Monday, October 28th, 2013

Dearest Family,

 

I can't believe it is Halloween either!!  I was in the exact same place last year for Halloween so it's been really natsukashii (I don't know that in English) to see all the same people and smell the same smells in the same settings as last year.  Today was the first kinda cold day, not too cold, but cold enough to complain that it is cold, haha.  We had a fun week, an interesting week for sure.  But we have some cool plans coming up and I am looking forward to this next week!!

 

I was able to go on splits with Elder Allred (he is from Vegas) this past week and check out the Kamiooka Ward situation and the great work that they are doing over there.  Elder Allred is doing great.  He is being obedient, he is working smart, he is being a loving and patient companion with Elder Lumberg, and possibly for the first time he is starting to feel a deep conversion for himself and really starting to learn how to preach the gospel.

He shared with me his conversion experience and I felt the spirit very strongly.  He has come a long way since the start of his mission and I can see that he is feeling a lot of the joy that comes from living and believing the gospel.  He and I have a close relationship, my BYU roommates were his best friends growing up, and he shared with me a lot of his true feelings on things. He is very patient and he is willing to and ready to serve in Kamiooka till the end of his mission.  Although they haven't started teaching a whole lot, he is planting a lot of seeds and is doing his part over there.  He recently white washed into his area and so things have been slow.  It was a good chance for me to add my little bit of effort into the work in that corner of the vineyard and get some fun planting opportunities.  We went to a volunteer center and spent two hours playing games and eating cake with some mentally handicapped kids who were just the funnest people ever.  The missionaries have been doing that for a while so there are a lot of friends to the missionaries there and we were able to strengthen our relationship with them and prepare people to hear the gospel. 

On Sunday, we had 4 people who we were expecting to come to church, but 1 at a time, before church started, they called us and cancelled on us. In fact one of them we met up with us later that evening, Katsufumi San (an old guy who has read the BOM three times).  Turns out that he had some pretty extreme beliefs and ended up dropping himself on the grounds that he has graduated from religion and a new age religion has started up and he is transitioning into the future.  I'm still not sure what that means either.  We have 1 very slowly progressing investigator who keeps all his commitments except church attendance, and 1 investigator who is a kinjin, (Yaguchi) but can't meet, and is waiting for his school test results to come back.  We have a whiteboard in our apartment  full of tons of PI's that never meet up or work on Sundays, and we spend a good amount of time finding and having quality conversations with people.  Things aren't bad, but they aren't good yet.  Our problem right now is just a huge lack of member support.  Mostly, it's coming in the form of no action.  Everything that is going on is all talk and no action.  I have hope that they are coming out of the sleep and waking up to be a part of the hastening of the work, but it seems like they are dazed and dizzy. 

For example, with Sasaki San, who used to come to church every week, he did this for like 3 months.  About 1 month ago he stopped coming to church cause he felt out to place.  Today was the first day that anyone had asked about him.  The Elder's Quorum President and the Bishop asked what was the name of the old guy that would always come and then asked us what his story was.  We told them that he hasn't come in over a month and they were surprised to hear that.  Elder Hill and I are wondering why it took them a month after he stopped coming to start asking about him.  He will unfortunately be known as the old guy dressed in normal clothes that stood in the corner.  Also, we haven't had ward missionaries in over 6 months.  Elder Hill has literally seen no change in any of the dendo plans or any progress in those plans in the last 8 months.  The first week I got here I asked to have a sit down discussion with the Bishop about the ward vision and he gave me this long winded speech about a Single Adult FHE and getting that started for the dendo team.  Afterwards I asked Elder Hill about it and he said that they said the exact same thing to him 8 months ago and they still are only in the discussion phase of it.

This is the 6th ward that I have been in and I don't know what it is, but this has been the hardest ward to love.  During the Sacrament today I repented of the bad feelings and thoughts that I have had towards the ward and recommitted to unconditionally love them and think no evil towards them.  I did my best and I lasted until like 10 minutes after Sacrament Meeting was over when I went up to a member who was standing by himself and tried to engage in conversations with him and he gave me a little smile and walked away and didn't even talk back.  I told myself that he had something better to do, but I felt like I got rejected on the inside.  The only time I've been to a members house for the past two months was when the Ito's invited us over for dinner.  And we live in their house technically!!!  I don't know what it is, but there is a cold relationship between most members and the missionaries.  I am trying to love them more, I really am.  Please talk to the missionaries that are in our ward back home.  If they talk to you, please talk back.  I feel bad for this ward, it has had all of the best missionaries in it for the past 2 years, but only has had 2 baptisms.  I'll keep doing my best to love and serve them, I'll even defend their flocks when the time comes.  

 

I love Elder Hill.  He is the funniest companion that I have ever had.  He's only got 6 weeks left on his mission, but don't tell him that!  On a brighter note, the gospel is still true.  And I have been going through the New Testament recently and keeping track of all of the questions that Christ asks during his ministry.  He asks a lot of questions.  I want to improve my question teaching skills more and I figure the best way to do that is to follow the example of the master teacher.  It's been enlightening so far and I've got a lot more scriptures to read before I'm done. 

 

Well, I'm glad everyone is enjoying the Halloween festivities.  To answer Connor's question, I think I had close to perfect grades in 8th grade with mostly honors classes.  But that was a long time ago so I don't remember too well.  Good luck in English.  The best way to get better at English is to read books, and books that are harder than what you are used to.  Try some Herman Melvile or Charles Dickens.  That'll stretch your comprehension ability.  I miss books like those, but Jesus the Christ has been a good substitute. :) 

 

I love you all so much!!  家族を愛してます！！！お気をつけてくれ！！！

愛

クランダル長老

Monday, October 21st, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Whenever I can't think of a cool subject I just write it in Japanese.  Then it seems a lot cooler than it really is :)   あまりかっこいいサブジェクトじゃないけど、

 

Man, we had a crazy week.  It was up and down and full of adventure and miracles. I went on companion exchanges twice this week.  Once with the Kawasaki Elders and once in an area called Kamiooka.  It was fun being able to go back to my old area and hang out with Elder Kuniyuki again.  We met up with Yuuki, the big rugby player man and went out to ramen with him.  He said that he has been thinking a lot about baptism recently and is just trying to figure out his life and his future.  He loves the missionaries and loves the church, but he is trying to figure out if it is right for him. 

 

The elder I went on splits with from Kamiooka is a new missionary, his second week in the field, a bright young missionary named Elder Wright from Utah.  He is right out of high school and barely 19.  He had his mission call for like the last 4 months of his senior year!  Isn't that crazy!  They are so young!!!  But he is a way good missionary and we learned a lot together. 

 

The day I was on splits with him, the plan was to hunt down one of our investigators, Sasaki San, who hasn't come to church in a month.  He doesn't have a phone, but we knew where he lived and basically what he did all day.  So I made this grand plan to visit the library and his home and some stores in his neighborhood in hopes to find him and get him to come back to church.  Unfortunately, some things came up and we had to run to Costco of all places and do some emergency shopping.  Therefore, we didn't have any time to follow my plan.  Later that night we were dendoing with the sister missionaries at a train station close to our home.  After we were done talking to people and making contacts, we started to mosey on home and talk to people as we went.  I knew a short cut that would take us home by means of cutting through a local shopping mall called Aeon.  I felt like we should cut through so I started heading that way.  As we were walking into the store I was giving Elder Wright this epic speech on how listening to the spirit and sometimes just moseying around town can lead to great miracles, when as we got to the back of the store I saw this little Japanese guy sitting on a bench by himself (I know you haven't been to Japan yet so you don't know, but basically the whole country is little Japanese men sitting on benches) and I kept walking a few more feet, but then I turned around and it hit me that it was Sasaki San!!!!  So, with a giant smile on my face, I grabbed Elder Wright and took him down the hall to Sasaki San.  I walked up and gave him a big hug and he was so happy and so surprised to see us.  We sat next to him and talked for like an hour on everything from church, the plan of salvation, the Cuban missile crisis, the doctrine of Christ, commandments, WWII, Japanese Pop Culture, and coming back to church.  The first thing he said to us was that he was really sorry that he hasn't been coming to church recently and that he has no excuse.  I was like yea, you don't have any excuses!!!  No, just kidding, I was nice.  But after talking for a while, he told us that he feels very out of place at church.  He is very poor and when he comes to church he sees all the rich and wealthy and noble people in the ward and he feels out of place.  And to be honest, they haven't been the most friendly and welcoming to him so I don't blame him.  But we talked for a while about that and got him recommitted to come to church and he was very excited to come back.  Unfortunately, he didn't come on Sunday cause it was raining, but hopefully he comes back next week!!!  I love that little old Japanese man.  He is so humble and pure, he just needs to see that in himself as well. 

 

On Saturday, we met up with about 70 youth from around the Tokyo area and had a mission prep fireside and dendo blitz in the area.  I went on exchanges with a guy named Masaya who is 19 years old thinking about a mission and we went out and dendoed together for like 2 hours.  We handed out two BOM's in that time and just had a blast making friends and creating defining moments in the lives of many people.  It was a great opportunity to take part in such a large event.  I think many of the youth who went to that were a little iffy about going on a mission, but for sure we changed their image of missionaries and had a ton of fun preaching the gospel. 

 

Later that night, President Wada came to the Yokohama Stake center, that is my church building, and he held a life lesson fireside for our investigators and potential investigators.  He showed clips from the movie Gandhi and talked about how each decision we make has lasting consequences and choosing to go down the path less taken makes all the difference.  We had about 50 people come to that event and President Wada's training was way awesome.  He used to be the CEO of Universal Studios Japan so he has access to like any movie he wants!!!

 

Yesterday, Sunday, I was at the church from 8:30am to 8:30pm straight with out leaving it, haha.  We had Ward Missionary Coordination Meeting from 8:30-9:20, then church from 9:30-12:30, then Ward Council 1:30-3:30, then PEC 3:30-4:30, then a youth missionary fireside 5:00-7:30, then we helped teach the sister's investigators lesson from 7:45-8:30.   

 

Our ward is on the brink of a real change of heart.  We are so close to the hearts of the members changing and them being involved in dendo.  Our Ward Mission Leader is changing himself and realizing the importance of his calling, our ward just set baptismal goals and is in the process of making a ward dendo plan, we don't have any ward missionaries (we haven't had any for over a year, the only ones we used to have were deaf so we couldn't really work with them, haha) but they said that they would call some!!

 

I know that Mom and Dad are in leadership positions in the ward right now, so I would like to ask you guys, what is the Ridgecrest Ward Mission Plan, what are the goals, what kind of missionary activities are you trying, and what is the mind set that the leaders have towards missionary work?  In the ward I am in, there is no one who is proactively doing missionary work.  If we ask people to, they will help out with lessons, but in the 2 months I have been here now, not a single person has ever talked to us about their dendo, asked us about our investigators, or had us over for dinner.  But they are in the process of changing that and catching the wave.  It's going slow and steady, but at least its going :)

 

I look forward to your email!  Have a wonderful week :)

 

Love,

 

Elder Crandall

Monday, October 14th, 2013

Dearest Family,

I wasn't really expecting an inheritance anyway, but I'm glad to hear that it went towards a good cause. ;)  However, don't think that you were the only ones having fun this last week. 

Yesterday we went to an October Concert Festival that was sponsored by President Wada at the mission office.  We found some guy on the street a few days ago named Masaya and we met up with him and went to the concert.  This church youth group named Little Witnesses sang, as well as some hula dancers from Hawaii.  But the best part was the last two acts.  There is this really famous J-Pop group named Bless 4 and they are members of the church.  They came and performed their famous songs and Masaya was really impressed.  And then the last act was this Black guy named Jet who is from Tennessee.  He has a nondenominational Christian band and they came and sang a bunch of gospel songs.  He is investigating the church and is really close to baptism.  There were like 500 missionaries, investigators, friends, members, and less actives that came to the concert and it was a huge opportunity for Masaya to get some exposer to the gospel and the way it blesses our lives, as well as just seeing what kind of people we are.  On the way home from the concert I shared the BOM with Masaya and read Moroni 7:45-47 and Ether 12:27 with him as well as the introduction of the BOM.  Masaya doesn't really have much of a religious background but he was saying that he has always been a little bit in Christianity and he thinks there is a God.  He told me that he wants to believe in God.  I taught him how he can know if there is a God through the BOM and told him how I came to know that God lives. 

We are exciting to be working with Masaya, especially since he has had a great defining moment in his life with the concert and everything.  If he didn't get a good impression of the church from this concert, I don't know what will. 

I was able to watch conference this last weekend!!! It was an amazing conference for sure.  We had one of our investigators, James, come.  He is from Kenya and has met missionaries before.  He has a lot of interesting ideas about Christianity, but he said he believed everything the prophets were saying. I especially liked President Uchtdorf's talk during the priesthood session on fulfilling our responsibilities/ having compassion for others.  I thought that it applied directly to the members here in Japan that struggle to put forth the effort that is being asked of them.  I thought it was amazing how much missionary work was talked about at conference.  Like half of all the talks were on missionary work.  Elder Ballard's talk was very good as well.  He basically committed everyone to give a referral before Christmas.  WILL YOU FOLLOW THE PROPHETS CHALLENGE, FAMILY??  As a zone leader we work a lot with statistics and the statistics show that 1 in every 4 member referrals will get baptized. If all 15 million members gave a referral before Christmas, then there will be over 4 million more baptisms in the church!  Can you imagine!!!!  Whereas now there are too many missionaries, if that happened then there wouldn't be enough missionaries to handle all the teaching opportunities. 

The stake president's son here, Kazune, brought three friends with him to our English class this last week and I was able to start teaching one of them and gave him a BOM.  It was a small thing, bringing friends to church activities, but hopefully that will become a defining moment in that young man's life as he now starts to learn about the church and read the BOM. 

Enjoy these pictures of us and Bless 4 as well as a party pic on the train going through Shibuya at rush hour.  It was crazy packed on the train. 

It was great to hear about all of your adventures at Disney World!  I wish I could have gone, but it's okay.  I am too busy over here to worry about that :)

I love you all so much and pray that the Lord's blessings will be upon you as you follow the Prophet's council and start inviting more people unto Christ :) がんばろモルモン！！！

愛

クランダル長老

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Elder Hill and I had ourselves a wonderful week.  I am sure that you all have had a wonderful week over in Disney World as well.  However, this last week was something very special for me, something that I will never forget. 

 

I won't go into all of the details of what happened this past week, but I would like to focus on one special event. 

 

This last Thursday, I had the opportunity to participate in the Mission Leadership Council once again.  We gathered together with the other zone leaders, the assistants, the sister training leaders, President and Sister Wada, as well as President Wada's first councilor in the Mission Presidency, President Welch.  Instead of going to the mission home to do the council, we went over to the Yamate Church, which is right down the street from me.  About a 10 minute walk away from the Yamate church building is where Heber J. Grant, Alma O. Taylor, and 2 others dedicated Japan for missionary work in 1901.  As a rededication of the Tokyo South Mission and in memory of the 102 years of missionary work in Japan, we traveled out to the spot where Heber J. Grant dedicated Japan in the early morning and had a wonderful devotional, testimony meeting, and prayer meeting. 

 

It was something that I will never forget.  It was a beautiful day, hardly a cloud in the sky, the blankets we brought were covered in tiny grasshoppers and flees.  Birds were chirping in the trees and little children were laughing and playing in the background.  President Wada brought the dedicatory prayer of Japan with him as well as the prophecies concerning Japan given by many of the prophets and leaders of the church.  We read those together and sang hymns of praises to our God.  Then we bore pure testimony concerning our convictions and the feelings of our hearts.  I cannot put in words all that I heard and felt, but the spirit was overflowing as we rededicated this mission and ourselves to this great work. 

 

The Lord loves his Japanese children very much.  Or else why would He have made so many of them?!  Although they still do not know it yet, He blesses and plays a huge role in their lives.  I know that He loves them, and there will come a day when they will understand that and accept it.  But that is not this day.  We still have a lot more work to do to prepare the hearts of the members and those who will aide in the harvest of souls.  We have a great work to do over here and once we take the gospel to the 111 million people here, then the Lord will open up the door to China and the far east.  We are making great headway and we are gaining speed.  We are expecting 21 new missionaries to come in this transfer and 20 more after that.  Then 30 more and 30 more and 30 more until the mission reaches over 200 missionaries.  Our wards have too many missionaries in them and everyone is having to step up their game. 

 

Our ward is doing okay.  Last night the sisters investigator referred her son to us and we started teaching him the lessons.  His nickname is Zach and he is 19 years old.  He has a Christian background, but still isn't sure if God is really there or not.  We are going to meet with him again right after this to help him with an English essay he is working on.  Please Pray for Zach that he can do well on his essay and can come to know that God exists!

 

Today starts transfer 12 for me.  I still don't know when I am coming home, but probably sometime in May.  I've still got a lot of time and so I'm not too worried about it and neither should you be!!!! :)

 

I hope everyone is having a great time at Disney World!!!! I love you so much!!!!

 

愛

クランダル長老

Monday, September 30th, 2013

Dear Family,

I have never been so happy to be a missionary in Japan.  I am learning and growing in so many different ways.  Last year when I started my mission in generally the same area, I was not so happy to be a missionary in Japan.  The work was very tough and I didn't have the best attitude.  Now a year later, the work is just as tough, but my attitude or rather my perspective on everything has changed.  Maybe that has been one of the biggest changes I have seen in myself so far on my mission, my perspective has totally changed.  Elder Hill and I are working our skinny butts off trying to help out this ward as much as possible, we really are.  It's going slow and steady but it's going for sure.  We have 3 people who are progressing well, and like 30 pi's, it's way easy to get pi's here, but getting them to set up an appointment is the hard part.  People have been really bimio lately. However, we have made great progress this last week with one of our investigators whose parents are against him coming to church, Yaguchi San.  His parents told him that if he gets a good grade on this next test that they will allow him to come to church on Sundays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Huge progress!!!!!!!!  Just hopefully he gets a good score on his test, haha.  We are praying and fasting with him on that.  

We just got back from another lesson with an older investigator, Mukaiyama San, and we are extremely close to breaking down the final wall that is going to lead to the first steps to conversion.  He has for a long time been struggling with prayer and in today's lesson it finally clicked with him and he is going to start praying to find out if God is there.  We read with him the story of King Lamoni and his conversion and it struck a big cord with him.  He was able to relate the scriptures to himself and grow his tiny little faith seed just a little bit more.  I am really grateful that the BOM IS true cause I just spent an hour pouring my soul out to this man that it is true.  And because it is true, he was able to feel the spirit and experience a change of heart.  I've been doing a study recently on the Lectures on Faith and I see now the importance of having a belief that God is there to developing one's faith.  It is critical.  Once Mukaiyama can have that confirmation, everything will fall into place.  

Got to go, but I love you all and hope you have fun in Florida ;) 

Elder Crandall