Monday, December 16, 2013

こんにちは皆さん！！！

It's great to hear that everything is going well over there.  I was able to hear your voice from David's iPad for like 2 seconds at the airport, haha.  It was great to see David and take some pictures with him.  The Wada's thought it was cool that he was there.  They are fine with people visiting, just as long as it doesn't take away from our purpose as missionaries; so hanging out with David is totally cool.  

I got your package 4 days ago!  Thank you so so much!  I also just got the ward's package and I've been trying to put it up soundly in my space, not a whole lot of space though.  So today I am on the 4th day of Christmas.  And I'm on the 4th day of my sugar binge, haha.  There sure is a lot of candy to go along with the Christmas stories.  

This past week has been a busy one.  It has mostly consisted of preparations for future events.  This next week, the 16th-21st, every day we have a big event going on in the mission. Then next week is doesn't get much easier.  We have President's interviews tomorrow, then Elder Whiting of the 70 is going to come to the mission for a two day tour on Wednesday and Thursday, then we have more President's interviews the day after that, then we have our temple day with the Wada's and then our ward's Christmas party, and then we have the big mission Christmas eve party and then Christmas, and then an all Japanese conference with Elder Aoyagi of the 70, and then we have an all mission culture night for our investigators and less active members, and then it's new years and everyone in Japan will be drunk.  

President Wada basically put me in charge of planning and coordinating all the events this year, so I can kinda relate to how you feel mom.  It's a lot of work planning out all of these events and calling a billion people and what not.  But there are lots of fun parts to it.  I'll be sure to send you lots of pictures of everything that I do!!!!  I could use your prayers.  It's a lot of work, but I know that I can do all things through the Lord.  

So, I can probably use the Mac on Christmas.  What time do you want to facetime there?  Let me know what time you want to get on there and then I can work my schedule around that time.  

I love you all so much and hope you have a merry, merry Christmas!!!

Love, 

Elder Crandall 

Thursday, December 12th, 2013

Our good family friend, David Tarr, happened to be working in Japan these last few weeks and was able to meet up with Elder Christopher Crandall for a little bit! Here are a few fun pics!! He looks so great!!!

Looking good!

Elder Crandall with our family friend, David Tarr

Elder Crandall with his companion, Elder Medeiros, and his mission president, President and Sister Wada

Monday, December 9th, 2013

We had another splendid week at the honbu.  All in all, it was eventful, yet less stressful than some of our other weeks.  We got a lot accomplished as far as upcoming events and various preparations are concerned.  Things are going to be quite a bit busier this next week with missionaries returning home and we are getting ready for Elder Whiting to come here for a mission tour.  

I have also been put in charge of planning out a missionary Christmas conference and an intercultural holiday celebration event.  We are planning on 150 people being at the Christmas conference and over 250 people being at the intercultural event.  Big fun, big responsibilities, and a big resource pool.  I have 119 missionaries at my disposal, hopefully everything will go well!  

We are in the middle of traveling around the mission and doing Presidents Interviews.  While people are interviewing, Elder Medeiros and I practice teaching fake investigators with the missionaries and take them through something called the basic training requirements. It's pretty self explanatory.  It's fun to get to interact with all of the missionaries from all over the mission.  I have pretty much only been to 1/4 of the mission area, I know the other Tokyo mission really well, but it's been a good chance for me to get out and see the southern half of Tokyo.  It has a lot more hills and half of Mt.Fuji in it.  

We are working extensively on creating a better reporting system between the missionaries and their local units.  Every year, each bishop prayerfully creates goals for the number of baptisms their unit will have for the up coming year.  We have taken those goals and with the data we have concerning the missionaries weekly performances, we have created individual standards of excellence for each unit.  

For example, in my ward, Kichijoji ward, we have a goal for 12 baptisms next year.  They have had two so far this year, so it is a pretty substantial goal.  In order for us to have one baptism, on average, it takes 20 new investigators, 9 investigators at church, and 7 baptismal dates.  So we need every week, to have 5 new investigators, 11 people at church, and 8 baptismal dates in order to have 12 baptisms this year.  Thankfully, we have 4 companionships working in this area right now so maybe that will be do-able.  However, we will need to work with members and double our current effort if we want to reach our goals.  

If we work with ward members better, we can lower the number of new investigators, people at church, and baptismal date ration down quite a bit.  For example, 1 in every 4 member referrals gets baptized.  Those referrals are very high quality potential for baptisms, therefore, if we work well with members and help them dendo their friends, then we could lower our new investigator rate down to 10, 7 or 4 new investigators per baptism.  

This is what we are teaching and training missionaries about.  How do we work hard, smart, and inspired.  How can we develop our teaching skills so that members will trust us with their friends.  And how do I help people convert to the gospel through teaching them the lessons.   

The picture at the top is me eating a fish eyeball!  It was waaaay good and really sweet!  Thanksgiving was great!  It was full of American food, the Wada's are American at heart.  We filled up Elder Yamashita's room with balloons for his birthday.  He was swimming in them, haha.  

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Crandall

Monday, December 2nd, 2013

Well, it's weird having P-day again already!  (His last P-day was on Thanksgiving day)  It's been like 4 days so not a whole lot has happened.  We just got back from going to Don Quixote with President Wada to get some Christmas lights.  It costs 40 bucks for a strand of 100 lights. Crazy!!! 

Things have been going good here.  Busy, but not too busy.  Our little ward is growing little by little and we are starting to get to know a lot of the members really well here.  

In reply to the last email, I'm not sure what I would like for Christmas.  I thought of one thing that would be nice and that is some more family pictures.  Maybe some printed out family pictures that I can share with people in my photo album.  I'm good on toothpaste and deodorant for a while.  I've got plenty of white shirts and pants and my suits are doing fine.  If you send me candy, then peanut M&M's would be much appreciated!  :)  I don't know, it's weird being a missionary and not really needing anything, haha.  

I am actually emailing you on a MacBook Air, haha.  President sometimes lets us use his stuff to get our stuff done.  I kinda like it, it's much faster and lighter than the church computers.  We just got back from going out to a crazy good ramen shop down the street with President Wada, the sisters in the area, and Sister Wada. They put a giant slab of butter right in the middle of the ramen and it melts down deep into the noodles.  It's almost like eating popcorn ramen, haha!  At the bottom is the picture of me eating the ramen with butter.  That was the best of all of the ramen I have eaten over the past year and a half.  If you come pick me up then we can go eat there.  

By the way, my release date is May 8th.  That night is when all the returning missionaries travel to the honbu and then on the 9th is when they would drop everyone off at the airport.  So if you would like to pick me up, arrive in Japan on the 9th would be the best day I think.  But the 8th would work as well, and actually the 10th might work as well if tickets are cheaper.  But the 9th would be the best time probably.  

Just remember, Japan is really really really expensive.  It's gonna cost an arm and a leg, but it's the best country on earth. :)  And lucky for you, you have a tour guide that can speak both languages!  Yay! 

That's all I have for this week.  I am so excited for Kelsie and her little Burdette Bagel that's in the oven!  Keep me posted on that.  

I love you all so much!  Merry Christmas!!!!!! 

Love, 

Elder Crandall  

Yummy ramen with a slab of butter on top!

November 28th, 2013

Dear Family, 

I appreciate all of the love and support you and our friends have given me with this big switch in my calling.  It's been a big change, let me tell you a little bit about this last week.  

So on Tuesday, we had Elder Evans of the Seventy come and visit with his wife.  I got to see all of my buddies from the North Mission that I haven't seen in like 5 months and everyone was freaking out that I am serving as the assistant now.  I don't know how, but everyone already knew.  Pres. Budge must have leaked it out or something.  But it was just way fun to see everyone.  The conference was great. Elder Evans is funny and shared a lot of cool mission stories with us and shared a lot of what happened during the decision process for the missionary age change.  I was only able to stay for half of the conference.  I had to leave half way through with all of the returning missionaries.  We hopped on a bus and went to Narita Airport.  Then, Pres. Wada took us out to a way nice sushi place at the airport and then we picked up the new missionaries right after that.  We had 16 new missionaries come in and they are as green as they could get.  One of the new missionaries is Elder Crandall from Salt Lake, haha.  Maybe some distant relation?  

All day Wednesday we did a bunch of different trainings with the missionaries and went out and dendoed with them for a little while.  Thursday we had the trainers show up and we paired them off and did a bunch of trainings and then sent them off to their various areas.  Then we taught English class (well, actually Bible class, but we do it in English) and had a fun sports night.  

On Friday a sister missionary came to the honbu 'cause she was having anxiety problems, which eventually led her to leave today to go home.  We had to help her get settled and get ready to go home.  Then we had a meeting with the mission presidency, Pres. Wada, Pres. Stevensen, and Pres. Welch make up the presidency. Taught a bunch of lessons in between it all.  

Sunday we had church, and it was fun.  There is a black guy in our ward, he is from Zimbabwe.  He served his mission there a few years ago and now he is a college student in Japan.  His name is Brian, nicest guy ever, also the most interesting guy ever.  Brian is black, but he actually is albino so he is white.  He is a black albino from Zimbabwe.  Blonde hair, white skin, yellow brown eyes, but with big lips, nappy hair, and a thick black Zimbabwe accent, haha.  Coolest guy ever.  I'll try to get a picture with him.  

On Monday, we got to hop the border into the other mission and hang out in Tokyo.  I had to go get my license translated into Japanese so that I am eligible to take the driving test and get my Japanese license.  I don't have a date for the test yet, but my companion and the office recorder have driving tests on this next Tuesday.  I am waaaay nervous of all Asian drivers on the road!  Pres. Wada let me park the car the other day so at least I have some practice in, haha!  

Then the past few days have been way crazy.  One of the new missionaries wants to go home so we just moved him here with us to hang out with us and see if we can't help him overcome his problems.  We had to give some emergency transfers this past week so that people fill in all of these holes.  There was a bike accident, a sister lost her credit card, an elder got his keys stolen, President Wada has been up in his eyes in emails and phone calls from the mission office regarding the missionaries that want to go home.  We have had a few therapists come over here to help the missionaries overcome their challenges.  The big problem here is that these missionaries that want to go home don't know how to cope with their challenges and relieve their stress.  If there is a problem, they ignore it and ignore and don't try to resolve it.  Eventually all of it turns into stress and that compounds on itself and becomes a time bomb that explodes into anxiety and home sickness. These new missionaries are way young, have never been away from home and when opposition arises, they have no idea how to handle it.  So some words of wisdom to people preparing to serve, resolve concerns about the work with your companion and surrounding people and expect the mission to be hard.  It's okay to have stress, just learn how to get rid of it.  We have had 3 sisters go home and 1 elder is trying to go home right now.  All of them are Japanese.  It's been way hard to see my friends and people I love go through hard things like this, but it has been a testimony to me about the power of a freed mind and enjoying being a missionary.  

Last night at like 10:15, Elder Blake, the Mission Recorder whom I live with, all of a sudden blacked out.  Elder Medeiros caught him before he fell, luckily, but we put him in a chair.  His face was ghost white, no color in his skin or lips, eyes wide open and pupils dilated like you wouldn't believe.  He wasn't saying anything and was limp like a doll.  It took about 15 seconds before he started to respond again. He looked like he was about to die but finally he started to talk again.  We told him not to fall asleep again and to keep answering our questions.  Sis. Wada called an ambulance and we kept asking him questions.  He eventually started to be able to see again and his pupils were going in and out of being massively dilated. Pres. Wada was there talking to him, keeping him calm.  By the time the ambulance came, the color was starting to come back into his lips and face and his heart rate was picking back up.  The doctors came, asked a bunch of questions, then brought out the stretcher.  As they were rolling him out of the honbu, he reached over the end of his stretcher and grabbed a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets to take with him, haha.  He came back home a few hours after he went to the hospital and is fine now.  Just a little cherry on top of our busy ice cream Sunday, haha.  

We have another busy month ahead of us.  Today we are going to have Thanksgiving dinner in the Wada's home!!!!  Yaaaay!  And after today we are going to get ready for Christmas!  Yaaay! 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everybody!!!!  I love you all so very much!!! 

愛していますよ！ 

Elder Crandall 

Monday, November 18th, 2013

Hello Everybody!!! 

Well mother, it's gonna be pretty easy to get an ecclesiastical interview from President Wada.  Don't worry about that.  I am glad that everyone is doing great back home.  No big news is good news, right?  I remember when I started to do my BYU applications as well.  I think the gist of my essays where on my future goals, big life plans, and to show them that I have a solid plan to get the best education possible.  I think they are looking for people who understand the purpose of BYU and know what they want to do when they get there.  

This week was by far the craziest week of my entire mission.  Just when I thought things couldn't get any busier or any more fun, I got a phone call that changed the course of my entire mission.  It was Wednesday night, I was stopping people and handing out English class fliers at Higashi Kanagawa station when Elder Hill answered a phone call from Pres.Wada.  He told us to go somewhere a little more quiet to talk with us.  I was puzzled by this 'cause I knew that he was in Korea at that time attending a mission presidents seminar.  We walked down the street a little bit until we got to a quiet stairway and then we put President Wada on speaker phone.  He started to address me and told me that he was sorry to have to do this to me in the middle of the week, but that he was going to give me my transfer call right then and there.  With absolute sureness and resolve in his voice, he then told me that my new assignment was to transfer to the Mission Office and be his new Assistant!  It took me about 5 seconds to respond because I didn't know what to say or how to feel about it.  Pushing back tears of sadness and excitement I feebly responded with an okay and asked when I am to move.  

After calling the then assistants that night, I found out that I had to leave the next day, so I packed up, said goodbye to all of our investigators and headed off to the Honbu (headquarters).  And so today, I am emailing you all from the mission office computer!!!  I am in Kichijoji ward, the stake center for the Musashino Stake.  The mission office is right next to the church and I live on the first floor of the mission office, and let me tell you, it is a dang nice place to live.  It's all practically brand new.  We have 2 showers, bunk beds, 3 computers, I have my personal phone now, and the Wada's live right above us and often bring us delicious home cooked food.  Last Thursday through today (Monday) has been an absolute whirlwind of activities and events.  I gave a zone training the morning I left without anyone knowing that I was leaving, that was hard and really sad for me.  I picked up the Wada's at the airport and got to ride through Tokyo at night and go on Rainbow Bridge.  We had one of the Kichijoji elders investigators get baptized and then had stake conference Saturday and Sunday.  This next week, tomorrow and the whole rest of the week, missionaries are going home and the new missionaries are coming in.  On top of that, Elder Evans of the 70 is coming tomorrow to give a two mission conference and we have had to organize all of that.  The elder I am replacing is going home right now and we have been busy saying goodbye with him to lots of people.  We had a welcome to the 'Bu party with the Wadas and the Yamashita's (the office couple) last night which was really fun.  Then had zone P-day today with all of the Musashino missionaries and we played dodge ball and made steaks and mashed potatoes.  We eat goooood here at the Honbu!  

My companion's name is Elder Medeiros and he is from Hawaii.  He is like 6'3" and used to weigh like 330 lbs, however, since the start of his mission he has been eating healthy and working out every morning and he has lost 140 lbs!  He is a fit beast now.  We run like a 5k every morning and play basketball a lot at the church.  He is an awesome missionary.  He got here a transfer before me so he is still learning the ropes as well.  I am now on transfer 13, in my 7th area with my 11th companion serving as the AP.  

Kyle and Connor, in case you are wondering what an AP is, every mission president selects two missionaries out the whole mission to be his personal assistants.  Basically, all we do is maintain the best area in the mission, the example area, then do every thing that President Wada says.  He has a lot to say.  When ever we have a spare moment, we go out and find.  Luckily, we live in one of the best finding areas in Japan.  There are always tons and tons of people around all the time and there is a humongous outdoor mall right next to us.  

It seems like I am going to be here for the rest of my mission.  I only have 6 months, 4 transfers left and Elder Medeiros will go home after 2 and I will need to stay and train a new assistant and carry on the mission for the rest of my time.  

This week is going to be crazy so please please pray for me!  This is going to be the biggest trail yet, but it will bring the most blessings.  I am so excited to be working under President Wada.  He is one of the most amazing men I have ever met.  I love him and I feel so much love from him.  

I love all of you as well and pray for you every day.  I have to go to wall mart right now so I'll email you next week!!! 

Take care and know that I love you! 

Elder Crandall

Monday, November 11th, 2013

Hey everybody! 

Thank you so much for the great email this last week.  I am so sorry to hear about the Cooney family and the loss of Betty.  I remember meeting her one time, at least I think it was her, on a plane ride back from Salt Lake many years ago.  I have a very vague memory of that so I'm not totally sure if I'm right.  But in the end, it brings a little bit of joy to my heart to hear and know that she endured to the end and is now gaining her eternal rewards.  I truly believe that.  

Ya know, here in Japan, they believe in one of two things.  They either believe that after they die, the wicked go to hell and the righteous are reincarnated into a different form, destined to continue this never ending struggle of sorrow and pain.  Kind of a dark perspective.  Or they believe that there is nothing after you die, it's the total end of everything.  Actually, I just got out of a lesson with one of our investigators, Zach, and we asked him what he thought about it and he told us that he was taught in a Buddhist school that reincarnation is real and that he might come back as a bug if he didn't work hard.  But he didn't believe it. However, when he thought about the normal Christian alternative of heaven and hell, he felt really bad 'cause he was worried that he would go to hell.  So now he has concluded that he just shouldn't think about death at all and just give it his all until he dies. But he is 19 and is completely miserable at this point.  He is reaching out for help, but will never admit it 'cause of pride.  He wants to change, but change is scary for him.  He has gone through child abuse, starvation, abandonment, and now he is going through poverty.  We read 1 Nephi with him, showing him how the scriptures relate to him and when we got to the point were it talks about Nephi being born of goodly parents, we asked him if he loved his parents and he told us that he hates his father and doesn't love his mother.  His father beat him and abandoned him for months at a time as a child and his mother bosses him around so he doesn't love her, he respects her, but he sees her as a symbol of oppression that he needs to overcome.  I told him that like Nephi, I learned so much from my father.  I told him how we would always go camping together and how he taught me everything I need to know about camping.  And how while we would camp he taught me life lessons and shared his testimony with me.  I told him how much I love my father.  I told him that the key to parenting, the key to influencing people and the key to raising children is love.  He then asked us what love is like.  He said he doesn't know what love is and that he dearly wants to know.  I shared Moroni 7:44-48 with him and told him to go home and study those verses and to come back and tell me what love is.  I feel too much love from the people around, especially my family, to think that this life is the end of all happiness. There is more to life than work, school, movies and golf.  I know there is a greater purpose for us, each of us, and this life is nothing more than preparation for the next one.  

I am afraid that this is all I can share due to time this week.  Thank you, mom, for feeding the missionaries.  I have been fed once by the Relief Society back when I was in Yachiyo ward, I know how much they appreciate it.  

I love you all so much!!!  This week is transfer calls so hopefully I don't go anywhere, but with my history, who knows whats going to happen!!! 

Muchos Gracias, 

Elder Crandall  

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Dear Family,

 

I appreciate the last letter that you guys sent.  It had a lot of advice and council that applied directly into my dendo here.  Thank you.  Sorry it has taken so long for me to reply.  I read the emails two days ago, but we didn't have time to write emails until today because we went to the temple and had various meetings.  Because we are the zone leaders we met with the stake presidency and had a big meeting with them, exactly what dad was asking about, haha.  

This last week has been one of the most exhausting weeks for me my entire mission.  In one weeks time, from Monday to Monday, we went on splits 4 times.  All 4 of the missionaries I went with were new missionaries, haha.  The only day that I was not on splits was on Sunday, 'cause we had church.  It was incredibly exhausting, but with splits comes miracles and we had a huge miracle this last week. 

 

On Friday, we got an email from the mission office saying that we got a referral from Mormon.org.  We got the name, address, and phone number of a man named Andris Zapata.  We didn't have time to visit him that night because we had a lesson that went long with Mukaiyama, but we looked up his address and he lives like less than a 30 second walk away from our house. The next day we went over to his house.  When we went over, he wasn't home, but his wife was and we were able to meet her.  We left our phone number with her and that night Andris called us up.  He told us that he has been wanting to come to church for a while, but couldn't remember where the church was.  We agreed to meet up at the station Sunday morning and walk to the church. 

 

He showed up at the station the next morning and we attended church together.  Andris is from Columbia and he moved to Japan about 13 years ago.  He was born Catholic but has some Mormon friends and knows a little bit about the church.  He moved to Japan, got married, and has one 7 yr. old boy.  Ever since he moved to Japan he has strongly adopted the Japanese working culture, after work he would meet up with his buddies and go out drinking every night.  He has been doing this for a while, but one day it really hit him how guilty he felt about always going out drinking and leaving his wife home with his boy.  He came home one night and saw how sad his kid was cause he had been waiting a long time for him to come home and he knew that he needed to change his life.  He remembered how happy he was at church with his family in Columbia and decided that he needed to come back to church.  The next day, before he ate breakfast, he said a simple prayer of thanks over the food and his little boy walked in on him offering the prayer.  The boy asked him what he was doing and he told him that he was praying to God.  The boy then went and grabbed a little snack and sat down and starting praying silently over the snack.  Andris saw this and was deeply moved and felt that he needed to teach his boy about Christ.  He then went to YouTube and pulled up a video on the life of Christ and sat down and watched it with his boy.  During the part where they crucified and buried Christ, he felt little tear drops on his hand.  He looked down and saw that his son was crying and asked him why they did those things to Christ.  Andris was even more moved by this and felt an even stronger conviction that his son needs to learn about Christ.  He then thought about who could teach his son, who could help him learn about Christ.  That's when he remembered our church and went to Mormon.org and asked for the missionaries to come over. 

 

Andris had an amazing time at church.  He shared his testimony of Christ with everyone, absolutely loved the Primary, had a great gospel principles lesson with him in which he shared all the defined moments he has had in the past concerning his son and wanting to come back to church.  We gave him a BOM in Spanish and he started reading it.  But that's not the best part!  The best part is that we live at the Stake President's house.  Andris lives less than 30 seconds away from where we live.  He and the Stake President's wife hit it off very very well at church (Andris practically fellowshipped the entire ward himself), and they have children the same age. 

Instead of telling only President Ito (the Stake President) all the things that I feel are misplaced about our ward and it's dendo, I am going to give Pres. Ito an investigator family and they are going to help us teach them!  We are going to make Pres. Ito an example for our ward and especially the whole stake!  We have already started arranging plans for an FHE all together and inviting them over to their home to hear the lessons.  Andris is very excited to teach his family the gospel and Pres. Ito is more than willing to provide his home for us.  We had the big Stake Presidency meeting yesterday and Pres. Wada was there as well.  I brought Andris up during the meeting and so now all eyes, including Pres. Wada's, are on Pres. Ito and his responsibility to convert this family. 

 

It's a huge huge huge miracle and it has the potential to be the spark that will ignite the entire stake!!!  I'm way pumped up about it and Elder Hill is as well. 

 

In answer to Kyle's question, all I can say is read the white handbook man!  All we do is follow the white handbook.  The only thing that is different about my mission is that we are not allowed to talk to women in a finding situation unless they talk to us first.  We can't stop a woman on the street and start talking to her about the gospel.  It is just too sketchy.  They aren't interested in the Gospel, just cool Americans.  Also, we can't go into a house if there is only women there.  There has to be another man above the age of 20, or a priesthood holder of the age of 18.  20 is the legal age in Japan, like how 18 is the legal age in America. 

I have 3 new missionaries in my zone that were born in 1995.  They are barely 18 and they had their calls while they were seniors in high school.  CRAZY!  Think about that, Kyle!

Love you!  愛していますよ！！！

 

クランダル長老

Monday, October 28th, 2013

Dearest Family,

 

I can't believe it is Halloween either!!  I was in the exact same place last year for Halloween so it's been really natsukashii (I don't know that in English) to see all the same people and smell the same smells in the same settings as last year.  Today was the first kinda cold day, not too cold, but cold enough to complain that it is cold, haha.  We had a fun week, an interesting week for sure.  But we have some cool plans coming up and I am looking forward to this next week!!

 

I was able to go on splits with Elder Allred (he is from Vegas) this past week and check out the Kamiooka Ward situation and the great work that they are doing over there.  Elder Allred is doing great.  He is being obedient, he is working smart, he is being a loving and patient companion with Elder Lumberg, and possibly for the first time he is starting to feel a deep conversion for himself and really starting to learn how to preach the gospel.

He shared with me his conversion experience and I felt the spirit very strongly.  He has come a long way since the start of his mission and I can see that he is feeling a lot of the joy that comes from living and believing the gospel.  He and I have a close relationship, my BYU roommates were his best friends growing up, and he shared with me a lot of his true feelings on things. He is very patient and he is willing to and ready to serve in Kamiooka till the end of his mission.  Although they haven't started teaching a whole lot, he is planting a lot of seeds and is doing his part over there.  He recently white washed into his area and so things have been slow.  It was a good chance for me to add my little bit of effort into the work in that corner of the vineyard and get some fun planting opportunities.  We went to a volunteer center and spent two hours playing games and eating cake with some mentally handicapped kids who were just the funnest people ever.  The missionaries have been doing that for a while so there are a lot of friends to the missionaries there and we were able to strengthen our relationship with them and prepare people to hear the gospel. 

On Sunday, we had 4 people who we were expecting to come to church, but 1 at a time, before church started, they called us and cancelled on us. In fact one of them we met up with us later that evening, Katsufumi San (an old guy who has read the BOM three times).  Turns out that he had some pretty extreme beliefs and ended up dropping himself on the grounds that he has graduated from religion and a new age religion has started up and he is transitioning into the future.  I'm still not sure what that means either.  We have 1 very slowly progressing investigator who keeps all his commitments except church attendance, and 1 investigator who is a kinjin, (Yaguchi) but can't meet, and is waiting for his school test results to come back.  We have a whiteboard in our apartment  full of tons of PI's that never meet up or work on Sundays, and we spend a good amount of time finding and having quality conversations with people.  Things aren't bad, but they aren't good yet.  Our problem right now is just a huge lack of member support.  Mostly, it's coming in the form of no action.  Everything that is going on is all talk and no action.  I have hope that they are coming out of the sleep and waking up to be a part of the hastening of the work, but it seems like they are dazed and dizzy. 

For example, with Sasaki San, who used to come to church every week, he did this for like 3 months.  About 1 month ago he stopped coming to church cause he felt out to place.  Today was the first day that anyone had asked about him.  The Elder's Quorum President and the Bishop asked what was the name of the old guy that would always come and then asked us what his story was.  We told them that he hasn't come in over a month and they were surprised to hear that.  Elder Hill and I are wondering why it took them a month after he stopped coming to start asking about him.  He will unfortunately be known as the old guy dressed in normal clothes that stood in the corner.  Also, we haven't had ward missionaries in over 6 months.  Elder Hill has literally seen no change in any of the dendo plans or any progress in those plans in the last 8 months.  The first week I got here I asked to have a sit down discussion with the Bishop about the ward vision and he gave me this long winded speech about a Single Adult FHE and getting that started for the dendo team.  Afterwards I asked Elder Hill about it and he said that they said the exact same thing to him 8 months ago and they still are only in the discussion phase of it.

This is the 6th ward that I have been in and I don't know what it is, but this has been the hardest ward to love.  During the Sacrament today I repented of the bad feelings and thoughts that I have had towards the ward and recommitted to unconditionally love them and think no evil towards them.  I did my best and I lasted until like 10 minutes after Sacrament Meeting was over when I went up to a member who was standing by himself and tried to engage in conversations with him and he gave me a little smile and walked away and didn't even talk back.  I told myself that he had something better to do, but I felt like I got rejected on the inside.  The only time I've been to a members house for the past two months was when the Ito's invited us over for dinner.  And we live in their house technically!!!  I don't know what it is, but there is a cold relationship between most members and the missionaries.  I am trying to love them more, I really am.  Please talk to the missionaries that are in our ward back home.  If they talk to you, please talk back.  I feel bad for this ward, it has had all of the best missionaries in it for the past 2 years, but only has had 2 baptisms.  I'll keep doing my best to love and serve them, I'll even defend their flocks when the time comes.  

 

I love Elder Hill.  He is the funniest companion that I have ever had.  He's only got 6 weeks left on his mission, but don't tell him that!  On a brighter note, the gospel is still true.  And I have been going through the New Testament recently and keeping track of all of the questions that Christ asks during his ministry.  He asks a lot of questions.  I want to improve my question teaching skills more and I figure the best way to do that is to follow the example of the master teacher.  It's been enlightening so far and I've got a lot more scriptures to read before I'm done. 

 

Well, I'm glad everyone is enjoying the Halloween festivities.  To answer Connor's question, I think I had close to perfect grades in 8th grade with mostly honors classes.  But that was a long time ago so I don't remember too well.  Good luck in English.  The best way to get better at English is to read books, and books that are harder than what you are used to.  Try some Herman Melvile or Charles Dickens.  That'll stretch your comprehension ability.  I miss books like those, but Jesus the Christ has been a good substitute. :) 

 

I love you all so much!!  家族を愛してます！！！お気をつけてくれ！！！

愛

クランダル長老

Monday, October 21st, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Whenever I can't think of a cool subject I just write it in Japanese.  Then it seems a lot cooler than it really is :)   あまりかっこいいサブジェクトじゃないけど、

 

Man, we had a crazy week.  It was up and down and full of adventure and miracles. I went on companion exchanges twice this week.  Once with the Kawasaki Elders and once in an area called Kamiooka.  It was fun being able to go back to my old area and hang out with Elder Kuniyuki again.  We met up with Yuuki, the big rugby player man and went out to ramen with him.  He said that he has been thinking a lot about baptism recently and is just trying to figure out his life and his future.  He loves the missionaries and loves the church, but he is trying to figure out if it is right for him. 

 

The elder I went on splits with from Kamiooka is a new missionary, his second week in the field, a bright young missionary named Elder Wright from Utah.  He is right out of high school and barely 19.  He had his mission call for like the last 4 months of his senior year!  Isn't that crazy!  They are so young!!!  But he is a way good missionary and we learned a lot together. 

 

The day I was on splits with him, the plan was to hunt down one of our investigators, Sasaki San, who hasn't come to church in a month.  He doesn't have a phone, but we knew where he lived and basically what he did all day.  So I made this grand plan to visit the library and his home and some stores in his neighborhood in hopes to find him and get him to come back to church.  Unfortunately, some things came up and we had to run to Costco of all places and do some emergency shopping.  Therefore, we didn't have any time to follow my plan.  Later that night we were dendoing with the sister missionaries at a train station close to our home.  After we were done talking to people and making contacts, we started to mosey on home and talk to people as we went.  I knew a short cut that would take us home by means of cutting through a local shopping mall called Aeon.  I felt like we should cut through so I started heading that way.  As we were walking into the store I was giving Elder Wright this epic speech on how listening to the spirit and sometimes just moseying around town can lead to great miracles, when as we got to the back of the store I saw this little Japanese guy sitting on a bench by himself (I know you haven't been to Japan yet so you don't know, but basically the whole country is little Japanese men sitting on benches) and I kept walking a few more feet, but then I turned around and it hit me that it was Sasaki San!!!!  So, with a giant smile on my face, I grabbed Elder Wright and took him down the hall to Sasaki San.  I walked up and gave him a big hug and he was so happy and so surprised to see us.  We sat next to him and talked for like an hour on everything from church, the plan of salvation, the Cuban missile crisis, the doctrine of Christ, commandments, WWII, Japanese Pop Culture, and coming back to church.  The first thing he said to us was that he was really sorry that he hasn't been coming to church recently and that he has no excuse.  I was like yea, you don't have any excuses!!!  No, just kidding, I was nice.  But after talking for a while, he told us that he feels very out of place at church.  He is very poor and when he comes to church he sees all the rich and wealthy and noble people in the ward and he feels out of place.  And to be honest, they haven't been the most friendly and welcoming to him so I don't blame him.  But we talked for a while about that and got him recommitted to come to church and he was very excited to come back.  Unfortunately, he didn't come on Sunday cause it was raining, but hopefully he comes back next week!!!  I love that little old Japanese man.  He is so humble and pure, he just needs to see that in himself as well. 

 

On Saturday, we met up with about 70 youth from around the Tokyo area and had a mission prep fireside and dendo blitz in the area.  I went on exchanges with a guy named Masaya who is 19 years old thinking about a mission and we went out and dendoed together for like 2 hours.  We handed out two BOM's in that time and just had a blast making friends and creating defining moments in the lives of many people.  It was a great opportunity to take part in such a large event.  I think many of the youth who went to that were a little iffy about going on a mission, but for sure we changed their image of missionaries and had a ton of fun preaching the gospel. 

 

Later that night, President Wada came to the Yokohama Stake center, that is my church building, and he held a life lesson fireside for our investigators and potential investigators.  He showed clips from the movie Gandhi and talked about how each decision we make has lasting consequences and choosing to go down the path less taken makes all the difference.  We had about 50 people come to that event and President Wada's training was way awesome.  He used to be the CEO of Universal Studios Japan so he has access to like any movie he wants!!!

 

Yesterday, Sunday, I was at the church from 8:30am to 8:30pm straight with out leaving it, haha.  We had Ward Missionary Coordination Meeting from 8:30-9:20, then church from 9:30-12:30, then Ward Council 1:30-3:30, then PEC 3:30-4:30, then a youth missionary fireside 5:00-7:30, then we helped teach the sister's investigators lesson from 7:45-8:30.   

 

Our ward is on the brink of a real change of heart.  We are so close to the hearts of the members changing and them being involved in dendo.  Our Ward Mission Leader is changing himself and realizing the importance of his calling, our ward just set baptismal goals and is in the process of making a ward dendo plan, we don't have any ward missionaries (we haven't had any for over a year, the only ones we used to have were deaf so we couldn't really work with them, haha) but they said that they would call some!!

 

I know that Mom and Dad are in leadership positions in the ward right now, so I would like to ask you guys, what is the Ridgecrest Ward Mission Plan, what are the goals, what kind of missionary activities are you trying, and what is the mind set that the leaders have towards missionary work?  In the ward I am in, there is no one who is proactively doing missionary work.  If we ask people to, they will help out with lessons, but in the 2 months I have been here now, not a single person has ever talked to us about their dendo, asked us about our investigators, or had us over for dinner.  But they are in the process of changing that and catching the wave.  It's going slow and steady, but at least its going :)

 

I look forward to your email!  Have a wonderful week :)

 

Love,

 

Elder Crandall

Monday, October 14th, 2013

Dearest Family,

I wasn't really expecting an inheritance anyway, but I'm glad to hear that it went towards a good cause. ;)  However, don't think that you were the only ones having fun this last week. 

Yesterday we went to an October Concert Festival that was sponsored by President Wada at the mission office.  We found some guy on the street a few days ago named Masaya and we met up with him and went to the concert.  This church youth group named Little Witnesses sang, as well as some hula dancers from Hawaii.  But the best part was the last two acts.  There is this really famous J-Pop group named Bless 4 and they are members of the church.  They came and performed their famous songs and Masaya was really impressed.  And then the last act was this Black guy named Jet who is from Tennessee.  He has a nondenominational Christian band and they came and sang a bunch of gospel songs.  He is investigating the church and is really close to baptism.  There were like 500 missionaries, investigators, friends, members, and less actives that came to the concert and it was a huge opportunity for Masaya to get some exposer to the gospel and the way it blesses our lives, as well as just seeing what kind of people we are.  On the way home from the concert I shared the BOM with Masaya and read Moroni 7:45-47 and Ether 12:27 with him as well as the introduction of the BOM.  Masaya doesn't really have much of a religious background but he was saying that he has always been a little bit in Christianity and he thinks there is a God.  He told me that he wants to believe in God.  I taught him how he can know if there is a God through the BOM and told him how I came to know that God lives. 

We are exciting to be working with Masaya, especially since he has had a great defining moment in his life with the concert and everything.  If he didn't get a good impression of the church from this concert, I don't know what will. 

I was able to watch conference this last weekend!!! It was an amazing conference for sure.  We had one of our investigators, James, come.  He is from Kenya and has met missionaries before.  He has a lot of interesting ideas about Christianity, but he said he believed everything the prophets were saying. I especially liked President Uchtdorf's talk during the priesthood session on fulfilling our responsibilities/ having compassion for others.  I thought that it applied directly to the members here in Japan that struggle to put forth the effort that is being asked of them.  I thought it was amazing how much missionary work was talked about at conference.  Like half of all the talks were on missionary work.  Elder Ballard's talk was very good as well.  He basically committed everyone to give a referral before Christmas.  WILL YOU FOLLOW THE PROPHETS CHALLENGE, FAMILY??  As a zone leader we work a lot with statistics and the statistics show that 1 in every 4 member referrals will get baptized. If all 15 million members gave a referral before Christmas, then there will be over 4 million more baptisms in the church!  Can you imagine!!!!  Whereas now there are too many missionaries, if that happened then there wouldn't be enough missionaries to handle all the teaching opportunities. 

The stake president's son here, Kazune, brought three friends with him to our English class this last week and I was able to start teaching one of them and gave him a BOM.  It was a small thing, bringing friends to church activities, but hopefully that will become a defining moment in that young man's life as he now starts to learn about the church and read the BOM. 

Enjoy these pictures of us and Bless 4 as well as a party pic on the train going through Shibuya at rush hour.  It was crazy packed on the train. 

It was great to hear about all of your adventures at Disney World!  I wish I could have gone, but it's okay.  I am too busy over here to worry about that :)

I love you all so much and pray that the Lord's blessings will be upon you as you follow the Prophet's council and start inviting more people unto Christ :) がんばろモルモン！！！

愛

クランダル長老

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Elder Hill and I had ourselves a wonderful week.  I am sure that you all have had a wonderful week over in Disney World as well.  However, this last week was something very special for me, something that I will never forget. 

 

I won't go into all of the details of what happened this past week, but I would like to focus on one special event. 

 

This last Thursday, I had the opportunity to participate in the Mission Leadership Council once again.  We gathered together with the other zone leaders, the assistants, the sister training leaders, President and Sister Wada, as well as President Wada's first councilor in the Mission Presidency, President Welch.  Instead of going to the mission home to do the council, we went over to the Yamate Church, which is right down the street from me.  About a 10 minute walk away from the Yamate church building is where Heber J. Grant, Alma O. Taylor, and 2 others dedicated Japan for missionary work in 1901.  As a rededication of the Tokyo South Mission and in memory of the 102 years of missionary work in Japan, we traveled out to the spot where Heber J. Grant dedicated Japan in the early morning and had a wonderful devotional, testimony meeting, and prayer meeting. 

 

It was something that I will never forget.  It was a beautiful day, hardly a cloud in the sky, the blankets we brought were covered in tiny grasshoppers and flees.  Birds were chirping in the trees and little children were laughing and playing in the background.  President Wada brought the dedicatory prayer of Japan with him as well as the prophecies concerning Japan given by many of the prophets and leaders of the church.  We read those together and sang hymns of praises to our God.  Then we bore pure testimony concerning our convictions and the feelings of our hearts.  I cannot put in words all that I heard and felt, but the spirit was overflowing as we rededicated this mission and ourselves to this great work. 

 

The Lord loves his Japanese children very much.  Or else why would He have made so many of them?!  Although they still do not know it yet, He blesses and plays a huge role in their lives.  I know that He loves them, and there will come a day when they will understand that and accept it.  But that is not this day.  We still have a lot more work to do to prepare the hearts of the members and those who will aide in the harvest of souls.  We have a great work to do over here and once we take the gospel to the 111 million people here, then the Lord will open up the door to China and the far east.  We are making great headway and we are gaining speed.  We are expecting 21 new missionaries to come in this transfer and 20 more after that.  Then 30 more and 30 more and 30 more until the mission reaches over 200 missionaries.  Our wards have too many missionaries in them and everyone is having to step up their game. 

 

Our ward is doing okay.  Last night the sisters investigator referred her son to us and we started teaching him the lessons.  His nickname is Zach and he is 19 years old.  He has a Christian background, but still isn't sure if God is really there or not.  We are going to meet with him again right after this to help him with an English essay he is working on.  Please Pray for Zach that he can do well on his essay and can come to know that God exists!

 

Today starts transfer 12 for me.  I still don't know when I am coming home, but probably sometime in May.  I've still got a lot of time and so I'm not too worried about it and neither should you be!!!! :)

 

I hope everyone is having a great time at Disney World!!!! I love you so much!!!!

 

愛

クランダル長老

Monday, September 30th, 2013

Dear Family,

I have never been so happy to be a missionary in Japan.  I am learning and growing in so many different ways.  Last year when I started my mission in generally the same area, I was not so happy to be a missionary in Japan.  The work was very tough and I didn't have the best attitude.  Now a year later, the work is just as tough, but my attitude or rather my perspective on everything has changed.  Maybe that has been one of the biggest changes I have seen in myself so far on my mission, my perspective has totally changed.  Elder Hill and I are working our skinny butts off trying to help out this ward as much as possible, we really are.  It's going slow and steady but it's going for sure.  We have 3 people who are progressing well, and like 30 pi's, it's way easy to get pi's here, but getting them to set up an appointment is the hard part.  People have been really bimio lately. However, we have made great progress this last week with one of our investigators whose parents are against him coming to church, Yaguchi San.  His parents told him that if he gets a good grade on this next test that they will allow him to come to church on Sundays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Huge progress!!!!!!!!  Just hopefully he gets a good score on his test, haha.  We are praying and fasting with him on that.  

We just got back from another lesson with an older investigator, Mukaiyama San, and we are extremely close to breaking down the final wall that is going to lead to the first steps to conversion.  He has for a long time been struggling with prayer and in today's lesson it finally clicked with him and he is going to start praying to find out if God is there.  We read with him the story of King Lamoni and his conversion and it struck a big cord with him.  He was able to relate the scriptures to himself and grow his tiny little faith seed just a little bit more.  I am really grateful that the BOM IS true cause I just spent an hour pouring my soul out to this man that it is true.  And because it is true, he was able to feel the spirit and experience a change of heart.  I've been doing a study recently on the Lectures on Faith and I see now the importance of having a belief that God is there to developing one's faith.  It is critical.  Once Mukaiyama can have that confirmation, everything will fall into place.  

Got to go, but I love you all and hope you have fun in Florida ;) 

Elder Crandall 

Tuesday, September 24, 21013

Dear family,

 

I am glad to hear that Brother Richardson was able to get ahold of you!!!!!!  He is such an awesome guy and he really helped out our dendo when he came to Kawasaki!  Too bad it was only a message, but nonetheless, a message from a general authority is pretty cool. :)  (Note from Mom & Dad: We got a phone call from Brother Richardson in the Sunday School General Presidency last week. He met Christopher while he was visiting in Japan and had wonderful things to say about our awesome missionary!  It was a really cool phone call.)

 

This last week was an interesting one.  I got a cold Wednesday morning and was kinda out of it for a few days.  I am back up to like 90% better, but I still blow my nose a lot and stuff.  However, I got a blessing from my companion and I have been able to work well ever since.  I went on splits back up to Kawasaki this week and that was fun.  I got to do another lesson with Adachi san and he is still just as golden as ever.  He says that he doesn't want to get baptized until his wife gets back from China so they can get baptized together.  He keeps reading his scriptures like a boss and has gained a very strong testimony of the restored gospel. 

 

Elder Hill and I have been having quite a bit of success with our dendo recently including getting Sasaki san closer to baptism.  We taught him about the 10 Commandments and he is 100% going to follow all of them.  We can still only teach him like once a week which is kinda frustrating, but probably by the end of October he will be ready for baptism.  Also, Mukaiyama san, another older gentleman that we meet with a few times every week, is starting to really progress and understand the gospel.  We are going to meet up with him right after this and destroy him with the spirit of God!

 

We went to the temple this morning with our zone and then went to a place called La Salsa.  It's an all you can eat taco place for 10 bucks.  On our way there I talked to this guy on the train and convinced him to come eat tacos with us and he did, haha.  There was like 12 loud Americans hanging out with this quite dignified Japanese guy at this taco joint, a little odd, but I think he liked it.  I got his contact info and hopefully he will meet up again.  But if nothing else, he got some way good missionary exposer, hopefully we left a good impression. 

 

Elder Hill and I have been working hard to improve the quality of the dendo in the zone and especially this last week we focused on finding and better finding techniques.  It's weird being one of the oldest missionaries in the zone and especially being the leader now.  I get to set the example for everything.  There are a lot of young missionaries with little to no finding skills or experience and because of that I feel a heavy responsibility for training them and helping them learn how to dendo.  The thing is that I don't consider myself to be an experienced missionary at all.  I still feel like I am transfer 3 and just barely learning how to dendo.  Elder Hill is the man though, he is teaching me a lot, even if he doesn't think he is, haha.  He is too humble.  We as a mission started pushing for 10 solid contacts everyday, 10 solid conversations with people where we invite them to do things.  It's hard in Japan to talk to people, quite frankly a lot of people ignore us and don't want to talk.  But on the other hand there are scores of people that really want to talk to us but are too shy and so we have to make the first contact.  It's my job to inspire the new missionaries to talk to people wherever we go and to be bold with our commitments.  

Things are looking good in Kanagawa!!!  We keep on doing our thing and things are good.  

I love you guys all soooo much.  I was really sad to hear about Brother Crandall.  I remember that he came to my farewell party and we talked there for a while.  He is a good man and I am sure he is in a good place.  

Keep praying for Yaguchi!  He is doing good and still getting ready for the 19th of October!!!!!!!

I have a bunch of pictures I want to send, but they aren't attaching right now so I'll send them later :) 

Have a great week everybody!!!  I love you! 

愛

クランダル長老

 

Monday, Sept. 16, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Well, I'll start off with a little story.  So, like half an hour ago, I decided that I needed to give myself just a little trim.  My hair was starting to get a little bit long, just a little.  So I borrowed my comps buzzer and just wanted to take a little bit off the back.  Then I started to cut the back of my head and after a few seconds of buzzing I looked down and saw the clipper guard fall onto the ground.  The buzzer was still going and I was still cutting.  My heart sank when I made the connection.  I felt the back of my head and sure enough it was shorter than the grass on a putting green.  I called for Elder Hill and he came into the bathroom.  I told him to look at the back of my head and tell me if there was a giant bald spot.  Holding back tears of laughter he grabbed a mirror and showed me the back of my head.  However, I am happy to say that after 30 minutes of strategizing, blending, and a whole lot of little hairs later, my head is ok and just barely missionary appropriate length :)   Yatta!!!

 

Did you guys hear that Tokyo got nominated to be the 2020 summer Olympic games!!!  I did, like 100 times from everyone I met, haha!

 

Last night and all this morning we endured through Typhoon "Ming-Yi".  It was kinda a weak sauce typhoon, if you ask me.  It didn't do any damage at all, like maybe it should have been considered a tropical storm, not  a typhoon.  Everyone was freaking out though.  But we tried to make the most of it and we got together with some of our buddies and went out to all you can eat pizza this afternoon.  I went hard in the paint and had like 20 slices of pizza, no regrets yet, haha! 

 

In answer to Connor's question, yes, that is kinda what I am doing.  The big difference is that I have a computer in my apartment so I just email everyone asking for the stats and if I have specific questions on things I'll give them a call.  Elder Hill makes every moment of the day interesting.  He is one of the funniest guys I have ever met, haha.  We is a way hard worker but has fun with everything that he is doing. 

 

I went on splits with a few people this week.  I went down to the Yokosuka US Naval base and got to hang out with some Americans!!!  We had dinner at an American's house and then went to an SA activity on base with a lot of crew members from the  George Washington Aircraft Carrier.  That thing is huge!!!  And like 4,000 people live on it all the time.  We had a banana splits party and then the couple missionaries on base took me over to Taco Bell and I had Taco Bell for the first time in over a year.  I almost cried. 

 

I also had the opportunity to go on splits with one of the AP's named Elder Rindli.  He is from Maui and we got to talking about Maui and there is like a 90% chance that he was the fire dancer that we saw when we went to the Luau up at that one place that one time.  He is a way awesome missionary and he taught us a lot of finding skills.  The past two weeks or so, Elder Hill and I have gotten like 20 or so phone numbers from people and we are working on getting them to church activities and getting them to start hearing the lessons.  One thing that our zone is struggling with is finding.  The people in the Yokohama area are very rich and hard hearted.  Most people have a very dark and bad opinion about God and the church so we have to search long and work very hard even to find just a few prepared people. 

 

But we are working with quite a few great people.  One is a young boy named Yaguchi.  He is 17 years old and he has read the BOM 7 times in the last 5 months.  That is more than me!!!  Way more than me!  He wants to join the church very much, but his mother is very anti church.  She doesn't know that he has been meeting with us and he has tried to bring it up with her a few times but she shuts him down hard.  Last week we started a 40 day prayer for him and his mom.  At the end of the 40 days we are all going to fast together and he is going to boldly and lovingly confront his mom about the church.  Yaguchi is such an awesome guy, but his faith is still rather small.  Anti-parents are a big problem in Japan.  Yaguchi is dead terrified of his mom, however, he has to be the one to break down the barrier and expose her to the gospel.  Right now we are doing all we can to pray for him and to help build his faith through reading the scriptures with him and sharing faith building stories.  Please pray for Yaguchi and his mother that he will be able to talk to her and that she can have a change of heart. 

 

Thank you so much for the pictures of the boys and stuff at the fair.  It looked really weird just seeing the three of you and all.  Half the family is MIA , but next year it will be even less!!!  Poor Connor, he is going to be all alone in a big house very soon....

 

Things are going great here in Tokyo.  The work has me busier than ever, but also happier than ever.  Elder Hill and I are truly teaching with "power and authority" and the Lord truly works beside us as we help bring our brothers and sisters closer to Him.  :)  I thought and studied a lot this week about how Love is the Motive to everything we do and it is true.  Love is the reason I am out here and Love is the reason I do the things I do each day. 

 

I love each and every one of you and pray for you daily.  :)

Have a great week and please throw Tuxedo's ball at his face for me!!!!!!!

 

愛をこめて

 

クランダル長老

 

Monday, Sept. 9th, 2013

Hey hey hey!!!

 

Thanks for the emails, everyone.  I'm sure the talk went great in stake conference, mom.  You always do fantastic :) 

Connor is the luckiest little guy.  Not that his school flooded, but cause he was able to beat kotor2 without my help, haha. 

 

I'll do my best to sum up the role and responsibility of a zone leader. (Connor asked him about his responsibilities as a zone leader)  When you become zone leader, you get put with another boss missionary so that you don't have to worry about whether or not your companion knows how to teach or speak the language.  There are only 4 zones in our mission with about 100 missionaries and 8 zone leaders.  My role is to convey information from the Assistants to Pres.Wada and Wada himself, down to the district leaders who then convey it to the other missionaries.  Zone leaders set the example in effective and correct missionary work.  We go on companion exchanges with all the missionaries in our zone at least once a transfer and help train them and help them improve the status of the area.  We often do zone trainings and train at the district meetings, for example, this next Wednesday we have a zone meeting and Elder Hill and I will be giving like a 2 hour training there on what we learned at Leadership Council and what Pres.Wada wants us to train on.  We report all of the statistics every week for our zone on how many lessons they taught, how many people are getting ready for baptisms, and how many new investigators and referrals missionaries received.  We make lots of phone calls and help people with their living situations and various problems.  Just this last week we helped some sister missionaries move into a new home and got them a new computer and arranged for them to get a new wifi walker and such.  We work our hardest to teach as many people about Christ as we can and we make our area the example area for the zone.  It's a lot of work and a lot of planning.  But it's a lot of fun getting to work with tons of missionaries and seeing all the miracles that go one in the Yokohama Stake. 

 

Elder Hill and I were able to see an amazing miracle the other day through serving someone. The other day we were coming home from a day of "streeting". We were crossing a bridge that went over a very busy 4 lane highway. When we looked down and saw a very old man holding a cane trying to J-Walk across the road. We stood there puzzled wondering what we should do when all of the sudden he fell down. Elder Hill and I sprinted off the bridge and to his side to help him up. We helped him up and he said that he would be okay from there, which he obviously was not going to be okay considering that he was leaning all his weight on me. We helped him cross the road and when we got to the other side he couldn’t stand up anymore so we helped sit him down on the curb. We sat down with him but were very concerned because he could hardly hold himself up. We talked to him for a while while sitting on the curb. We found out that he was on his way home from the hospital. After a few minutes of talking he gained some strength back and wanted to continue on to his home, which he said was close. We escorted him all the way to his home, frequently stopping with him to rest. When we arrived he invited us in. He walked into his living room and just laid down on the floor. He called out to his wife who came and tended to him for a while. After he gained some more strength he sat up and came to the table with us. He was so grateful for our help and just such a kind man. We had the chance then to share the gospel with him. We told him about God, who he believes in 100%. We then told him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and heaven, which he was really interested in. We invited him to hear the lessons and he gladly accepted. To close the lesson we asked if we could pray together, he was so excited to do that and he explained to us that he has no God to believe in right now, and really wants to learn more. We left him with an appointment to come back next Saturday. His son and his family also live with him so hopefully we will be able to share the gospel with them as well. I am so grateful for this gospel. I am so grateful for the service opportunity that we had to help Koike San and that it opened up his heart to hear the gospel.

I'm gonna have to get back to y'all about the contacts next week.  I have to go to a lesson now.  But I did get your package :) Thank you so much です！I love you all so very much and am exerting my best effort to do the Crandall name proud :0)

 

Talk to you next week! 

愛しています！

 

クランダル長老