Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Hello my dearest and most wonderful family!

 

Alright, so you are probably wondering what happened in all of the transfers and what not and what mission I'm in. 

 

Soooooooooo, I got transferred to Kawasaki ward.  It's in the Yokohama Stake.  Which is in the Tokyo South mission.......  Yay! :)

 

My new companion is named Elder Call.  He is from Spanish Ferk, Utah.  Yes, I did spell it like that intentionally.  My new area is right next to my first area and actually I've come here for splits and meetings and stuff a ton of times so I know this place pretty well already.  Elder Call is on transfer 7 and I am starting 9 now!  Yikes!!!!  He is a way good missionary.  He is like 6"2, 240 lbs of manliness.  He has had a lot of success on his mission and the area and ward are doing really well right now as far as dendo is concerned. 

 

Not going to lie, this last weekend has been the hardest and most emotional time for me so far on my mission.  It's been way hard having to say goodbye to Elder Lee who I love so much, all of my investigators that I found and are progressing way super well, all of the way awesome ward members, and almost all of my missionary friends as well.  Basically everyone I know is going to be in the north mission.  I was pretty bummed at first, but I've received a strong confirmation that this is where the Lord needs me.  I know that not just in the south mission, but in Kawasaki right now, the Lord needs me to be here.  There have been tons and tons of goodbyes, and they have been especially hard since there have been lots of people who I know that I may never see again.  But it's done, and I'm here in this great place now.

 

In fact, we just got back from a lesson with 3 Filipino ladies named Marleen, Mari, and Kei.  They are all about 35, very interested in the church, and Marleen and Mari have baptismal dates for 7/27.  Wherever I go, I seem to find the Filipino's.  I don't know, but I'm not complaining :)  All three of them live in the same apartment complex where they house and protect domestically abused women from their husbands.  All three of them have had very very very hard lives and very very bad men for husbands.  Marleen is kinda like their ring leader, haha.  She absolutely is converted to the restored gospel and was the first person to discover the church a few weeks ago.  Then she brought her friend Mari to church on Sunday, where they were able to refer her and begin teaching her.  Mari is rather shy.  I don't want to sound rude or anything here, but in order to accurately describe Mari I would say that she is kinda like a terribly abused dog where when we reach out our hand, she kinda pulls back shrinks down at first.  But, she is warming up to us well now and isn't shrinking back anymore.  We met Kei for the first time yesterday, Marleen brought her with her when they came to the lesson.  Kei is a lot more aggressive and hard to crack.  She didn't want to participate in the lesson, so she just sat there and listened when we taught and read with us when we read.  But she will come to church with us and her little baby this Sunday. 

 

I apologize for how long this email has taken for me to write.  I've spread it out for like three days, haha.  It's because our area is becoming a 4 man area with 2 more elders coming in and we have been doing a lot of prep for that.  We are getting Elder Nakamura, who I was in the MTC with, and his new missionary!!!!  It's gonna be fun fun fun!  But our apartment is way too small for 4 people, so we've been trying to figure out how all of this is going to work, haha.  It's gonna be waaaaaay super tight, but it will end up alright I think.  We have a Costco pretty close by and one of our 60 hippie friends by the name of Rocky usually takes us to Costco.  Elder Lee is going to be training over in Kawagoe and he is freaking out pretty hard, haha.  I gave him a neck tie for being the best companion ever and yesterday I found his favorite N64 video game, Legend of Zelda, for 3 bucks at a recycle shop where we sold a bunch of junk from our apartment, and I'm going to mail that to him cause he is so awesome. 

 

I'm gonna send you guys a package in a few weeks with some fun things and a letter and what not, haha :)

 

I'll write a longer letter next week, but for now this will suffice. :)

 

I love you all and it is so good to be hearing from our family members!!!!!  Also, the ward is really getting dendo fire back home which is super awesome and exactly what the prophets are telling us to do!!!!  Ganbare dendo!!!!!!!!!

 

Have a great week!!!   I love you all so much :)

 

Elder Crandall

 

Here are some pics from a lunch with an old lady investigator named Shizue.  Also, a pic of Elder Lee and I by our apartment/ church.  It's close to a river.