Monday, July 29th, 2013

こんにちは皆さん！！！ (Hello everybody!)

 

川崎の奇跡わ多いですよ！！！！(Many miracle's in Kawasaki!)

 

Me and Elder Mitabi baptized Marilyn and Marie this last Friday!!!!  In the pictures, Marie is on the left next to me and Marilyn is on the right.  We were going for a "raising the bar" picture and I think we look pretty good. 

 

It was a great great, very simple, yet powerful baptism.  And then yesterday I confirmed them both in Sacrament Meeting.  They were both so happy and they gave great testimonies after the ordinances.  I have been utterly impressed with how much they have changed over the past two months and how much faith they have in the healing power of the atonement.  It has been a great testimony builder for me and I feel the need to act more like they do.  Their son Masaru, who is ten years old, after the baptism he came up to Marilyn and asked her why he couldn't get baptized with her and that he wants to do the same thing that he saw his mom do.  We have agreed to meet with him every week for a little while, maybe about 3 weeks, and then he will be prepared for baptism :) I am waaay excited for him!

 

The trainings have been going well.  I hope, haha!  I hope they are learning something that is, haha.  Not gonna lie, it's required a lot of patience and endurance from all of us.  The hardest part is that I have to say everything  twice.  Elder Mitabi basically only speaks Japanese, Elder Kuniyuki only speaks English, and so I have to translate all of the conversations and everything into either one of the languages.  It's great translation practice, like 24/7 language study, but man it is exhausting.  I can't tell if my Japanese is getting any better or not, but I for sure have gotten a lot better at toning down what I say in English so that it is always easy to translate in Japanese, haha.  I'm like dumbing myself down.  But Elder Kuniyuki is a good sport and is tolerating my poor English.  And Elder Mitabi is being a good sport and tolerating my bad Japanese, haha.  I taught him how to speak English like an American.  He kinda has a British accent and I'm doing my best to break that out of him.  Like, saying Amuuurika and bro at the end of his sentences.  Also, I taught him how to speak a little bit of pidgeon, like "How you stay bro?"

 

Recently, we have been switching most of our teaching focus to the Book of Mormon and helping people understand what is in the scriptures.  Because of that, we in our apartment do daily role plays and practices for teaching out of the BOM and lesson 1.  I found something really cool the other day out of 1 Nephi, chapter 1.  Most of our investigators struggle with having faith in God.  They just don't know what to believe and what to picture for God.  So we have found a way to help them gain a better idea for who God is and how we interact with him in chapter 1, verses 8-11.  Here we can help them make a personal vision for who God is and what it is like in Heaven.  I used this yesterday when teaching our investigator, Nomura, at church.  It was going good, but then he ended up falling asleep cause he had stayed up all night playing at game centers here.  Poor guy, he was exhausted all day, but he still came to all of church.  We hope to set a baptismal date with him this next week. 

 

Things are going great here!  The Yokohama Zone right now has very few investigators, not a whole lot of lessons, but basically everyone we are meeting with gets baptized and we are one of the highest baptizing zones in Japan right now!  Lets go dendo!!!

 

I love you all and have to get going!  Everyone here is getting out of school for summer break right now and it's weird for me not getting to go tubing or go to any camps or anything.  The members rarely feed us at all in Japan.  We had an Single Adult activity last night where we got fed by members and our ward mission leader is having us over for dinner cause he is stoked about all of the baptisms and success. It's about time that you guys had the missionaries over for dinner again, right??!!  And when you have them over for dinner invite some of our non members friends over as well!  And if you don't know any non members, then you need to go outside a little bit more and meet some :)

 

Have a fantastic week!  Kyle, I started working at the golf course when I was 16.  Then I quit the start of my senior year, and got a job at Costco at the end of my senior year.  Man, whether it's at home or at a job, we gots to work.  But it's nice when you are a missionary cause you don't have a job!!!  haha, I'm unemployed!!  kinda....

Connor, I can still remember the first time we gave you a bath.  :)

 

Dad, just by way of curiosity, how was your experience as a trainer?  What were some things that worked for you, or didn't work at all?  Any crazy experiences?

 

Take care, be safe, remember who you are, and make good choices!!!

 

Love,

Elder Crandall 

Elder Crandall, Marie, Marilyn, Elder Mitabi  "Raising the Bar"

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Monday, July 22nd, 2013

My dearest beloved family,

 

First of all, I need to set the scene a little bit.  It's still really hot outside and every day as we walk to and from appointments and hop on the trains, I feel like I'm going to drown in the humidity.  I'm good at swimming, but 3 years of swim and water polo can't train you for the humidity in Tokyo.  Our apartment only has one cooler and so at night, we all try to huddle in one room and as for now I'm on the futon on the floor.  Not too bad actually.  The centipede problem is virtually gone, we went "Rambo" on them one night when it rained and they all headed for the shelter of our apartment and we got most of them.  Everything was going really good this last week, not a whole lot going on Monday.  But then Tuesday rolled. 

 

Tuesday morning. We got a phone call from President Wada with our transfer calls.  I picked it up.  He cut right to the chase and told me that I am staying in Kawasaki and that I am going to be training a new missionary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Waaaaahooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I then passed the phone around to the other elders in the apartment and they got their calls and what not.  Then the phone came back to me and President Wada wanted to tell me something else.  He said, "Elder Crandall.  I had the privilege of talking to your father via email this last week.  He says you're a great young man.  I agree with him.  He also told me that I should give you a challenge.  I agree with him.  Therefore, Elder Crandall, you are going to be training TWO NEW MISSIONARIES!!!!!!!!"  And all I said was, "WHAT?!??!  Are you serious?!"  And he told me that I was to continue training Elder Kuniyuki, who is on his third week and we've lived together for those three weeks.  (FYI, Elder Kuniyuki is the brother to a kid named Sho who was in Kyle's group at Especially For Youth this summer!) 

 

So, we went to the mission home on Thursday morning with Elder Kuniyuki and picked up my fresh sickle.  His name is Elder 三田美 and he is from 沖縄.  (I totally did that on purpose, just to see if it would bug you.)  He is about 4'11, 95lbs, and the cutest little ball of fun and energy a missionary could ever have.  I'll send some pictures.  So now in Kawasaki, we have just us 3 missionaries working here and so there is a little bit more space in the apartment.  I know President Wada thinks that he is giving me a challenge with these two new Elders, but to be honest, both of them are 100% obedient, work hard until 10:30, study the language hard, and dendo like transfer 5 missionaries.  But the best part is that both of them, especially Elder 三田美, are way dang funny and we are having a super fun time.  It's been hard having to balance the study schedules and training time between appointments and such.  We have to do comp study for 2 hours each day and both of them are on the 12 week new missionary program, but at different parts of the program.  However, everything connects together and I am having some fun sharing all of my fun dendo stories and all the crazy teaching experiences and finding experiences that I have had. 

 

Marilyn and Marie are going to have their baptism interviews tomorrow!  We had a practice one yesterday and it went awesome!  They are trying so hard to repent and be forgiven of all the bad things that they have had and want to be washed clean from their mistakes and guilt. Like I mentioned before, they live in a special safe house from their abusive husbands and they have shared many of the problems that they are dealing with with us and it has opened my eyes to the reality of the cruelness of the world.  We are going to have the baptisms on Saturday after a ward party.  Pictures to come!  We also have begun teaching their son, Masaru, officially and getting him prepared to be baptized.  Possibly he will get baptized in 3 weeks or so. 

 

We had some fun yesterday and went to the Cup of Noodle museum in Yokohama City for our Zone Leader, Elder Young's, birthday.  I'm attaching some pics. 

 

I have to get going but life is going great!!!!  I love you all so much!  Be happy and safe!!! Tell Kelsie to write me or else!!

 

Love,

Elder Crandall

 

PS.  The new Elder's name is Mitabi and he is from Okinawa :)

Cup of Noodles factory

Elder Mitabi & Elder Crandall

The sleeping "situation"

 

Monday, July 15th, 2013

Hi, from Elder Crandall's parents!

So we had a little mix up with his email last week.  We emailed Christopher last Sunday as usual, and apparently he did also.  But we never got an email from him!!  So I sent him a little email last Wednesday just checking on him and making sure that he was okay.  But no reply.  Finally, Craig sent an email to President Wada (his new Mission President) saying we were concerned because we hadn't heard from him that week and that was the first time since he has been out (over 14 months now!).  President Wada sent back an immediate reply (it was 1:35 am Tokyo time) saying that he would call Elder Crandall in the morning and tell him to email us!  Apparently he did just that because we got a forwarded email from Christopher that was written on Monday the 8th!  He sent a reply message to my Wednesday email saying that his Internet connection must have been out when he sent the email and he didn't even notice that it had bounced back to him. :)  He is doing great and no cause for concern from Mom or Dad! ;)  We do feel bad that he was worried that the call from his mission pres. was about his grandpa (Mauri's Dad) who had just had major surgery.  Don't worry, grandpa is on the mend!

By the way, Pres. Wada is very impressed with Elder Crandall, his fluent Japanese, and his hard work ethic.  He plans to give him a challenging and growing assignment in the near future!  We love our missionary boy!  Thanks for reading his emails!

Craig and Mauri

伝道部会著をメールしてくれてありがとうね。彼が私を電話したときに私はすごくどきどきになれちゃった。

 

Man, when I got the call from President Wada I was way nervous.  All he said at first was, "Hey, I just got an email from your parents."  Right then I started to get way nervous cause Grandpa was having his surgery and all and one of my past companions got a call that was like that and so I was freaking out.  He then said, "Do you know what this is about", and I said, "No, I have no idea."  He then told me about the email stuff and I took a deep sigh.  I was way sketched out for a little bit.  But it's nice to know that people on the other side of the Internet do care about me and how my week was going and all :)

 

I was reading Connor's email and all I could think about was how I use to hold him as a little baby in my arms and now he is off exploring Hahobos like I use to do and is almost a Life Scout.  Everyone is growing up around me!!!!!!  In only like 5 more years, the whole house is gonna be empty all the time.  Kelsie better started filling it up with some grandchildren!! (hint hint).  I was way jealous to hear about y'all golfing and what not.  But last week we went bowling and I tore it up!  Bowled a 180!  Ya boi!

 

Also, just got back from hitting up a bunch of Malls with the Elders in my apartment.  My companion bought 4 Star Wars t shirts for way cheap.  I bought one as well for way cheap.  It's way legit and I'll have to send a picture of it some time. 

 

Tomorrow is transfer calls!!  It's been a weird and short transfer 'cause of the mission splitting.  I feel safe, but I felt safe last time and I ended up getting moved to a different mission.  So we will see how it goes, I guess.  The Filipina's are doing wonderful.  They came to church on their own and have a ton of friends with the ward and everything.  We are just their teachers, nothing more or less.  It is how it should be for once, haha.  We typically have to pull the weight around at church, but here it is different.  This really is one of the best wards I have been in as far as the dendo fire and relationship goes.  Elder Call and I are doing great, even though it's like 100 degrees every day and I feel like I'm gonna die when I go outside.  But I'm getting pretty tan which is good.  We met a few college aged student and tried to teach them, but they were not interested at all.  Other than the Filipinas, we don't really have any super solid investigators right now.  But that will change!!!  I've been focusing my PMG (Preach My Gospel) study the past week on ch.11, its about commitments.  What it should be called is "How to street, house, tract, and find investigators".  This chapter does more to teach someone how to find than does chapter 9, "How to find".  It;s all about the commitment, they have to do something in order to progress/ repent.  Any act, whether it be a church tour, come to ping pong night, come to church, or hear the lessons is an invitation to repent.  If we as missionaries as doctors of the soul, than the commitment to act is like giving some one the appropriate medicine and saying, "drink this".  It's for their benefit, but it's still up to them as to whether or not they take the medicine. 

 

I gots to be going, but I love you all and will continue to pray for grandpa for sure!!!

 

Have a wonderful week!!!

 

愛、

クランダル長老

 

Monday, July 8th, 2013

おい家族だ！(Hey Family!)

 

How's everyone doing this week?? It sounds like everyone had some pretty crazy adventures this last week and what not. 

 

It blows my mind that Kyle and Sho were in the same group while Elder Kuniyuki and I are in the same ward here!!!  (One of the kids at EFY in Kyle's group, Sho, is the younger brother to one of the missionaries living in the same apartment as Christopher!!)  Kuniyuki is the man and he is working really really hard to learn Japanese and become a master teacher.  I am very impressed with him cause he isn't in the easiest situation ever.  He can't really speak to his companion yet and they only have 1 real investigator right now, but he is having a great time, as well as teaching us how to break dance at night after we plan, haha. 

 

As far as my 4th of July went., we had our English class that night and we tried our best to make it American themed.  We went with Rocky to Costco and what not and bought some pies.  We had a pretty good size group of students come and we were able to teach them how to say America correctly (Amuuurica!) and play some games.  No fireworks....... yet...

 

But man, let me tell you, the Summer has come and it is blazing hoootttttt!!!!  All of a sudden, two days ago, we woke up one morning and it was like 100 degrees and the humidity is insane!!!!  After I take a shower in the morning, no matter how hard I try, I can never dry off, haha.  It's ridiculous and it makes it really hard to go out finding.  Which, me and my companion are trying to work on cause he still isn't super comfortable with Japanese and so it makes it hard to talk to people on the streets.  We are working on it. 

 

We have been having trouble with a large centipede infestation in our apartment complex.  It's the darndest thing, but every day we find 4-5 little centipedes crawling around our sink.  They don't harm anything and they aren't poisonous, but they just get in the way of everything and are really creepy, haha.  I never thought that in my life, I would have to fight off an army of centipedes in the middle of Japan.  We've been hosing this place down with some bug killer pretty good, hopefully soon they will lay off us and go bug someone else, hehe. ;)

 

Things are going great with Marilyn and Marie and also, as of late, Marilyn's 10 year old son, Masaru, has decided to get baptized on the same day as his mom.  We are looking to have 3 people baptized on the 27th of July!  Yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!  This ward has been way awesome and is doing a very good job of fellowshipping these investigators.  We recently had a Japanese recent convert guy and his Mexican fiance member lady friend move into our ward and we are going to meet up with them this week.  Our underground street racer investigator moved to central Tokyo so we won't be meeting with him anymore :( dang it

 

Elder Nakamura, Elder Kuniyuki's trainer, is in the middle of writing a dear Jane to his girlfriend, hahahah.  I don't know why I think it's so funny, but it is.  I'm supporting him on this one, she isn't a member and she doesn't have any interest in the gospel and he really doesn't want to marry a nonmember, so he needs to cut her loose, right?  We are right behind him, keeping him strong. 

 

I'm drinking lots of water, praying really hard that we can find some more people to teach so that we are busier than we are now, and really pondering and studying a lot about how to use the scriptures more in my every day dendo.  If you guys have any advice or tips on using the scriptures better, please let me know :)

 

I have to go now, but I love each and every one of you soooo much!  I will pray for grandpa for sure!!!!  I am so proud of Connor and Kyle going off to the various camps as leaders and being better examples than I was :) They is sooo good!!!

Have a miraculous week and I will talk to you later :)

 

Love,

 

クランダル長老 

Monday, July 1st, 2013

Opo!!!  Como estapo??  Mabutinamanpo!!! (it's Tagalog, I've been studying it a lot from all of the investigators, haha)

 

Hey, everybody!  Man, it's been a loooooong week so far.  We haven't been able to do a lot of dendo this last week because we have been turning our tiny apartment into a 4 man apartment and transferring investigators and training the new guy, Elder Kuniyuki. 

But it has been very fun working with Elder Call and Elder Nakamura and Elder Kuniyuki.  

We are the most northern part of the south mission.  Actually, we have to leave the mission when we ride the trains around 'cause the area is so small and so close to the top.  The new mission president's name is President Wada.  We are going to meet him tomorrow at a zone meeting!!!!!  He is Japanese but went on a mission to SLC and speaks English perfectly, thankfully, haha.  He is really young, younger than President Budge, like in his 40's I think.  Our mission is only 4 stakes, instead of the 10 it use to be.  It did not acquire any new places or anything when the mission split.  We are like 1/3 the size of the Tokyo north mission, but all we have in our mission is really urban places, whereas Tokyo north has a lot of countryside and farm land.  We have about 70 missionaries right now.  However, it is going to increase to about 220 by December!  Yikkkes!!!!!

 

This transfer that we just started is only 3 weeks long because of some weird issues with the MTC and new missionaries and what not.  But, I bet I'll stay here for a little bit longer than 3 weeks, haha.  Although with my track record, you never know!!!!!!

 

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo jealoussssssssss of KYLE!!!!!!!!!  Paul McCartney!!!!!!! Are you for real?!!!!!!  But I'm going to ship a package to y'all that contains some b-day stuff for most of you.  Don't get your hopes up, but get excited :)

 

It was way super cool and awesome to attend the Work of Salvation Broadcast.  I watched it last week live, but we saw it again with the stake last night.  But even cooler than that was to hear about the priesthood keys being executed among my immediate family, mom getting set a part by dad, while Connor was out dendoing with the boys in his quorum!  I do not think that you, mom, are being called to be the 1st councilor in the relief society at this time when dendo is being put on first priority just by chance.  You are being called to a position that will stretch you and give you chances to improve your dendo skills and invite your sisters and their families to come closer to Christ.  I almost feel as though I should be asking you and dad, who now have equal dendo responsibility,  for a weekly dendo report!!!  It's your calling now and vicariously we are working in unity thousands of miles away from each other.  The ward, missionaries, and family units are coming together. 

 

We have a few lessons planned this next week with some people.  The Filipina's are doing very well and all three came to church on Sunday!!!!!  Marilyn and Marie are progressing towards baptism very well and we will meet with them tomorrow.  However, we have a big need to find some new investigators here, we don't have a lot going for us right now.  All the good investigators got baptized last transfer!!! :/  Now we don't have anyone left.  That's called elevator dendo and it is frowned upon.  We need to always be finding people and keeping our lines in the water for long periods of time so that we catch the most fish!!!

 

We went to Costco today!!!!!  We spent like 200 bucks total on groceries for 4 of us. That's actually really good if you do the math.  We had our hippie friend Rocky drive us over in his car.  He is like 60 years old and is the biggest old time stonner/wanna be hippie on the planet, but we is way close with the missionaries and will do anything with us.  His parents were filthy rich, but passed away when he was young and he has been living off of their trust funds his whole life.  Never worked a day in his life and is filthy rich and loves the Beatles.  He made us listen to Led Zeplin the whole hour ride to Costco.  I didn't complain tooo much about that though, haha. 

 

I got to go now but wish me luck this next week!!!  I try to find a bunch of gators with Elder Call and work hard!!!  Please drive safe and tell our family that I say Konnichiha!

 

Take care and know that I love you :)

 

愛

クランダル長老