Monday, February 25th, 2013

Hoooiiii!

These are the things that I do know about the new mission in Tokyo.  My mission is splitting in two, Tokyo and Tokyo South missions.  The new mission president is a way cool guy who is Pres. Budge's bishop right now, haha, so it's way funny.  We have no idea how the missionaries are going to be separated so no one knows the final decision for things.  They probably won't tell us until a few days before, is my guess.  The stake that I am in right now is going to stay Tokyo.  If I stay here until July then maybe I'll stay, but I don't know anything for sure.  But, I really really really want to stay in the Tokyo mission with Pres. Budge, haha.  The North is doing way better than the South stakes.  Like, 70% of the baptisms last year were in the northern half.  And President Budge is just a boss.  All around amazing guy.  We had Matsudo Stake conference this last Sunday and he came and spoke at Sunday session.  He really threw down the member missionary work and really started to get things fired up for the ward members.  Then, right after the conference, we had a dinner at our bishop's house with the Ward mission leader and a few other ward leaders.  We shared a powerful dendo message and then committed them to have a missionary experience in this next month and then to testify about it in Sacrament meeting for April.  If we can get 4 ward leaders to stand up and bear testimony about member missionary work in one key testimony meeting, that will take this ward to a new excitement level. 

 

Other than that, nothing too exciting happened this past week.  We have an investigator named Yashiyo, from Columbia, and he might get baptized on the 10th of March.  We taught him and had a good brt dinner with him and became his good friends.  His ideology was that he can read and pray on his own and doesn't need to go to church in order to get help from God in his life.  We dug into this issue and found out that he used to get dragged to church as a child and he felt that church isn't a pleasant experience.  We told him that our church is totally different and that it is a very fun and uplifting place.  We used the example of a bowl of ice cream that we are saying is delicious.  He can't know if it tastes good until he eats it right?  He thought about it and decided that he wanted to come and check it out.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, he wasn't able to make stake conference, but will come next week.  Good kid, I like him a lot. 

 

Man, I wish I could see Kyle's play so bad!!!!!  I wish I could see any play so bad, but especially one with my brother in it!!!  Ureyamashiiiii!  Jealousssss!  I will pray for Connor and for him not to get sick.  That would be way unfortunate.  What did you guys decide to do to my room?  Kelsie's room?  Does Tuxedo have his own room now??  I miss that guy....

 

Just another year and 3 months till I can see Brendin, and then you guys too :) haha.  It's way weird that he is already finished with his mission in Brazil.  I met a Brazilian lady yesterday at church.  Spoke Portuguese with her for a while and then she took pictures with me and uploaded it to her facebook.  She was nice, but now I'm on the wall of some random Brazilian lady!

 

It's still cold here, but should get warm soon!  We have a special event going on this week and I'll tell you all about it in my next letter :)  Have a wonderful day and I love and pray for each and every one of you :)

 

Peace! (this is what our Liberian investigators always say in their deep voices)

 

Elder Crandall

Monday, February 18, 2013

Hey how is everyone doing??  Did Brendin just get home from his mission?  I miss that guy, I feel like he is coming home soon, right?

We just got back from Costco!!!!!  I had to renew my card which was a pain to do in Japanese, but it's all square now and we got our muffins and meat!  Wahooo!  There are a lot of foreigners that work at the Costco's in Japan.  Who knew!  But it felt good to be back in my element, with my hard working people again, haha. :)

Matsudo dendo is fun. Very fun :)  We have had quite a few dinners with members, we have one planned tonight, played soccer on Saturday (I'm not super good at soccer and like everyone there played in high school and stuff), had a Valentines party Saturday (our investigators from Liberia came to that and they are way funny.  They were always like, "Man I'm so biiiizy in Japan.  So biiizy!"  We would laugh every time they said the word busy.  The didn't like the food.  No joke, they were like, " Man, I like Fried Chicken and steak.  I don't eat none of this curry, I need some good fried chicken wit some kool-aide like they done do in America ya know!?"  And we just laughed and we're like,  "We feel you man", haha, but they said that they are coming to church next week so that is good).  Basketball is next Saturday and we are also meeting with the bishop's family for dinner this week.  We are going to hound him hard to start giving referrals and to get him to baptize one of his friends or something.  "If you don't, the ward don't!", that is our new motto with him, haha.  It's true though, the ward's lack of dendo fire or rather the ability for the ward to gain dendo fire will spawn from the Bishop and his actions. 

Because we only have a few investigators, we spend most of our time doing everything but teaching, haha, which is interesting.  My purpose is to teach, and if I don't teach then at the end of the day I don't really feel like a missionary a whole lot ya know?  I love teaching!  I'm even learning Japanese Sign language so that I can teach a lady that was baptized a year ago, haha.  I'm pretty good.  I can hold a basic conversation and commit someone to baptism, haha.  I'm gonna learn the Sacrament prayer and help do that for her on Sunday, but there are like 15 people that are fluent in the ward so we can get lots of help. 

Elder Anderson is way legit.  We have too much fun together, haha.  We are always laughing and making jokes. The Sisters are way funny too.  One of them kinda can speak a little English and the other one can't.  The one who can't knows Spencer Norawong cause he was her zone leader in the MTC.  And she speaks Kansai Ben Japanese which idk is like the equivalent of a thick southern accent.  When she gets excited I have no idea what she is saying, haha, it's way funny. 

Our members are way legit.  Basically everyone speaks English. Our EQP served in LA a few years ago.  Most of these people went to BYU Hawaii for a few years. 

But they don't give referrals!  It's way frustrating. 

When we go out streeting or housing, it's a weird experience.  Almost no one will talk to us, like, we get blatantly ignored by almost everyone.  It's nothing new, but it is more apparent here than in other areas.  It's like, the Lord doesn't want us to go out and have to talk to all of the people that aren't interested, He wants us to teach people's friends and more prepared people!  I believe He wants this area to transition into an area like that.  If we go out and find tons of great new investigators just as the missionaries, then the members will continue to have the attitude that " i don't need to dendo. That's the missionaries job.  See, they can find people themselves", ya know?! 

Hopefully, we can start seeing some great miracles here and the members will step up their game.  The ward's theme right now is Member Missionary Work.  MMW!  But the past few transfers have been spent pushing for that and they haven't had a baptism in over 5 transfers.  We told President Budge that if things don't start turning around here, then he should pull missionaries out and let the members dendo, haha.  I think he actually might, haha. 

But hopefully it will not come to that and we can turn this place around!!!!!!!  With the Lord all things are possible! (Matt.19:26, Mark10:27, Luke18:27) it's true! 

I started studying kanji the other day.  I've learned like 320 kanji so far.  Just another thousand or so until I'm fluent!  Yikes!

Well, that's about all!

See you guys next week, well, not really, but... 

Love you,

Elder Crandall

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

Hey hey hey, guess what?  I got TRANSFERRED!  I am now in......... drum roll...... Matsudo Ward, Matsudo Stake!  It's like the next area over from me so it's way close.  My new companion is named Elder Anderson and he is a boss.  He is on transfer 14 out of 16 so he is way good at Japanese and a way good missionary.  He is from Draper and he is the funniest guy.

Let me tell you about Matsudo Ward.  It is legendary.  It is the biggest ward in all of Asia!  And it has the biggest church building in all of Asia!  It is 5 stories tall, has a full gym (there are like 4 buildings in Japan that have gyms) and the square footage of the building is bigger than the Tokyo Temple!  It's huge!  There are about 250 active members of the ward and 80 kids in their primary.  It's like America!!  I'm so excited!!!  It's us two and then two Japanese Sisters tearing it up here.  It used to be a 4 Elder area, but because of the drop in missionaries in the mission and the lack of investigators, they had to cut it down.  I'm replacing my good friend Elder Burgin in Matsudo.  He was here for 5 transfers, the whole time he has been in Japan, haha.  We went to BYU together and he was in my same MTC/Japan group.  Surprisingly, for how big the ward is, the dendo (missionary work) here hasn't been too successful in the past year or so.  President Budge called me after the transfer calls and told me that this area needs someone to get it going again, it needs someone to restart the baptism fire and get the giant ward off it kahootz and get them dendoing.  The ward is way solid on giving us food and inviting us over for dinner and stuff, but they don't ever give referrals or dendo on their own. 

 

The majority of the members in Matsudo are very young families.  Most of them went to school at BYU or dendoed in like America or Europe or something.  The majority of the members have lived in American wards, seen how much better they are than Japanese ones, so they have all kinda decided on all moving to this one city and creating a super ward where their kids can live and grow in an American style ward.  For example, we have a futsal (indoor soccer) night every week, basketball every week, really big English class, and primary activities or young men/young woman activities every week.  We are having a Valentines party on Saturday and every Sunday after church the members hold a potluck/hang out party in the gym.  EVERY WEEK!

 

It's a lot to take in at once, but I am way excited to be serving here.  Although, I am way way super sad to be leaving Yachiyo.  We have some people way close to baptism there and I hope to be going back there soon for their baptisms. 

 

I just finished getting myself all unpacked and I'm ready to get to work!  We need to turn this place upside down and get this place looking like Yachiyo!  Matsudo is the promised land as far as the ward goes.  I'm gonna make it the promised land as far as baptisms go!  I am planning on being here for a long time, like 4 transfers, so I figure I'm gonna spend this next transfer finding as many people as is possible.  Just wrack up tons of potential investigators and new investigators and restart the heart of Matsudo. 

 

In case you were wondering what the Matsudo kanji is, its this 松戸。It means Pinewood door?  Maybe?  Idk, it doesn't really mean anything.  It's a pretty suburban area and there are tons and tons of people that live here.  Probably over half a million people live within our ward boundary,  crazy right.

 

Google map the ward building.  It's huge.  Street view it to get a better look.  It's massive.  I love it!

 

Well, I'mma go take a photo shoot with the Sisters for Valentine cards for the ward, haha.  I broke out the pink tie today!  Happy Valentines and thank you guys so much for the package! It made my week!

 

Love you! Take Luck!

 

Elder Crandall

Monday, February 4th, 2013

Hi Mommy and Family!

Things have been quite a bit warmer here recently.  But the forecast for tomorrow says snow again which is kinda yada. 

Man, things have just been very like peaceful the past few days.  Elder Clark was sick for a little bit then he had the flu for like a day and so we had a little bit of down time.  I caught up in the journal and in the Area Book. However, when we went out working, we found great success.  We found 5 new investigators this week and taught quite a few lessons. 

A few people of note:

Teppei is doing pretty good.  He is in the process of moving right now and he is going to move with his family right next to the church building of the adjacent ward so that's good.  However, he has yet to decide on a new baptismal date and he was feeling like he hadn't received an answer to that prayer yet.  Therefore, we committed to fast with him this past week and try really hard to receive an answer and to have the courage to tell his family that he wants to be baptized.  We haven't been able to follow up with him on it yet.  We will probably do that tomorrow, I think.  But overall, he is still looking good and will get baptized very soon for sure!

We made good friends with a Shrilankin family through eikaiwa (English class) and they invited us over for Shrilankin curry dinner.  They are way funny and are fluent in English and Japanese so we were able to communicate really well with them.  They are Buddhist traditionally, but are like half catholic at the same time.  It's really confusing what they actually believe, but in a nut shell, they believe in God, but don't really understand the whole "pick one religion and go with it" idea that is predominant in religious groups.  We whipped out our BOM's at the end of dinner and asked them, " Hey, have you ever seen this book before?" and they were like, " Noooo! Let me see! Let me seee!".  We explained what it is and then told them that it has a really good story about how it came to be.  They were really excited to hear it.  When we finished going over the Joseph Smith story and about the power and blessings that come from the BOM they all had tears in their eyes and the Mom especially was crying and was deeply touched.  They have been going through some hard times financially and the dad hasn't been able to find a job in a year.  I taught them that the spiritual things in life are connected to the physical things and when we are spiritually strengthened, we are also physically strengthened.  The BOM answers the questions of the soul and gives us spiritual strength.  We taught them how to pray and then had the father pray for help to find a job, help to support his family, and help to be a good father.  My companion told him that he had personally had a spiritual witness that the BOM is true and that the family could have one too.  After he said that, the Father turned to me and asked, "Have you had one too?" And I said, "Yes, I have had one too". Then he was like, " Ohh I believe!". By the mouth of two witnesses it is true. 

The Mother's name is Shilani and she is a crack up.  Super loud and funny and loves to cook.  The Father's name is Adrian and he is very stereotypical Indian looking, haha.  They have a son and I can't remember his name, but he wants to go overseas to college in a year.  He's pretty good at English, but he mostly speaks Japanese.  I told him about BYU Hawaii and his father asked me how much it is per year and when I told him it's only 4,000 per year, he just about died!  He was like, " Zetai iko", You Have to Go!  I had them look it up online and he is seriously considering it, haha.  The family's last name is Muhamalam, haha.  How classic is that, haha.  They make dang good Curry!!  I love Indian food!  I love Rice, haha!

We had a Zone Conference yesterday and President Budge did a lot of powerful training on the Hastening of the Work that is taking place and how to live happy and successful missions.  We study a lot of new material that Elder Nelson has given our mission in preparation for his arrival.  The Lord is truly Hastening His Work!  I can feel it!  Jacob 5:72 talks about how the Lord went into the vineyard and worked with the Servants.  I have truly felt that the whole mission, that He has been before me, behind me, around me, and focusing me the whole time. 

The Lord has two promises that he has yet to fulfill.  The Gathering of the Scattered Israel and the Second Coming.  He has fulfilled every other ancient promise that He has made.  The Gathering is underway.  It began with the coming forth of the BOM (see the Chapter heading of 3 Nephi 21).  But we need to hurry up and finish what was started!  This new call for missionaries was a big call to HURRY UP!  One of the big push right now for the Japanese people is to get off their over worked toots, build up some courage, and give the Missionaries referrals!  President Budge was told from his authorities that one of his new primary focuses is to get the Japanese people to give referrals, hah. They don't do it!  I have gotten two direct referrals from members my whole mission.  All of the other ones were from South Americans or when I more or less tricked them into giving us their friends, haha.  They just don't do it!  It's a cultural thing.  They have boundaries that they don't cross socially or at work.  We were told that Elder Nelson may or may not call the members to repentance on that.  Don't be surprised if he does.  However, all we can do for now is produce results on our own and show our worth to the members.  Taihen. (very)

We found a Chinese investigator who lives right next to the church and he invited himself to church.  Also, we found an old grandpa who likes to talk about anything and so we got him to commit to having a religious discussion with us and we are visiting him tonight, haha.  Interesting fellow for sure. 

I had a ton of my friends get mission calls the last couple of weeks.  Just a shout out to all of them.  I guess everyone who always said that they were going to go on missions actually ended up going on missions and not just getting married.  I am pleasantly surprised. :) Ganbare. (Good luck)

Remember when I only saw 5 pictures of my sisters whole entire wedding? Just sayin... ;)

The Ravens won.  Old news.  President Budge told me, haha. 

I've been in good contact with Spencer Norawong so far on the mission.  He is way up north right now and I bet he is just freezing to death, haha.  He is doing good and is having a good time. 

Thank you for sending me Mitchell's email every week!!!!!!!!  It is way cool to see him on a mission now.  It's what we have dreamed about since I can remember, haha.  He seems so young in my eyes though, haha.  Just a little bean chan in the MTC. 

Transfer calls are this week!  I don't know what is going to happen.  I have only been here two transfers and Elder Clark and I get along pretty good.  But, I kinda get a weird feeling like I've done my part here.  I've done a good job and maybe it's time to go fix a new area or go learn and grow in a new area, kana?  idk.  Elder Clark is down to go open up a new area or stay or whatever.  He is pretty chill and we have been seeing a lot of good success together.  The stake started a 40 day fast and we have seen a ridiculous amount of success from that.  If the stake is in a tight spot as far as missionary work goes, try a 40 day fast, haha. It works if you believe it does. 

Alright, I gots to go!  Love Y'all and hope to hear from ya soon!  Give the ward my love!

Elder Crandall