Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Well Hirrro Kazoku!

Week 4 down without too much pain. Family, guess what?! I can speak Japanese, I can understand Japanese, I can tell the difference between Asian Languages and Asian People, things are crazy.  I got called as the District leader and I will be doing that for the next 4 weeks or so.  Many of our teachers have been out of town this week so instead of teaching our regular investigators, we've been cold contacting our substitutes as if on the street and we've gotten pretty good at striking up conversations and teaching a brief first discussion.  It feels like I've been here for like a year, but it's only been a month, and I've got another 7 weeks to go!  I see alot of my friends from school here now, a few of them are already leaving to the field and I'm so jealous.  Our sempai (people who have been here longer than us) are leaving next Monday and the Nehonjin are going with them.  That means a new batch of missionaries are coming in like two weeks and we are the Sempai now! However, I've really grown close to the sempai and I'm going to miss alot of them, but I will see alot of them in Tokyo.  Thank you for the package! It was perfect, I really needed more shirts and socks and the brownies were Sugoi! I get a few letters from my friends, only like 3 though, and Sean and Riley have written me.  I've been working on my thank you cards and have sent some of them out already, still finishing some.  The Nehonjin that we are with are really starting to come out of their shells and they are really funny.  One of them did 4 one handed, two fingered push ups! He's a beast! The Nehonjin Shimai we are with are like stereotypical Asian women, super short, pink glasses, and ever night they tell us," Have a nice Dweeeam!" in broken English.  They are so nice and courteous and always apologize for nothing and make you feel good.  I love Asian people.  Japanese is hard, teaching in Japanese is even harder, but teaching by the spirit is simple, it's not easy but it is simple, that is the biggest thing that I have learned so far.  My doryo is good at Japanese so he teaches the doctrine, I listen and ask important questions and bear testimony, we have a good system and we've been able to help alot of people out.  One of our investigators refuses to pray, he will not pray, apparently that is the thing that happens in Japan, its the darnest thing, people just don't want to pray.  We've focused most of our efforts and attention on learning how to teach him why prayer is important.  Anyway, it's great that you guys are so busy and actually live interesting lives, haha.  Keep on working hard and I will keep on working hard.  I love you guys and I miss you, but not too much, haha.  Kelsie still hasn't written me!!! is she dead? Tell her to write me!

Ai Shitteimasu!

Elder Crandall

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Dear Family,

 Well I am happy to say that I have survived my first week as a senkyoshi (missionary)!  The MTC is the craziest place on earth and it has been the most spiritual and productive week of my life.  It was great to see the Cutright side of the family before I left.  Uncle Craig told me a lot about the culture and the mission field and I will be serving in places that he helped open up.  It was awesome to be able to go to the temple with grandma and grandpa before I left.  I don't have a lot of time to write emails, only 30 minutes on Tuesdays, but I'll tell you all that I possibly can about my mission.  I have a lot of time to respond by hand writing so if you do email me or send me a letter, I will be able to hand write back quickly. 

 My first companion's name is Elder Rollins.  He is from Meridian Idaho, which is right outside of Boise.  He took Japanese in high school so he is really good at being social and can carry conversations well in Japanese.  He is a great mentor to me, although I am the senior companion.  There are 8 guys in my district.  Elders, Roney (District Leader), Siepel, Blake, Howell, Baker, and Metsatahti. And then me and my comp.  Roney, Siepel and Howell are from Utah, Blake is from Arizona, Baker is from Oregon, and Metsatahti is from Finnland!  How crazy is that, the dude learned English from playing World of Warcraft and he is quite good at Japanese.  Me, Rollins, Blake and Howell all live together and all of us are going to Tokyo.  The other guys are going to Nagoya.  So I got to the MTC at 12:50, like we were supposed to, by 1:30 I was sitting in a class room with everyone in my district being taught by a teacher who only speaks Japanese and will not speak English ha.  His name is Clark Sensei, he is a tall ginger from Las Vegas and he served in Tokyo.  On Friday, we taught our first investigator, in Japanese.  This character named Yao Naoaki Son was formulated and we teach him as though he is a real investigator.  Once a day, we have been preparing lessons for him and we go down a few floors from our class room and we teach him about the Gospel.  So far, we have taught him about God, Jesus Christ, the Atonement, that God loves us and has a plan for us, he is reading the BOM, we taught him how to pray yesterday and we are preparing a lesson on the POS for tomorrow.  He doesn't speak any English,, all of this is in Japanese.  I learned how to pray in Japanese on Thursday and we have been challenged to say every prayer in Japanese. 

 Everyone in my branch is really awesome.  In our branch, there are 2 Finnish people, 4 New Zealanders, 3 Australians, and 2 Brazilians.  Most of them are going to Tokyo as well.  The Guy Elder Hall who I knew before I came here lives right next to me.  Two Shimai (sisters) in our branch are from Washington, Issaquah and Chelan, and I will be serving with both of them in Tokyo.  Our Zone Leader is from New Zealand, he has a funny accent and can be kinda hard to understand, but he is a great man and an awesome senkyoshi.  I have learned more Nehong-go (Japanese) in the past 5 days than most high school students do in a year of high school and this is because as I life my life according to the rules of the mission, I am blessed with the Gifts of the Spirit, one of which is the gift of tongues.  I really do love it here.  Every minute of every day is planned, and although that can be hard at times, it is teaching me the principle of obedience.  Tell everyone back home that I love them and miss them and I have so much more to tell everyone, but I do not have enough time on the computer.  Write me if you want to know more!

I challenge everyone to step up your family spirituality and unity and to begin to have daily family scripture study and prayer.  I challenge you to read the Book of Mormon twice while I am gone, once each year.  The Lord will bless you with a greater love for one another and you will see and feel His love more in your individual lives.  I will follow up on this so you better start doing it :) I love you all so much and I look forward to hearing what is going on back home.  Happy birthday Connor!!!!            

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hello my Dearest Family!

Well I've been able to survive my second week at the MTC without too much trouble.  First of all, I have a letter on the way and I hope you guys will receive that soon.  Thank you for the cookies! it is a huge moral booster and they tasted good haha.  Sounds like life is pretty good back home.  Everyone is doing okay and having fun.  I'm excited that Kelsie is living in Provo now. 

My Doryo and I are getting along very well.  We have a good teaching balance and we are progressing our investigators very well.  Yesterday, we had to cold contact two new investigators and practice basic teaching skills, in Japanese of course.  It is really frustrating not being able to say what I want to say or what I am feeling about that person.  I am more intuative than my Doryo and I often recieve the spiritual impressions on what this guy needs to hear and how we can help him, but I cannot relay my feelings to him cause I dont know enough Nehon-go.  

Chorro is Elder in Nehon-go.  I am Kuranduru Chorro.  Elder Crandall.  My comp and I taught our district meeting on Sunday and my Branch President interviewed me aftewards and told me I have an amazing teaching ability and that he really admires that, well, that kinda worried me.  Our Zone Leaders are leaving in like two weeks and all of our leadeership will be rearranged, I dont know if he was hinting at something or not.  

We had 20 Nehon-ji (Japanese Missionaries) show up today and they are living with us from now on.  The MTC in Japan is closed for a few months so all Japanese senkyoshi will be coming here from now on, but they are only here for 3 weeks.  They kinda smell weird, but other than that, they are really nice and really friendly.  

I have taken a bunch of pictures and I will try to send some of them to you guys.  I'll try to do that this week sometime.  I've come to the conclusion that if I can survive 11 weeks in the MTC, then 21 months in the mission field will be like nothin.  This place definitely feels like a prison, a prison where you recieve spiritual impressions daily.  This is easily the hardest thing that I have ever done.  Japanese is the hardest thing I have ever tried to learn.  It is incredibly frustrating, it doesn't make any sense, and I am incredibly limited.   But, this has been the best two weeks of my life and I am learning the language at an incredible rate, it is absolutly amazing.  Japanese doesn't even sound like Japanese anymore, it just kinda sounds like jiberish, but I can understand like a third of the jiberish.  It's weird, but my brain is slowing being translated into Japanese.  

Packages are greatly appreciated and I will love you more than anything if you send me stuff! I feel like I have been here for two months, not two weeks, and I cannot wait till I am in the mission field.  Keep me posted on what goes on in your guys' lives, and I'll do my best to relay anything intersting  that happens to me here.
We had Elder Christofferson speak to us last Tuesday and we will probably have another Apostle speak to us tonight.  Tell Connor I am proud of him and to keep up the good work.  If you guys could send me one more pair of regular white socks and one more tee shirt, that would be awesome.  We have gym 5 times a weeks and I kinda run out of gym clothes fast ha.  Other than that, I am well prepared, the food is okay, its not that great, life is really good though, I am finding joy in the work, I love my companion and the guys in my district and zone. 

Ai Shitteimas!        

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hirro everybody! 3 weeks down, 8 to go.  Let me just tell you guys a little bit about whats going on.  We are teaching two investigators at the moment, Tanaka and Tsumura Kyodia (Brother), and we teach one of them every day.  Tanaka likes to talk with us and enjoys our message, but he won't pray to know if our message is true.  Tsumura on the other hand is progressing well and will do everything we committ him to do.  It's kinda stessful to have to prepare a lesson every day and to have to learn and teach tons of new vocab every day.  But I'm picking up the language very fast and have been teaching the majority of the lessons with our kyudosha (investigators), although I don't know if the understand anything I say ha.  3 of my good friends from school are here now, I've been able to see them quite a few times.  More come each week, I look foreword to it, but that's not saying much cause I look forward to a lot of stuff.  I'm starting to get to know the Nehon-jin that are here, they are sooooo funny and steriotypical Asian.  They try their hardest to say stuff in English, we try our hardest to say stuff in Japanese, and through all of the butchering of each others language, we can understand one another.  They are terrible at basuke suru( basketball) cause the hoops are like 2 feet higher here than they are in Japan.  Half of them barely come up to my shoulders, but I love them and I have a growing love for the people in Japan.  Things are starting to get pretty routine around here; my body automatically wakes up at 6:20 every morning, I know exactly when I have to be places, I know where everything is, the only new things each day are what we eat and what we learn, but even then we can guess it pretty well.  The days are flying by, but the weeks feel like months.  Sometimes the days feel so long that I don't remember what I did the day before, other times all of the days seem like they are crammed together into one.  I can't wait to get to Tokyo, to do something new, to eat real food and most importantly, to teach real people. Ai Shiteimas Kuzuko to Kyodai to Shimai! Watashi wa sukuinushi iru koto ga to shite imasu. 

I miss you guys, but not that much hehe I am busy enough here that I don't let myself get homesick or anything like that, but I love your guys letters, they always make my day.  Keep Working hard in school and in life! Be mindful of the blessings you receive every day and always be thankful to the Lord.  I LOVE YOU GUYS!           

Elder Christopher Ronald Crandall
Called to serve in the Japan, Tokyo Mission
for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Currently Elder Crandall is in the Provo MTC and you can write letters to him via his email:
christopher.crandall@myldsmail.net or dearelder.com

Or you can mail letters and/or packages (nothing perishable):
Elder Christopher Ronald Crandall
MTC Mailbox #243
JPN - TOK 0717
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1793

He will be in the MTC until July 17th.