Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Dear Family!

Hello everyone!

Hope you have been having a great week!  We've had a lot of great
experiences this week that should interest (or confuse!) you that I'm going
to talk about!  Let's buckle up and get right down to it!

As Assistants working out of the office here I've been able to see a whole
other side of the world of missionary work.  There is definitely a lot of
administration and other such things that you may not realize when you are
out in the field normally.  We've been working hard together to prepare
things for the upcoming Mission Leadership Council that we have every
month.  For that, Elder Call has been working hard on the agenda and I have
been collecting various statistics and information from around the mission.
It definitely takes a lot of patience and requires me to understand my own
weaknesses when I get a little frustrated with things.  It's been a great
opportunity to find more things to improve in my life!  Loving that
improvement!

The most memorable event from this last week was definitely our Bible Study
English Class.  Let me tell you about the make-up of our class really quick.
There are typically 4 people who come to our Bible Study English Class.
This class is a little bit different from our normal English classes that
we teach for service each week.  These students are basically fluent at
English and therefore want to do something different besides normal English
class.  That spawned the idea to study the Bible in English with them.  There
are 2 men and 2 women that attend our class.  One of the guys is named
Kouzo.  He is an 80 year old super fit man.  He loves to be healthy and works
out at the gym everyday.  It was actually his idea to start studying the
Bible in English with us because he is "almost" a Christian.  He loves the
Bible and Praying and is way funny.  He loves to give me a hug every time we
meet with him!  Then we have Yuichi.  He's about 75 years old and is
interesting because he is fluent in French.  That being said, he translates
in his head from Japanese to French and French to English.  It's pretty cool
because then he speaks English with a French accent!  Then we have Junko.
She is about 69 years old and loves studying about Jesus Christ.  None of
these three are actually Christians however, but are enthralled by the
teachings and really have a high opinion of our church.  The regular fourth
member of our class is Sister Kyo Bien.  She is a recent convert of
Kunitachi ward.  She is an awesome Chinese lady who has lived in Japan for
15 years and speaks Japanese fluently.  She loves the Bible, but the funny
part is, she doesn't speak English hardly at all.  However, she testifies
and the other students really feel the Spirit when she's there.  It's awesome!       You will for sure get to meet all of them when you come to Japan. 
(Elder Crandall's Mom and Dad get to go to Japan to pick him up when his mission time is done!)

So, that's the backdrop of today's story, sorry it's so long!  Last week we
were teaching and reading from the Book of Mormon (they have accepted it as
the word of God, huge achievement!) and reading some of that good ole' Alma
32 about planting the seed of faith.  When we teach we have to use a lot of
examples of everyday items so that our students can relate to what we are
talking about.  We were going along pretty well helping them understand the
scriptures one verse at a time when we reached Alma 32:39.  It talks about
your land being barren and not nourishing the tree of faith.  When we hit
this part Yuichi put up his hands and said, "I don't understand what you
mean by barren ground. We do not have this problem in our everyday lives!".
Elder Call was a little stunned about how to answer that one so he
turned to look to me to answer.  I, having studied this chapter quite
a bit, was ready to answer.  I asked them, so what is lacking in
barren ground?  Nutrients, right?  The ground doesn't have any
nutrients.  So how do we give the ground nutrients?  We fertilize it.
But what is fertilizer exactly?  (here is where I really opened up
and leaned in real close like).  So what is fertilizer exactly right.
It's POOP!!!  Poop!!  We put poop on the ground to make things grow.  
(so at this point Elder Call is just dying laughing, he was so
surprised at what I said) but I was dead serious.  So if we relate
this back to our lives, what is poop?  Poop is the gross yucky-ness of
our lives.  It's the things we don't want to have, the bad parts of
ourselves.  Simply put, it is our mistakes, our weakness, the things
we do wrong and want to get rid of.  The poop of our lives is our
mistakes, and it is from those mistakes that we are able to grow and
develop.  Much like fertilizer, our weakness make our grounds fertile
for our seeds of faith of grow.  Once I had finished saying this, Yuichi spoke up and said, " Elders, I have a lot of poop in my life".  Elder Call was laughing so hard, he could not take it serious.  But everyone in the class loved it and
they were all writing it down in their Book of Mormon and stuff.  It
is a weird analogy but it's true.

Today most of our P-day was absorbed because we went with Sister Wada and
Sister Yamashita to Costco in Kawasaki to buy food for the upcoming
meetings and such in the mission.  It was pretty awesome!  We took the sweet
mission box van and cruised the Tokyo Freeway for a bit.  I was
driving so I got my need for speed Tokyo drift action in.  Then we
bought a ton of food. (As you can see in the picture below)  It was a blast.

I'm really having a great time here.  Kichijoji is just an awesome area and we
have a lot of great investigators that are moving along the path to their
Heavenly Father!  It's the best!  Definitely making memories for the rest of
my life.

Kyle, I am amazed.  Who knew you looked so good in green!!!  Way to go
buddy.  I am so proud of you!  You are all grown up now and are making
a name in the theatre world.  Thank you for being someone worth being
proud of.  In the words of the great people I am trying to serve over
here, you bring great honor to your family.

Mom, you guys should look into some of the Sumo tournaments that are
going on in May.  That is an experience I would die for you guys to
have.  Also, I signed my life away on the contract yesterday. 
(he signed up for his housing for BYU this coming Fall)  
I feel good about it so, nothin' to do but go with it I guess (sorry Kelsie,
for not living with you, but I promise to visit often).

I just want you all to know, God really does love us. He knows each and
every one of us perfectly, and if we choose to accept His love, we will
realize that it's always around us, enveloping us in the biggest hug you
could ever imagine.  We're lucky that we know and can share this to the
world!

Love you all!  Hope you have a great week!

Elder Crandall

The haul from COSTCO!!!