Week 8

Hooray!  Tuesday is email day while Scott is in the MTC.  Arent his letters long and full of information? So pleased!    =)  Scott is very ready to leave the MTC and go to Korea.  Yikes!  That is a little scary for me, but so very excited for him at the same time. 

By the way, take note of his delightful comment regarding his disappointment that his assignment with the senior missionaries cut into his  study time. Love, love, love that!!!   I wonder if his brain still hurts....

Lance Clawson	12:37 PM (1 hour ago)
to me

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Clawson <clawson.scott@myldsmail.net>
To: clegmaker <clegmaker@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 2, 2012 7:21 am
Subject: Week 8

Hey everyone!
I'm really tired right now cause I just woke up and usually I do the email thing later in the day so I cannot promise to be as fun as usual. Also still not sure what it was but just a second ago there was another disclaimer for this letter I was going to say but I have since forgotten it. Well anyways, I guess I'll kind of just get started as per usual. This week has been pretty fun, and the native Koreans got here yesterday. I've only had the opportunity to talk to one of them really and he doesn't speak much English at all so I'm not sure if talk is the correct word for me to use, but nonetheless they are here, which is way exciting. This means that I now have less than three weeks before I leave this place! Not to say the MTC is a bad place but being that this is my 8th week here or at least 8th letter home, I think you can follow how it could get tiring, and how I just want to be in Korea. The natives just get to be a little taste of the country before I actually get to head over there so that will be way sweet.
In regards to the selective service thing, I was never really sure if I had gotten fully processed or whatever when I did it back home because it was online, and I trust the US government so when they say I didn't register, I have reason to believe them just with how awkward the online thing was. Mom, if you're worried about me being in the draft twice, I doubt I am, and even if the draft was re-instated, I would probably enlist so I don't think it would really make a difference, but it's not really going to be an issue I think. Don't worry about it, just worry about the people of Korea and their needs that I will aim to fill and help with!
So there was a day that I got bored and just ended up watching a gang of the "I'm a Mormon" videos, and Ryan Wright is totally on that website! If you kind surf around it for a while just going and watching all the people's videos, you can find him as one of the full size video things! It's so gnarly to see someone from my home ward (also my mission) that's on that website. I now have a new aspiration in life to be on said website hahahaha. Also that website in generel is pretty sweet, I don't know if you guys have ever checked it out, but it's way legit! I seriously spent like an hour just watching videos of all the awesome people that are in this church and at the same time some of the really weird people hahah. It's pretty cool to look at so if you get a chance that'd be a fun/cool thing to do.
So Nate's washing machine story is kinda silly in all honesty. For lack of a better word I use silly, but I think it's appropriate at the time. That's unfortunate that it broke, but I'm glad to hear that he was willing to replace it even though based on what I've heard I don't think he needed to. I'm still not entirely sure, it's a bit confusing honestly but that's okay, such is life. Nate, in your direction you should check out the Jeremy Jones I'm a Mormon thing. It's pretty legit and he has a snowboard that smells like PIZZA!!!!! How cool is that?!?! Anyways yeah Nate check those out, there's some way sweet videos on there!
As far as my experiences this week there's nothing that's too far out of the ordinary. Oh wait, I just lied, there was something that was strange and out of the ordinary! So yesterday my friend Andrew Walton was supposed to be on a flight to Nicouragua, and they took him to the airport and everything. I guess his flight was American Airlines, and because they're going bankrupt, his flight got cancelled! How awful is that? So Sunday we took a picture and everything and were saying goodbye and all that Jazz, and then yesterday I saw him in the cafeteria at dinner and was just all confused. Fun story kind of, sad, but fun nonetheless. I can only hope that nothing of the sort happens to us when we try and leave for Korea. That would just be the worst thing ever, coming back to the MTC after having been all ready to be in the field and such.
Also kind of along the same lines, none of the elders that are going to Spain have gotten any visas yet. Basically all of these elders are just going to be in the MTC until they get a Visa. That sounds like no fun at all. There's a guy in my district whose friend had a similar problem and ended up in the MTC for 4 months! That, would be worse than going to the airport and having to come back. At any rate I pray neither of these things happend to me, that would just be no fun.
Yesterday, was however one of the best days I've had in a while and I'm not entirely sure why. I was kind of upset at first because our zone had to host the Senior Missionaries which took up the time of our personal study time and gym time. I wasn't too mad about gym but I was kind of upset about missing personal study time yesterday, but I don't know after lunch everything just felt way better and I'm not sure why. We got our 6th teacher yesterday, you're supposed to only have 2, we're on 6. We kind of like to call ourselves the black sheep district. This is our new teacher's first district and first time teaching in the MTC. He is a way great teacher and I'm so glad that we could have him to teach us and have him to be our investigator as well. When we did our progressing investigator lesson with him, my companion and I had a plan by which we wanted to go at first, but I don't think I looked at that plan twice during that whole lesson. It was just a way great lesson and I think probably the best one we as a companionship have taught thus far. It was easy to see the spirit's influence in the lesson, and I know I was aided in my speaking of the language. My only regret of the lesson is that for some reason or another, I have the hardest time remembering the word for testimony! I just can't remember it! I don't know why but for some reason it won't stick. Well at least my companion can remember it so that works out.
I love all you guys and pray for everyone all the time! Be safe and watch out for each other while I'm gone! The best I can do is pray at this point but I'm trying really hard to help as much as I can for everyone!
Elder Clawson

We bought Scott an incredibly cool camera before he left that allows him to upload pictures onto the internet without a computer.  Super easy and user friendly.  Yes, in fact I was motivated by the fact that I wanted to see these pictures and I knew that the easier I made it for Scott, the more likely I was to actually get pictures from him.  These pictures arrived early on Sunday September 16.  He looks fabulous.  =)  We have no idea who any of the other people are.  Likely someone here is his companion and maybe his other roommates.   They are, of course, other missionaries.  I was just happy to get the pictures.

Scott is furthest to the right and looks like a GIANT!  I am sure that he is not that much taller than everyone else but just the way the sidewalk slants or the perspective of the camera or both.

See, not the tallest.  That guy must be pretty tall though.   Scott is about 6' these days.

Sidenote

Scott's emails come on Tuesdays and this week this sidenote came significantly earlier than his main email.  While Scott's main email is indicative of his personality in so many ways, this one, as short and sweet as it is, is soooo the little man that I know and love so very much - he very much knows exactly what he wants and is very specific in his request...  Just these few sentences made me smile. 

What in the world are Spitz sunflower seeds anyway?  But I will find them and he knows that I will. Love you too Scott.   =) 

This isn't really part of the other email, but I was hoping in a future package you could send me sunflower seeds.  Preferably Spitz brand, smoky bbq or chile limon.
Lastly it would be way sweet if you could send me a book of crosswords for the plane cause we aren't supposed to proselyte.
Thanks so much
Love you guys!!!!!!!!!!

Week 7

Hey Everybody!
Another week passes at the MTC and I still can't tell the days apart really.  Kinda fun I suppose but I'm definitely excited to get out of here.  So the new Elders and Sisters showed up last wednesday and they all seem to be a pretty great bunch.  It's kinda fun messing with them a little bit.  I convinced one of the districts that they're teacher who is basically the most white person you could possibly find, had awful English.  They believed me for a pretty long time and then the teacher himself gave it away that he actually can speak English pretty well.  Kind of a bummer but it was fun while it lasted.  There's a lot of great elders, I haven't gotten to aquainted with any of the new sisters, but I'd say that's for the better on some level just because I don't need to be getting to know people that I'll only see for a total of like, 5 weeks of my life probably.  Also if you don't know people then you can't get distracted by talking to them when you should probably be studying or something to that effect.
The language continues to come along pretty well, I love learning it but I wish I could just speak to people conversationally.  We mostly just learn how to teach the gospel and stuff, so we don't get much opportunity to practice the normal vocab either.  I know that it's way important to know the gospel vocab and such, but you need to know how to talk to people otherwise I won't be able to get to a point where I can actually teach anybody.  It doesn't matter where you are, if you just go up to somebody and say "I have a message for you about Jesus Christ", 9 times out of 10 they'll kind of tune you out if they even stick around to listen.  I wish it was that easy because that would be nice, but I guess I'll just have to work to get those conversational skills that are necessary.
I have found out some more things about Korea that are kinda fun yet still kinda strange.  The first thing is kinda strange and relates to how we will be teaching people, but apparently basically every male in Korea will have substantial problems with keeping the Word of Wisdom.  Everybody smokes cigerettes there, and everybody drinks.  I guess illegal drugs aren't too much of an issue, but still, I'll have to learn how to help people overcome addiction which will be a trial in itself.  Also, I found out that most likely I will not be able to proselyte to women in Korea.  Not too sure why this is, but I can speculate, and truth be told it's probably wayyyyy for the better.  I don't know if I've said this before but I guess everybody in Korea likes to talk about religion, it's a really common thing to be the subject of a conversation for some reason or another.  That'll certainly make it easy to find people who will talk to us, but most of them won't really have a Christian background so we'll have to find a different way to go about teaching things.
As far as things in the MTC go, it's finally starting to get cold here which makes me so happy.  As much as I love having hot weather back home, based on our daily activities I would much rather it be cold out while we are here in the MTC.  The proffessional soccer player Elder left today, which is cool for him but at the same time, I've spent more time in the MTC than he has had his call for so that's kinda irritating at the same time, but the Lord didn't call him to learn Korean so I guess it was just what was in the cards.  This week we'll be losing one of our teachers and getting a new one.  Hopefully with only three weeks left, he will be a teacher that we end our time here with.  It's kinda ridiculous, as a district, we're supposed to have 2 teachers with occasionally getting subs.  Our district has had 6 "official" teachers, not 2, and has had virtually every teacher in the entire zone, and then some, sub for us here.  I like the fact that we get to have a bunch of different teaching styles placed before us and that we can have a lot more experiences put before us, but come on!  I didn't know it was possible to have that many teachers in 11 weeks hahahahaa.
This past Sunday at devotional we had another speaker for the second time in our stay here.  I guess they each speak once a month of something, at least the ones for the firesides on sundays.  He talked about the dedication of the temple, which by the way was wayyyyyy cool.  I was so glad that we got to hear from President Packer again.  I love him as a speaker and even though it was kind of a stray from the normal talks it was still way cool.  Anyways, back to the fireside.  The speaker, Stephen B. Allen, talked a great deal about how the Lord's will, not ours will be done.  It was a really great talk that focused a lot on how we should look at what happens while we are here in the mission field.  One thing he said that was really cool was that we invite people to repent, and avoid and end further suffering that they may otherwise bring upon themselves.  I thought that was a really cool way to add on to the usual "we invite people to repent".  Not saying that it's bad on it's own by any means, but nobody wants to suffer so in all honesty I think it makes it wayyyyy more applicable to our investigators.  He also talked about 5 really cool points that describe our power as missionaries.
We are set apart and ordained to do this mission for Christ.  Our power as servents under Christ makes us stronger than any earthly means.
We have the Gift of the Holy Ghost constantly as our companion.  That is to say a member of the God head can always be with us to aid and keep us safe.
We carry the Word of God.  This too is more powerful than any worldy weapon.  We need to use the doctrine and not get in the word's way.
Testimony.  As we record our witness of faith, nourish it, and then share it, people will have no choice but to feel the spirit.
Lastly, our Obedience and character set us apart from anyone else.  If you look at anyone who is my age and not a missionary you see a very different person.  Not saying that they are bad by any means, but people can notice our good character, and for that reason they will listen to us, and our character alone will testify to them.
These 5 things are amazing to think about and a constant reminder of who we are and what we are capable of.  This week I started talking with one of the newer missionaries about secular music a little bit and it started to feel a little bit awkward.  Not because it was something I haven't enjoyed talking about, but because that is no longer who we are.  I love where I am right now and I wouldn't give it up for anything.
Love,
Elder Scott Clawson

Half way through the MTC!!

Hey Everyone!
Everything is going great here in the MTC! there's a lot to talk about and not much time so I apologize in advance for spelling errors and grammar mistakes, also I'll try and throw a little Korean in at ttimes just to spice things up a bit!
So first off It's been way great seeing ELder Evans around and referring to him as such, but is kind of lame to see him go so early, not in the respect that it's lame he spends 3 weeks here, but that I spend 11 and he showed up 3 weeks after me and leaves way before but whatever, it's the lord's decision.  So I've met some really great guys over the last week or so here.  One guy I met is probably going to be playing in a Premier league soccer team when he returns from his mission, and that dude tears it up at soccer accordingly.  It's pretty embatassing to go up against him, but he's still just way fun  to play with.  He's heading to Oklahoma and got his mission call less than a month ago.  From what I gather a whole district of missionaries got sent home because they had the bright idea to try and have hot tub parties in the baptismal font.  Future missionaries, do not do anything that stupid please.  However if you go to Korea you get to hang out in bath houses and hang out in hot tubs anyways! That's way fun, yet slightly awkward at the same time I suppose.  Also future missionaries, try and spend the time prior to your mission getting in the right frame of mind.  I'm not saying that I have had any trouble with that sort of thing, but I have definitely seen other Elders who seem to be having trouble with that sort of thing, and it really shows with their countenence.
Another missionary in my zone, get this, was an olympic gymnast on the Canadian team this year, but decided to serve a mission and just try out for the olympics again in 4 years.  Any of you who think you have something that is more promising than a mission, let this be an example, that you don't.  The lord has plans for all of us, even the ones who are talented beyond belief.  If you ever wonder, think about the guy from Canada, or even Elder Merkley!
So the senior missionaries to us left yesterday.  It was a sad day, but we were way excited for them.  While I'll get to see a lot of them again, the balance of them I probably won't be able to see again, but that's alright they're doing the right thing.  On sunday after sacrament they sand this song called 아리랑 which was easily one of the most powerful songs I have ever heard.  Also the native Koreans sang I Know that My Redeemer Lives, and sorry Desi if you're reading this, but it was hands down the best thing I've ever heard, though at this point I may be significantly more partial to the Korean Language.  The natives are all such great and loving people, and I miss all of them, except I will most likely be able to see all of them again, because all of them will be serving in Seoul!  There's so much to look forward to for when I get to the country and so much more to learn, but I'm still wayyyyy excited even if I won't be able to communicate that well.
With regard to pictures, thats a tough situation for a few reasons.  1st the computers dont seem to like my camera, but I will be dilligent in lookingfor a way to get some pictures home to you.  2nd it's so hard to have time for it all! there's so much to say, but then again a pictures is worth a thousand words, so again I'll keep trying.  Also wouldn'te it be way sweet to jhust get a mountain of pictures all at once? anyways, I'll try and do better about that.  Well the computer just told me to stop talking so I better go, I'm sorry if there's some things i missed, but dear elder me about them, and I will do my best to get back to you!
저는 요로분을 사랑함니다!
그라건 장로님

Google says the Korean at the bottom means "I loved the minutes of the urinary tract.! Gras Gun Elder"  Not so sure that's what he meant. Actually quite certain he meant something completely different. Oh Google...

This is a picture of Scott and Austin. They grew up together. Austin sent a number of pictures in his first week. Scott has not sent pictures. Fail.

Doesn't he look awesome though??? =)

Hello Everybody!

This week has been pretty fun and great and awesome all rolled into one.  So first off I'll let you know about how right now the server on google decided to be mean and not let me get on my mail for 20 minutes, so it took quite the effort to finally get to be able to write this email, but I'm glad that the opportunity finally rolled around.

I'm not exactly sure what the subject matter of this letter will be so I'll just kind of keep going and we'll see what comes about as the letter progresses, since I had lost hope on whether or not I would actually be able to type an email.  So for starters this week in Korean has been pretty fun, I'm finally getting to the point where I may have found a way that works for me in regards to vocab, which is awesome because prior to now I was doing awesome in grammar and could make up sentences, but the stinking vocab or lack thereof was keeping me from being too amazing with it really.  Now I think I'm doing a lot better with it and I'm pretty sure my teacher has noticed too.  The language is tough, but it's way cool and I'm growing to love it a lot!  The only thing that's kind of a bummer yet kinda cool I suppose at the same time is that I can't really work that well conversationally as opposed to in lessons.  I know the lessons and such are more important, but you have to have a way to begin the conversations with people right?!?!  Anyways, I'm sure that will just come in time.  Also, feel free to let me know how awful my english is becoming, I can't really notice a difference, but since Korean grammar is like the total opposite of what English grammar is, I wouldn't be surprised if my English had begun to deteriorate. 

So I think we're at a record high or something on people in the MTC right now, I've heard that we're at something like 2500 missionaries here right now, but I imagine pretty soon the numbers here will start dropping and it'll be a lot less crowded everywhere.  Elder Evans came into the MTC last week, and I'll tell you right now, any look of bewilderment you may have seen in the past on his face pales in comparison to the one I saw on his first day when he got here.  That being the case, I decided it would be necessary to give him what I imagine was the 3rd or 4th biggest hug he got that day (behind his family of course).  I haven't seen too much of him, but I'm sure he'll adjust well to the life style here, and won't have too much trouble once he gets out into the field.  Also, I keep running into Elder Conover, dudes not even that tall, maybe an inch or two taller than me tops, and that may seem like a lot, but when I have a roommate that is like 6'4", it doesn't seem like much really.

I got my voice back from whence it was lost, which is pretty awesome, it was no fun having lost my voice, trying to teach lessons, and having nothing whatsoever to work with.  It did force me however to rely on my companion more, which was a great experience, considering I like to be pretty independant.  Also, I'm super stoked that I can finally sing(if you want to call it that) at the devotionals again.  That's basically my favorite part of the week and I couldn't even do it, so lame, but it is lame no more.

I've loved recieving packages from people! it means a whole bunch!  Thanks Sister Demayo and Sister Nevarez, and of course family, that goes without saying!  Mail is always a fun time of day, and now that my companion is district leader I'm more or less the first person to recieve it!

The devotionals in this past week have been pretty great!  I can't really remember what it was last tuesday, every day is kind of molding together at this point, but I'm sure it was an awesome talk at any rate, I think it might have been on obedience, which is always a good topic for missionaries to hear about.  On Sunday we watched the celebration of President Monson's birthday, which was pretty awesome.  If you haven't seen it, I advise anyone who reads this letter to check it out.  It was pretty great!

조는 한국사람을 사랑합니다 구리고 조의 가족과 조의 친구들을 사랑합니다

사랑

그라슨 장로님

^^^^^^

(clawson)

I apologize if I spelled something wrong in Korean and it doesn't turn out to make sense, and if grammar makes it look weird, just know Korean is backward from English.

 

 

Google translate says the korean means...

 

"I love the Korean people, and I love the friends and family section
Love
That Larson Elder"

 

 We love him too =)