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
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