Monday, March 10th, 2014

Dear Family,

Missionary life is like Star Wars.  Or rather, sometimes as
missionaries we feel like we are Jedi Knights.  This past week, Elder
Call and I have been doing a lot of George Lucas-tioian heroic brigades
around Japan.  Our days have been filled with interviews, trials,
councils, battles, which ultimately led to the baptism of a wonderful
sister.

On Tuesday, I traveled down to my old stomping grounds and did some
training while President was interviewing missionaries at the Kanagawa
church.  It was good to be back in my first area for a day.  It's
crazy seeing all of the new missionaries in the same area that I was
in when I was a new missionary.  Being relate-able is an important
attribute for an assistant, missionaries have to be able to relate to
us to trust us.  I can tell those new missionaries there that I was
once in their shoes, I know exactly what it's like to serve there, and
I know how hard some things are.  But that also means that I can tell
them how worth it it is, how many great blessings they will receive,
how much joy they will have when they serve the people there.

Wednesday turned out to be interesting.  When I woke up, I could taste
in my mouth that I was sick, there was this sick atmosphere in the
air.  But when I climbed down from my bed, I felt totally fine, like
my body was moving fine and I didn't feel sick.  But at the same time
I felt sick.  I don't know how to explain it, but to make a long story
short, I ended up going to the doctors in Tokyo and I had a sinus
infection.  A sister with the same symptoms didn't take care of it
quick enough and she ended up having vertigo because the sinus
pressure was causing her ear balance things to get messed up.  I was
starting to have my jaw lock up on me 'cause the pressure in my
sinuses was building.  Anyway, so he gave me some antibiotics and
painkillers, which kinda put me in a haze for a few days.  But I have
finished taking all of my pills and am better now.  It was just a
weird experience 'cause my body felt totally fine and I didn't feel
sick, but I was starting to get really sick.

On Thursday, we had mission leadership council.  All of the zone
leaders and sister training leaders got together and we spent all day
training each other and strengthening our testimonies.  We talked
about various missionary protocols, reporting methods, teaching
styles, and reviewed conversion stories and our mission performance.
However, probably the biggest thing was we rolled out Facebook access
to mission leaders to start using for dendo.  This is the second big
step to rolling out Facebook completely in our mission.  I guess we
will see how they use it and what kind of obstacles we face before we
give access to all missionaries.  People have both been very hesitant
and overly excited about using Facebook for dendo.  For some people, it
may be a huge distraction, but Elder Call and I have been pretty good
about staying focused on our purpose as we use it.  That is the key to
this whole thing, all we gotta do is just stay focused on our purpose.
Mission leadership council is fun 'cause we all sit kneeling in a
circle on a tatami mat and President Wada stands behind us and reviews
our performance zone by zone and if we don't do well enough he pours
cold water on our heads and strikes us with a sword.  (just kidding,
but for real though, one of our investigators told us that that is
what use to happen to him at his work at the end of the day, crazy
right?)

We spent quite a bit of time doing what we call a kubarikai which is
where we stand in front of a station and hand out fliers.  Well this
last week, we invented an effective way to do this and we have had a
lot of fun doing it.  We stand back to back in a two man or four man
and just as loud and as annoyingly as is possible to do as a
representative of Christ, we do all we can to make them laugh, take
our chirashi, and stop and talk to us.  It gets pretty interesting
when you get 4 big white people stopping people in unison and
finishing each other's sentences.  But from this, we have found quite
a few PI's and have been able to make a lot of great contacts at the
station.

Then on Sunday, the Sisters golden investigator, a self referral from
Mormon.org, got baptized after church.  We had some of our friends and
investigators come to that, including Kazuya who is getting really
close to joining the church now.  We still are not totally sure what
his concerns are, but he is really growing close with us and becoming
our good friend.  We are going to lay off the hard core preaching a
little bit and focus on getting him to warm up and open up a little
more.  In reality, he knows all of the gospel principles and believes
in it, but he just for some reason doesn't have the confidence to
follow the example of the Savior.  But at any rate, I have high hopes
for him and I know that he is going to be a great church member
eventually.

Kichijoji ward is starting to catch the wave.  All we have to do is
keep doing what we can and don't worry about what is outside of our
circle of influence.  That is something that I learned very well this
past week.  Just don't worry about It, just do what I can.  I love you
all very much and hope you have a wonderful week!!

Love

Elder Crandall

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!!!

Monday, February 24th, 2014

Dear most wonderful family and 皆様 (everyone),

This past week was a pretty good one over here in Tokyo.  The snow is
finally starting to melt and life is getting back to normal. We didn't
have too many big things happen, but we spent a lot of time fixing a
lot of little things and solving a lot of little problems throughout
the mission.

Because it is the beginning of a new transfer, we have had to do a lot
of planning and preparing for various events.  This transfer we have
President's interviews and stuff and so we need to schedule all of that
out and figure out the logistics of 8 different interviews in 8
different locations.  We've been getting a good taste of office work
lately, but then it makes going out and dendoing much more enjoyable.
We go out and dendo as a way to relieve stress and relax, I feel like
most missionaries spend all of their time stressing about having to go
out and find, haha.  We found a new investigator this last week, well
actually we met him at the park when we made the snowman that one
time.  He came to sports night and the we took him on a church tour.
We invited him to learn more and he was cool to meet up again and
learn more.  His name is Mirai and he is about to start college soon.
He plays tennis, but he is pretty good at volleyball.  We are going to
go out and eat with him tomorrow and then come back to the church and
do a lesson.

Also Kazuya came to church again with His girlfriend Mari and we had a
great time with them.  Every week he is opening up more and more and
we are more able to peel his onion and get to his core.  We taught him
about the importance of prayer and answered some questions that he
had.  I am still not 100% sure what he needs in order to break out of
his shell a little more and progress better.  However, he told me that
he is going to start teaching me some Chinese.  Now that I have
learned Japanese, Chinese is a piece of cake, haha.  But Kazuya is
doing well and I think that if he keeps coming to activities and warms
up a little more, he will feel more confident in himself and in his
testimony of the gospel.  He believes all of the teachings, he knows
all of the doctrine basically, he just isn't quite sure how to apply
it in his life yet.  We have something in the leadership called DPA,
doctrine - principles - application.  Are his concerns about the
doctrine, the principles, or the application??  The third of the three
is the best problem to have and that is where we are at.  We need to
help him apply the gospel correctly and soundly.

Perhaps the highlight of the week for me though was the bible class
that we taught on Wednesday.  We taught and had a discussion on Alma
17-18 and what Ammon did to change the heart of the king.  We
especially discussed service and how that is how we show our charity
and love to one another.  The next day, one of the students who's name
is Yuuichi sent us an email saying that he has had many many
missionaries use the Book of Mormon to teach him gospel application,
but that today was the first day that he was convinced by its
teachings.  My companion and I were waaaay stoked to get that email
from him!!  He lives in the north mission and our friends are meeting
with him there as well, so hopefully he is warming up to the Book of
Mormon as well and will receive the blessings found therein.

We have a busy week coming up, we got a lot of quality activities
planned and what not, but it's gonna be a good one!!!

Good luck, Kyle, in the plaaaaayyyy!!  Break a leg or two!!  In Japanese
we say ganbate!!!! (Gahn baugh tei) it basically means good luck, but
it doesn't really translate over well.  Be sure to get me a bootlegged
copy of the show!!  I'm sure dad's gonna try to do that.  I'll be sure
to pray that you get better and are well enough by Thursday.

I hope everyone else has a great week!!  Be safe!!!  I love you much!!

Elder Crandall

Out to eat with Elder Call and Mirai

Monday, February 17th, 2014

Hello Family!

This week was a lot of fun. There's a ton of snow down here that we
weren't expecting. Actually made it so that the four missionaries who
were going to return home couldn't get on the airplanes because their
flights were canceled. That was pretty rough. We weren't able to send
them home and they had to stay here at the office for another three
days. We shoveled the church parking lot for a total of six hours the
other day. We had to get all of the snow out-of-the-way so that church
wouldn't be canceled again like last week. It was really tough. Not
only did it snow about a foot but there was tons of rain the next day
so it made underneath the snow basically a river of water. Elder
Call and I went to town shoveling our little hearts out but to no
avail. We barely made a scratch in the snow. We had lots of help from
the other missionaries in the office and 4 members helped out as well.
It worked out in the end however because the parking lot got cleaned
and people were able to come to church and take the Sacrament!

We had a lot of investigators come to church as a unit here in
Kichijoji. We had our investigator, Kazuya, show up with his girlfriend,
Mari, and enjoyed the Sacrament meeting with them. Sacrament meeting
consisted of the High Priests all talking about something that I
couldn't understand because the Japanese was extremely difficult. The
missionaries had the opportunity to sing with the High Priests. That
was pretty enjoyable! We sang "Let the lower lights be burning" in a
normal four part harmony. Nothing too classy, but fun just the same!
Singing in Japanese is pretty fun! I'll have to show you sometime!

This week we picked up my third group of new missionaries. We went to
the airport in a bus to pick them up. When the new missionaries
arrived at the airport they looked very nervous and also very excited.
I remember exactly how they felt not too long ago. We rode through
Tokyo at nighttime and they got to see many beautiful towers all lit
up. It was pretty fun. For the next two days we trained them in
various things that they needed to know to be missionaries here in
Tokyo. On Thursday the trainers came and we assigned them to new trainees. Then those missionaries went to their areas together. I'm excited to see what
kind of miracles will come from the amazing companionships.  Elder Kuniyuki, the guy I trained, is training again! He's one of the best!

Right before Elder Medeiros left he bought $150 worth of meat. Just
for the assistants. Oh yeah! We've got steaks, spareribs and all sorts
of good stuff stocked away in the freezer. The other elders are pretty
jealous but sometimes we share with them! It's pretty good stuff!

It turns out I need to be nicer to my body 'cause after we shoveled snow for six hours I got pretty tired and then the next day after church I got pretty sick and was throwing up and was just exhausted. But I'm doing better today and am functioning much better.  

This week will start the testing for missionary work on Facebook.
Elder Call and I, plus a few other missionaries will start the
testing process and we will see how we can apply Facebook into our
mission. That being said, there are a few rules to us using Facebook.
Some of those are I am not able to respond to posts or messages from
family and friends. I can still leave my Facebook open for everyone to
see my posts and such, however most of those posts will be in Japanese.
Feel free to try and Google translate some of those posts that I put
up, but they're most likely going to be wrong. Google translate just
doesn't cut it these days! The objective is not for me to be able to
add pictures and things to show my family and friends the fun stuff
I'm doing but to use Facebook as another means to keep in contact with
those I meet here in Japan. That being said, if people decide to
message me or use chat with me I may not respond to them. If that
happens, don't be offended! I still love you and I'll talk to you
later! Feel free to talk with those investigators and other friends
that I am friends with on Facebook! You can help them out with their
conversion process or help them learn things about the church if they
have questions! It should be quite the adventure and I'm excited to be
a part of this hastening of the work!

It's a lot of fun working here at the office. We've got some good guys
coming up in a while for baptisms, and many more friends waiting
outside to talk with us!! Toru is still away on business but he should be back next week.  We are just having fun doing our thing.  

I love you all! Hope you have a great day!

Love,
Elder Crandall

P.S. Check out Me with these chocolates Sister Yamashita
got from a parking attendant! We definitely won't eat these and drive!

Tuesday, February 11th, 2014

Hello family,

I am currently riding a bus on my way to the airport.  Not to go home
or anything, but to pick up all of the new missionaries!
We had a very interesting and rather peculiar week this last week.  It
snowed about 6 inches here in Tokyo and you would have thought that
the bombs dropped and WW3 had started cause everything was shut down
and all heck was breaking loose.  They just don't ever get snow here
and no one knows how to drive generally, so when it snows things just
go crazy.  But I am safe and turned crisis into opportunity in the
snow.

We went to a local park and Elder Medeiros, Elder Call, and I built a
giant American snow man, after recruiting some help from some high
school students.  In Japan, they only use two snow balls to make a
snow man, but we flexed our American power and made a 7ft tall, three
balled snow man.  By the time we were putting the finishing touches
on, a crowd of about 30 people had gathered to take pictures.  We
seized the opportunity and took lots of pictures with everyone and
introduced them to the church and to the various programs that we are
involved in.  After staying there for a few hours, we contacted over
40 people, got a few phone numbers, and took a bunch of names for
people to add on Facebook (btw I will pilot an online dendo Facebook
program this next week so don't get surprised if I start using my
Facebook again, haha).  We were wet, but we didn't really feel the cold
as we talked to all of those people and had some fun in the snow.

Elder Call, my former companion in Kawasaki, is now my new companion
and the newest assistant.  He will be my final companion and work with
me till the very end.  He and I are way close, way good buddies, and
so I am way excited to be working with him again.  Elder Medeiros is
leaving on Friday for Hawaii, he doesn't want to go but I don't pity
him at all.  I mean, he is going back to Hawaii, haha, nothin' better than
that.

It's going to be a busy week, no rest for the weary.  But I am really
excited to be working with all of the new missionaries.  It's one of
my favorite parts of being an assistant.

Love everyone and talk to you soon!

Elder Crandall
Sent from my iPad

Thanks for the picture, Elder Call!