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