Tuesday August 28, 2012

Herro Family!

David was able to make it okay to my house and thank you so much for everything! We had an awesome brownie and nacho eating party last night in celebration of the new transfer!

BTW, I have been in Japan for a transfer! It's crazy, it has been a way fast two weeks.  Elder Gallacker and I are still in the same area, but one of us will probably leave next transfer.  But one of the elders that we live with got transferred.  Elder Hamada got transferred to the Mission Home to be an AP and we are way excited for him.  The elder who came here is Elder Cook and he was the last AP, so basically they switched places, ha.  Elder Cook is on his last transfer and he is a way cool guy from Ohio.  He is super wise and incredibly friendly, but not trunky in any way which is good.  He is a mission legend, just a way awesome missionary and helps a lot of people. 

This past week was awesome for us, we had a lot of lessons with members and focused on building the ward.  This week we are focusing on finding and sharing little lessons.  Our good friend Bishop Kyodai, the one who took us out to the crazy expensive sushi, took us out to a yakiniku place for lunch.  He moved up north this past weekend and wanted to say goodbye to us before he left, haha.  Yet again, I won't tell you how much he spent on that lunch.  We had quite a few mogi's(members pretend to be investigators) lessons and got a lot of potential referrals from people. 

This last Friday, we taught a shokai lesson (introduction about what the church is to English class students) with a Chinese guy.  He spoke a little Japanese and even less English, but it was incredible.  He is what we call a "Chinese Kinjin" which means a Chinese golden person, a golden investigator.  We watched "Finding Happiness" in Chinese and afterwards he said that recently he has had questions about the purpose of life and how to find a forgiveness of his sins and how to improve his life.  To which we were like "Yessssss"! We can answer your questions! That's our Job! He was totally awesome.  We taught him the whole first lesson and emphasized the BOM.  We gave him a Chinese copy, read the intro together and taught him how to read, ponder, and pray about it.  He was super genki and was really grateful and super excited about the BOM.  BUT, this past weekend he moved back to Beijing and said that he won't be able to come back for a few years. :(  This kind of thing happens very often actually.  Chinese people come to Japan for a few weeks for business, they run in to the missionaries somehow, they get converted to the Gospel, then they move back.  There are probably hundreds of thousands of people that have read the BOM in China.  Japan is the gateway to China and this kind of dendo has been happening for a long time. 

We are meeting with Ryo again this next week for a second lesson and follow up.  Thomas and Audrey are doing fantastic back in France.  We are very close to reactivating a less active member who is an RM and like 50 years old.  Sato San has been pretty flaky this past week, but we might have another lesson with him soon. 

I got in to a 20 minute argument with a drunk guy and talked to a guy wearing a speedo in the middle of a park. I'm doing a 10 day nato challenge (google what Nato is), deep cleaned our house yesterday 'cause it was transfer day, ate a lot of kimochi (Korean kimchi) this past week, and got more things for the package I'm sending home soon :D

Love you guys and I look forward to hearing what classes are going to be like for everyone! Also, two things.  1.) Kelsie's address please send me :)  2.) So a really big thing that Japanese people do is show off family and friend pictures.  I use the album you gave me like twice a day, haha.  Could you send me some fun pictures via email of like me and my friends and our family doing fun things please :) I have access to a printer across the street and what not.  Anytime during the week would be great :)

Love you guys so much and think and pray for you everyday!

Elder Crandall