Tuesday, September 24, 21013

Dear family,

 

I am glad to hear that Brother Richardson was able to get ahold of you!!!!!!  He is such an awesome guy and he really helped out our dendo when he came to Kawasaki!  Too bad it was only a message, but nonetheless, a message from a general authority is pretty cool. :)  (Note from Mom & Dad: We got a phone call from Brother Richardson in the Sunday School General Presidency last week. He met Christopher while he was visiting in Japan and had wonderful things to say about our awesome missionary!  It was a really cool phone call.)

 

This last week was an interesting one.  I got a cold Wednesday morning and was kinda out of it for a few days.  I am back up to like 90% better, but I still blow my nose a lot and stuff.  However, I got a blessing from my companion and I have been able to work well ever since.  I went on splits back up to Kawasaki this week and that was fun.  I got to do another lesson with Adachi san and he is still just as golden as ever.  He says that he doesn't want to get baptized until his wife gets back from China so they can get baptized together.  He keeps reading his scriptures like a boss and has gained a very strong testimony of the restored gospel. 

 

Elder Hill and I have been having quite a bit of success with our dendo recently including getting Sasaki san closer to baptism.  We taught him about the 10 Commandments and he is 100% going to follow all of them.  We can still only teach him like once a week which is kinda frustrating, but probably by the end of October he will be ready for baptism.  Also, Mukaiyama san, another older gentleman that we meet with a few times every week, is starting to really progress and understand the gospel.  We are going to meet up with him right after this and destroy him with the spirit of God!

 

We went to the temple this morning with our zone and then went to a place called La Salsa.  It's an all you can eat taco place for 10 bucks.  On our way there I talked to this guy on the train and convinced him to come eat tacos with us and he did, haha.  There was like 12 loud Americans hanging out with this quite dignified Japanese guy at this taco joint, a little odd, but I think he liked it.  I got his contact info and hopefully he will meet up again.  But if nothing else, he got some way good missionary exposer, hopefully we left a good impression. 

 

Elder Hill and I have been working hard to improve the quality of the dendo in the zone and especially this last week we focused on finding and better finding techniques.  It's weird being one of the oldest missionaries in the zone and especially being the leader now.  I get to set the example for everything.  There are a lot of young missionaries with little to no finding skills or experience and because of that I feel a heavy responsibility for training them and helping them learn how to dendo.  The thing is that I don't consider myself to be an experienced missionary at all.  I still feel like I am transfer 3 and just barely learning how to dendo.  Elder Hill is the man though, he is teaching me a lot, even if he doesn't think he is, haha.  He is too humble.  We as a mission started pushing for 10 solid contacts everyday, 10 solid conversations with people where we invite them to do things.  It's hard in Japan to talk to people, quite frankly a lot of people ignore us and don't want to talk.  But on the other hand there are scores of people that really want to talk to us but are too shy and so we have to make the first contact.  It's my job to inspire the new missionaries to talk to people wherever we go and to be bold with our commitments.  

Things are looking good in Kanagawa!!!  We keep on doing our thing and things are good.  

I love you guys all soooo much.  I was really sad to hear about Brother Crandall.  I remember that he came to my farewell party and we talked there for a while.  He is a good man and I am sure he is in a good place.  

Keep praying for Yaguchi!  He is doing good and still getting ready for the 19th of October!!!!!!!

I have a bunch of pictures I want to send, but they aren't attaching right now so I'll send them later :) 

Have a great week everybody!!!  I love you! 

愛

クランダル長老

 

Monday, Sept. 16, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Well, I'll start off with a little story.  So, like half an hour ago, I decided that I needed to give myself just a little trim.  My hair was starting to get a little bit long, just a little.  So I borrowed my comps buzzer and just wanted to take a little bit off the back.  Then I started to cut the back of my head and after a few seconds of buzzing I looked down and saw the clipper guard fall onto the ground.  The buzzer was still going and I was still cutting.  My heart sank when I made the connection.  I felt the back of my head and sure enough it was shorter than the grass on a putting green.  I called for Elder Hill and he came into the bathroom.  I told him to look at the back of my head and tell me if there was a giant bald spot.  Holding back tears of laughter he grabbed a mirror and showed me the back of my head.  However, I am happy to say that after 30 minutes of strategizing, blending, and a whole lot of little hairs later, my head is ok and just barely missionary appropriate length :)   Yatta!!!

 

Did you guys hear that Tokyo got nominated to be the 2020 summer Olympic games!!!  I did, like 100 times from everyone I met, haha!

 

Last night and all this morning we endured through Typhoon "Ming-Yi".  It was kinda a weak sauce typhoon, if you ask me.  It didn't do any damage at all, like maybe it should have been considered a tropical storm, not  a typhoon.  Everyone was freaking out though.  But we tried to make the most of it and we got together with some of our buddies and went out to all you can eat pizza this afternoon.  I went hard in the paint and had like 20 slices of pizza, no regrets yet, haha! 

 

In answer to Connor's question, yes, that is kinda what I am doing.  The big difference is that I have a computer in my apartment so I just email everyone asking for the stats and if I have specific questions on things I'll give them a call.  Elder Hill makes every moment of the day interesting.  He is one of the funniest guys I have ever met, haha.  We is a way hard worker but has fun with everything that he is doing. 

 

I went on splits with a few people this week.  I went down to the Yokosuka US Naval base and got to hang out with some Americans!!!  We had dinner at an American's house and then went to an SA activity on base with a lot of crew members from the  George Washington Aircraft Carrier.  That thing is huge!!!  And like 4,000 people live on it all the time.  We had a banana splits party and then the couple missionaries on base took me over to Taco Bell and I had Taco Bell for the first time in over a year.  I almost cried. 

 

I also had the opportunity to go on splits with one of the AP's named Elder Rindli.  He is from Maui and we got to talking about Maui and there is like a 90% chance that he was the fire dancer that we saw when we went to the Luau up at that one place that one time.  He is a way awesome missionary and he taught us a lot of finding skills.  The past two weeks or so, Elder Hill and I have gotten like 20 or so phone numbers from people and we are working on getting them to church activities and getting them to start hearing the lessons.  One thing that our zone is struggling with is finding.  The people in the Yokohama area are very rich and hard hearted.  Most people have a very dark and bad opinion about God and the church so we have to search long and work very hard even to find just a few prepared people. 

 

But we are working with quite a few great people.  One is a young boy named Yaguchi.  He is 17 years old and he has read the BOM 7 times in the last 5 months.  That is more than me!!!  Way more than me!  He wants to join the church very much, but his mother is very anti church.  She doesn't know that he has been meeting with us and he has tried to bring it up with her a few times but she shuts him down hard.  Last week we started a 40 day prayer for him and his mom.  At the end of the 40 days we are all going to fast together and he is going to boldly and lovingly confront his mom about the church.  Yaguchi is such an awesome guy, but his faith is still rather small.  Anti-parents are a big problem in Japan.  Yaguchi is dead terrified of his mom, however, he has to be the one to break down the barrier and expose her to the gospel.  Right now we are doing all we can to pray for him and to help build his faith through reading the scriptures with him and sharing faith building stories.  Please pray for Yaguchi and his mother that he will be able to talk to her and that she can have a change of heart. 

 

Thank you so much for the pictures of the boys and stuff at the fair.  It looked really weird just seeing the three of you and all.  Half the family is MIA , but next year it will be even less!!!  Poor Connor, he is going to be all alone in a big house very soon....

 

Things are going great here in Tokyo.  The work has me busier than ever, but also happier than ever.  Elder Hill and I are truly teaching with "power and authority" and the Lord truly works beside us as we help bring our brothers and sisters closer to Him.  :)  I thought and studied a lot this week about how Love is the Motive to everything we do and it is true.  Love is the reason I am out here and Love is the reason I do the things I do each day. 

 

I love each and every one of you and pray for you daily.  :)

Have a great week and please throw Tuxedo's ball at his face for me!!!!!!!

 

愛をこめて

 

クランダル長老

 

Monday, Sept. 9th, 2013

Hey hey hey!!!

 

Thanks for the emails, everyone.  I'm sure the talk went great in stake conference, mom.  You always do fantastic :) 

Connor is the luckiest little guy.  Not that his school flooded, but cause he was able to beat kotor2 without my help, haha. 

 

I'll do my best to sum up the role and responsibility of a zone leader. (Connor asked him about his responsibilities as a zone leader)  When you become zone leader, you get put with another boss missionary so that you don't have to worry about whether or not your companion knows how to teach or speak the language.  There are only 4 zones in our mission with about 100 missionaries and 8 zone leaders.  My role is to convey information from the Assistants to Pres.Wada and Wada himself, down to the district leaders who then convey it to the other missionaries.  Zone leaders set the example in effective and correct missionary work.  We go on companion exchanges with all the missionaries in our zone at least once a transfer and help train them and help them improve the status of the area.  We often do zone trainings and train at the district meetings, for example, this next Wednesday we have a zone meeting and Elder Hill and I will be giving like a 2 hour training there on what we learned at Leadership Council and what Pres.Wada wants us to train on.  We report all of the statistics every week for our zone on how many lessons they taught, how many people are getting ready for baptisms, and how many new investigators and referrals missionaries received.  We make lots of phone calls and help people with their living situations and various problems.  Just this last week we helped some sister missionaries move into a new home and got them a new computer and arranged for them to get a new wifi walker and such.  We work our hardest to teach as many people about Christ as we can and we make our area the example area for the zone.  It's a lot of work and a lot of planning.  But it's a lot of fun getting to work with tons of missionaries and seeing all the miracles that go one in the Yokohama Stake. 

 

Elder Hill and I were able to see an amazing miracle the other day through serving someone. The other day we were coming home from a day of "streeting". We were crossing a bridge that went over a very busy 4 lane highway. When we looked down and saw a very old man holding a cane trying to J-Walk across the road. We stood there puzzled wondering what we should do when all of the sudden he fell down. Elder Hill and I sprinted off the bridge and to his side to help him up. We helped him up and he said that he would be okay from there, which he obviously was not going to be okay considering that he was leaning all his weight on me. We helped him cross the road and when we got to the other side he couldn’t stand up anymore so we helped sit him down on the curb. We sat down with him but were very concerned because he could hardly hold himself up. We talked to him for a while while sitting on the curb. We found out that he was on his way home from the hospital. After a few minutes of talking he gained some strength back and wanted to continue on to his home, which he said was close. We escorted him all the way to his home, frequently stopping with him to rest. When we arrived he invited us in. He walked into his living room and just laid down on the floor. He called out to his wife who came and tended to him for a while. After he gained some more strength he sat up and came to the table with us. He was so grateful for our help and just such a kind man. We had the chance then to share the gospel with him. We told him about God, who he believes in 100%. We then told him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and heaven, which he was really interested in. We invited him to hear the lessons and he gladly accepted. To close the lesson we asked if we could pray together, he was so excited to do that and he explained to us that he has no God to believe in right now, and really wants to learn more. We left him with an appointment to come back next Saturday. His son and his family also live with him so hopefully we will be able to share the gospel with them as well. I am so grateful for this gospel. I am so grateful for the service opportunity that we had to help Koike San and that it opened up his heart to hear the gospel.

I'm gonna have to get back to y'all about the contacts next week.  I have to go to a lesson now.  But I did get your package :) Thank you so much です！I love you all so very much and am exerting my best effort to do the Crandall name proud :0)

 

Talk to you next week! 

愛しています！

 

クランダル長老

Monday, September 2, 2013

家族へ

 

神奈川ゾーンリーダになってしまいました。すごく心配していますよ。

 

My Dear Family,

 

It feel upon a day that I got a call from the Assistan'ts to the President.  They told me I had done good in Kawasaki and thanks for training two missionaries there.  They then informed me that the Lord wants me in the Kanagawa Ward as Zone Leader.  So here I am, same stake, same zone, two areas over in the Kanagawa Ward. 

 

It's really bitter sweet.  The sweet part is that my first area, Kohoku, is the adjacent ward, they use the same building and do all of the activities together, and so I have been able to see and greet a lot of my old friends.  Also, I pretty much know half of the members in Kanagawa ward already and we are getting along just famously.  My companion's name is Elder Nathaniel Terrance Hill and he is from Detroit.  He is like 6'4, way good at basketball, a way good missionary, and the funniest guy that I know.  I've been working along with him for some time now and we know each other pretty well.  He has been in the Kanagawa area for 6 transfers now as zone leader and he knows his stuff.  He is getting pretty old as a missionary, but he has never worked harder than before now.  We are in a 4 man apartment, the Kohoku Elders and us.  One of the Kohoku elders is a new missionary and so it's really weird seeing someone where I was last year and me being where all the missionary legends were.  I don't feel any different or as good of a missionary as them, but I'll do my best to be like them. 

 

I always thought being a zone leader was all fun and games, but man it is a lot of work and we are way busy.  Tomorrow we have Stake Presidency Meeting with all the stake leaders and Pres. Wada, we have 3 districts to help out and train so that means we have to travel to 3 district meetings every week, we have a bunch of new missionaries in the Zone so we will go on splits a bunch, and we have mission leadership council this week.  I have never had to do so much planning in my life!!!  But Elder Hill is a boss and knows what to do and is showing me the ropes well. 

 

We also have two sister missionaries in our ward as well.  Sister Hathaway from Denver, and Sister Matsumoto from Shizuoka.  They are both rather young missionaries, but they go way hard and are very happy and enthusiastic missionaries.  Our ward has only seen 1 baptism this year, but we have a few people right now who are close to baptism.  One of them is a man named Sasaki.  He is 71 years old, on the brink of being homeless, no money, little food, but he loves coming to church and 100% believes in God; we know- he told us like 20 times.  The ward seems to like him and he has a baptismal date in a few weeks.  The only problem we have is that he doesn't want to meet with us any other day but Sunday and we can't teach very much in one day so his progression is slower than we want.  But he is a very humble, kind person who is trying to enjoy his life and do the right thing. 

 

This last Saturday, I was able to go back up to Kawasaki and attend MASARU'S BAPTISM!!!!!!  It was a way cool experience.  Masaru felt a little bit nervous and uneasy and he was a little bit shy, but after the baptism he was way happy and running around and talking to all the people.  Marilyn and Marie gave me a bunch of farewell presents and made me promise to visit again before I go back to America.  I plan on visiting them, just letting you know. 

 

I am glad to hear that everyone over there is transitioning back into normal life well.  Connor, this school year counts the most.  It's gonna be a reflection of the rest of your years in high school.  Kyle, tough schedule, but you can handle it.  You got the Crandall genes and the Crandall Jeans だからさ. ;)  Mom, the relief society and priesthood quorums in the Kanagawa ward have really been struggling for a long time with missionary work.  The Bishop told us on Sunday that he wants the quorums and auxiliaries to focus more on every day missionaries in the weekly lessons.  Maybe they could learn from your example how to teach and how to talk about that stuff at church!!!

 

Dad, I laughed pretty hard at that missionary story, haha.  I can totally hear you saying that.  The plug is important, as little of a thing as it is.  The difference I think between Adachi and your friend is that Adachi has gained all the knowledge and intellect he can from the scriptures, but his faith is too small to act on it.  I tried really hard to commit him to baptism, but he isn't interested in acting on his knowledge for like 10 years.  He says that once he feels like he needs the salvation he will get baptized.  We taught him about exaltation and becoming like God and he said that he is fine with being in the lowest degree of the celestial kingdom.  I gave him a good talking to about what I thought about that and shared lots of scriptures with him and the last thing he committed to before I left was to pray and ask God exactly when he should be baptized.  He came to church this last Sunday and had a great time, although I wasn't there, but I have the faith that he will push aside his pride, get his answer, and I will go visit my friend's baptism in a few weeks :)

 

I love you all and could use your prayers now more than ever :)

 

Love,

 

Elder Crandall

Monday, August 26th, 2013

Dear family,

 

We had an incredible week.  I'll start off by telling you about this miracle kinjin (golden investigator) we found. 

 

There was this Eikaiwa (English class) student named Adachi and he is about 33 years old, fluent in Chinese, very humble, nice business man.  He came up to me after Eikaiwa, after everyone else had departed, and he leaned in really close to me and asked me how much it would cost him to buy a Doctrine and Covenants.  I leaned back a little and looked at him a little funny and asked why he wanted to know.  Then he told me that he had just finished reading the BOM and wanted to read the D&C and Pearl of Great Price, as well.  He asked me once again how much it would cost him.  I then looked at him square in the eyes and told him it was free!!!  I then got him a Doctrine and Covenants and started doing some standard how to begin teaching!  I found out that when he first came to Eikaiwa two months ago, Elder Call gave him a BOM.  Adachi is a convert of three years to the Protestant faith, his wife is a convert of 8 years, and he is really interested in learning everything about all religions.  He actually said this to me, I will never forget it 'cause we never hear this phrase, " 宗教のことでたくさん興味がありますよ！”って (I am really interested in religion).  We never hear that!  It's a miracle!  We asked him if he had any questions about the BOM and he said I've got too many questions about the Book of Mormon!  We asked him when we could meet to discuss those questions.  He told us that he actually just quit his job and so he can meet us any day, every day if we want.  We set up an appointment for Friday and went over to his very well kept house.  We read the intro to the BOM with him so that we could establish the basis that the Spirit is what will testify of truth and that it is his duty to pray about the BOM and the things we talk about.  He understands everything so well and has a very strong testimony all ready in the gospel and fundamental Christian beliefs.  We then turned the time over to him for his questions and he told us that in the 1 day he had the D&C, he read 100 pages of it and loved every written word.  We then talked about the priesthood, baptism, and a host of other topics and questions he had.  To sum it up quickly, he believes that the BOM is true, he said that if the BOM is a lie, then the Bible and all of Christianity is a lie!  He said that they are so complimentary that it has to be truth.  He is very active in his other church and has some responsibilities over there, so it has been hard for him to switch to coming to our church.  But he told us that he really wants to switch religions.  He served us dinner and spent the whole time pointing out all the flaws in his church and how our church is more functional and actually follows gospel teachings.  After dinner we got serious in our discussion again and gave him the baptism commitment.  He agreed that once he is able to switch religions, feels the confirmation of the spirit that it is the true church, and hears all the lessons he will get baptized.  We asked him when we could meet next, he said not 'till he finished the D&C.  We asked him when that will be and he said Tuesday.  We set up a time to meet Tuesday. :)

Just to put a cherry on top of it all, he brought a BOM to his church with him and shared it with his pastor.  His pastor had a lot of interest in it so he is currently reading the BOM as well!!!  We are going to convert the entire 20 person congregation of Protestant Christians at Musashi Kosugi station!!! 

 

Then on Sunday, before church, we were waiting for our ward missionary council to start when Elder Whiting of the Seventy, Bro. Richardson, who is the General Sunday School President, and another Japanese Area Seventy showed up to our church.  We got to hang out with them and get to know them for a while.  Exchanged some contact info and swapped some missionary stories and talked about the status of the ward.  They taught both priesthood, Sunday school, and then talked in Sacrament Meeting.  Brother Richardson did a great job of fellowshipping the 4 investigators we had come to church, and what not. 

 

That night, we went over to the mission HQ for a devotional that Bro. Richardson was giving and we got to talk to him once again afterwards with our investigators.  Then I ran into President and Sister Budge at the fireside and got to talk to them :)  They still remember me, haha.  We also got to introduce some of our investigators to President Wada who gave them some great words of encouragement. 

 

With Adachi San being able to meet like everyday, and also getting Masaru ready for his baptism this Saturday, we are looking to have a busy week!  Also, Sis. missionaries are going to move in on Thursday and we are helping get their apartment ready for them and such.  Transfer calls are tomorrow, I'm really nervous, I don't want to leave at all, but we will see what happens. 

 

I love you and hope you have a wonderful week!  Bro. Richardson talked a lot about becoming the best you can be and enjoying our roles in life.  So put some butter on your roles and go do some good in the world.  :)

 

愛をこめて

 

クランダル長老