Gambada Nippon!
Well I'm in Japan! I'm the city of Yokohama, which is south west of Tokyo, the second largest city in Japan, and I'm in the area of Kohoku. More specifically, Myorenji District. Japan is the most beautiful place I have ever been in my live. It is incredibly unique and diverse in the scenery and the smells and people and everything. The part of Japan we flew in to was incredibly lush and green, with tons of rice fields everywhere. But the part of the city where I am right now is very suburban, at least for Japan, with some trees and forested areas, but for the most part it is just housing complexes, like medium size complexes and small houses. The flight from SLC to LAX was pretty low key and easy, but the flight to Japan was brutal. I had a terrible headache, a sore throat, and got a little bit of food poisoning from the airplane food. It wasn't good and I ended up throwing up as soon as I got in to the Narita airport. It was so awesome to have David there waiting for me when I arrived, I loved seeing him and talking to him for a bit. After that, we drove to the Honbu, mission home, and stayed there for the night. Sis Budge makes great food and I was able to meet their whole family and the AP's. I actually met my soon to be companion that night, he was doing some computer work with the AP's and recorders and what not the day before. The next day, we got up and did some orientation with Budge Kaicho and got to know the mission and mission life a little better. At lunch, Budge Kaicho announced which trainers were with what people. Everyone was eating lunch together and Pres. Budge had each of the trainers stand up, introduce themselves and then the area a little bit. So my trainer is Elder Gallacker and he is awesome.
Elder Gallacker is from Mesa Arizona, graduated 2011, has been out for 8 transfers, is pretty good at Japanese, wants to go to the naval academy once he gets back, is an amazing singer, loves being a missionary, and is a really chill guy. We get along really well and he is working hard to train me.
So at around 3, we left the Honbu and headed for Kohoku. It was about an hour away by train. And let me tell you, the trains in Japan are so much fun, but so weird. Everyone on the train does their best to be dead quiet, they don't make eye contact, they close their eyes and pretend to be asleep, and everyone just looks miserable. They pack into the trains like sardines and no one says a word to anyone. But that doesn't stop us! Usually you just have to be really chill and friendly with them and they will open up and start talking to you. Usually I just say hello, then comment on the weather, ask them where they are going, if they are coming back from work, what their family is like, and if they have heard of the church. Usually they smile and think it is funny that I am speaking Japanese to them.
So our home is awesome! It is the largest missionary residence in the Tokyo Mission! It is located right off of a busy street, and a york mart, and not to far from the train station. It is two stories tall. The downstairs has an open walk in room, a restroom, a large kitchen area, a bathroom/shower combo room, then the upstairs has two study rooms, two closet areas, and a tatami sleeping area that all four of us sleep in, kinda squished but it's okay. This place is like twice as big as any other apartment in Tokyo. I love it. My companion loves to cook, I like to do the dishes, we have an even agreement with that. I have a lot of pictures that I will try to attach to this and some other emails so get ready!
We live with the Zone leaders and they are super cool guys. Elder Checkets and Elder Hamada. Checkets is from Provo and Hamada is from Osaka. Hamada choro is fluent in English because he went to BYU Hawaii so that is really nice.
Right now we have two progressing investigators, but no other investigator pool (working on that). One man's name is Thomas. He is our super golden investigator. Thomas is from France, he is studying at the local university, there are two big schools in our area (a lot of college students) and is working on his masters thesis in something.... Anyway, his girlfriend, who is named Audrey and lives in France, was very recently converted to the church and was baptized. So she told Thomas all about the church and so Thomas decided to look into it for himself. So he went on mormon.org and was a self referral for our area (incredibly rare). So Elder Gallacker and his old comp went over and starting teaching Thomas the gospel and Thomas just loved everything that the missionaries said. He is fluent in French and English and knows a little bit of Japanese so we have always taught him in English. He accepted all aspects of the Gospel into his life, knew it was true, made all the changes necessary to be baptized, and is getting baptized on the 4th of August! So this past week, Audrey and her parents came over from France for his baptism and Audrey is the Genki-est person I have ever met. She is the complete opposite of a quiet, refined, French woman. She is like a straight Texan with a thick French accent. So yea, that is awesome. She is planning on taking us out to lunch like 3 times over the next two weeks. Super excited! August 4th, mark it on the calender! Our other investigator is named Mr.Sato. Sato is an English cram school (look it up) teacher at the local high schools. He works from like 5 to 2 at night almost every day of the week. But he has developed a deep awareness of God in his life and wants to learn more about him. We teach him in English as well even though he is Japanese. He is very concerned about why God punishes the wicked and he has not come to church yet because he has to prepare for work. But he has come to two different broadcasts and comes to Eikaiwa (English class) every week. He has been very "busy" these past few weeks and has not had time to meet with us, but after I met him this week I sent him an email just saying how much I like him basically and that I want to teach him more and invited him to church and what not and he emailed me back this morning and said that he made time Thursday afternoon before Eikaiwa to meet with us. He also wants me to help him write a groomsman speech that he is giving in America for a family friend soon. So I agreed and will get to teach him this Thursday. Keep Mr. Sato in your prayers. Pray for him to have a softer heart and more of a desire to come closer to God and Jesus Christ. Also, pray for us to be able to find those who the lord has prepared for us and that we will know what to say and do once we meet them.
I was able to go over to a member's house for dinner on Friday with the Sis. missionaries. We have Sis. missionaries in our ward, double teaming it, it was with the Yamazaki family. I don't know what we ate exactly, but it was really good. Sunday was crazy, we had a meeting at 7:30 with the bishop, then priesthood at 9:30 (everything is backwards) and Thomas and Audrey came to church that day, then we had the most interesting Sunday School of my life. My comp gave the lesson in English for Thomas, which he translated for Audrey in French cause she doesn't know very much English, but we also had Hamada and Checkets and their investigator there who needed Hamada chorro to translate into Japanese, the two Sister missionaries there, one of which doesn't speak English so she needed a translation, and then half way through, the Stake President walked in. So we had 1 convert, 2 investigators, 6 missionaries, and 1 stake president in a tiny little classroom speaking all kinds of different languages to each other. It was crazy, but crazy spiritual. A lot of chikara in one little room. Then in sacrament meeting, I had to pass the Sacrament and then I had to give a 5 minute testimony. And then I had ward council after that, and then we had a zone conference after that and that was a blast. I have two of my Sempai, the missionaries, 1 transfer older than me, in my zone. We have a really young zone, a lot of 7th/ 8th transfer people. And then after that, I was able to go home and get a good nights rest.
My bike is pretty legit, it's white, I don't remember the brand but I didn't go cheap. I got a good, long lasting mountain bike. Riding a bike in Japan is pretty sketchy, you have to dodge people, dodge cars, a lot of poles, and sometimes all three at the same time. There are a lot of hills in my area which is making for a good work out.
So my comp and I see eye to eye on a lot of things but some things not so much. He likes to plant a lot of seeds, tell people about the church and make people see how good a people we are. But we are not super good at finding new investigators. We do our part and are kind of waiting to find someone who is ready. But I am the kind of guy who has the attitude of everyone is ready, we have the ability to convert everyone, we just need to figure out how we can get into the door of their hearts. At this point, I don't know enough Japanese to be able to do that so I am doing things his way and planting a lot of seeds, but not reaping or harvesting a lot. But I believe this newest generation of Tokyo missionaries, me and my group, are going to be the first great harvesters of Japan. Once we learn how to speak the language and serve the people, we will bring a lot of souls closer to Christ. So my big focus right now is becoming fluent, working hard with the language.
"Streeting" and "Housing" is very hard in Japan. People on the street simply cannot believe that you are talking to them, they just assume it is someone behind them, so they ignore you, treat you as though you don't exist, and keep on walking. No one smiles on their own, only after we smile at them and say hi do they smile. Housing is fun though. People do not come to the door in Japan, they have little call boxes outside of their doors, little ping pong boxes, and they talk through that. They are some of the nicest people at rejecting us. The most common phrase is Kekkon Desu, I'm good basically. Although yesterday, I had some lady tell me to just go home, not very nicely. Streeting and Housing are not effective ways of doing missionary work in Japan. There is a better way, member referrals! 60% of baptisms in the Tokyo mission come from referrals, but here is the interesting thing, Japanese people hate hate hate giving referral's and hate letting the missionaries do service for them. They just don't do it yet, they're afraid and don't want to let us help their friends. I have been pushing for referrals since day one, after I went Streeting for the first time and saw what it was like, and recently, the zone leaders and Budge Kaicho started to push for it as well. We need more investigators, more member referrals, and I need to know Japanese better hahaha.
Well, I love you all and I will try my best to send you a lot of pictures soon!
Elder Crandall
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