Tuesday, March 19, 2013

すごく奇跡の週だ ! (It's really a miracle week!)  よかった ! (Was good!)

Dear Family,

We had a rather splendid week.  I will talk about everything that was cool, then I will tell you about our super miracle at the end :)

We have a PI (potential investigator) named Kitanishi San and he loves studying religions.  He wouldn't agree to come to a lesson, but he agreed to come to a discussion.  Because we had nothing going on we agreed to go, normally we wouldn't attend something like that.  We met at the church with a few members and him and they just argued religion for like 2 hours.  Kitanishi San is very very hard hearted and thinks that he is above other races and religions and that the Mormons are above other religions as well.  We tried to explain to him that that is pride and we treat everyone the same because everyone is a child of God.  He says he is christian, but when we brought up the requirements for salvation he wouldn't listen and said that salvation isn't important to Christians.  We quickly pulled out a gazillion scriptures from the bible about salvation and destroyed his argument.  But he just got mad at that and said he is better than us so he doesn't need to listen to us.  He compared himself to the main character of fiddler on the roof and no one understood the connection, including me.  He asked one of the members why there are so many lawyers in New York.  The members were like, "How does this have any sort of connection to what we are talking about".  Then Kitanishi San was like, "Well then, it turns out that you can't answer my questions".  Then they argued over why he was asking him why there are so many lawyers in New York.  Eventually Kitanishi was yelling, "JUST ADMIT THAT YOU CAN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION AND I'LL TELL YOU THE ANSWER".  Our member was like, "fine, I don't know why there are so many lawyers".  To which Kitanishi was like, "see, you don't know everything".  Kitanishi is a very prideful old man.  We completely won the 2 hour argument by using simple doctrine and Kitanishi walked away from the discussion kinda bummed cause his ideas about us and about religion don't have any doctrinal foundation.  We don't think that we will meet with him very often. 

We are working with a less active man named Tezuka San and we had a similar less/discussion with him where we answered his anti Mormon questions that people had been attacking him with over the years.  At first, he seemed to be a lot like Kitanishi, but his heart is in the right place and I believe that Tezuka is looking for legit answers to his questions and will apply the gospel little by little.  He is a cute old man. 

On Friday, I had an interview with President Budge where we mostly talked about the New Paradigm and my role in this paradigm shift.  The idea, of course, is that members will do the finding and we will do the teaching.  However, a few months ago, the eikaiwa program in the church (the English classes that we teach every week) had a paradigm shift where they called ward eikaiwa coordinators and the role of the missionaries was to change from finder/preparers/teachers to only teacher.  Well, over the past 6 months, in every ward I have been in, I don't even know who got called to that position and nothing has changed at all.  President Budge told me that for now, what we do as missionaries won't change.  We will still have to go out and get rejected all day and filter through people ourselves.  But, President Budge is working on new key indicators of success for bishops to use to track referrals and member's investigators with the vision that little by little, the wards will transition to a full time finding status.  During the interview, President Budge reached into his bag and said, "Elder Crandall, I haven't shown this to anyone yet.  I want you to be the first one."  As you can imagine, I got really excited at that!  Then he whipped out a series of PowerPoint's and new charts that he is going to make all of the bishops use to track the progress of the ward member dendo.  It wasn't super exciting stuff, however, there was some cool stuff about what the Lord expects as a report to get back to Him from the leaders.  I guess, I never really thought about what kind of report the Lord wants to receive at the end of the week and month from his called servants.  It just goes to show that the Lord has His hand in all things and "when progress is recorded and then reported, the rate of success increases"- President Hinckley.  

Alright, for the big miracles.  I will do my best to pen down everything that is happening and the whole story.  So, we got a referral from the zone leaders who are in the ward just north of us.  Last Saturday at basketball, this kid, Naoki, got invited to come play by his friends, but he doesn't like basketball so he sat out in the hall and talked to other elders and us a few times just as we rotated in and out.  He is from the Philippines and came to Japan about 3 months ago.  After basketball that night, the zone leaders took him on a church tour and then agreed to meet with him this last Tuesday.  They met on Tuesday and taught him the message of the Restoration.  He loved every word that was said.  He felt the spirit super strong and when he learned about the priesthood and true authority, he told them that he had been baptized a born again christian in the Philippines, but he knew that their authority was wrong.  He asked if he could be baptized that Sunday!!  They set a date with him for the 24th.  However, he lives at the train station right next to the church so they referred him to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We met with him on Saturday with the zone leaders and with one of the AP's and my comp and I taught him the Plan of Salvation, really well I might add, because we did it in English, haha!  He loved everything about it and says that he totally feels like he is Joseph Smith.  He told us that when he came to Japan he was looking for a Christan church to go to.  But he couldn't find anything.  On top of it, he had a ton of questions that other church's could not answer so he was just chillin'.  He told us that God guided us to him so that he could learn of His true church and so that His power could help his life. He loves the Book of Mormon and highlights tons of stuff as we read with him.  He came to church on Sunday and had a great time.  God's church is way different from born again's and so he had a lot of technical questions, but he felt the spirit and had a good time with the youth.  He is fluent in Japanese by the way.  He is half Japanese.  And 16.  We taught him the word of wisdom after church and he felt like this commandment was made specifically for him because he has fallen into a deep coffee addiction.  Like, he gets ulcers from all the coffee that he drinks and his family and doctors are telling him to quite, but he never had a spiritual reason until now.  We are following up with him daily on that and he wasn't able to keep it yesterday, but just a few hours ago we got an email from him saying that today was MILK day and he hasn't had any coffee!!!  Yay!!!!  

Naoki has had a very very hard life so far.  His parents used to fight really bad in front of him which scarred his childhood.  Then they split and his dad lives in Japan.  Growing up, his mom is like a teenager and goes to casinos and parties with her friends everyday and he had a lot of hate and anger towards her.  He started to have anxiety really bad which caused him to have a lot of break downs and not be able to sleep for days.  He was in a help care institution a few years ago when someone gave him a bible and he read the whole thing while in his stay in the hospital.  He said that one time while reading, he prayed all night to forgive his mom and to feel the love of Christ in his life.  He then felt the spirit come into his room and felt his anger towards his mom wash away and ever since then, he has been a devout believer in the power of the Atonement, which as a missionary is way awesome!!  He has struggled with anxiety on and off, as well as suicidal thoughts and a bad group of friends, but ever since he has met the missionaries he has been able to sleep well, maintain a solid level of happiness, and improve his relationship with his dad (he lives with only his dad).  We set a new date with him for the 31st, Easter Sunday, and we will continue to work with him daily to get him ready.

This kid really is awesome though!  Like way awesome!  He wants to be a missionary really bad.  He says it has been his life goal and he just thinks Elder Anderson and I are the "Bees Knees", the "Kat's Pajamas".  Naoki wants to help us teach his friends and we have a few other Philipino friends that come to basketball that we want to teach with him.  Our young Mens leaders are way excited about this and we are excited for the future with Brother Naoki Morita (森田ナオキ兄弟) is his name. 

Sounds like you guys are almost busier than me with church stuff!  Good luck in Boston Daddy!  Kyle, I don't remember what I wrote my Junior research paper on, but I remember not thinking it was fun at all.  But I got an A!  :)  Just write very cookie cutter and use BIG words.  Use a dictionary a lot!  I'm not a super creative writer, but I just wrote how I thought Mr. Bates would write.  Kinda suck up to his writing style.  Also, if you blatantly apply some of the rhetorical devices, he will recognize it and mark you higher. 

Connor, otsukaresama desu.  Ganbate ne.  Scountingu goodo lucku pleazu ok.  :) that was my Japanese accent, haha! 

Kelsie, jealous. 

Have a wonderful week!  Here are some pics from this week1 :)   (giant cup of noodles on our way to zone meeting, a card we made for our elders quorum president (the picture of us doing the Neko Chan (cat pose) is famous), Cherry Burger that I ate today).

Love,

Elder Crandall

PS. Went to the temple today and had a cherry burger again afterwards.  Dad would love it!.   Also, shout out to KatieAnne for getting called to Mississippi!  Whoooh!