Monday, April 29th, 2013

Helllo everybody!!!!

Well, as of Thursday here, I will have hit my 1 year mark as a missionary!!!...... dang.... But all it seems to be is just words.  I don't really feel like it's been any more than a year or less than a year, it just feels like I've always been a missionary, haha.  But this next year is going to fly by so crazily fast, I don't even know.  All I can do is ganbaru wherever I may be and live every day to the fullest.  Lets go dendo!!!!

We had a fantastic miracle this last week with one of our investigators named Emi.  She is 52 years old (looks like she is 30, like no joke) and is going back to school for a psychology degree, has a strong belief in God and the church, but has a problem with coffee. :/  She approached us after our English class (which she attends and is way good at English) and said that she had a crazy experience the other day while she was praying and wanted to share it with us. So we set up a time to meet for the next day and met up with her and a wonderful member named Hiroaki (he was the first Japanese member to serve a mission in Russia and he lived in England for 10 years).  At the start of the lesson, she told us that she had gone to one of her psychology classes where it was an open forum discussion and she got in a heated debate with an annoying student on one of the topics.  She felt bad about how the debate had turned out, she got pretty mad, so she went home and offered up the desires of her heart unto the Lord and asked for the ability to have more patience and be more kind to this student.  She said that while she was praying, an indescribable warm feeling came over her and she started crying.  She said that she felt the true love of God and had never experienced that kind of peace and all encompassing love before.  She was very surprised at the whole experience, but knew that it was of God and was way excited to share it with us.  We were able to teach her more fully about the spirit that lesson and showed her that because of her sincere desire to change and grow, God answered her prayer in a beautiful way, through the holy promptings of the spirit.  We then showed her Moroni 10:3-5 and how the spirit will confirm gospel truths to her as well.  We then asked her if she thought the BOM was true.  She said yes.  Then we asked her why she thought is was true.  She said that it was because she thought it was interesting and had a lot of good wisdom and stories in it.  We told her that that is good, but not a real testimony.  She made the connection to praying about the BOM with the promptings of the spirit and how that related to a testimony herself and we then committed her to doing that this weekend.  She is soooooo close to baptism.  She is in every way converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and is living a member life, except for the word of wisdom, haha.  However, once she is ready to commit to that, she will be baptized post haste!!!!!!   It's really weird teaching a woman who is older than mom, haha.  It's kinda weird being able to say that she is my good friend cause she could totally be mom's good friend too, haha. :)

That was the highlight of the week, but we had many other littler miracles as well.  We met this guy from Santa Barbara last night who had been looking for a church to take his family and had been eyeing our church building a little bit wanting to go inside but didn't have the courage. He is a way cool 50 year old guy who likes long boarding and is  teaching at an international school here.  He is going to come to church next week with his family. 

I made an Indonesia friend at a local Japanese class.  Elder Lee and I every Wednesday at 10 go to this Japanese class that a bunch of retired Japanese people hold in order to help teach the local foreigners Japanese. :)  We pretend like we are not that good at Japanese and so they take pity on us and think we are really cute little foreigners.  Anyway, this Indonesian lady starting coming to our English class as well and is teaching us basic Indonesian for free!!!  Terimakasih! (that means thank you)

Our Holland Bro, Kohji, is doing well and we are working hard with him on true desire and and truly believing in God.  He will get baptized soon-ish, I hope, haha. 

Elder Lee is the man!  He and I just got back from shopping at a giant mall down the line from our house.  I got some black Ferrari cologne for way cheap and now I smell like a racing car I guess, hahaha.  He and I have way too much fun.  But I'm getting the suttle feeling that one of us might transfer out of here.  There is no reason for it, we are having a lot of success and a great time, but I just get that feeling, haha.  I've got a reputation for transferring out of places fast, even though they are way successful areas, haha.  Oh well, we will just have to wait and see :)

Connor, you are the man.  You are doing way better than I ever was at that age.  We all knew you were the best out of all of us :)

Kyle, good luck with life!  お疲れ様 (cheers for good work!)

ブレンヂン (Brendin),  久しぶりだね (I have not seen you for a long time)！!！!！ 2年ははいやいですよね！ Man, two years goes by waaaaay too fast!  It's great to hear from you!  I can remember very well a few of your mission emails home and there are a few stories that have stuck with me and helped me out here in Tokyo.  Thanks for being a good example to me and to Sean.  We got to see each other in the MTC and we told each other that the day would to soon come that all 3 of us would be reunited, home, successful from our service all over the world.  But that is not this day!  I guess it's 1 year from now, but don't be counting days or anything ;)  

    　I love you man! Chou Chou!

Okay, I've got to go dendo now, but I love love love you and hope that you all have another fantastic week!!!

Love,

Elder Crandall 

ps.  HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Hello hello everyone!

 

Well, I'm really pressed for time today 'cause of all the emails I got on my birthday, haha.  I got 25 total from just about everyone!  So I'm kinda busy writing back today.  Also, I'm not getting back to a lot of them right away , so moshiwakegozaimasen to those who I'm not writing back to 'till next week. 

 

Man, my birthday was great.  We had absolutely nothing planned that day besides eikaiwa (English class) at 7.  So I decided to take the time from 12 to 7 and just work the area over.  Talk to everyone.  Tell everyone that it is my birthday!!!  And from that, we found 1 new investigator and 5 new PI's.  Picked up a lot of numbas on my birthday.  It was way fun.  My comp had a star bucks gift card so we went and got hot chocolate.  I haven't had the time to go buy anything yet, so maybe soon I'll go to the mall or something and do present shopping.  We talked to a gazillion old people and they just told me how they wish they could be 20 again, haha.  And then at eikaiwa, everyone sang happy birthday to me.  However, at night, I got a few calls from some investigators back from the Kohoku (first area) days wishing me happy birthday which was way fun.  It was way nice talking to them now that I speak Japanese, haha.  They were way surprised, haha. 

 

Our Holland investigator is progressing really well.  We just need to solidify his desire and get some real intent in him, then he should be looking good for baptism.  We have a lot of investigators, but we are having a hard time meeting with them and setting up lessons.  Every one is being a bimster and being busy during the week and we can only teach so many lessons on the weekends.  Plus this last week was stake conference and it was too far away for anyone to go, so it was a hard weekend for scheduling for us.  But we are doing really well in the lessons that we teach and people are progressing closer and closer to baptism each week. 

 

I have to go now, but in like two weeks we are gonna skype together so get ready for that!!!!!

 

I love you all and hope everything goes smoothly this week!

Congrats Kyle on making it into the play!!  Good luck with AP English!  Connor as well, ganbatene!!!!

 

愛しているよ！(I love you!)

クランダル長老 (Crandall Elder)

Monday, April 15th, 2013

Dear Grandpa,

 

Hello Grandpa :)  Thank you so much for your email this morning!!  At church yesterday, a lot of members were asking me about you and grandma actually.  I showed them my little book of pictures and it has one of you two and they were amazed that even my grandfather was a missionary.  It was something that you never really hear about in Japan.  Also, there was a couple missionary that was serving in our mission who the Elder served in the Frankfurt Germany Mission back in the 60's and I was wondering if you knew him.  His name was Elder Galbraith.  Him and his wife returned home a month or so ago. They were way funny and very hard workers.  It's not an easy thing to get called to be a couple missionary in Japan when neither of you speak Japanese right?  Maybe I'll teach you some Japanese when I get back just in case you go on another mission and get called to Japan, haha.  I love you and I love grandma.  It gives me courage and strength when I recall on the knowledge that my direct ancestors know what I am going through as a missionary and that they accomplished what the Lord wanted them to accomplish.  I feel empowered and ready to accomplish what the Lord wants me to accomplish as well :)  Give a hug and a kiss to grandma and great grandma for me :)  Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!  I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Dear Mother,

 

My Asian friends informed me that the wall paper on my blog is Chinese and not Japanese.  Thought you ought to know :)  Also, I use my picture book like every day right, and every time they get to any picture of you, they rant and rave at how young you look and how you and Kelsie look the same age and they ask how old you are.  I usually say you're about 60 and then they freak out and are like really?????  Then I'm like, No, she's actually 35 and then they freak out some more.  I don't think anyone in Japan actually knows how old you are :)

 

Man, General Conference.  General Conference is so awesome when you are a missionary!!!!!  I felt like I was watching the super bowl, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!!  I've only got two more general conferences as a missionary though, that thought is starting to freak me out.  I loved the talks by Craig C Cardon, President Eyring, Elder Bednar, and Elder Nelson.  I think that those were my favorites for sure.  I felt like those talks especially were things that I am focusing on in my teaching and with my investigators.  I loved watching Elder Nelson's talk cause I felt like it was exactly what we heard last month when he came here.  It was a good wake up call to our ward mission leader, although I'm pretty sure he skipped the Saturday session so we will need to drop a large hint bomb on him to watch that.  You would think that people in Japan would be better at catching large waves that come their way, but we will have to give the members a lot of support to hop on it and become proactive.  Proactive in Japanese is a really interesting word cause when broken down it means the product is assured.  Or like, it is an affirmed result, it's going to get done, kinda feel to it.  But, so far, if the missionaries don't do it, it doesn't get done, is what happens in the wards.  Little by little though, members will start to fulfill their responsibilities.  

 

This week was very busy, way successful, yet way disappointing at the same time.  We had 8 people promise to come to church, but only 2 showed up so we were way bummed.  However, we were able to set up a ton of appointments with people this week which means that we will be able to make a lot of commitments and get people progressing (kinda like what Kyle was teaching about in Mission prep).  One thing that I started doing recently is in my personal study each day, I do the commitments or homework assignments that I gave people.  So that way, when I go to follow up with them about how it went or if they did it or not, I can start out by saying that I did the assignment too and tell them what I learned.  It will be way awkward for them to listen to me tell them what I learned and then have to tell me that they didn't do the commitment, right?  If for nothing else, next time, to avoid the awkwardness, they will do the commitment.  We be serious about the eternal salvation of man.  

 

I had the best Chinese food with one of our investigators on Saturday.  He invited us over to his house and he fed us beautiful Chinese chicken and gyoza (post stickers) and weird tofu and fish sausages.  He is a total family guy, actually his family will move back to Japan next month and he wants them to start hearing the lessons as well so that they can join the church.  He is such a nice guy and is already quitting alcohol and we haven't even taught the word of wisdom yet, he just knows that's not a christian thing.  His name is En.  En Ka is his full name.  We call him En San or En Chan (Chan means like little girl).  He is so funny, way American-ish in his humor. 

 

Elder Lee and I are trying really hard to unify our teaching and to figure out how to produce more successful lessons.  It seems as though the only people that get baptized in Japan are super miracle story people, like, regular people are not converted and join the church.  The reason is, and President Budge is starting to focus on this too, that we are not good enough teachers.  And we are not using the members as effective as we should in all of our interactions with the investigators.  So we are focusing on being better teachers and focusing on using the members, in some cases training the members, as effective fellow shipping tools.  We are especially relying heavily on the 3 big things that help people convert.  Personal Prayer, Prayerful Scripture Study, and keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. But even before we can teach those things, we need to figure out what people are interested in so that they can be actively engaged in everything that we teach and actually apply these principles in their life.  We probably won't find a ton of golden investigators in Japan, so it is more useful to be a good teacher than a good finder.  It has taken about 40 years on missionaries in Japan to finally come to that conclusion, but such is the way it is.  President Budge has really sparked a new age of dendo here in Japan, not only in terms of member support and activation, but with our missionary mentality.  We are full time teachers, not full time finders.  We find as a part time job.  Elder lee and I have done a lot of discussing these kinds of things and we both agree that since we are both very young missionaries and we can't speak Japanese well or teach well in Japanese, that we need to focus on our teaching skills.  We will probably grow more in this transfer than any other cause we HAVE to become great teachers or else this area will fail.    I would appreciate your prayers with our new drive to focus on becoming better teachers.  Please pray so that we can receive personal revelation that will help us increase our ability to teach, explain, and discern things pertaining to our investigators, kudasai :)

 

I wuve YOU!!!!  Have a wonderful week! I 'm gonna go get Brazilian food on my birthday at an investigators restaurant!  YA!!!

   

Elder Crandall

 

Monday, April 8th, 2013

Okay, this week was for sure the busiest, funnest, hardest week of my mission.  This week felt like a difficult entrance exam into a top notch university if you know what I mean.  I had to use all of the skills that I have gained as a missionary thus far and after this last week, I feel both more confident and more uneasy about the near future at the same time, haha! :)

 

Getting settled into the new area was a pain, but more than that, having to grab the bull by the horns when I didn't even know what kind of bull I was riding was a pain too.  My companion and I did all we could to contact the 20 or so investigators that we have during the week and introduce ourselves.  Also, we did all we could to make friends with the bishop and other ward leaders so that they would trust us with this new area.  They absolutely loved the Elders before us and personally chewed out President Budge after they got the transfer call.  However, after the success that we saw this weekend and after Sunday's church, they 100% trust with the ward and the investigators.  That was probably one of the biggest things I was concerned about since the majority of our ability to help these investigators correlates to the relationship we have with the ward.  If we don't have success, the ward won't trust us to do our job and then the area will spiral into a no success place.  But once we get the trust, then the wards help will shoot our area up into the best in the mission.  Which, to be honest, in the near future might be one of the best areas in the mission if the ward's goals and our goals are accomplished.  It's crazy! 

 

To just give you a little summary of all the crazy miracles we saw, it all started on Friday at our zone meeting.  Our Zone Leaders (Elder Coleman and Fuller) were personally asked by President Budge, with the approval of all the other mission leaders, to make our zone a case study for a new missionary ideology.  We are to focus on Sacrament Meeting attendance and make that ours and the members highest priority.  Since 2 weeks ago, our ward had 13 people come to Sacrament Meeting, the Kawagoe Ward was to be a especially watched closely to see what is going well and what can improve.  This last week, unfortunately, we had 4 people come out of those 13.  However, we had about 8 people already commit to coming this next week to General Conference and what not.  People didn't come 'cause there was a big storm and the weather, unfortunately, plays a big role in church attendance.  But, yeah, our area is under close examination by the mission leaders, which is freaking me out, haha.  We are committing people to church like on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so that we can prepare the ward leaders for them throughout the week and know which members are going to fellowship who.  As much of a no-brainer as this sounds, it's actually a new concept, haha. 

 

After zone meeting, me and one of the zone leaders, Elder Fuller, went through the area and he showed me where everything is and we taught 3 lessons that split.  One to a half Dutch/ half Japanese 19 guy named Kohji and he is a baller.  He is the man.  He is the funniest guy ever and has perfect English.  He is training to be a pro soccer player and is way interested in the gospel and he recognizes the importance of God in his life and is a really deep thinker.  In that lesson we committed him to be baptized and he said he would!  His date is on 4/28 and we are going to meet with him tomorrow and play basketball and teach him the POS (Plan of Salvation). 

 

Then, the next day, we taught an older man named Wada who has been investigating for a while now.  We taught him the doctrine of Christ and committed him to be baptized and he said he would!  His date is on 5/12 and he is a very funny old man who loves English and gave me a chili con carne recipe :)

 

Then, we taught a Chinese man named Rin.  He is about 26, works at a trading company in Tokyo, hasn't been here very long so he doesn't speak Japanese super well, it's kinda hard to teach him.  We taught him the doctrine of Christ way simply and then called up a Chinese elder and had him review it with him and he understood everything and wanted to get baptized!  We committed him to 5/12 as well and he said Hai!!!!! 

 

Then, Sunday after church, we taught another Chinese man named En Ka and he is about 32, perfect Japanese, his family will move from China to here in about a month, brought his friends to church the other day cause he loved it so much, was looking for a church when he met the missionaries a few weeks ago, and wants to learn everything that he can.  We taught him the doctrine of Christ in combination with the idea of eternal families and he wants to get baptized!!!!  We set a date with him for 5/12 as well and he is way stoked for it!!!!!!

 

In one weekend, we set 4 baptismal dates!!!!!!!!!  It was by far the best splits that I have ever had.  The big thing that was challenging for me was that the zone leader was there so that he could introduce me to the investigators and hand them off to me.  So after we were done building the relationship, I took over the lessons and taught them what they wanted to know.  The thing that I really tried to focus on was things out of the Power of Everyday Missionaries Book, such as teaching investigators actually want they want to know and not just lessons.  For example, Kohji asked me why do people have to suffer?  I then took the time to figure out what his question was exactly, like was it why do bad things happen to good people or why does God let bad things happen?  Then, I gave Kohji a list of scriptures that would answer his question, Alma 60, Helaman 5, Ether 12, and taught him how to prayerfully read the scriptures so that he could receive a spiritual answer.  Now, he has learned that he can and how he can get answers to his questions through the scriptures, how to listen to the Spirit when he prays about spiritual questions, and has learned important gospel fundamentals that will lead to conversion. 

 

I tried to do things like that with every investigator, especially focusing on the Sacrament and the blessings that come from that in our daily lives. Elder Lee and I are on the same page in our teaching which is fantastic and hopefully we can set another 3 baptismal dates this week.  At least!!!  We have soooo many people who are excited about church and the great atmosphere and Spirit that resides there. 

 

Most of the Sakura are gone now, a big storm blew all the leaves away.  But the fishing here sure is good.  We have to cross a river to get to our church and we see hundreds of fish feeding in this river.  Fishing Dendo!!!!

 

You guys sure talked a lot about me coming home this last email, haha.  They were not super big and like 30% of both of them were about picking me up, but not thinking about it yet ;)  Have fun in Florida!!!  Jealous!!!   

 

We got a lot of people to teach and a lot more people to find in this great area!!  I love Japan!!!

 

Talk to you soon!!!  LOVE YOU!!!

 

Elder Crandall

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

Alright, get ready for a crazy email!  If you open up the attachment, you will see that Naoki got baptized!!!!!!!!   Wahooooooo!  It was a long week, really stressful, met with him every day and talked with his parents and he was all set to get baptized so we went ahead and did it.  I confirmed him the next day in Sacrament meeting.  It was too legit.  He is out on vacation back in the Philippians and will be back on Sunday.  He is such an awesome kid and I can't wait to see all of the cool things that he does.

 

That being said, we got transfer calls on Saturday and I WHITE WASHED INTO A NEW AREA YESTERDAY!!!!  I am now in the Kawagoe Ward in the Saitama Stake.  President Budge called me and told me that he wanted to move the zone leaders back into the Matsudo Ward and he wanted the other zone leaders in Saitama to white wash out of theirs, so now me and Elder Lee, who is from St. George and one transfer below me, are trying to get a feel for this new area.  We have a lot of baptismal dates right now and the ward is giving a lot of referrals and dendoing way hard.  We still don't know anything about this place yet or who anyone is or where anything is, but we have a way nice apartment and the zone leaders are coming over in like 10 minutes to teach us the area.  Elder Anderson moved back to his first area and will end his mission there this transfer.  He loved that place so I'm way happy for him, but I will miss him.  He was the funniest companion I've ever had.  There was never a serious moment between us, haha. 

 

I've got a lot of things to do today cause of the whole white wash thing, so I'm going to have to make this a little bit shorter than usual.  It was so fun to see that video, haha.  It was legit, Dad you are a pro.  And it was way weird seeing Brendin again.  I miss him a lot!!!   As far as Easters go, I didn't even realize it was Easter at all, haha.  People here don't celebrate it or anything.  Not even the members.  Just another day in the life, and we were a little busy that day too with the whole Naoki thing.  However, personally I took some time to study about Easter and I know, especially from the experiences that I've had with Naoki, that our Savior lives and He loves all of His children. 

 

I am the senior companion for the first time, but Elder Lee is the district leader, and since we were both whitewashed we are not sure who is leading this little misfit group.  But I am way excited to get to know this place better and see what miracles are in store in Kawagoe!!!! Ganbaro Nippon!

 

I love you all and wish you a happy Easter and a happy General Conference :)  Thank you for the birthday stuff and tie :) :) :)  I will chanto (properly) wear it on Easter, okay. 

 

Love you all!

 

Elder Crandall