funniest looking thing you have ever seen, had you seen it haha. His Mom ispretty short too, like 5'5 so I have no idea where his height comes from. It's really strange haha.
We also are now in our new area which has been pretty fun. Like I said in the email to president, we have two investigators who found us. They seem super cool and we're meeting at least one of them tonight. We still don't have the second one's name or number since she's actually just a friend of the first, but they are both super awesome. It's really strange because since we've been transferred, we have more investigators than we had last transfer, and both of them are female, yet we got replaced by females, and they still don't have investigators haha. Just a little funny coincidence.
The weather is finally supposed to be warming up, so it may not be long before I don't have to wear my coat anymore. Also what the heck? It's almost my second General Conference as a missionary as well. This is starting to get really weird and I'm just getting all confused with how long I've been out here.
One really cool experience I had this week was yesterday at church. Even though it was fast sunday, we still kinda introduced ourselves(usually they just do that on normal sundays so it seemed weird to me) Anyways, I introduced myself, and said all the typical things. When the meeting was over, this sister comes up to me and asked how long I've been in Korea. I said four months and she immediately called me a liar. She was saying that my Korean was way too good to only be here for four months. Bit of self esteem there. Also, I've noticed that I understand wayyyyyy more than I think I do. It's kinda confusing in some ways. For a while I had kinda been thinking about it, and I had compared my understanding to listening to somebody talk but they're talking quietly to the point where you can barely here them. That same day my companion pointed out to me that it's not that I don't understand the people, it's that they legitimately do just mumble, and that I have just built up somewhat selective hearing from thinking that I couldn't understand people. This was a really happy day in my life! For all you spanish speakering missionaries, I'm just gonna straight up say that you don't understand the nightmare of confusion of a language that Korean is.
For Korean time, I will share with you, one of the 106 commonly used ways that people refer to someone dying. They legitimately use all of these by the way.
손가락 널었어요 (son-ka-rak neo-reos-so-yo)
I'm not sure if I spelled this right, but it literally means to put your spoon down. They legitimately use all 106 ways to say someone died. That is how Korean is so awful, yet so fun =D!!! This is not the only phrase that is this way just so you know hahaha
I'm trying to think of something awesome and edifying to say, but nothing really comes to mind. All I can think of to say is that if troubles come your way, don't worry about it more than is necessary. My advice to give would be worry less and your life is easier. Especially as a missionary, but that doesn't mean become a bad missionary by any means or don't work. Just don't worry. Whole lot easier that way hahaha, things will work themselves out!
Also, costco is really similar in Korea haha
I love you all! You're the best!!!
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