Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Miracles and Faith‏

8/09/10


Hey family How is life going? I am having a blast haha!

Lately Elder Grose and I have been working hard and we have changed a lot about how we have bee doing the work and because of that we are seeing miracles around every corner. Three weeks in we had a total of two investigators and now in just a matter of one week we have eighteen, crazy,Huh? But even better than that is the fact that out of these people we had four to church on Sunday and we invited all four to be baptized on the 22nd of this month and all four said yes! Talk about crazy! So here is the story; coming into Saturday we wanted five to church but it was looking like we would have only one and I swear I have never worked harder to get people out to church as I did last week. But we had tons of faith in the lord and we went to work to get our goal calling all of our investigators. We still had no one after contacting everyone. Our last hope was this family of five that we are meeting. Okay a family of four and the daughters friend who meets with us as well because she basically lives at there house. We met and studied English and the gospel together and just had a blast and in the end I commited them to come to church and all the kids said yes, the parents had another commitment at that time, hopefully we get them this week. So now we go onto Sunday and we figured we would at least get four people there and we were hoping to set a date with one of them. That’s when I got a call from our fifty-five year old guy who has been the last three weeks saying he couldn’t come because he had some problems with his teeth and had to go to the dentist. I was more than sad but we were still happy cause our family was coming. That’s when church started and our ward mission leader runs up to me and says one of the young women in the ward has brought her friend and I need to set up to talk with her after church, wow, talk about a blessing. Anyway as you now know we had four to church and my comp. taught the three kids after and set a date with them while I talked to this girl for the first time with her friend and our mission leader. It was way awkward at first but thanks to your beautiful faces and a couple of pictures of bugs on dads face everyone was laughing and we were good friends in a matter of just a few minutes. That’s when we got down to business. I taught about the book of mormon and its role in our life and how through reading it, prayer, and attending church we can show and gain faith in Christ.I then taught about christs example and his ministry here upon the earth and how after doing those three things we can show and gain even greater faith by following christs example to be baptized. I then did what is known as the soft baptismal commitment in our mission where I asked here that if she came to know that these things were true would she be baptized and follow christs example. She said yes and then without realizing it, and totally following the spirit I said,” On the 22nd we have a baptismal service, of course you don’t know much about our church but through us and your friends help you can be prepared by then for baptism. Will you follow christs example and be baptized on the twenty-second by someone holding the priesthood authority of god?” Out of her mouth came a yes and I felt the spirit in great abundance and so did she. Right as she said yes her friend and our mission leader said the English equivalent of “WHAT?WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? You mean you’ll get baptized?” Good thing the spirit was still present because she came back with a, “well if that’s what Christ did and this is christs church like I think it is I have to be baptized then, right?” Talk about prepared and talk about a miracle! She is seventeen, the son of the family is 17 and the daughter and her friend are both 14, what a week of miracles! Next week is transfer calls, hopefully I stay in bangwha to see it through! Please pray for them to get all the way their, they are so prepared and need our church so much in their lives! I thank you for all your prayers and love you all a ton!

Love,

Elder Grant

weeklllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy EMAILLLLLLLLLL- Man I hate writing these! But to get you must write, right?‏

weeklllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy EMAILLLLLLLLLL- Man I hate writing these! But to get you must write, right?‏
8/01/10

Hey family!

So this week things have finally started picking up here in bangwha! Elder Grose and I are finally starting to mesh our styles together and things are really looking to take of in an incredible fashion! We have one fifty year old man that has been to church for the last three weeks straight who showed up to church yesterday wearing a suit and when we taught him about fasting and offerings after the meeting he paid his fast offering on the spot! Haha, he is a great man. He came to church the week before when the stake president came to speak and the stake president spent two hours talking with him, we think that’s why he came dressed the way he did this week. Cause most the time people who aren’t members just come in regular clothes! We also saw another miracle as well, elder grose and I in looking at the stats on Saturday saw two of our goals that we didn’t think we would get, 2 people to sacrament and we still needed one more investigator to hit the standards. Well, they can’t become a new investigator if you meet them on the street but I remembered these two girls that had come to our English class the week before and their dad had called to say thanks and I had saved his number. I called him up and we set up an appointment for three the next day. Church rolls around and who shows up but one of the part member family members I have been trying to get to the waters of baptism for the last three months, plus the older gentleman I was just talking about. Then we met this family and it turns out they have tons of interest in the gospel and not just in English so we picked up the parents the 17 year old brother, the 14 year old sister, and her friend! Amazing miracle huh? Hopefully we can get them all out to church so that we can eventually get them to the waters of baptism! We had interview with president lee this week and he is just amazing! There will never exist the father like relationship that was their with president burton because of the culture and language difference but I love this man and he loves me so we are set to see miracles while working together!!!!!!!! I love all of you and hope you have a great week! P.s. Send EmailS!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Grant

Tender mercies

Hello‏
7/25/10



Hey Family, don’t have much time to write today but know that I love you and this is the lords work. We had a cool story this week that I think was one of those tender mercies of the lord. We were working hard and it was about 95 degrees and 100 percent humidity and after two hours we had nothing, we couldn’t get anyone to stop and talk to us. Eldr Grose was getting mad and I was just plain down frustrated and tossing down at anyone I could get my hands on cause that’s the best thing to do when it doesn’t work is to just work harder. At that point in time as we were streetboarding two guys walked up on their own volition and started talking to us one talked to elder grose and another one talked to me. This guy was way good at English and had interest in our English program but moreover he wanted to learn about our church, elder groses guy was a student in high school but we both got appointments for this week, wow was I thankful I kept working and didn’t give up! I read alma 26 this Sunday and had to give an unexpected talk in church yesterday. I shared this and alma 26 about relying on the lord and enduring in hard circumstances and then how the lord will eventually bless us because he is always watching us. I went for twenty minutes with no preparation, wow, I was surprised I could do that in Korean!Haha

Love you all,

Elder Grant

Rainy season with no rain! Again?

Hey ya'll its rainy seasin with no rain, I love it!!!!!!!!!!‏
7/11/10


가족야! 안녕!

Okay now that after ten minutes I got my computer to switch from Korean to English……… Lets get on with life! Hey everyone so with Elder Tucker going home I am staying here in Bang wha and I will be serving next transfer with Elder Grose from Pleasantville Utah, and man is he ever different from Elder Tucker! Haha The mission has now been completely combined and we have a fifty fifty ratio of missionaries in almost every zone across the mission! Well, the combination wasn’t all joy and fun either though.

With us moving over to the new mission president there have been a lot of changes rule wise. Almost every missionary in our mission would have followed president burton to Hell and back in day, we loved him and respected him and everything that came out of his mouth was inspired by the spirit and made sense! Well, with the combination we are now under President Lee who is an absolutely great man but many things are being complained about by the missionaries and not to complain or anything but I Kinda feel like I am 6 years old and am being told when I can tie my shoes and when I can go use the bathroom. Okay enough of that but any ideas about how we can help the elders to just accept what has come and go with it. The first thing I know that I have to do is just obey and seem happy about doing it no matter what. A lot of the elders are bad talking president Lee and in our zone this last week just went in a downward spiral, so I am open to suggestions!

Elder Grose and I were similar when I was about 16 years old!Lol Elder Grose is a really shy and tentative Elder and has trouble talking to anyone. The differences between him and elder tucker are like night and day and I have to say after spending three months with elder tucker I pretty much just speak what is on my mind now and I am bold in almost everything I do!Lol I have to relax a little bit more so I don’t drive my comp. nuts but it should be a great next transfer, he is one of the most humble people whom I have ever met! We have already started seeing miracles together as well! We went through our potential investigators list last week and we already have about ten appointments set up for this week, talk about crazy huh! Right now we still haven’t had a baptism for this month as the one we had set for last week didn’t go through but he will be getting baptized this coming Sunday! He is the coolest ever he’s twenty four and we just have amazing times every time we meet him! This last week with E. Tucker we went out for dinner with him(young il) and his girlfriend(yun he) and went bowling, way fun and it got us on the good side of his girlfriend so she is now down with him getting baptized and having to live the law of chastity which she didn’t like the idea of much before! Its been fun to see him change and his girlfriend start to change even if just ever so slowly! I think that is my favorite thing about the gospel is just the changes it brings about in people, they learn, they feel, and then they act and it changes their whole lifes course!

Love you all,

Elder Grant

Leave the man alone....

Sheesh, satan, leave the man alone!!!!!!!!‏
7/18/10
)


Okay so the heading about having rainy season but no rain, well that was a premature statement on my part! Since I said that it has yet to quite raining here in Korea and just keeps pouring buckets upon buckets every day. This last week has been a fairly tough one missionary work wise, it seemed like everything we tried to do just fell through no matter how hard we tried.

We were supposed to have a baptism yesterday but as you can tell from the last statement it didn’t happen and man does it kill me. Young il had his interview on Friday and the Elder who did it said that he bore and amazing testimony on the atonement of Christ and that he was prepared for baptism and knew what it meant근대, apparently he wasn’t converted deep down. So the next day as my companion was making calls to potential investigators I was making the program and setting up all the things that had

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The whole of Seoul

The WHole of Seoul!!!!!!‏
7/05/10

From: Charles Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Mon 7/05/10 1:57 AM


Hey Ya'll!!!,
So today was our first p-day being the new seoul mission and also being allowed to go wherever we wanted! However it is also my companions last p-day in korea so we went to some of the big shopping centers here, it was sweet and I found a whole thing of oatmeal for only ten dollars! Lol Never thought that would be the highlight of my week!
WE have a young man getting baptized this weekend he is twenty three and is dating a girl that is 27, he has such a good heart and really wants to get baptized however his girlfriend is a naughty girl and therefore may end up as satans means of keeping him from coming unto christ. People just don;t realize how important the knowledge that we have in this church really is. If we as members of this church and others as non-members had any clue as to how much our lives could be changed just by striving to follow the gospel to the absolute T I think it would change the world. For now we all have to do all that we can to share the wonderful knowldege of the gospel with others!
Our missions combined this last weekend so everything is really crazyh right now. Since my companion is going home I will be staying in bangwha and I will find out who my new companion is tommorow at live transfers, its going to be straight up like the old general conference style mission calls! I will let you all know how it goes!
Love you all,
Elder Grant

Hey, Long Time no See

HEy Long time no see!!!!!‏
6/27/10


Dear Family!!!!!!!!

Sorry its been such a long time since I emailed you for real’s but when your companions time in Korea is limited it seems like he always wants to make the most of the time he has left! Haha, however I haven’t minded going around everywhere with him! In the last 12 weeks I have been to the zoo, Buddhist temple, biggest mall in Korea, fishing, an amusement park, and to cap it of today I have to be at the mission office all day while my companion has his final interview! We had to have a bunch of fun ones to make up for the lame one today I guess!

We have a baptism scheduled for the 11th of July! He is a 24 year old man by the name of 강영일, kang young ill, he is just amazing! Elder tucker actually first met him on the bus on his way out to do some baptismal interviews for me when I was still out in shi heoung and we just started meeting him again about two weeks ago! He loves sports, studying, and his girlfriend is fluent at Japanese and looking to get baptized as well!!!! This last week he also brought one of his friends and we talked together and his friend has tons of interest! He’s been to church only once and didn’t come this last Sunday because of the world cup game(WE LOST>>>WHAT HOW COULD WE LOSE? OH…THAT’S RIGHT, KOREANS AREN’T VERY ATHLETIC!!!!!!!HAHA)! Keep him in your prayers if you would, he’s a great guy but he has stuggles with the word of wisdom and also with the law of chastity probably. He has cut from a whole pack to just five cigarettes a day but definitely needs the lords help to get the rest of the way!

This last Saturday I had to do a baptismal interview for only the second time on my mission and wow did it rack my nerves! I had a woman who had had big problems in life and she was confessing it all out to me! Let me tell you I have never felt the weight nor the power of the calling as a missionary as much as I did then. This woman as almost every other woman over the age of forty in Korea had had an abortion but she had also had other problems earlier in her life which could have prevented her form getting baptized. After hearing all this and talking for a while I finished the interview and called up to president burton cause she had to have another interview with him. I told him what was going on and he says, “Well, Elder looks like you’ve gotten yourself a good one!” I was thinking yeah thanks president holy smokes this is crazy, I never want to be a bishop if this is what they hear every day. Then president stunned me by saying, “ Well since I am going home in 4 days I don’t have any counselors any more and I can’t make it down there to do the interview for her. So because of the seriousness of the matter I feel it inappropriate to do it over the phone so what I am going to do is have you do it. President then gave me very specific instructions on what to ask and then said at the end of talking with her I want to you to go with the feeling that you get from the spirit. I was astounded and shocked that so much power was being put into my hands to decide whether or not this woman was worthy for baptism. After another 30 minutes of talking with her and learning all the details I asked her to bear her testimony about why she wanted to be baptized and the gospel. She gave a very sweet and short testimony of the atonement and the power of it that she has felt in her life. At that time I felt the saviors overwhelming love fro both her and me, I knew in my heart that she had fully repented and was forgiven of her sins despite the seriousness of the matter. I heard from the elders who baptized her last night that her baptism went great and she cried through the whole thing! Its really cool to come to understand a little bit more the power of the atonement through an experience like that! I love this gospel and know that it is true and all I want to do while I am out here is help people begin the long road back to our father in heaven by being baptized! This gospel heals people not only externally but internally as well! I love all of you and hope you’ll allow yourselves to be guided by the lords hands this week!

Love,

Elder Greg Grant

Rainy Season with no rain

Hey ya'll its rainy seasin with no rain, I love it!!!!!!!!!!‏
7/11/10

Sent: Sun 7/11/10 10:04 PM


가족야! 안녕!

Okay now that after ten minutes I got my computer to switch from Korean to English……… Lets get on with life! Hey everyone so with Elder Tucker going home I am staying here in Bang wha and I will be serving next transfer with Elder Grose from Pleasantville Utah, and man is he ever different from Elder Tucker! Haha The mission has now been completely combined and we have a fifty fifty ratio of missionaries in almost every zone across the mission! Well, the combination wasn’t all joy and fun either though.

With us moving over to the new mission president there have been a lot of changes rule wise. Almost every missionary in our mission would have followed president burton to Hell and back in day, we loved him and respected him and everything that came out of his mouth was inspired by the spirit and made sense! Well, with the combination we are now under President Lee who is an absolutely great man but many things are being complained about by the missionaries and not to complain or anything but I Kinda feel like I am 6 years old and am being told when I can tie my shoes and when I can go use the bathroom. Okay enough of that but any ideas about how we can help the elders to just accept what has come and go with it. The first thing I know that I have to do is just obey and seem happy about doing it no matter what. A lot of the elders are bad talking president Lee and in our zone this last week just went in a downward spiral, so I am open to suggestions!

Elder Grose and I were similar when I was about 16 years old!Lol Elder Grose is a really shy and tentative Elder and has trouble talking to anyone. The differences between him and elder tucker are like night and day and I have to say after spending three months with elder tucker I pretty much just speak what is on my mind now and I am bold in almost everything I do!Lol I have to relax a little bit more so I don’t drive my comp. nuts but it should be a great next transfer, he is one of the most humble people whom I have ever met! We have already started seeing miracles together as well! We went through our potential investigators list last week and we already have about ten appointments set up for this week, talk about crazy huh! Right now we still haven’t had a baptism for this month as the one we had set for last week didn’t go through but he will be getting baptized this coming Sunday! He is the coolest ever he’s twenty four and we just have amazing times every time we meet him! This last week with E. Tucker we went out for dinner with him(young il) and his girlfriend(yun he) and went bowling, way fun and it got us on the good side of his girlfriend so she is now down with him getting baptized and having to live the law of chastity which she didn’t like the idea of much before! Its been fun to see him change and his girlfriend start to change even if just ever so slowly! I think that is my favorite thing about the gospel is just the changes it brings about in people, they learn, they feel, and then they act and it changes their whole lifes course!

Love you all,

Elder Grant

New Address in Seoul Mission

Address‏
6/20/10
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View detailsTo Aunt Tracie, Aunt Trisha, Carly Grant, Dad, Dan Adair, Grandma Adair, Grandma Grant, Grandpa Adair, Mckenna, Mom, Tanner Grant, Tricia Hales, Uncle Joe
From: Charles Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Sun 6/20/10 8:39 PM
To: Aunt Tracie (tggran@yahoo.com); Aunt Trisha (caludy@burgoyne.com); Carly Grant (spunkyseaturtle@msn.com); Dad (grantk@byui.edu); Dan Adair (daniel.adair@myldsmail.net); Grandma Adair (bearmum2@aol.com); Grandma Grant (gay-grant@msn.com); Grandpa Adair (gadairrealtor@aol.com); Mckenna (kuzcomg@hotmail.com); Mom (tetonwildflower@msn.com); Tanner Grant (bballwhiz@q.com); Tricia Hales (tricialou@gmail.com); Uncle Joe (joeadairrealtor@aol.com)


Please send all future mail to me to:
Korea Seoul Mission
Gwanghwamun PO Box 210
Jongno-Gu
Seoul-si 110-602
South Korea


I am going to an amusement park here in Korea today so we only have about five minutes to email, but I got to read everyones emails and was happy to hear from you all! I am doing well and Healthy and just loving missionary work! Thats all it is really about is love, if you love everything and people can see that love you have for them, life, and the gospel it changes them! I love you all!
Elder Grant

G G G GO O O A A ALLLLLLL

GGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLl‏
6/13/10
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Hide details Charles Greg GrantTo Aunt Tracie, Aunt Trisha, Carly Grant, Dad, Dan Adair, Grandma Adair, Grandma Grant, Grandpa Adair, Mckenna, Mom, Tanner Grant, Tricia Hales, Uncle Joe
From: Charles Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Sun 6/13/10 9:07 PM
To: Aunt Tracie (tggran@yahoo.com); Aunt Trisha (caludy@burgoyne.com); Carly Grant (spunkyseaturtle@msn.com); Dad (grantk@byui.edu); Dan Adair (daniel.adair@myldsmail.net); Grandma Adair (bearmum2@aol.com); Grandma Grant (gay-grant@msn.com); Grandpa Adair (gadairrealtor@aol.com); Mckenna (kuzcomg@hotmail.com); Mom (tetonwildflower@msn.com); Tanner Grant (bballwhiz@q.com); Tricia Hales (tricialou@gmail.com); Uncle Joe (joeadairrealtor@aol.com)


안양하십니까,오늘 뭐 하려고 하니? 나는Chinatown으로 가려고 해. 왜 요즈음에 email을 안 받았냐? 재 가족을 사랑 하 지만 계속해서email 받고십어요!!!!!!!!!! Hey Everyone, so how is the life going in the United States? Things are pretty crazy here but as usual the right attitude can make anything and everything fun!

This week marked the start of the world cup which is huge here in Korea, there isn’t much that happens bigger than this! We were on exchanges with some elders from the seoul mission preparing for the combination and we were switching back Saturday night and had to switch back at the place where they had the one of the biggest gatherings to watch the game in Korea, we went up and out of the subway station to see what it was like and oh my was it crazy, over 300,000 people packed into this little area, it was insane, I got some crazy pictures. We were there for the start of the game and in the first two minutes one of Koreas star players had a shot on Goal and everyone erupted, three minutes later when the scored in only the seventh minute of the game the whole country shook! I don’t think I have heard a louder sound. We were in our house when they scored the second goal, planning, and the whole apartment complex at the same time all shouted “GOOOOOAAALLLL” it was crazy! Korea won two to zero over Greece so the Country is going crazy thinking that this year could be there year! It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be here for this!

This week missionary work wise was kinda rough for our area, we had to be out in another elders area for three days and we had splits and it rained a lot but we still had fun though at times it felt as though no one would talk to or even just listen to our all important message. These last few days I have really started to love missionary work and I am starting to realize what love can do. The savior loved us, so he died for us. I am sharing a message with people about that, and how they can access the wonderful power of his atoning sacrifice. When we were out helping an elder who has attitude problems this week I learned that you have to love every bit of it. I was about ready to hit this elder upside the head as he just has a horrible attitude and I’ll share a little part about the exchange that I really enjoyed . So we were out in sheheuong which is my old area because my elder lee had to go to his army service for three days so we were with his companion elder lee from America. We went out to do a service project which I had set up to do two weeks before I was transferred and had never gotten to do. We set up one with a group of disable young adults anywhere from 18-30, it was so much fun. We got to do arts and crafts with them and love them as people, which they probably don’t get very often. Me and my companion had a blast and at the end I had three of these precious souls of our father in heaven hanging all over me asking me not to leave. It was a precious experience for me cause it reminded me of Kenny, and it taught me the true meaning of christlike love, you can’t hold anything back, it must be sincere or people can tell, but when you are sincere, watch out, because people will fill it and respond back. This elder went in their and he took and just cut the crafts out and threw them at the kids he was working with to color and then sat back in his chair with a scowl on his face for the whole two hours we were there, I was ready to give him a good one upside the head. He treated these people as if they were animals, I let him know after we left to that he better shape up when he goes there. The people there loved me and my companion to death and can’t stand this elder because he has volunteered to help but it is like its something he is forced to do. Serving through love changes lives! Hopefully as I serve through love I can help this Elder change as well, he’s got such a great spirit he just hasn’t quite caught on to what he is doing in Korea yet, any ideas as to how I can help him?

I want you to all know that I love this gospel and that I can’t wait to share it with more people, it drives me, the love, let it drive all of us to come closer to Christ so we can help our brothers and sisters in this world!

Love ya’ll,

Elder Grant

OOps---confused P-days

Hello Family!

Apparently we got our days mixed up, my p-day is on Monday which is Sunday night there in the good ole’ western united states! This week has been a fun-filled week of work and meetings and probably one of the most successful weeks I have had as a missionary number wise and miracle wise!

It started off with our zone leader counsel with president burton and then just got better with our zone conference and our combined district meetings where we as zone leaders provide training. So time wise we were pretty stretched this last week but the Lord blessed us with miracles every second of the time that we “Were” able to work in. This last week we had five referrals and picked up eight new investigators and established 2 new baptismal dates for not this Sunday but the next, Yahoo! Focusing on baptism and the book of Mormon with everyone we meet is really starting to see some incredible results. This last transfer our focus was on using the book of Mormon in everything we do. As I have done this I have felt the most successful I have ever felt as a missionary and I have grown to have a deeper knowledge and faith in the Book of Mormon. I know that because we are using this Amazing Book filled with the words of God we are seeing so much success.

This last week was not all work either, we had a lot of fun times. We had a ward party on Wednesday which we had a few investigators to and it was an absolute blast! We played basketball and a Korean game called chokew, which is basically soccer combined with tennis, in other words, Poser Toccer- I don’t like it cause it’s way Hard!Lol Our menu at the party was chicken tortillas! American Food, only not! Koreans ideas of American are vastly skewed! We had a sweet potatoe salad and no one ate it as salad they put it on their wraps with peanut butter sauce, mustard, salsa, all sorts of weird veggies and to top it all off threw just a little bit of chicken in it! Hey, apparently I am turning Korean, my first thought was, there is no way in heaven that that tastes good, wasn;t bad though! Howevere I wouldn’t recommend it for picnics in America!

Love you all,

Elder Grant