Hmmm, I wonder why my tall, white, American brother Scott hears people pointing out a foreigner on a regular basis...
Hey President!
This week has been pretty good as always. For study I worked on a lesson that I had for gospel principles class quite a bit. It was on honesty and there was a lot I learned myself from it. I realized that there were things that I had been seeing blessings from that I wasn't even aware of. Not so much as a missionary since some of the things I learned had to do with downloading music versus buying it and that sort of thing, and that's obviously not too much of an issue as a missionary haha.
Our investigator is doing alright. Since he was primarily an English interest investigator, we tried to make an effort to make the english part of our lessons good, as well as the gospel side of things. The english went well, and I know that I felt the spirit, and I think that he definitely should have. We had definitely done everything we could have to help him feel it. I think he's a little slow to accept things just because he's never been religious, but there's potential there in any case.
A huge miracle that I saw this week came in the form of that gospel principles class. I somehow was able to fill up the allotted time without any real hitches. They did give me less time than originally expected, but I had to cut out a whole lot of my material from my lesson, so I guess that was a case where faith preceded the miracle.
Thanks for all that you do for us president!
-Elder Clawson
Hey Everybody!!!!
Another week here in this wonderful country, and somehow this transfer is almost over. Not quite sure how that worked out but it did, and all the sudden in a little bit there's going to be a bunch of 18 year-olds hanging out here in the mission. Crazy... Also really funny story, remember that girl Hayoung? Well if you went to school with me you certainly do, this statement is more towards my family and home ward then. She is in Korea right now, in the same ward as my companion's parents. That's so crazy to me! Hayoung, stop following me! Also, Hayoung is going to the same mission as Logan. So, Logan, if you get this forwarded to you, look out for a crazy Korean sister named Sister Lee. Hayoung, if you see an Elder Williams once you get to Boston, don't slap him please. Besides that's against the rules. hehehe
Other news from this week that has been fun, my companion served in this zone before so he knows a bunch of people from this other ward in the stake. The bishop of that ward has a major in oriental medicine, and with my companions back problems, he had the opportunity to go to that Bishop's house and have oriental medicine practiced upon my companion. He had a bunch of needles and such in him. At first I was really sceptical about it being that I am me and am sceptical about just about everything like that, but apparently it worked on some level, and has somewhat of a degree of legitimacy to it. Now my companion has a bunch of bandaids with little needles coming out of them in his ear so that the effects of said medicine practice last a little longer. His ear is super sensitive now and it's kinda funny to me hahaha.
Really crazy thing about this experience is that the family totally knew about our home area and such! They lived in Korea town a while back, and this is the really crazy part to me. I told them that we lived in the Redlands temple district, and they said that they were at the Redlands temple open house! I was tripping out because we totally were too! It's not that much of a connection, but there's a solid possiblity that we were at the same place at the same time, 6000 miles away from here. crazy... It was really weird to me. Plus the Bishop's wife wouldn't say it at first, but I found out that she's super good at English.
On Saturday we had dinner at the ward mission leader's house, and his family was super fun. We went there straight from practicing for that musical program next month so I still had my guitar. Naturally, this resulted in me playing for them. Whenever this sort of thing comes up, I always play the same song, just because it's the one song that everyone ends up being impressed by. I played that song, its kinda like August Rush, and since nobody really plays like that, it always solicits a good reaction I suppose. Anyways, it did that time, and now I have the great fortune of being able to play that song as a solo at that music thing next month. I really need to start hiding my abilities as much when I visit members hahaha. Not really though I guess, I suppose it's a good thing to share ones talents, especially since it was a really cool family. It's really interesting because we have dinner at the bishop's every now and then and the environments in those two houses were just so different. The Bishop's home truth be told is a lot nicer of a house, but the environment is so awkward. You can practically taste the tension in the family when you're there. The ward mission leader's home, while a much more humble place, has so much of a happier vibe to it. Everyone gets along and the children enjoy each other's company. I guess it's a huge testament to the fact that there certainly are things that are of greater value than money.
For things that you can learn in Korean this week, by the way, I am still taking requests, I shall do a phrase that white people tend to hear a whole bunch
외국인 있다 (wae-gook-in eed-dah) Literally translated to "A foreigner exists"
Pretty much this means "look, a foreigner". If I walk by any female under the age of 20, 100% chance, they're thinking it if not saying it. You hear it alllllllll the time, and it's really fun that nobody knows that we understand Korean sometimes.
Hearing about Dad's differentiation between suffering and struggling is pretty cool. It's something that I think is really applicable to missionaries. A really good example of this that I can think of is Jackie Chan! When he gets tied to a chair, he doesn't just sit there and all the sudden is free. No, he starts wiggling around like crazy and moving until he's finally in a position that he can get himself free, or at least in a more maneuverable position. We need to wiggle around and work, so that the opportunities to get away from our problems will present themselves. We have to struggle before the opportunity at clarity and knowledge will be presented to us.
I love you all, I'm sorry this email isn't as good as usual, but I feel like this week was somewhat lackluster in some regards. Maybe next week will be more fun!
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