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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