Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Crazy Life--North Korea Sout Korea too

Crazy Life‏
From: Charles Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Mon 5/31/10 9:52 PM

Hey everybody, This weeks email will be short and sweet. Just to say that I love all of you and can't wait to here from you. With the situation going on in Korea President Burton wanted us to tell all our parents that everything is fine. They are in contact with the U.S. embassy and there has been an official statement released saying that there isn;t any danger to american citizens who are at this time residing in Korea. Fun week this last week, we especially had a good time at zone leader council where president taught us about all the lessons he has learned about leadership as it was his last one with us. It was a very spiritual experience and we all left feeling a thousand times more spiritual and having learned much through the spirit. Things are starting to look up in bangwha, we still have no dates but we have a couple who are progressing well and look to have good potential for baptism in the future! I love you all, have a great week!
Love Elder Grant

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Lots of changes and crazy Miracles‏ May 29, 2010

Hello, Most important things first, Elder Grant is experiencing a change in Mission Home address. Starting in four weeks if you could all begin to send mail to

SEOUL MISSION

Seoul-si

JongRo-Gu

Gwanghwa-mun 110-602

P.O. Box 210

I would greatly appreciate it. The last few days have been extremely hectic and it doesn’t look to slow down any before we combine with the seoul mission on the 29th of June. From here on out our p-days are being moved to Monday in a worldwide effort by the church to standardize missionary work around the world, thus meaning that today is not a p-day and that all I get to do is email you guys and go right back to work, they announced the change on Tuesday so this week is a long, p-day free, week of missionary work, you don;t realize how much you need that day until you don;t get it. So this last week was transfers but Elder Grant will be staying in bangwha with Elder Tucker. However, our zone experienced some huge changes. We had four people that went home and one area close, out of those four only two of them were planned to go back to America. One was discovered to have a worthiness issue and the other has OCD and so isn’t able to deal with missionary work, talk about crazy huh. So because this elder with the worthiness problem just got discovered on the day before p-day he has to go home making it so we have one less possible companionship so they ended up shutting down an area in our zone where the ward just can;t seem to work with missionaries very well.

This last week we’ve seen miracles every day. We were meeting a man on Saturday and we got to the subway station about thirty minutes early after getting out of a meeting with some other missionaries and we were talking about what to do, so I said, well we need some more lessons and a new investigator to reach our goals so lets do it. We threw down our goals and walked right up out of the station. Right as we came out there was a man walking along beside us so I greeted him and we started talking, this man talked with us for about twenty minutes before our appointment showed up and as I was sitting there and we were talking I was thinking about how we were going to commit him and how he would respond. I thought, “commit him to come to church!”, what commit him to come to church on the street, I had always done that with people in passing but this was like a place in which we could get a new investigator and doing something like that could cost us his trust and friendship as he could come to see us as purely people who go around saying believe in christ, however who am I to say no to the spirit. So as we were parting I threw down the will you come to church commitment to him and he got a little bit freaked out but we explained that just if he had time we would love him to come and see what our church is like. That night we texted him our churches address and told him once again the time. I prayed that night that he would come because I really felt like that was the commitment I needed to give him. Half-way through sacrament Elder Tucker looks at me with a surprised look on his face, “Elder, He’s on his way to the church right now!” I was way surprised and so grateful at the same time. He arrived five minutes to late for sacrament meeting because of his job but we were able to sit him down with a member and teach him about the gospel, he really is an amazing person and prepared. It was a testimony to me that as you find and then commit people through the spirit, it makes for much more effective missionary work.

Hope you all have a great week this week, I’ll pray for you if you will pray for me!

Love,

Elder Greg Grant

Twelve Apostles!!!!‏

Hey Ya’ll and welcome to the sunny/rainy/cloudy/muggy I don’t know what to call it land of Korea. Seems lately like we have been having all sorts of weather. This week has been a really good one. We got to have a special meeting and shake hands with elder Christofferson on Monday, what a special treat to here from an apostle of the lord. His main message was about the book of Mormon and how using it in our own lives and in missionary work we could help to change others lives for the better. I feel like that is so true, if people just read and pray and follow the basics they won;t live problem free but the problems they have will seem less big as they feel a certain peace through the gospel. This last week we went and visited a man and his family who was diagnosed with cancer maybe four weeks ago and is deteriorating rather rapidly. He expressed great concern about his sons particularly his oldest son who says he is done with church when he turns twenty which is the legal age here in Korea. This man was a bishop up until he moved about three months ago, he asked us what he could do to help his three sons. I asked him if they did FHE, read and prayed together, not surprisingly as most Koreans do he said that no they didn;t and never really had. I immediately testified that if they would do that it would change their families lives. I truly feel that just by doing those three simple things together families grow closer and the world has less influence on the children and other members of a family. These three things protect against bad friends, arguments, pornography, a variety of things. I remember very few of the lessons we had when I was little but I do know that because we did it all of the people in my family are better people because of it. So I will commit you missionary style, will you follow the prophets counsel and do these three things as told to? You dang well better or I’ll swim the ocean to come get you all! Lol Well I have got another fun filled p-day ahead of me, see ya’ll next week!

Love,

Elder Grant

Man was it good to hear all of your voices May 2010

Man was it good to hear all of your voices, long time no see, i uh… mean… no talk to huh? Lol SO this last week has been a crazy yet good one and I basically told you all of the goings on over the phone when we talked. Today fro p-day we are planning on heading over to the zoo so we don’t have much time to do anything but it should be lotsa fun! I sure love all of you and am thankful for all of your support. This week I have been studying on how to follow the spirit and one of the things I studied alot of was when nephi in chapter 6 was constrained by the spirit to kill laban. Nephi knew that laban was a bad man and he also knew he needed the plates but he still had a hard time following it. Nephi had to go through a kind of check process before he realized that it was the spirit and he realized that he had to follow it. WE in our lives need to do the same things. As we live worthily and ask for the spirits guidance it will come, its just a matter of following it. Take today for instance. We had gone up to surprise some elders in our zone to study with them and on the way back a little boy sat down in front of me and normally I don;t talk to little 14 year olds especially when their moms and right there but I felt like I needed to talk to him so talk I did, in English, as far as he could go with intros., and then i switched to Korean and he was amazed! Lol This little boy is actually suffering from some type of lung disease and his dream is to become a preacher. He loved talking to me and especially loved the fact that I was Christian. I made friends and he asked me what the book of mormom was and so I explained to him using the intro. And pictures and he loved it and was impressed, even asked me where he could buy it! I told him he could get it for free and asked his mom if I could give it to him, she said yes. This little boys face just lit up brighter than any i have ever seen, I shared my favorite scrip. And he dog marked the page for latter. He was a little disappointed when I told him I didn;t make money but I explained why and by the time we were done he left the bus saying I want to be like you when I grow up! Amazing story huh, testimony to me that the spirit guides us! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Grant

Mother's day phone call 2010

RE: Hey Momma!!!!!!‏
From: Susan Grant (tetonwildflower@msn.com)
Sent: Wed 5/12/10 8:29 PM
To: Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net); tetonwildflower@msn.com


Hey Handsome,

It was so great to hear your voice on Sunday, truly, it's a joy to know you are alive and well and still motivated about being on god's errand Greg. It makes my heart rest at ease, but I also sensed the burden of responsibility in your voice and the tenderness of heart you are experiencing. Those phone calls are tough, on all of us I think: ) Much as I love talking with you, I sense they're a little hard; I hope the homesick faded quickly; there were things I wanted to talk about with you, but didn't want to make you cry (okay, me!) Thank you for making the effort and for talking with everyone so patiently---Mikey would NOT let anyone else talk and Kendall just kept saying, "Make him be quiet so I talk" about everyone who had the phone. those little boys are so proud of you and want so much to be like you; it's awesome! Hearing your voice made it real for them--even if they DID keep repeating everything. Your Carly misses you like crazy and would love to have you all to herself; hearing your voice makes us all homesick for you. Probably shouldn't tell you those things, but sometimes we just need to be real and not pollyanna positive all the time? We miss you---that's pretty real right now. But we're so glad you are happy and well---that companion of yours is bound to figure out what an amazing Elder he's got with him and stave off the 'motivational speeches' ---we'll put both your names in the temple again this week when I go. Everytime I am there, your name is too. And lots of my friends...: )

We're headed to Districts Tennis at sun Valley tomorrow; Tanner is coming--Carly's wanting to have this one year to herself, but he's been so great he deserves a break too. He and I will go off and do so she can have her space: ) Hope she does well so she can go to State; she wants so much to make you proud of her. She's going to play singles. We're having spaghetti dinner again; it has become the tradition: ) Tracie will come up and play with the littleboys while we're gone; hope they all three have fun.

I went shopping today to collect girls' camp equipment; camp is in June. did I tell you I'm the camp director? that, and they released me from gospel doctrine last week adn I'm now the Laurel advisor---hope it's not all too much 'mom time' for Carly. I think she's okay with it....just probably not the little brothers that will sometimes have to be with me. Should be a fun couple months---busy, since we have to buy and figure out all new equipment, but hey! at least we get some and I don't have to round up borrowed stuff!

gotta run grade papers and get my lesson planned for next week. I'm going to have my kids do a service learning project with the JCC boys again next week; we're headed out to eh Livestock center west of town; we're going to clear a fence line of big boulders that are knocking it down, clean up the run-off sludge from another section of fence line from the ice in the river this winter and then roast hot dogs and have dutch oven cobbler and s'mores. should be a fun evening with the boys from up north...hope it all goes smoothly. My kids are excited, which makes me happy because they have been so mellow to date i was afraid they weren't really alive and breathing: ) I'll let you know.....: )

Love you son! so proud of you!
finally have all pieces of package gathered, should be in the mail the end of this week!

XOXOXO, Momma Bear





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 15:34:19 +0900
Subject: Re: Hey Momma!!!!!!
From: charles.grant@myldsmail.net
To: tetonwildflower@msn.com


Okay I will do! I'll see what I can do about the tennis shoes over here, finding ones my size is a little bit rough but I should be able to do it. Today we hit up a great sale where I picked up some good shirts for 9 bucks a pop and got some free ties. I pulled out 100 dollars and hopefully that will get me shoes and the stuff I bought today, we'll see what i can find. On the shorts I think carly may have them as last year in the MTC I got a pic. and she was wearing them!Lol
Love ya,

Greggors--letters to Momma and back

Re: Greggors‏
From: Charles Greg Grant (charles.grant@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Thu 5/06/10 12:57 AM
To: Susan Grant (tetonwildflower@msn.com)

Hey Momma Bear,
SO this last week has been a good one if not one of the busiest I have had on the mission. Been feeling a little down and out with some kind of nug lately and having a few killer headaches but as of today i am feeling somewhat better. Glad to hear that you and tammi and the boys are having so much fun. I can;t wait to get home and get in on some of that mountain outing and horsebak riding stuff! It really is fun doing the lords work but at times you just wish you could have a day to relax and have some fun.
Sounds as though they finally figured the deal with carly out huh? How long has that nasty stuff been around bugging her? This week is mothers day again, already? Holy cow does time flie by quickly or what? When I call on sunday it should be early on in the evening though I am not sure exactly what time I will be calling or where from yet. When I call if you could have things like how much is in my account, and yeah thats it for prep stuff, ready to tell me I would love you to death, but wait, I already do love you too death! I hope you always remember that momma bear, I love ya!
Love,
Greg
P.s. anything i can do for you over here? I have emailed uncle joe a few times, he's got a great heart you know it!


On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Susan Grant wrote:

Hey Cute Elder!

Man do we love to hear from you! Does my heart good to know you're 'alive' and well' : ) Thanks for being so good about checking in all the time; I know your hours must be so limited now--leadership has a way of sucking out all the extra minutes in life, but the blessings are given back in such magnitude I know it's worth it in the long run. We pray for you daily in your new responsibilities.

Pretty cool you have found a 'special spirit' there that reminds you of our Kenny---he's had a few of his own special moments this week: ) He has been home sick from school all week so Dad and I took he and Mikey to McDonald's for a 'hamburger and fries' and to play on the toys. I made them pinky-promise in the car that they would get out of the toys and come with me when it was time to go. I had to get Carly and Kenny to Idaho Falls that afternoon for an orthodontist appointment and we were in a little bit of a hurry...well, long story short, I was half an hour late picking up Tanner to watch Michael because Kendall would NOT get out of the toys. Your he-man dad climbed up those toys and hauled him down just a-fussing. So, moral of the story--don't take your investigator to mcD's for a respite break! Sheesh....we laughed, but shook our heads at the same time. No wonder we haven't been to McDonald's for years...really. We never go. And now....it'll be awhile before we go again: )

Only one more phone call then home! May 2010

Hey everyone living back home in the chilly and very dry state of Idaho. I think it is safe to say that it has officially become summer in korea and boy is it hot and muggy. I can do hot but I sure don’t like the muggy!

So just an update on the life of a zone leader, it’s a busy one. This last week since Sunday today is the first day I have had in my own area, I have been on exchanges all the other days and we have another one planned for tomorrow and then after we make phone calls on Monday in order to help with the combining of the mission’s in two months we will go on exchanges for two days with a couple of the zone leaders from seoul mission. I am feeling so hectic right now that my head is liable to pop right off! Lol It’s tons of fun though, I feel like I just stood up from emailing you last week and sat right back down to email you again.

So I will expound on my adventures here in bang wha today. Mainly the fact that in the last three weeks I have gotten to play tennis twice!!!!!!!!!! I may not be as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was!!!!!!!(Name that country song!!) So I don’t have the skills I had back when I was a senior in high school when it comes to match play but I can stroke back and forth for fun with the best of them on the Korean courts! So we have an investigator who is way into tennis and has even gone to America to play at the USTA tournaments in vegas. She loves the fact that I can play and has invited me on p-day a couple of times, I am loving it. We’ve played a couple of doubles matches and its fun, won some and lost some that just drove me up a wall but overall just getting to play is good. I am able to hit better than I thought I would be able to though.

SO this last week we had jo seew cha get baptized on Sunday, not a very well planned out baptismal service on our wards part and so didn’t have the spirit like we wished it would have had but hey, what can you do, next time we will just get er’ done ourselves. We see miracles everyday as we are on exchanges with the elders, though at times I feel that our own area is kind of suffering for the lack of time that we have to spend in it. We need your prayers more than ever now, we don’t have a single investigator who is meeting us regularly though we do have some part member families we are working with really closely and my companion gave some good insight on that this morning. He told me that it isn’t those people who we find and teach that get baptized most often, it’s the people who are already in the ward who are part of less active families, part member families, and looking back at the last few months I can’t help but think that it is so true! Can’t wait to talk to you on Monday here and Sunday there, I’ll probably be calling around five or six o’clock your time so have the phone ready and a good list of questions so we don’t have akward silence!Lol

Love you all,

Elder Grant