Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Yoshi hitobito!

the i in yoshi is silent so its not like the mario yoshi, its just yosh...

It sounds like you are going to have a very lonely week mother! Best wishes to you, but I don't have any pity for you :) enjoy it kudasai.  This week was a good week.  We got our itineraries on Friday and here is the schedule.  We leave to go to the airport at 5 in the morning.  We have a Delta flight leaving Salt Lake at 8:40 am for LAX.  I will have time to call you at the SLC airport before that flight.  Around 7-ish I should be free to call.  Here is what I am going to do, as far as calling you goes.  I am going to have a few quarters and I am going to get on a pay phone and give your cell phone, mommy, a call.  I will then tell you the telephone number of the pay phone, you write it down, and then when my time runs out, you call me back on that number :) It charges the same amount as a long distant call so if we have long distance minutes, it will use those.  There is no official policy for telephone calling so I can talk for as long as I want. :).  Then, I will fly to LAX and I arrive there at 9:40am, LA time, and I have a lay over there until 1 pm.  I can also call home from LAX, using the same technique that I described above.  It is recommended that we do not use phone cards because they are extremely unreliable and are pretty expensive.  Quarters and calling back is the best way.  Then, I fly to Tokyo Narita Airport.  I am on the Delta flight 283 to Narita.  I will arrive at 4:25 pm on July 17 in Tokyo, July 16 back in the states.  I will then be picked up by my mission president and taken to their house to spend the night.  The next day I will meet my comp and begin the work :D Sooooo send me a dear elder confirming this plan.  I won't have access to email or anything after this. After about Friday, anything mailed to me I probably won't get and they will not forward anything to Japan unless it has the correct amount of postage, including dear elders.

So tomorrow, a filming crew from Tokyo are coming and they are filming our district for a few hours and interviewing us.  They are broadcasting this news story to 6 million people in the UK and to 28 different news stations throughout Japan, so basically all of Japan.  The story will have kind of a political angle to it, with, ya know, Mitt Romney running for president and all.  They think that the church is training missionaries so that we become great businessmen and political leaders so that we can spread out and take over the world. Yeah, right, not!  So we are kinda expecting to get grilled in that aspect by the reporters and such, but we prepared for it quite a bit yesterday.  So yeah, I'll basically be famous throughout Japan.  They are going to air it next week and I will send you a link to the news story.  Also, MSNBC, BBC and a few other networks will pick it up as well.  So that will be fun, pray that I don't say anything stupid and slander it like they usually do haha.

Well, should be a grand old week ahead of me, I've started packing a little bit all ready and have all my toiletries and what not ready to go for the next two years haha.  I'm excited to call you mommy and daddy! Dear Elder me the details of your lives and when would be best to call and what not. 

I'm still working hard and I know Japanese better than ever! I also know the Gospel better than ever! Should probably tag that in their as well... Tell Kyle good luck at camp and to have fun like nothing else! He will be living the same schedule I am for a few days haha. 

 Love you always!

Elder Crandall