Hello hello Crandall-ke!,
Thank you for the emails and it was awesome that Kelsie
found time to write me too :)
Crazy busy week back home it seems like! It's awesome that
the wedding is moving forward without hindrance and everything is going
according to plan! I'm sad that I can't be there, but this is the way that our
family has been built. I did the math real quick and I'll probably get
married while Kyle is on his mission, then Kyle will get married while Connor is
on his mission, then at Connor's wedding, one of us will be feuding with
Connor and we will be missing someone.... JK :) At his wedding everyone
will be there for sure! :) But yea, such is life. But I'm excited for it and
I'm slowly but surely working on my speech for the wedding :)
This week was an absolutely great week for us! On Tuesday,
we had a 3 zone conference in the neighboring zone, Fujisawa, and Elder Aoyagi
from the Quorum of the Seventy, who is the second councilor in the Asian North
Presidency, came and he and his wife trained us all day. It was way good
and he talked a lot about desire, faith, and different teaching skills. He
referenced the book of Alma a lot. Before the conference he asked us all to read
the whole book before he came, and he drew on his past conversion story and
stories from the scriptures to better define what kind of dendo (missionary work) Japan needs
right now. His wife was way cool and did a lot of different mogi (mock lessons)
with us. That day, we helped our zone leader's investigator, who I
have had the opportunity of teaching tithing to him before- Hotta San- do his
baptismal interview and then we went out to Burger King with him
afterwards, haha. It's not too bad actually.
Later that week, I went on splits with our district leader,
Elder Hosier, and is was way awesome. We went to his area, Kawasaki, and
streeted people all day, "tracted". He is a way cool
guy. He is from Alamo, Nevada, population 500 or less I think, and he grew
up working on a ranch. But he was the starting quarterback
for their school, did basketball and baseball, and is a way big city-ish guy.
You would never guess he is small town. Anyway, he and I did bike
dendo the whole time, just ride on the sidewalk and stop and talk to
people and we found a ton of success. We gave out countless fliers,
placed 3 solid pamphlets, and gave out 3 Book of Mormons. Total, we tried
to stop over 100 people, and of those 100, we probably had conversations with
25. I talked to this white guy from Scotland and he was messed up in
the head. He has been living in Japan for the past 26 years and says that
he thinks Japan is the most dangerous country on earth. He told us that
he would feel more comfortable walking down the streets of the Bronx at 3 am
with $1000 hanging out of his pockets than living in
Japan. He said he was christian, that he prays every day, and that he
loves what we are doing as missionaries. But he is very, very bitter against
God. He told us that his son was thrown off a building by Japanese Police
and they said it was suicide (what was he doing on top of a building
being harassed by the police in the first place), but he was bitter at God for
taking his son. He feels as though God owes him, that he has been
wronged, much like how the lamented feel. I shared our message with him,
the whole first vision, introduced the BOM and had him read some things, but I
didn't give it to him because he would not have read it. He listened
with his ears, but he didn't listen with his heart. It was too full of
bitter and malice and our message couldn't get into it. He told us that he
hates his life, he hates the Japanese people, he has been unhappy for the past
26 years and he is looking forward to death. We did all we could,
but in the end, we told him good luck with his life, told him where the
church is and wished him a good day. His name was Ian.
The next day, we had our usual ping pong night from 7-8:30
and both us, the sister missionaries, and the zone leaders all had an
investigator come. It was way chill, we played Jenga with milk cartons
and played the guitar and piano and had a good time. Right now, we
are teaching a guy named Kobayashi San and he is very interesting. He was
almost baptized 4 years ago, Clark sensei taught him a few times or
so I hear, but he fell through and dropped off the map. He was
"resurrected", if you will, a few months ago and the Zone leaders taught him a
few times, but he lives in my area so they transferred him to us. He loves
ping pong and is really good at it and after the activity we taught him a
lesson. He knows all the doctrine, knows all of the lessons, but he
doesn't understand it all. He has a learning disability, is really strange
and I can't understand his Japanese, but he has a desire to understand and
be baptized. We went over all of the things you can and can't do
as a member with him and then I set a baptismal date with him for the 11th
of November! He is about 35, really quirky and quiet. But he loves the
church and the gospel and we just need to help him understand the BOM and
get him a good church friend.
Then, on Sunday, Hotta San got baptized! They did it right
before the neighboring ward started and Elder Checketts baptized
him. It was way good and spiritual, all of the missionaries sang a
song with Elder Cook playing the guitar. Earlier that day, Elder Cook
baptized a Vietnamese guy in his old area so both members of the companionship
got to baptize someone on the same day! It was a way good day and Hotta is
going to come to FHE tonight with the SA's and we are going to try to hook
him up ;)
It's been way good recently and we have seen the Lord's
hand in everything we do. Honestly, we do nothing, we can't do anything as
missionaries without the Lord's help. I have two weeks left with Elder
Gallacher most likely and we are going to try to make this the best two weeks
of our relationship thus far.
It's Fall in Japan and it was, I dare say, a little bit
chilly yesterday and it has been raining a lot recently. The people still
reject us hard, but I'm getting better at getting them to at least listen to us
before they reject us! :)
I have pictures that I want to send you, but I
think I'm just going to mail them with the package that I am putting
together. When will I get that off? I have no idea, haha. Eventually!
:) But thank you for all of the fun pictures and the package! I got
it on Thursday my time, so 7 days calendar, 6 days in reality for it to
send. Thank you sooooooooo much! The scones are awesome and everything
traveled perfectly fine. :)
Tell the Boys that I am proud of them and everything that
they do. I think about them a lot and I can't wait to hear what awesome
things they do while I am away.
Take care and have a great week. Good luck with the
pictures and everything! I love you guys so much and I can feel your prayers
strengthen me daily. Please pray for me and my companion to strengthen
our relationship so that we can see even more miracles. :)
Love,
Elder Crandall
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