Monday, August 20, 2012

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

No WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Omedeto Gozaimasu! Congratulations!

Oh man, I'm way too excited right now.  I don't even know what to do.  Cameron is so cool.  Quinton will be my brother-in- law-ish.  We will forever have a connection with the Burdette's.  This is so cool.  I'm so excited.  And I think that December is a great time.  It's gonna be busy though, haha. Please send me lots of pictures and updates of everything as it happens, like the dress, the colors, the venue, the food, everything.  Who knew this day would finally come! Ya know, who knew that she would end up finding the guy in her hometown and then move to Provo with him and get married in Seattle, haha.  I'm so unbelievably happy that she is getting married in the Temple.  I don't think she completely understands yet how critically important that is, and I'm just beginning to understand that myself.  I promise people everyday that they can live with their loved ones for eternity, and they want it, but they don't want to change their lives to get it.  Kelsie doesn't have to change hers to get it, she already has an eternal family, and the love in her life doesn't have to change either to get it.  Its absolutely wonderful!
Okay, getting off my soapbox, うれしいですよね！おめでとございます、ほんとに。これはすばらしいです。じゃ、(Huh, I'm glad! Congratulations there, really. This is great. Well,). Tell them that I wish them the best of everything in the whole world.  And that I'm going to start writing my wedding speech! :) (in Japanese, hehe)

Well, sounds like you guys had a chill week, except for the engagement.  I'm glad the boys are enjoying the summer and having a great time and what not.  Is Kyle close to his Eagle? Is he getting his license soon? What are his and Connor's classes like this year? Did they get any new games?

Also, are there any big things going on in the world right now? Like any new wars, how's the economy doing, Presidential candidates, scandals, just some things that I can talk to people on the streets about.  Like, if China went to war with Russia, I would be like the last person to find out, but if that happened I would like to know, haha!

This week was pretty good for us.  I was able to go on splits with the zone leaders that we live with.  They are such cool guys and such awesome missionaries.  I went with Hamada Choro and we were able to contact a lot of members and we ended up getting 4 new investigator referrals in one day! Which is insane in Japan.  Like, my doryo has barely even seen 4 referrals his whole mission.  The people we watch in the training videos shoot for like 20 referrals a week, and we shoot for like 2, haha.  The members here in Japan are new, they are not like the members in America and they don't really know what is expected of them.  And the culture in Japan is usually that of people don't talk about religion often, especially not with people who are not good friends. 

We gave a man named Ryo a church tour, a Book of Mormon, and committed him to read, pray, and be baptized when he knows that it is true.  He works for Newskin and the Ceo of Newskin is a member, so Ryo went on a business trip to Utah once and visited Temple Square and had a spiritual experience there.  When he got back to Japan, the missionaries contacted him on the street and he agreed to meet with us and take a church tour this last Thursday.  He had a lot of questions about member life and how it would be different or not different if he joined the church.  His goals are to get married and start a family soon and to live a happy life, and we are like "yes we can help you with that!" He told me afterwards through broken English that he feels happy right now, he was glad he came :D

Other than that, it was a pretty busy dendo (missionary work) week.  We ping ponged a lot of houses, talked to a lot of crazy people on the street, visited the largest intersection (most people there at one time) in the world, rode the worlds fastest elevator, which goes 75m/s, ate at one of the worlds best Ramen shops, visited a Pokemon Center! inside of a mall! Legit! and made a lot of new friends and hopefully some of those new friends will turn into investigators. 

I'm working on a package to send home.  I've got some small things I'm sending, I don't know exactly when I'll get those off, in a week or two probably.  But ah, yeah, TokyoTemple was amazing and legit!  It is absolutely beautiful and everything was in English which was nice.   

Great week, we have a wonderful week planned with lots of member visits scheduled, it will be a good time. 

I will send you my SD card with my package and you guys can check out all of the cool stuff that I have been doing and seeing! Yosh!     

Love,

Elder Crandall