Amiracle, miracle! Beautiful, beautiful!

Hey everyone!So these last two weeks have been fairly exciting, tough ones for me but different from the normal. As you know last week was choosok or the Korean equivalent of thanksgiving so our whole weekend was shot to pieces though we did get to meet one of our investigators and set a baptismal date for the 1st of November! Long time away but with conference and him traveling for work that is the soonest we could have him out to church twice by! Sounds like conference went amazingly well and that everyone was spiritually edified. Elder 최 of the seventy spoke, that’s awesome-I shoke his hand about 3 months ago! lol This next week we get to hear General Conference for the first time because of the delay- I can’t wait. We get to listen to it in English because it is hard for even elders who are just getting ready to go home to understand it in Korean, heck Koreans even have a hard time with it.Anyway onto the happenings of this last week, these last couple of weeks have been tough ones on me but I am back to my good ole’ happy self. Last week it seems like all we did was sit around because of choosok doing records and things like that- really not very fun but when we got out it was a relief. We had a sports conference with our zone on Saturday and my goodness I believe every person was sore from that for about three days. We played dodge ball and those are not muscles you use much in missionary work or even think about exercising in the morning- maybe we will all think about that some more! We went and got to see a traditional Korean music and dance show with our members, it was way cool, once I get my other memory stick I’ll send the videos back to you of it! This last weeks miracles…I have to think… we have lots of miracles here in dong jak but when everyone disappears its kind of hard to find them! lol No joke, one day you are surrounded by 2 billion people and the next-it’s a stinking ghost town, it was a bit weird to walk out and be the only ones on the street! Anyway we did see a miracle on Sunday night, we went out to proselyte on the street to the few people who were there and we did all according to our training from president burton and we went out and found an amazingly prepared man, we are supposed to meet him again tomorrow so hopefully it happens! A Miracle, Miracle-not quite the same as beautiful huh Mom?Anyway this week was good- I love you all.Elder Greg GrantP.S. Tell uncle trent to get back on his feet and that he may have to prosecute himself if he keeps beating the neighbors!

Brr...mmmm...kimchi

Brrr....mmm...kimchi‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 11/11/09 9:27 PM
To:
tetonwildflower@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hey so all everyone gets is a paragraph this week, I only got 45 minutes because that is all the library here is allowing. Ghetto huh!So I hope everyone is well and fine having a grand old time in the snowy reaches of the north. The weather here in Korea has taken a shift to the colder side of things but you know how much I love the cold, though I think that is because I am normally playing when I am out in it not walking all day! So any suggestions for how to work in an area with less people are greatly appreciated as it is rather difficult to find in this new area! We got to join in the kimchi making process this last Tuesday and it was an absolute blast, rubbing hot sauce type stuff all over cabbage leaves for three and a half hours what could be more fun? It was really fun though, we had all these old grandmas we were working with and they were shoving rice cakes and kimchi down our throats for us as we had our hands full of cabage, I don’t think I need to ever see kimchi again! Not gonna lie though, I have grown kind of fond for having it at every meal, including breakfast! People may start to think I am a Korean!Lol Hope everyones week has been good and wish you the best up ahead. I will be going to the mission home next Thursday so if you send letters tomorrow I should be able to get them by then f the time schedule Is the same as usual!Love,Greg

Snow

Snow‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 11/18/09 9:53 PM
To:
spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; tetonwildflower@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hello all of my family in the snowy, cold, far reaches of the united states of America!So today we woke up and my fetish for exercise has us outside every morning exercising by running around the church parking lot and basketball court(Dirt), and what do you know but the snow started to fall straight down from the sky, okay maybe it was just a few flakes but it has officially(unofficially if you look at it from idahos viewpoint) snowed for the first time. The Weather has gotten significantly cold here and is making it hard to get people to want to talk with you on the street but hey that is just how life goes!LolSo this last week has been a good one. Generally the life in siheoung is much slower compared to the one I had been living in dong jak, less people, less everything is what it seems like but we do have a baptism lined up for next week though we haven’t been able to get back into contact with him after he took the equivalent of the ACT last week. Pray for us and for him so that we can all know what is right concerning his baptism! The work in shiheoung is good if not slow at some points, many a time you find yourself walking and just not very many people being in existence around you, sounds like Idaho!Lol My thinking is that it is time to get to work and shut up those many souls who say that our area has no people, the Zone leaders, our district leader and basically every other missionary who has ever heard of our area. This next week my goal is to be “The Intense One”, we will hit every standard and then some and just work hard, I like the sound of that idea but that’s what we do every week!Lol Just waiting to see some results come. I got transferred in here right after they had a month with seven baptisms from refferals so we are now building our investigator pool back up!SO the funny thought or story of the week, this last Saturday we had an appointment at our church at eight o’clock the only problem being that we were looking at our watches and it was five to eight and we were a good twenty minutes walk from the church. “Lets take a Taxi,” sounds in unison as we both know we need to get there fast. Well we get into a taxi and tell him where we want to go and he starts speaking to us and says basically he is from an area about two hours away but will get us there by using his navigator. We were headed to an area which was only five minutes away but he headed in the totally wrong direction, after about three minutes of driving we both tell him he must have put in the wrong direction but he wouldn’t listen; “No, I used my GPS we will have no problems!” Uhh… but what I am telling you mister is that we are already having a problem, we wanted to get to a place in the city we were in and now we are on the highway!:) We went for ten minutes like this and he said you don’t know because you are foreigners! Finally I busted out some very stern word usage in Korean and he was like, oh, your serious, you mean you don’t want to go here. We then had to travel for another twenty minutes to turn around. In all it took like and hour and fifteen minutes to go a five minute cab ride away. Ughh, good thing he only charged us for the first five minutes!Annoying, moral of the story is do not use out of town cabbies. This week has been slow but you know missionary work is always good!Love,Elder Greg Grant

Mmmm...American Food--thanksgiving

Mmm...American fOOD?‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Thu 11/26/09 1:15 AM
To:
tetonwildflower@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! SO I don't have much time today as we have already been to one of the senior couples homes to have thanksgiving dinner. We went to a couple from Idaho Falls home cnamed the pickets(He knows you Grandpa GRant, what A coincidence I still here about you half-way across the world!HAha). It was us and one other companionship as most went across the river to members on the army bases homes. It was delicious and we enjoyed a good couple of hours together discussing our blessings and just eating. Whew, I haven't had American food in a long time, it is both very salty and very sweet but is still my main mantra!Lol This week has been a rather long one we have been stuck in the house a bit as both my companion and I have been sick, I seem to have gotten it pretty bad and was laid up with a 102 degree fever but am much better now. We did recieve a rather good scolding from sister Burton for going out yesterday to do all our appointments but you have to figure the lord will bless you if you are willing to serve hard! She said yeah he will but he also gave you heads for a reason!lOL gOTTA LOVE SISTER BURTON. I love you all and hope you have a great weekend.Ps. Mom in the next package if you could restock my cold medicine supply that would be great, not quite sure what to trust here!(No one is!)Love you all,Elder Greg GRant

Miracles are preceeded by faith...pulled a member in

Miracles are preceeded by faith!!!‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 12/02/09 9:50 PM
To:
tetonwildflower@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hey everyone, so this week has been a fairly busy one but also a fairly good one. We had zone conference on monday and had to make the three hour trip into the mission home again for the second time in as many weeks, that makes for a long day on the bus, yuck. This last week the mission took a real dive so we got a little bit of a chewing out from president but we are back on our feet and running strong with a strong knowledge of our purpose as a missionary here in Korea after zone conference. After the training we all went up into the birtons home and ate lunch and then had a testimony meeting up there. The spirit is always felt so strongly by everyone present in mission testimony meetings. Just hearing others testiomonies makes mine stronger. I nknow christ lives and i know his atonement is meant for all if the will only access it! Let us all remember the life of chrsit during this christmas season, i know I will even though christmas is non-existant here in Korea!Lol So what else went on this week, miracles, So i just want to tell of one last night. Last night I just got back into our area after being on splits with the zone leaders, Side note. So we went on splits tuesday and I got to go with elder eem a korean, what I would not kill to have the opportunity to have a native companion, we had so much fun together! So back to the miracle. The zone leader and elder mills had planned for two lessons(Set a goal ) with a member but elder mills had only set up one and we had another APPOINTMENT but it was with a kid they had met on the street the day before and it was very iffy so we usually wouldn't get a member. At this point I put my trust in the lord and said well if thats the goal you set we have to get it so I scheduled a member to help us at the church at 8:15 after we picked this kid up at the nearest intersection. SO 8:05 came and the kid had punked us just like most students in Korea and I Said, "Elder Mills, its time to pray, we set this goal and we have a member lets pull someone into the church with us and get this lesson as our member is probably there waiting for us." We proselyted back to the church and I could see our member in front of the church gate waiting and we had two sets of people in front of us, a student and also a family, I was going for the family when i felt like I should talk to the student and so i stopped dead in my tracks and shouted out, "아,학생" or thge equivalent of hey you student directly translated. I asked him where he was going and his name and age which is the norm in korea and he told me he was late for academy which all students attend here. I said well I know you are late but do you have five minutes we could talk to you in our church right over there. He said yes, never does a student late to academy say yes to something like that, it was a miracle and we will meet him again sunday night. It was great as we taught him with a preparing missionary who just got his call 2 days ago to daejun korea, he thought it was an amazing miracle, which it was! I love missionary work! Have a good week. SO this week has been a good one, know I love you all and wish you the best!Love, Elder Greg GrantP.S. Thanks for the package grandma, i am loving the jam and the big cookies are always my fav!

Christmas here and everywhere

(No Subject)‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 12/09/09 8:47 PM
To:
tetonwildflower@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hey everyone in the snowy reaches of the united states, this is Elder grant here reporting in from the rather wind bitting South Korea! They say Idaho and Korea are on the same parallel but I am not quite sure that I can believe that as it gets cold here for about a day and freezes everything and then goes back to raining and just driving the humidity straight through any coat you have on and into your body, sounds fun right?LolSo today was transfers, can’t believe it has already been six weeks! The big news is…….I am staying here in 시흥 with Elder Mills. Hopefully it is a great next transfer as this last one has been a little bit labor intensive with very few results. We are looking into going into this next transfer with a total of maybe three investigators, two who we have just found in the last week and one that has been meeting with missionaries for six months and her two little boys are baptized. She is a great woman and says she will be baptized but she has a word of wisdom problem with coffee and with alcohol because of work and she doesn’t want her boys to see her break the commandments after she is baptized. We have tried to get her to work on it and she is but the economy is so bad she says she has to drink to stay up in the real estate business here. Maybe grandpa adair if you could send me a letter for her about mainting integrity in the business and also something “American style- real estaty” that would be awesome, I have talked with her about you and that has been my way into her hard shell. I am one of the first missionaries she has really opened up to ever about her problems so hopefully we can get her to baptism this transfer. Other than those three who only meet once a week a piece we have no one, so it looks like it will be a building transfers full of miracles, and we will see baptisms, I promise!So this weeks funny story comes from our crazy member, litteraly he has lost his mind. He thinks that the missionaries have an inside contact with the u.s. embassy and government and that we can get him into a meeting with the president to talk about the trade market and getting Blackhawk choppers into Korea, weird. SO this week he has been calling us more than normal, about twice a day, drive me nuts. He is the sweetest man but when he calls after I have fallen asleep three nights in a row it really makes me kind of crazy to!Lol But last night we were waiting for transfer calls and elder Mills was a little anxious and he called and elder mills was sitting there waiting to see if he got a call and he thought he was leaving shiheoung, but he’s staying, just a funny moment in the week! SO its Christmas here and everywhere I hope everyone has a great holiday month! I know I will, and it will be full of the Saviors work and name! I hope you all keep him in your thoughts all the time this time of the year and the whole year for that matter!With love,

...New Area...like NO people here..just 400,000

hey Family, Good to here from all of you and it sounds aas though everyone is doing well! So this has been my first week in the area of 시흥, quite the trip going from the dead center of seoul to one of the largest least populated areas in our mission, there are like no people here!Lol I say that but there really are tons compared to Idaho, I just cant stick my hand out and start talking to someone else after I have finished with a different person. So Elder Mills is from hailey, Utah and graduated in 2007. He will go home in may. He had some troubles in the first part of his mission mainly with confidence but they lead to several other things. He’s rather a shy Chap and really has no interest in sports or the outdoors whatsoever! he isn’t too bad actually, at least he is willing to go outside and exercise every morning! The big thing he likes top do is sing and act, not so much the acting part but more directing. We have a lot in common on that side of things but other than that we really don’t have much going for us and I think I have heard about every play he has been in twice over!Lol With not very many people in siiheoung there leaves a lot of time for talking as youre walkin!Lol So apparently I am an intense missionary! Lol I have now been told by my last two companions that exact thing! However it also feels like I got trained and had to make the Jump up to senior companion immediately! It just amazes me how some people can come out here and not have much of an initiative to do the work or that they are just plain to scared to spread the gospel! Elder Mills is great and we get along well, but he is as big of a pushover, sloth that there is!Lol the pushover part is good because I can get him out working and doing it the right way! He really is good if just slightly odd!JSO this weeks gospel message comes from the war chapters in Alma! I have been reading over them this last week and I realized that you can learn out of them principles which apply to daily life! I want to take the principle of preparation today! So the Lamanites are getting ready to come to war right? What does Helamen do? Theres a three step process after he realizes they must prepare-one, turn your hearts to god, two, ask him what to do, and three do it! The big part I got was that through this preparation he established defenses for his people. He had so many barriers to protect his people that the lamanites couldn’t get in. The same goes for us in life, we need many barriers of protection. Satan is attacking us from all sides so we must turn to god, ask what to do and do it. The do it part in our case is to make ourselves a fortress. We start with our morales, we must define them now and what we will and will not do. The next step is throwing up the walls and spike and defenses- this would be our friends family prayer(Sorry for the bad typing I have to hurry_) scripture reading. After we set these up and if we defend ourselves in the right way we are impenetrable. However we must establish good friends in the beginning as satan will work to our weaknesses. Satan got to adam through eve, we cannot let ourselves be gotten to by satan through others!( Realized that in the temple today!) I am loving life and all that is in it!

Love,Elder Greg GrantP.S. we just set a baptismal date for the 14th-pray for kim duck goon.

Last week in dong jak

Brrr. I love Idaho weather‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 10/21/09 10:44 PM

Hey everyone there in good old Rexburg and all around in the U.S. of A. My Favorite time of the year has officially arrived here in Korea, it is fall and the leaves are turning and falling all over the place and the little old grandma’s the city employs are always scrambling to pick them up the moment that they fall! Its funny, they walk the streets all day looking for even a single leaf on the ground. I realized when I was watching them do that yesterday that Korea is really extremely clean for how many people live in it, something else to be grateful for!

So lets start off with a funny story from this week. SO in Korea the lives of every man and many women evolve around two things, sadly things which are against the commandments, Beer and Cigarettes. So every weekend all the men go out and get drunk and there are always the few who start the weekend early, like Monday morning at twelve o one. Okay maybe its just always the weekend for them. Anyway elder skousen and I ran into just such a guy! This man walked up to us his face beet read and swollen up a bit because of having had so much of the local brew from here in dong-jak. He shook my hand and he says, “Oh, your hands are cold, the weather is getting really cold huh? You will catch a cold if your hands are cold. Let me help!” He promptly shoves my hand into his armpit and here I am left just thinking-“Uhhh….Okay..this would be totally akward in America!” After I finally got my hand away and refused allowing him to warm my other hand up elder skousen and I turned to walk away and both just stated howling with laughter, it must have been quit the site to see this little Korean man trying to warm up this amercan but it was even more weird being the American he was doint it to! Drunk Men and there antics, sheesh! I have been kissed on the hand, up the arm, had my hands warmed up, several other things which I will not mention but are to be avoided in the future. Whats next, a smacker on the lips? I actually know an elder who had a drunk guy do that to him, not me man, you’ll be nursing a bloody nose before you get that close to me! 

This week has been a good one, rather slow with everyone getting used to the cold weather again. I love it though! I do feel colder than I ever did in America early in the mornings, maybe cause I am not always playing tennis no matter how cold it is!LolI

love Korea and can’t wait for the snow to stat falling! The next transfer comes on this next p-day and I will probably be moving but you never know what will happen!I love you all, have a great week!

Love,Elder Grant그랜트 장로

New Transfer to She Hung--the countryside of Korea

Subject: Transfered!>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:06:50 +0000> >

SO I finally got the call to kmove up to the big place, well, at least the hills are a little bit bigger and the cities a little more spaced out but there aren;t that many people, I mean come on, there is only 400,000 poeple living here in 시흥(SHe hung), compared to well over 2 million in my last area which is roughly 1/4 the size of this area!Lol Korea certainly loves to stck people on top of people! The new companions name, drum roll please............Elder Mills.

Elder Mills is from about 15 minutes outside of Roy, Utah. He loves computer games, and more importantly acting! We should be able to have a great transfer together this next transfer, they really have seen miracles here in the past so we will look to throw some more into the frying pan!>

This last week was a great one in dong jak, I just love that place and I hope I get to serve there again before I go home, the ward is amazing and it will always be special because it is my first are and I saw tons of miracles there! This last week we really rocked ther socks off of the are absolutley destroying the standards and pulling person after person in off of the street, it truly was miraculous and the work there is booming. My last day there we set two baptismal dates and it looks like in two weeks time we will have six people enter the waters of baptism, absolutley amazing to bad I had to move on, I am excited though! We will work those same miracles here in she hung!>

Sorry to hear that everyone is catching that nasty flu, try and stay healthy for me will ya'll! Yes the same flu bug has started to hit here. President Burton and Sister Burton are really worried about it but tell us to be smart about hygeine and the Lord will do the rest!> We don;t have much time today cause we are on one computer but know that I am alive and well! I love you all and pray for you always!>
Love,>
Elder Greg Grant>

P-day October 7, 2009

Hey everyone!So these last two weeks have been fairly exciting, tough ones for me but different from the normal. As you know last week was choosok or the Korean equivalent of thanksgiving so our whole weekend was shot to pieces though we did get to meet one of our investigators and set a baptismal date for the 1st of November! Long time away but with conference and him traveling for work that is the soonest we could have him out to church twice by!

Sounds like conference went amazingly well and that everyone was spiritually edified. Elder 최 of the seventy spoke, that’s awesome-I shoke his hand about 3 months ago! lol This next week we get to hear General Conference for the first time because of the delay- I can’t wait. We get to listen to it in English because it is hard for even elders who are just getting ready to go home to understand it in Korean, heck Koreans even have a hard time with it.

Anyway onto the happenings of this last week, these last couple of weeks have been tough ones on me but I am back to my good ole’ happy self. Last week it seems like all we did was sit around because of choosok doing records and things like that- really not very fun but when we got out it was a relief. We had a sports conference with our zone on Saturday and my goodness I believe every person was sore from that for about three days. We played dodge ball and those are not muscles you use much in missionary work or even think about exercising in the morning- maybe we will all think about that some more!

We went and got to see a traditional Korean music and dance show with our members, it was way cool, once I get my other memory stick I’ll send the videos back to you of it! This last weeks miracles…I have to think… we have lots of miracles here in dong jak but when everyone disappears its kind of hard to find them! lol


No joke, one day you are surrounded by 2 billion people and the next-it’s a stinking ghost town, it was a bit weird to walk out and be the only ones on the street! Anyway we did see a miracle on Sunday night, we went out to proselyte on the street to the few people who were there and we did all according to our training from president burton and we went out and found an amazingly prepared man, we are supposed to meet him again tomorrow so hopefully it happens!

A Miracle, Miracle-not quite the same as beautiful huh Mom?Anyway this week was good-

I love you all.
Elder Greg Grant

P.S. Tell uncle trent to get back on his feet and that he may have to prosecute himself if he keeps beating the neighbors!

P-day September 30, 2009

Hello‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 9/30/09 11:09 PM

Hey everyone,This week is a weird week here in Korea, its what is known as choo-sook. Basically it is the equivalent of our thanksgiving back in the united states but they go out and “Worship” their ancestors per say and then come home and feast. The big main day is on Sunday this year but its basically like a week long holiday where everyone disappears from seoul out to their hometowns. Today is an email only p-day so we can get some work done this week. Our real p-day will be on Saturday when we shall have a sports conference with our zones. Fun stuff but really not much has been going on with the missionary work.

We just set a baptismal date with a guy before we came here to email. I will probably be gone when it happens on nov. 1 though. We had to push it so far back because this week is a holiday, next week is general conference here(They have to have time to translate), and the next he will be in china, so he has to come to church at least those two times. If he keeps reading the book of Mormon he will be just fine though!

Ahh…any big happenings going on this week? Not really, two days ago I went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Lealuai who just happens to be the elder that Nathan dalling trained when he was here in country!lol It was fun, I learned a lot and it was good to have a change from dong jak for a day! One of the cool things I learned while I was on exchanges came from the first ever patriarch here in Korea.

He spoke of nephi and his brothers and how when nephi was told by the lord to go and make a boat he didn’t just ask the lord for a boat, he asked where is the material so I can make the tools so I can make the boat. That is what we have to do in life. We cannot just expect the lord to give us things, it doesn’t work that way. We have to ask the lord to open our eyes so that we can see what we must do to be able to do things the way he wants them done. It really was an eye opener for me in missionary work.

The last while we have been struggling to find investigators and this patriarch said, “ We can’t just ask the lord to give us prepared people, we must ask him what we must do in order to find these prepared people.” Or in other words we must first have all of our tools and then ask the lord if our plans are according to his desires and then and only then will we be able to do things the way the lord truly wants.This last week has been a slow one and kind of hard but missionary work truly does teach you lots about life and how you have to live it!

I love you all,Elder Greg Grant

Incinerated....what...send Jerky as "snacks" in your pkgs

Incinerated?? 모요?(What?)‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 8/26/09 9:04 PM
To:
spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; tetonwildflower@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hello everyone in cold Idaho, its actually starting to cool down a little here to though I guarantee its still hotter than what I ever fell in Idaho! So this week has been a fairly good week- lots of hard work but very fun! I love doing this work, it truly is amazing how quickly it can change peoples lives! SO funny story of the week comes from the package that Mom sent me three weeks ago. So we got mail yesterday because of Zone conference and I was slightly disappointed as no package existed but I did have a Korean letter and I was thinking, “now who the devil could this be from, I haven’t left my area yet so no Korean would be writing me!” Well I translated it during Korean study this morning and come to find out my half pound of beef jerky has been confiscated and they needed to know what I wanted them to do with it. So the first word I read was destroy, I was like uhh…ohhh. I better request more deodorant and toothpaste asap today then we were all laughing at what it said at this time because it said the whole package would get thrown into the burner, needless to say I wanted my package, so I called up the number on it and got a Korean and I had to discuss what to do with my package in Korean!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… so I was wondering what a certain word she was saying meant, I looked it up fast while talking with here and it was incinerate! I quickly said I was a foreigner serving in Korea and that I couldn’t speak Korean well and asked for someone with English ability- to bad the only person they had was maybe thirty [percent fluent but we got it worked out and when we go to the mission home next week the package should be there, or so I hope! Lol If you want to send letters get them sent asap and I will get them next week and after that I probably won’t get any for about 4 weeks.()This weeks spiritual story… it happened just yesterday. So we got back from zone conference and had nothing planned but teaching a less active member who has basically reactivated himself at eight. SO we come in from contacting in the rain and have this appt. and this lady from english class who kinda has the hots for our inactive shows up and sits in on our lesson about the commandments. Where is the miracle in this, this lady has come to church for the last four weeks just to be around this guy but will not here the sisters or meet with them, but she overheard us make an appointment with this guy on Sunday and is now going to meet with us and him to be taught about the fullness of the gospel. The Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes but at least she is now willing to learn and listen!This week has been good, not to much going on in our area as it is basically all students and this is the biggest time of year for Korean tests so no one can really meet, but we will keep working hard!With Great Love and Respect,Elder Greg Grant

Miracles and ...something about "Mormons"

From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 9/16/09 8:56 PM
To:
tetonwildflower@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; tggran@yahoo.com; joeadairrealtor@aol.com
Hello Idaho and boy am I in love with dong-jak!So transfers were today and guess who is staying for his fourth in dong-jak, that’s me! I am so happy right now its insane. Here in our area we are truly seeing amazing miracles, when Elder Haviland left he left us with basically no investigators because we baptized all them, so we had a rough first few weeks. However, through working hard Elder Skousen and I have built our pool back up and are ready to feel it with the water again! It is amazing the blessings that the Lord blesses you with when you work harder than you ever have before in your whole life! This last week we found five new investigators and one is going to get baptized next Sunday and one the Sunday after, it is amazing how the Lord works! Alright miracle story time and it has nothing to do with baptisms, unless we remember our purpose and say we will eventually baptize this man! SO last night, we had a great day, a real preach my gospel kind of day if you know what I mean, but we had worked our trash of and taught tons of lessons and talked to tons of people. We’d met all of our goals and exceeded them but one, a new investigator. It’s 8:50 and we are on the street to home and we have to take decide to take the short cut which will get us home in plenty of time or keep going and maybe end up running to not be late. You never think things like this really happen, but we decided to go the long way. While walking along we picked our pace up some and Elder skousen got stuck behind a group of old grandmas a ways back so I saw a guy and decided to talk with him as I walked. Come to find out he had just gotten off of work and had read something about “Mormons” and an angel Moroni a couple months back on the internet. Boy was I ever surprised! I had been praying the whole night that if I would talk to everyone(Every man) That walked past that we would find our new investigator because we had set the goal. Well, we ended up taking him to the church and using the extra 30 minutes you can have if you are teaching a lesson to teach him about the restoration. We’ll meet him again next week, it truly was amazing. It really strengthened my testimony of the power of prayer, faith, and planning. If you plan everything perfectly so our father in heaven knows what you will be doing and where you will be he can put miracles in your path- but only if you truly have faith that he will will you be able to see and receive those miracles! The biggest thing I learned was that you must have these two but you must have a a prayer in your heart as well for his help- to help you see the opportunity and then the miracle inside of the opportunity. It is just like in life- if we pray the Lord can help us see different opportunities or things we should be doing!Alright so a little bit of info. About what went on with transfers, nothing really changed with me or elder skousen however our re is changed a lot. We have an amazing ward and a great area so president saw fit to move sheelim to another house and put two more missionaries in dong-jak. So we now have elder rigby from bonnevile-utah and elder Lufkin from rigby Idaho! Elder rigby with and elder from rigby!!! There cool but this area will be being pushed a lot harder with four elders. Our ward will really have to step up to the plate just as we missionaries will. So keep us in your prayers!Lifes great as a missionary. I love hearing from you all! Thanks for your support!Love,Elder Greg Grant P.S. Fall is here and I love it! Can’t wait for winter to hit!

Nothing funny happens here! September 2, 2009

funny...nah...nothing funny happens here!Lol‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 9/02/09 11:20 PM

자 여로분준기 안냥하십니까Hey everyone so this week is kind of a crazy week, we had tons of appointments and tons of work to get done, it seems like everyone wants to meet on the weekends right now so we have appts. Every hour on the hour Friday, Saturday, and Sunday but on every other day of the week we have maybe two or three which makes for a lot of proselyting time which isn’t necessarily fun in the heat! Lol but if you get your tail side out and get to work during that time the lord always blesses you more than you can ever expect! I really have a testimony of that, at times my companion really hates going out and proselyting and working 24/7 every day but no matter what I make him go out and do it, we have seen amazing blesses from this. We really don’t see many of our blessings on the street they come in the form of random people walking into the church or a grandpa referring his son to us!

So the miracle for the week comes from last night! We were supposed to have three member lessons last night and two of our appointments canceled at the last minute, and the one the member was already there, so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind waiting in the church for about ten minutes while we went out to talk with people on the street. He said yes as he is one of our amazing new converts, 최선묵, and elder skousen and I said a prayer before we headed out that we could find someone to teach with him. You always hear the stories of people doing that and they find someone right? Its no lie, the first guy we talked to……….alright he rejected me fairly hard, about as hard as any civil Korean will reject you which isn’t very good for the morale, but I knew we would find someone. The very next person we spoke with was a 16 year old student. We asked him if he had some time and he did so he came into the church with and we taught him the first lesson- and explained our English program since our member brought it up-dang it- oh well, he has great gospel interest and will meet us two times a week and can come to church and family home evening! Now that’s what we call a very lax Korean when he has that much time on his hands! From this experience I truly have a big testimony that if you have faith the lord will bless you with the help you need to make his work progress!Lol

Funny story……………I don’t have one this week! Lol so that will just have to do! Awesome that you climbed the middle teton mom, looks like you got right up close and personal with some of those deer there!LolI love everyone and hope you have a great week!Love,Elder Greg Grant

You can basically smell the dog in it... Sept. 10, 2009

Not much time but I love you all!‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Thu 9/10/09 2:52 AM

Hey everyone how has the week been going so far?

Today I don’t have much time to write, only about 25 minutes so I am sorry I can’t try to send out a few individual emails! Today we got to go over to the war museum in Seoul, it was a really neat experience. To learn about the Korean war was really cool. It gave me a whole new respect for how much and how rapidly this country has progressed in the last fifty years. It went from being this war torn country with all of its people living in huts to having one of the biggest economies in the world! Quite amazing to learn about after you have seen parts of both the new and old Korea in your proselyting on the streets!

This week there really isn’t a lot to report on, we were supposed to get transfer calls tomorrow but they have been moved to Tuesday so I will find out them if I will be staying here in dong jak for another transfer or not. I love it here and could stay another transfer and love it just as much but going to another area would not be bad either!

This last week on p-day I forgot to include what I was going to eat that night. We went and elder skousen and I both had Dog for the first time. Sorry aunt Tracie it was just something I had to try and no worries I will never be eating it again. It is absolutely the worst meat I have ever eaten! It is covered in fat and you can basically smell the dog in it…YUCK. So that one is down and I can now say that I have eaten dog and all the Koreans will think I am an amazing Korean-American! JThis last week I haven’t been feeling so great, I am, always tired and it makes it hard to proselyte on the street for long stretches of time with the same intensity. I think it may have come from eating the dog meat and a couple of other Korean dishes we have eaten in the last while! I love Korean food but some of it truly can threaten to destroy an American Missionaries system! Lol I think my favorite dish here happens to be an octopus dish. They fry up octopus and make this big stir fry basically and put it in a type of red pepper sauce called koo chew chang it tastes amazing but is fairly expensive so I have had it only a couple of times!

The American food is all starting to taste really sweet when I eat it! Lol food here in korea is always spicy or bland never sweet so American food is always a real shocker to the palate.Good to here that everyone had fun at the tennis tournament and got in some good practice. We tried to proselyte at a tennis court back last week and I almost got to play even in my clothes and then he noticed-don’t know why he didn’t assume with the clothes I was in, that I had Sunday shoes on!Lol he proceeded to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to play in those shoes!Lol it made me think of dad and coach winn at practice basically every day in Sunday shoes. I may not have gotten to play but it was good to talk tennis for a bit even if it was in Korean.

Glad to know fedderer is back on the top of the pile and was very surprised to hear that safina was number one in the womens!Lol they thought it was hilarious that I wanted to play in church clothes but in the end they heard a little about the gospel and why I was in korea so that was good.I’m doing good overall, love korea and everything about it. The only things I really miss are you guys, tennis, and I really wish I could get in a good work out at a gym! Elders here used to do that but it was stopped about 2 weeks before I got here, dang, it would be nice to be able to stay in shape! That’s okay though I will just have to find my muscle again when I get home!Lol

Love you guys a lot, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,Elder Greg Grant

P-Day August 12, 2009

Hello- its Hot!Lol‏

Wed 8/12/09 10:49 PM

Hey Everyone… this is Elder Grant typing from Lucky don-jak. That’s what they have on all of the street signs here in dong-jak. It’s a great area and I am excited to get to serve here for another transfer, there is great work still to be done! This last week we have had a little rain though the major stuff is about three hours south of us. Tuesday and Wednesday it poured cats and dogs, it was insane.

We were teaching a lesson outside on Sunday night to one of our baptismal dates named david and it was all sunny and all the sudden it just started dumping, we were getting a little wet but we were sitting under a sun shade umbrella however….The rains came down and the streams came up and up an up. The drain we were sitting next to wasn’t draining, so all the sudden we all looked down and we were sitting in three inches of water! It was hilarious so we all stood up on our chairs and had to jump from chair to chair to get out of the puddle. We took some funny pictures of it. In the end I ended up getting soaked through to the bone all over and it was right before we had dinner at a members house! lol Very funny and a choice experience, we actually taught our lesson standing up and the spirit was still felt by all of us.I love this work, being with Elder Skousen has been different for both of us but we get along fairly well. The thing I forgot to tell you last week was that Elder Rowe is now in shiliim and so we are living in the same house…….AGAIN. ........

This last week I have really seen a jump in my Korean ability-I’m loving it. With Elder Haviland being gone I speak more than ever now and all it does for me is push up my language ability. I can’t express how grateful I am for the Lords help because I have seen people who have been trying to learn Korean for three years who don’t now as much as new elders from the MTC, it’s amazing what the Lord does to progress his work. Korean is still hard obviously but I Love the challenge it presents. I can’t wait to learn other languages when I get home, languages open so many doors!

Hmmm… Spiritual story for the week??????? I have so many every week it is hard to pick just one. But, Monday night we were supposed to have a ward family home evening but no one showed up cause there is a big youth meeting here this weekend(Elder Cook is coming), so we went out tracting. We trtacted into this man who has walked the same road as us every night for the last three years and has never seen us, he walked fifteen minutes back to the church with us and we taught him about Joseph Smith. The spirit as we taught was simply amazing! This man wants to know the truths and happiness that the lord has to offer him! Hopefully we can bring him to those things. He promised to come to church this Sunday but was leaving on a work related trip the next morning! Its amazing.

Hey, congrats on the mission call Dylan that’s awesome! Funny thing, my trainers little brother(Elder Haviland’s) got his call about a month ago, you two are going to the same mission and enter the MTC on the same date! So look for a Haviland when you get there, his big bro. Was my trainer. (Okay Dylan, fill the rest of us in on your whereabouts?!? Greg's Mom)

I love you all, have a great week!
Elder Greg Grant

Transfers---New Companion, same area

Hey Everyone!!!

SO this week was transfers! What was going to happen we had no clue, but last Thursday we got a call from President Burton and he wanted to meet with us. We met and he called my trainer to pull the position of A.P. It was quite funny as he sat there stunned and the first thing he says to me after president leaves, “Elder, I have to get new clothes.” We have been making fun of his clothing’s sad state for the last three months- all holy and torn! Lol

SO what is going on with me, I am staying here in dong jak and my new companion is elder skousen. He is actually already living with us as he is or was serving in shileem the area we live with in our house. He is the short one in the pictures of us hiking. He has been in country for just under a year and coming over with me he just barely went senior so it should be fun.Hmm… what went on this week, not much. Because elder haviland went A.P. I have ben in a threesome with my new comp. And his old one for the past three days. I have to say that that was just kind of weird, I think I prefer where there is only two of you cause you can speak with people a lot easier!

Sorry this one is short but I don’t have much time today! I love hearing from everyone so keep the emails coming.

Love ya’llElder Grant

P-Day Post July 22, 2009

Apparently "I'm a Fighter not a Lover!"‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 7/22/09 8:49 PM

Hey dear Family and friends!So we are now officially half way through rainy season! Actually it isn’t that bad, apparently this year they are experiencing a drought so it only rains about one day in three!Lol I hope it is the same next year so that I get away from the crazy rain! It may not be raining much but the humidity is an absolute killer! The other day we walked outside and were soaked to the bone in just about 5 minutes! It was crazy.

So this last week we had four baptisms, a family and a guy about dads age except he looks like he is seventy, he’s the sweetest man that I have ever met. Miracles abound every day here, many are experiencing a lack of baptisms and having trouble finding new people to teach but here in 동 작 we are being blessed. Just the other day we picked up another baptismal date for the second of august. We met him the first time and he said to us, “when can I get baptized?” He’s a refferal from the son in the family that we baptized, his best friend. He has been to church three times now and wants his friend to baptize him! Its awesome how the Lord helps the work if you are working your hearts out! This week has been tough but I have learned lots of important life principles.

One of the favorite things I heard this week was at district meeting an Elder was talking about Elder Bednars talks when he was here. Elder Bednar was speaking of faith and the process by which we obtain faith. There is us and a pillar of light with a mist of pure blackness before us. When we DESIRE to have greater faith we touch the midst then we eventually leave the light and walk into the darkness and the light will follow us and this is the basic process. I didn’t get the full story obviously but I felt as though this was the perfect description of getting faith only that the light rarely immediately follows. I felt that God leaves you in the darkness for a few days. Funny thing was we were talking about this during comp. Study a few days later and I said that and Elder Haviland told me that that was exactly what Elder Bednar had said when he talked with all of them. Coming to have faith is tough, and at times it feels as though you are alone but its amazing what you gain when after the right amount of time the Lord allows that light beam to shine on you again.

Funny story for the week- involving sports and once again the Grant competitive spirit coming to surface. We were playing basketball for exercise time the other day and we were playing twenty-one. Keep in mind I hate to lose. I had won the first two games but in the third elder haviland was ahead of me 16-11, the other two elders don’t matter as they can’t ever get past ten, anyway, I was getting a little competitive and decided I would put some pressure up top on elder haviladn, long story short I frustrated the heck out of him!Lol However as our competitive juices kept building we started playing harder and I took elder Havilands head to my nose. Blood starting gushing everywhere. Don’t worry mom, I said funny story not E.R. type story. I then went into the bathroom and plugged my nose up but blood was coming from somewhere else and it turned out to be a little maybe 1/4 inch long cut on my nose, I cleaned it off and could see down to the bone! J Long story short it kept bleeding(Slightly) all through study and it wasn’t big so I just tossed a butterfly band-aid on and called it good. Boy did I get stares all day long, everyone was wondering if I was a fighter and such. Apparently I resemble a famous fighter over here. Good or bad I don’t know but apparently He won several world titles! Lol No worries, we took a couple pictures!

Hope you are having fun in Oregon, wish I could be there with you! Can’t wait to get some beautiful pics.Love you all,Elder Greg Grant

P-day, June 15, 2009

Lets all laugh at the funny Americans!‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 7/15/09 10:40 PM

Hey Family and friends who get to read this! Korea is absolutely amazing! I’m really starting to think that some god none spicy chicken sounds good! Maybe a fong’s number ten or something like that! I just got my haircut and man is it short in the back and long on top, Korean stylist can’t seem to get the hang of American hair! Lol

Anyway today was our temple day and as usual it was amazing! The temple here is so small it still amazes me, the cool thing is that all the wards in Korea go once a week for a ward temple night or day according to where they live!

So this last week we had another baptism, a guy by the name of 김 종절Jumped into the font. He is a little bit of a different guy but he lives with his grandma who is a member. He understood really slowly but hearing him talk about why he wanted to get baptized was amazing! He’s got a strong testimony and if he can get away from his current friends and find ones in the church he should do amazing!

This next weekend we have four baptisms lined up; we have a family-two parents and a grandma- and then a man by the name of 죄 선묵 who is 47, I love this man- we picked him up off of an English flyer and he was at first completely English interest but our amazing teaching skills, okay the spirit managed to change his mind it wasn’t us! Lol He helps me with my Korean and I help him with my english- he says he likes talking to me more than elder haviland simply because I have yet to be konglished! I am not sure whether or not to take that as a compliment but he is truly amazing!Lol He has a problem with drinking but has worked hard to overcome it. He’s cut back a ton from when we started and this Saturday’s goal is to drink none! The sad thing is that he and his friends all work so hard throughout the week and the only time they get together is to get wasted on Saturday, so hopefully when he feels the spirit during baptism he will realize he has made the right choice!

Funny story for the week comes from my lack of Korean ability! We were teaching a man whom we had pulled off of the street into the church a short first lesson and I was struggling a bit trying to teach the apostasy apparently as I tried to say, “Christ and his apostles were killed by evil men.” However, what came out was this, “Christ killed his apostles and evil men.” I mixed up the marker on men and Christ. It is crazy how easily you can change the meaning of a Korean sentence! Anyway, the guy was like- uhh…. What was that. And then I realized what I had said and we all had a good laugh over my lack of Korean! Haha you have to laugh at those or your gonna have a heck of a long mission! 

Anyway, this week has been a good one, we got some cheese from the old mission president of Pusan who moved the other day out of the ward! I never realized how much I could miss cheese and how much better it makes food taste! I’ve made the decision to give up peanut butter as it is 10 dollars for a tiny tiny bottle- we would buy one every other week a piece but it just hits the wallet way to hard! Good thing that I like Kimchi then!

Hope all is good. It has been raining so hard here that it breaks your umbrella no matter what kind you have- no worries I got a bit sturdy one for the next time the down pour starts!

Love you all,Elder Greg Grant

P-day post June 9, 2009

I am sopping wet- I have decided it is time to get a Korea worthy umbrella!!!!!!!!!!‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Thu 7/09/09 12:10 AM
To:

Hey family,So, this week has been a great one- its gonna be a rather short email this week, but hey I can’t write a novel every week. I am sick of the rain here in Korea, Oh my gosh when it rains it rains, I’m sitting here emailing, which I do get an hour and fifteen minutes to do mom, soaking wet! Lol I am half thinking of making like a Korean and buying myself some black Crocs simply cause I won’t have soaking wet shoes on twenty four seven! Lol Then I would really be fashionable!

This week has been one full of miracles, for the last three weeks we haven’t picked up any new investigators and in the last 3 days we have found seven solid ones! I felt for the longest time that we were working our hardest we were fasting and praying with all our might to find more people to teach the only problem was that they weren’t appearing. Finally after a day where we planned down every minute, we had every little thing that we would do and prayed and we went out with more faith than I ever though I could muster, it happened. It started on Sunday, that day were we went out in faith and we found no one and I felt as though no one would even speak with us, overall it was probably one of the most frustrating days of my mission. Anyway that day was Saturday and we went to church on Sunday, after we taught a few lessons and walked out after one,there was this man wandering the halls, he asked us when our worship meeting was and we told him that it was over; to make a long story short this man in the last 10 years has gone from being one of the most wealthy in Korea to being one of the lower class. He is one of the most humble men I have met and is in just the perfect circumstance to accept the gospel, we taught him the first lesson and set up a return appt. for Friday!

Then the very next day we were walking over to the church after dinner and we hear a, “Sirs, May I speak with you sirs?” from behind us and both of us look at each other just totally stunned to hear that in Korea, because very few people speak English as well as what we had heard, and a man rode up on his bike and said "I want to learn more about your church. I like what you do as missionaries and would like to try to become one someday!" We took this man to the church with us and taught him about what we believe; he has a hard time accepting the Joseph Smith story but I know that God led him to us so that we could teach him of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Having these two people appear out of nowhere after two weeks of hard work with what felt like very little result amazed me. Never in my life have I realized more than at those two moments that God works according to our faith and prayers and that the answer or result comes when we least expect it!In short the last five days have been amaaazzziinnnggg!SO good to hear from all of you and I hope that each and every one of you is doing well! Mom tell Dylan that I can’t email him but he can email me and I will write back to him through snail mail. Letters only take about a week to send from here to there so it isn’t to bad!Lol

June 30, 2009 P-Day

Hey Everyone,Sounds as though it has been one of those exciting weeks back home!

Sheesh, why does all the excitement happen after I’m gone? LOL Glad to hear that all are still safe and well though! Glad to hear Federer is once again up to his dominating form in the tennis world! LOL I am always happy to hear that! Maybe he will still be playing when I get home!YAY, I passed of my first set of Korean skills! SO in the mission we have this thing called pass-off and the first section is way intense with tons of vocabulary and different sentences and scriptures you have to remember, the next part is just a regular old grammar book for Korean so it is as easy as studying Korean can be! Anyway, I got all of that done, talk about a stress filled week! Wheew, anyway the Korean is coming slowly but it is coming!

Not so much to write this week we have to go and clean the house today because we have our house check tomorrow! Monsoon season has hit in all its furry! I have never seen it rain so hard or so much in my entire life! At times its way scary to, especially when your walking in it and can’t even see in front of you! Nifty beans huh? So last night was a very cool night great for sleeping except to the fact that a huge storm hit at about 2 in the morning- loudest thunder that I have ever heard- Almost made me wish that I could come home T!Lol it woke all of us in our house up, it sounded like you had your ear right next to the pins when a bowling ball hit- lightning everywhere! It was quite something for a little country-boy from Idaho to see!

So miracles of the week, not much, but there is always at least one everyday! The big one is that we are looking at four baptisms for sure in the next two weeks and we have another two if they can get over there drinking problems! They both should do it, they want to be baptized and are working their tails off to quit drinking but you never know what might come up!

One of them is just the sweetest old man, he’s about 62 and he loves fishing and feeding pigeons, and of course he hits the sauce hard on the weekends with his old man buddies! He’s very upright in telling us about it but he is very ashamed about his problem- he’s doing great though as he managed to drink little enough last Saturday that he could come to church and comprehend all that was going on!(He was still a little buzzed though!) I love this man, he reminds me of funny grandpa dredge somewhat in his personality though he is a lot more shy.

Korean food is amazing, Americans should take a spin off of how they do food- though I still would kill for one of those burgers you will probably have this week! Anyway so we had this meal at a members house and it was absolutely amazing. They make a seaweed soup and bring it to a boil on like a little tiny camp stove in the middle of the table and toss in tons of veggies(Mushrooms, Onions, lettuce) and then throw in slowly very thinly sliced beef and it cooks in about three seconds and you all just eat out of there, wow it is the best thing ever, definitely want to bring that recipe home for you to try. It is a food called shaba shaba in the roman alphabet, its amazinggggggggggggg!

I think its time for lunch! I have had just a couple bits of fruit all day and it is now three O’clock! I AM HUNGRY!
Anyway, I am doing great love to hear from everybody!
Love,Elder Greg Grant

June 24, 2009--Hebert's miracle and silk worm larvae

Hey Everyone,How is life going this week?

My life is the same Ole’ except with New Miracles popping up all over the place! That’s the way missionary work should be! Lol, so chalk it up to the weirdest food I have eaten in country- lets go for more of the silk worm larvae! Haha it was delicious…… not! Anyway it tastes a lot like dirt! No worries when I come home I will bring some for you to try!Awesome to hear that the knudsens emailed you! They’re a great couple! We went to their house for dinner with our recent baptism and a guy who’s in Korea from Columbia! This guy has an amazing life story.

I won’t do it justice in here but he spent an hour telling us about his life. He was born out of wedlock in drug infested Columbia his mom was only seventeen and his dad left when he wasn’t quite one year old yet. This was such a traumatic experience that even though he was so young he remembers what his dad was wearing and that his mom was crying like crazy. Throughout his life his mom abused him physically, emotionally, and mentally. Then, at the age of fourteen she took him to meet his father to see what kind of man he was. His father was living with a women and had 13 children of which he all abused- he chased them off at the point of a machete. Throughout the rest of his teen years he moved away from home as he couldn’t stand living with his mother. He is amazingly brilliant and scored well on the test they take there that is similar to the ACT and got into the top school for psychology in the country. Because of complications(Depression) from his childhood he was kicked out and had to get treatment. Two years latter he was accepted into the 2nd best school but the same thing happened. In short he had a terrible life and came to Korea to escape it. He is fluent in English as in he sounds like we do when we are talking with friends and he taught himself all he knows about it in the two years he has been here in Korea. This Guy Hebert is absolutely amazing, from his life you would think he would be a hardened, tough luck kind of guy; but he has a special spirit about him. He’s got many fears right now because of what happened when he was younger- but it was ll to prepare him for the gospel. He is ready for it and I have no reserve in saying that the Lord has something special reserved for him here in this earth in the gospel!

The other miracle was 김 성 호, he was baptized! I got to baptize him this Sunday and he just came up beaming! Miracle.

Alright, funny story time! So there was a little boy baptized by the other elders in our house this weekend and he was nervous, more so about the water than anything else! They got him in to do it the first time and he bolted out of the font screaming and crying that the water was to cold(FYI it was freezing-I would know!lLol) After about twenty minutes his mom talked him into getting into the font again and as he was whimpering he was………….baptized…………and when he came up……….he was…………….Screaming Bloody murder!!!!!!!!! It was so funny to watch! We all felt bad for him though and wished that it could have been an incredible experience for him… at least he wont forget it! Hopefully his confirmation is better!So the rains have yet to hit- its just hot and muggy all over the place!

And no Carly event though I bought sparkly ties I did not pick myself up a manbag- Oh… wait… I do carry around something very similar to a purse! Lol I have to admit the idea of a purse when I get home is very appealing! It just holds so much stuff! I’ll stick with just the wallet though! Well, everything is good! Language is slow but it is coming!
Love you all,Elder Greg Grant

p.s. I'm staying in the same area for this next transfer!

P-Day June 17, 2009

Hey everybody, so the humidity has arrived and it is kicking my rear end! Haha, rainy season supposedly starts in less than a week and so you can definatley feel the humidity starting to build up in the air. Its gotten really hot this last week- hot enough that even I am down to sleeping without my sheet! I hate sleeping without some sort of weight on top of me! Ugh

So this week has been one full of miracles! We started meeting a guy named 김 성 호 about two weeks ago and he is getting baptized this Sunday! He was so prepared from the minute that we met him! He loves the gospel and also loves helping me with my Korean! Lol in the last three meetings with him he has taught me a ton, to bad its all slang and can’t be heard coming from the mouth of a missionary! He’s amazing though- when we taught him the commandments he accepted all of them without a second thought! We taught him tithing was only ten percent and he said, “What, That’s all it is?” It was a testimony builder to me on tithing! Many times we think it is a burden to pay it, but it isn’t that much. Many people here pay their church over 50% of their incomes just so they get in good standing with their preachers! Its insane……. Preachers also sell there congregations to other preachers!Lol its quite the business, religion is, here in Korea.

Any way, what is the funny story for the week… So We were in a restraurant with the above mentioned baptismal date and he was teaching me how to say the word for chopsticks and I couldn’t get it right so I was working off of the"If you fail, try and try again" principle, and I couldn’t understand why people were looking at me funny and why our investigator was rolling on the ground with laughter. Come to find out I was saying it slightly wrong and I was saying the equivalent of the F word several times over in Korean! “Hey I didn’t know any better!” Lol It was quite a good laugh for me when I finally realized what was going on, and I did finally get the word for chopsticks down, it is a U sound not an O sound!Lol

Many miracles were seen this week as we are teaching tons of people, and upping our member taught lessons- its amazing how many people just appeared out of nowhere wanting to be baptized- currently we have 5 potential baptisms on the docket for the next three weeks four of which are almost certain to get baptized! I love this place- its got so much culture and just amazing people. I’m in Dong Jak for those who were wondering- its in the middle of Seoul, and its just like a county name in Seoul.

So I got the package from you Mom, thanks a ton- I loved all the pictures, and Dad were you really going to eat that Stone fly? Haha Wish I Could have been there to see that! Did you get the fish to rise for the stone fly hatch again then? That is one of my favorite memories of going to Yellowstone; that time we hit the hatch just right and spent like an hour throwing those suckers into the monster rainbows just sitting there waiting for us to feed them! Haha Haven’t got to watch the movie from home yet but I will get to it right after we go shopping, no worries! Lol we went to the temple here this morning and it was absolutely amazing. Its smaller than any temple I have ever seen before! Okay t-man I am sorry about your birthday but your present won’t be there for about three or four months because it is way expensive to air mail back to the states because of the exchange. It costs you about thirty and it costs me almost 100 so to slow boat it it is only twenty so that is how all packages will be coming! Lol P.s. your birthday is a Korean ping-Pong paddle, its sweet! Lol and I have yet to be beat here in country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad to hear that missionary blessings go all around in ways of safety! Holy smokes that’s some crazy stuff when that happens. Glad you're all Okay! Now I will try to answer your questions since I just got your email. Normal day… there really aren’t;any normal days here in Korea, I have yet to go door knocking. It is the least a\effective way to contact people here in korea because they all live in high rise apartments and have cameras linked to their doorbells so they can see who is at the door, but we get a ton of investigators from the local universities chewn ang, and sum shirl colleges. Wow its akward to put those into English letters! Haha Glad to know everyone in the family is okay and that you took the white van and not the gray car! I love all of you tons! Love,Elder Greg Grant

June 10, 2009 Another P-Day

Hey 여로분, hope this last week has been a great one for you! Its kinda of been a long one for me, but hey that’s part of a mission! Can’t tell you how crazed I was about hearing that federer finally won! Hey mom forward this to all my friends if you aren’t already will you! Thanks.

So not much went down in the last week, the young man I told about last week is not going to get baptized and it looks as though we are going to end up dropping him as he no longer returns calls or texts and will hardly speak to us. We went and met with him last night and we both had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t his mom putting pressure on him it was just that he doesn’t believe what we have been teaching him. Its to bad that we couldn’t help him to see the importance of this gospel. Its hard to let people go, especially when you know that they are your brothers and sisters in the gospel. Its so much easier to talk to people when you view them that way too. This last week I have been trying to view people as someone I had met before in heaven and been good friends with, its amazing how much it has changed my view as I have done so, it almost makes me scared for every person who walks past because they simply don’t know what they are missing! I can truly say that I love the Korean people!

This last week was a particularly tough one with the language, I feel as though I should be making leaps and bounds, but am not- I almost feel as though I am at the same place I was when I came into the country. Not going to lie, it ticks me off! Haha everything in school came easy- I could pull A’s and B’s without even studying and all of the sudden I am studying harder than ever before and getting what seems like less result for the work. Its so frustrating, but hopefully it will eventually come. SO the miracle of the week came in the form of a twenty two year old young man. He has been coming to the church on Thursdays the last couple of weeks to play basketball and one day we were teaching a lesson on the streets at about 8:45 and he stopped to say hi, we quickly pulled him aside and talked with him for ten minutes and set up an appt. to play B-ball with him that Saturday, I have never seen someone ask so many questions or one who is so prepared to hear the gospel! We meet him for a third time tonight! He’s truly a great guy- who claimed to have crazy ping-pong skills which I quickly disproved as I beat him 21-9! Lol we had fun playing though! I have played enough ping-pong with Koreans that I feel as though I could safely beat Brock! OLSO

This last Wednesday was zone conference, it was Olympics at the Seoul Olympic stadium! I was happy as I managed to run a 5K in just under 20 minutes I still have a little bit of my lungs from tennis and working out back home! ol We then held the Olympics in the big stadium there, it was way fun and then we went back to the mission home for a meeting at 2. It was a great meeting and we talked about always having our line in the water like the successful fisherman.
(PMG Pg. 152) Read it if you have time its what we need to do to succeed at all things in life! Tennis, we have to practice we can’t just go and aimlessly hit a ball for four hours and think it will make us better even if it is fun! Lol Love ya’ll, Elder Greg

Greg's contact information

If you'd like to contact Greg!

Snail mail:

Costs about .98 cents for a one page, regular sized letter.

Elder charles Greg Grant
Korea Seoul West Mission
Songpa PO Box 31
Songpa-gu
Seoul-si 138-600
SOUTH KOREA

This is the address for the mission home; he gets his mail every couple weeks when he meets with the prez.

If you mail packages, send them to the following address, which is also to the mission home:

Elder Charles Greg Grant
Korea Seoul West Mission
24-1 Ogeum-dong
Songpa-gu
Seoul-si
Seoul-jikhalsi 138-130
SOUTH KOREA

Packages are a little spendy to send...anything over 4 lbs. is better to send in the International boxes that have a flat rate...you can stuff an anvil in there if it will fit and it will still cost you the flat rate: ) I have found so far, that it is cheaper to send small stuff in a shoe box from home...but he hasn't needed an anvil yet: ) Keep Smilin', Susan

For the hikers among us...they have mountains in Seoul

Sampling Seoul
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Chasing Maple in the City
Seoul's Top 5 Hiking Spots

It's that time of year again when the autumn leaves start to show lovely shades of red, orange and gold. Koreans love this particular time, when they head to the mountains to look at the changing colors of the dan-pung, or maple leaves. We'll tell you where to go to see some of fall's fantastic foliage.

1) Gwanaksan Mountain
With a beautiful boulder stream and a wide climbing path, Gwanaksan offers the naturalist a taste of all that is lovely and good in Seoul. The varying trail and open spaces allow one to take in the romance of it all while hiking up an intermediate level mountain. For a little cultural edification along with your exercise, hike to the three-story stone pagoda (2.7 km up) or to the Portrait of Prince Pyoryeong (2.7 km up). Take Subway Line No. 4 to Gwacheon Central Government Complex Station, exit no. 10. Walk straight from the exit for about 15 minutes. Follow the road as it curves to the right, look for two spirit posts on your left to mark the entrance to Gwanak Mountain.

2) Cheonggyesan Mountain
Think of this mountain like a "Hiking 101" class and a good introduction to the whole Korean hiking thing. With gradual slopes, clearly marked trails through lots of "tree tunnels," and plenty of pretty wooded pavilions, you'll not lack for any colorful displays here, though your will probably thank you. From Sinsa Station, take Bus 8442 to the Cheonggyesan Mountain entrance stop. Cross under the bridge where the outdoor market is and walk up past the little diners to the clearly marked trails. Two main courses, about 2 hours and an hour and a half, respectively.

3) Suraksan Mountain
This mountain is by far the most fun to climb. While it starts out relatively slow with its moderate incline, sparse woods and dusty gravel path, a little more than halfway up, you get to scramble over enormous boulders and navigate granite inclines. The more experienced hikers casually walk down a 70-degree incline, their hiking boots magically sticking to the rock face. The views are well worth the hike as well, as Suraksan Mountain is surrounded by various peaks, providing optimal views of autumn's colors. Take Subway Line No. 7 to Suraksan Station, exit no. 2. Walk straight for less than five minutes and turn left when you see the silver clock fountain. Follow the trickling mountain water fountain until you hit the base of the mountain.

4) Dobongsan Mountain
Well known for its challenging hikes, the mountain itself looks rather intimidating. Located northeast of Bukhansan Mountain, Dobongsan is famous for its beautiful rock walls. The mountain has many beautiful peaks such as Jaunbong (the highest at 739.5 meters), and boasts picturesque mountain temples. Take Subway Line No. 1 to Dobongsan Station. Get on the National Road and walk for ten minutes. Another option is to take Bus No. 141, No. 142 at City Hall to U-I-dong for 50 minutes.

5) Bukhansan Mountain
Located just north of Seoul and visible from Gyeongbukgung Palace, Bukhansan Mountain offers towering granite peaks and a more adventurous hike for those who like to be challenged. Full of lush greenery-now a rainbow of autumnal hues - and a voluptuous mountain stream, Bukhansan is surely worth the effort. From City Hall, take Bus No. 704 or 8771 to its last stop. From there, board the mountain shuttle bus to the ticket booth and hike to your heart's content. Get there early - hikes usually last all day.

Check out at http//english.visitseoul.net

Infinite Discoveries
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New Bridge Fountain Performs Water Dance in Central Seoul

Seoul’s latest urban redesign project is a high-profile new city landmark -- and a new entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. This month the Rainbow Bridge Fountain, the world's longest such fountain, opened on the Banpo crossing of the Han River in central Seoul. The fountain runs along both sides of the 570 meter-long bridge for a total length of 1140 meters. With the nozzles at rest pointing out and slightly downwards, the effect is of a waterfall coming off both sides of the bridge. But the water jets can also “dance” in time to lighting from under the bridge, creating undulating patterns of water and light. The effect is especially dramatic when seen at night from the Han River Park on the south bank, with the lights of downtown Seoul and Seoul Tower in the background. The bridge itself is a double-decker, with a lower deck view something like being inside a waterfall.With computer-controlled choreography, the bridge fountain can perform a variety of shows. Show times are daily at 2, 3, 4, 7:30 and 8:30 pm.
The Rainbow Bridge Fountain is part of a larger 30-year Han River Renaissance project began in 2007 to make better use of the Han River Park (Hangang Park) and surrounding areas as central urban space and to set the tone for Seoul as an attractive environment. The effect of the ambitious river renaissance project is already being seen, not just in high profile installations like the Banpo bridge fountain, but also in overall improvements in access to and landscaping of riverside parks along both banks.
Best way to get there is as a pedestrian or on bicycle from any nearby Han River Park access. From the south side (Banpo-dong) the nearest subway station is the Express Bus Terminal stop, line 3 or 7.
[Input: May.11, 2009, 18:28/Modified: May.11, 2009, 18:34] Source : Tourism Promotion Division, Seoul Metropolitan Government

June 3, 2009

Hello and how the heck is everybody!So the computer is being really slow about opening up emails to read so I figured that I would get a jump start on writing this email! SO to make a long story short- what a crazy week! I feel as though last p-day was just yesterday. Which mom you will be happy to know that we went hiking on. (Yesss.......I KNEW it was in his blood...even in Korea: ) We went to the most famous hiking “Mountain” in Korea. It was more of a hill with a lot of rocks in the trail all the way to the top but it was just gorgeous the whole way up! We got up there and had an incredible view of the bigger part of Seoul, the pictures of it didn’t turn out to great because of the smog though.

So I just read dad’s email that says that NADAL LOST AT THE FRENCH!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. SO pretty much this means that ROGER FEDERER is like the best player of all time as soon as he wins it on Sunday! SO glad to hear that! Last P-day as we were waiting for a bus back from the mountain there was a court right by the bus stop and there were some guys playing on it! I wanted to go down there and show them how its done but figured I better get on the bus! The play on dirt courts here in Korea, I can’t wait to try them out. Many areas have tennis courts next to the apartments which people play on for exercise in the mornings! Hope I get sent there one of these times!SO we had interviews yesterday and president told Elder Haviland and I that unless something drastic changed in the mission we would be together the next transfer. Elder Haviland will now have been in this area for six transfers! Lol He just loves it here, or so he says.

We went to dinner at a members house Monday night and there little boy was running around, reminded me of Michael cause he stripped his diaper off and was running around stark naked! Lol Embarrassed his Mom to death!

So we have an investigator whom I am way close to we are the same age here in Korea (Korean age I am 20) and it means alot to be the same age as someone, we had a baptismal date set for the 25 but his mom doesn’t want him to be baptized. As we have been teaching him we couldn’t tell whether or not he really wanted to be baptized or if he even believed what we were teaching but last night confirmed to us that he loves the gospel and wants to be baptized with all his heart, he let the two members we were teaching with leave the room then asked us to wait a moment and told us… he was in tears as he said he would have to push his baptismal date back so that he could talk it over with his mother. I love this kid to death, his name is Pock G Hong, he has an absolutely amazing spirit, please keep him in your prayers and pray that his Mom’s heart will be softened towards the church.Hmmm, I can’t really think of much else to write about.

We went on splits this last Monday and I was with Elder Rowes companion, hes so quiet just as is Elder Rowe and because of that when we were contacting I did lots of talking which was very good for my Korean it made me use it more than I have ever had to before and let me know that if I will just take a second to think I can say much more than I think I can.

I don’t care what kind of mail I get! The E-mails are quickest but i love both! Just keep sending them is all I can say! I got your snail mail letter yesterday at interviews so it has been fun to be able to read it. So I guess you also want to know a bit about the area I am in, it has two huge universities who’s names I am to lazy to try to translate over to english! Lol We do a lot of talking up there, most people are willing to listen, but being willing to learn is another story! Almost everyone we teach has a Word of Wisdom Concern, they all have to go into the army and in the initial hazing they get hooked on beer, and the army gives them all the cigarettes they want for free so most men smoke, and we aren’t allowed to contact or teach women because of the culture. I’ll try to send pics. And something for T-mans birthday within the next Week, by the way how much money is still on my debit after I bought my translator?Hope all is well and sunny at home!

Love you all,Elder Greg Grant

Awwwwwwwwwwww YEAAAHHHHHHH

Awwwwwwwwwwww YEAAAHHHHHHH!‏
From:
Charles Grant (greg_grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Wed 5/27/09 10:16 PM
To:
spunkyseaturtle@msn.com; grantk@byui.edu; argentinawarrior@gmail.com; bearmum2@aol.com; gay-grant@msn.com; gadairrealtor@aol.com; tetonwildflower@msn.com; bballwhiz@q.com; tggran@yahoo.com
Hey Family and friends!This has been a great week here in Korea! The weather is really starting to heat up now though! Wow, I never knew that it could feel so hot! Lol sometimes it’s the food as well and not just the air which I am feeling outside! I’m am finally starting to enjoy eating Kimchi though many types are way to spicy for me to even atemp to eat a lot of!Lol For the most part we eat at our house for it is cheaper than eating out every meal! My companion and I made potatoes and chicken with gravy the other night! I do have to say I was pretty proud of us, I had no idea that I could make food like that! It was the best meal either of us have ever cooked we decided! (I will send pics. Of it when I send back my memory card.) I actually got the letter with it in it here in Korea the MTC must have forwarded it so thanks mom!

Daily happenings here………….hmmmmm….. Kind of hard to remember from day to day so I will tell a funny story then I will tell a kool story again. A couple of nights ago my comp. And I were returning to our house at about 9 0’clock and we were walking down this alley that is by a bunch of restaurants and there were about ten drunk old men outside of these restraints. There were two who were just totally wasted and they were leaning all over one another and staggering around in the middle of the alley. ..... It was so funny because we turned around and he was bent in half with the other guy looking at him waving his hand in front of his nose saying in Korean- “yikes, that just ain’t right!” it was stinking hilarious to hear this drunk guy use a phrase like that even in Korean! Haha

Now to get to the serious work! This last week we have been working really hard to contact as many people as possible and just yesterday we met someone who is really interested in hearing the gospel. We were out tracting on the street and stopped him about 50 yards away from our church and started talking to him, he said he was way busy and that he had to get to school quick but we ended up talking to him for lalmost an hour and got a return appointment! It was amazing because you could tell that he had been prepared to hear the gospel at that time. He had all sorts of questions which no one had been able to answer for him and we had all the answers to what he wanted to know! I can’t wait to meet with him again tomorrow for if we can commit him to reading the Book of Mormon I think he will come unto Christ and join the church!So now answers to some of the questions I have been asked.

My companion Elder Haviland is a great guy, he the district leader for our district and he is from Utah! He loves sports, loves hunting, and most importantly he loves the work! He plays lacrosse and goes to school at BYU! Not gonna lie he is a thousand times easier to get along with than elder Rowe ever was! Lol Thus we get along great! Haha The food is great here, its just noty as sweet as back home, that is something I really miss is like sweet and sour chicken type things! I could eat that kind of food every day! Here in Korea many times it is sour but its never sweet-only spicy spicy spicy! Haha, I love it though this I a great country! I sleep on a little tiny YO its about a foot to short so my feet hang off for what feels like ten miles!Lol its all good though! No worries Carly I have adapted to the sleep schedule fine though it’s a pain to wake up at six thirty- I still get up before the time passes! Hundred percent obedience baby!

SO what is going on in the world? We have heard news about North Korea firing up some nuclear missile testing! Is this true? Wait I know it is true, but whats going on with it? Haha Its funny to see how south Koreans act to north Korean news, it seems like they could care less what their neighbors do because they have the U.S. on their side! :LolHope all is well back home! I am loving Korea, and all that comes with it!Can’t wait to get the pictures form you Mom! If you haven’t sent the package yet, we loved the Velveeta cheese! Its great to use for cooking and makes for some easy food!If you send off the package soon I will get it in two weeks when we have zone conference! I love you all and wish you the happiest coming week!Love,Greg Grant
";

One Week in Korea and lovin' kimchi...NOT...yet.

Hey,SO Korea is an amazing place! I absolutley love it here!THis last sunday I got to perform a baptism! The sisters taught a young woman who is 27 years old and she hadn't met any of the elders but my companion and I as he did her interview and she called me up the night before and asked me to baptize her! Wow what a cool experince! It was absolutley amazing!

THe weather has been good so far some days are way hot though! most are great! We are now headed into the rainy season, its raining cats and dogs today! HahaSO all of your questions I can't remember them all so I will just tell what it is like here!I am in area called dong jak its awesome- we are in a ward but they only have about forty active members and about two hundred inactive who never come- many places are like that in Korea, its tough to get people and retain them in the church with all the social drinking and pressures. Our ward is great to work with! We usually either eat out or cook our own meals! Since I have been here we have had dinner at one families home, wow do they put out a spread, I though I was done after the first course but there were still three sets of different food plates to go! Can you say stuffed! Haha

The other two elders in our apartment are in a different area so they travel about twenty minutes by bus everyday to ge there! Haha there fun guys to be with!The food is good so far- I haven't had to much of it but I am willing to try anything and everything! Kimchi and I don't get along too great but I will definitely start to love it soon!(Hopefully)So hmmmmmmm....I got my package from you mom, thanks- that velveeta was an Idea straight from heaven! Lol we had cheese sandwhiches! something which we can cook and not mess up! Haha yes I did get the last package with bread and jam! THanks a ton!
P-day today we are going to an electronic market to pick me up a translator- we get to bid on it! Lol so it should be kind of fun! SO a little bit about the area I am in we have two huge colleges in our area which is great! Because of that most of the people we teach are young single college students who are way busy but they make for some fun teaching! We usually walk everywhere except to the outskirts of our area we take public transit! Its all city... they can take the boy out of the country but they will never take the country out of me!!!!!! Lol at least I hope so! I love nature!!!!!!LOL

By where we live we have a little old woman who runs like a pet market slash beauty goods store. She has chipmunks and squirells in cages for sell! THey look as though they are rabid sprinting from the side to other side in the cage! Its kinda funny when you first see it! Well anyway I had better get going! Know that I love you all and love to hear from you!In every package send a stick of deodorant or toothpaste please! Deodorant is non-existant and toothpaste is horrible! LolGood thing I brought two sticks with me!Lol
Love you tons! Hope all is well family!Love,Greg

First P-day in Korea

HEy everyone, so it is extremely sticky here compared to Idaho and Utah! I can;t telll you how much I hate humidity but no worries I will quickly learn to love it as the summer months are almost here and that will be some crazy stuff when we get to it!Haha So I got my new trainer today- his name is Elder Haviland! He seems like a truly great guy! I am already getting along better with him than I ever was with Elder Rowe! But thats okay because Elder Rowe taught me tons in the MTC and I love him for that! I live in a apartment right above some little old man who apparently smokes constantly and if he isn;t smoking he is just sucking on his ciggarette! Lol It is the tiniest apartment which I have ever seen- ecspecially when you are a 195 lb. 6'2" white man! Lol ITs crazy how small things seem to me here in Korea! Lol Everything is like half as short as it is in america! Lolso I love hearing from all of you- my P-day is on thursdays here so that is like wednesday in the states!LOlI think I will quickly grow to love Korea! My first zone looks to be like one of the poorer parts but I haven't seen muvh of it yet so you know how it goes!Lol The Korean language is crazy insane- they taught me some other language when I was in the MTC apparently because I can't catch anything of what they are saying- some of the trainers had only been in the field for si months and were speaking great Korean- So hopefully if I work my tailsisde off I will pick up the language wuickly and be able to communicate effectively when It comes to speaking of the gospel but also about other things!:) Well I need to write a few other seperate emails so I will be off!I love all of you, thanks for your support!Love,Elder Greg Grant

From: Charles Grant [mailto:greg_grant@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Tue 5/5/2009 11:08 AM
To: Grant, Susan
Subject: Last Email from Utah



Hey, so not much going on here! Except tot he fact that we can't wait to get out of here! Haha
SO yes, we have our flight plans! WE fly out at 8:30 from Salt lake and land in L.A. at around 9:30 then we have a three hour layover! I will call if I have time during both! Tell Carly she should definatley stay home so I can talk to her! Lol normally we wouldn't talk very long but pres. Carlson says go for it since mothers day will be the day before and we don;t get to call! Wish we would have left a week wearlier! LOl Send the cell phone with Dad and tell him his class will just have to deal with him getting a call in the middle of class if he is in class when I call! Lol

Ooops, sorry I complained but I love hearing what goes on at home in a week! Nothing ever changes here so I like to know the world still rotates! Lol All of the mexico called missionaries are delayed till the swine flu clears up! ITs a good thing that we aren;t delayed by it! Lol

So, my korean is coming but I'm so dead when I get over there! The native Koreans speak to us and my ears just go... Uhhh... what language is that! Lol In other words I will not be able to know what people are saying and I will have a vocabulary much similar to michaels... onlty they are all gospel terms which I know! LOl
I'll write a long email on the next P-day I have, though I have no Idea when it will be so send me an email by tuesday next week with all of your questions about Korea! I finally get a full hour to write! Lol
Did you happen to transfer thart money over for me into my account! It will be good safety money as I travel and a great asset to have when I use it for the electronic dictionary! I absolutley love technology now that I have been away from it for 3 months! Lol
It will be nice to get more emails when I am over in Korea!
So I had to give my companion a blessing two nights ago because he was sick! First time I had ever given the blessing part and not just annointed! Wow, I have never felt the spirit so strongly! I truly felt as though it wasn't me speaking, that it was the lord granting him a blessing of Comfort so that he would feel better! I love the gospel it is awesome!
SO when the french open occurs I don;t want weekly updates but it would be nice to know who wins! Lol and tennis and prom pics. from carly are a must for the first package I'm totally looking forward to recieveing those!LOl
Sorry this email is so scattered but I am way excited to get the heck out of here! Lol I'll write more about what is going on in my snail mail letter! and the video! When you send the next package I could use some multi-vitamins as I think the spicy food isn;t going to be so hot for my stomach! Tell Dad he owes me a racket! I weighed myself for the last time yesterday as the gym is now closed for remodeling and I was 198- I came in at 203 and a little bit and have dropped just over five pounds! Wahooooooooo.... (That may be muscle weight though! Dang!) Oh well I lost it!
I love you tons Mom, tell every one that I'm doing great, loving it, can;t wait to get out, and that I love them!
Your son, Greg

Anyonhaashmika, April 15, 2009
I would definitely have to say that General conference was amazing!!! Those last three talks in priesthood were what I got everyone else to refer to them as as the "Triple Threat" They were three great talks! If you could send me the text for ElderPackar of the seventies about being attentive to the spirit that would be awesome, I think either that one or elder uchtdorfs "Light Bulb: talk was the most inspiring for me!Food choices are getting old! Haha I never eat the main lunch meal I always go salad or a wrap, and fruit or granola for breakfast! Dinner is usually either a wrap or the main meal if it is healthy and looks palatable! We decided that everything tastes the same here and its cooked in the same pan so just eat whatever! Haha... if I have the willpower the next four weeks I can Guarantee I will come out having lost a few pounds!
The easiest thing with the language would be getting the Vocab words while the hardest is switching the order to Subject Object Verb and putting the right subject, object, and ending markers and conjugations on them. Wish I would have listened more in english. :)
Tuesdays I wake up and do laundry at six eating a bunch of fruit and sack breakfast for breakfast then we go get suits on and go do personal and companion study for an hour each... then I fold laundry, get a sack lunch, write letters or go on a walk outside If I can get one of the other elders to go, then head up to the temple at three. The temple is a great place! :) then we eat and go to the devotionals!
Alright goofy story, one of the elders in stewardship or zone was doing situps the other day in Gym and dislocated his shoulder, don't ask how it just happened! Lol he now has to have major surgery tomorrow and all sorts of junk! My district is absolutley awesome all of us get along well and compliment one another Its seems as though we were placed together on purpose!
And yes WE LEAVE MAY 11! Yahooo..... at least that is what we have been told we wont know for sure ti'll we get our travel plans!
The MTC is great even if a little to confining and restrective on my opinion!Love you, play some tennis for me!Your son,Greg