Monday, January 28, 201

こんにちは！

皆様は元気でしょうか？？

今日突然雪を降りました！一回は楽しい。二回はほんとに大変だね。今日の計画はすごくばらばらになたね。

Google translate just isn't good at doing Japanese to English.  Like everything here is correct Japanese, the grammar, the kanji, but google translate just cant do it!  Oh well....

(note from Elder Crandall's family: We tried google translate and it worked for us!  Copy and paste the kanji above to google translate and it's pretty accurate, but not always!)

Hey how's it going? :)

Today has been an interesting day thus far.  It started snowing last night out of nowhere, the weather men here are terrible, no one predicted it, haha.  And my companion is feeling pretty sick.  He was feeling it coming on yesterday so we took it a little bit easier, but today he is way under the weather. It's a good thing that it is p-day, I guess.  The Sisters are going to do our weekly shopping today :) YAY for Sisters!

Well, we had a pretty good week last week.  We found a few new people and Teppei, (Asada san) our golden investigator, is way close to getting baptized!  We taught him all of the commandments on Sunday, All of them, in one lesson and he pretty much accepted all of them and was like, "Okay, I'll repent and change to follow the commandments".  He seemed pretty overwhelmed after the lesson, but we committed him to pray and ponder on the commandments and to consider the blessings that come from them.  He doesn't have any big issues or anything, but we reassured him that we will baptize him when he is ready and so if he isn't ready by this weekend, the next weekend is great too.  He is such a great guy and he is way humble about everything.  That may be the biggest difference I have seen in the people who get baptized verses those who don't or are eternal investigators.  Thomas (French guy - first baptism) was a very smart man, but he understood that he doesn't know everything and that God does, so he was very humble and submissive towards the will of God.  Fernando was very poor and had lived a hard life. He was a lot like the poor Zoramites who had been cast out and been forced to be humble.  However, Fernando continually maintains his humbleness and doesn't let pride resurface, therefore, at this point his meekness is proactive and doesn't need to be forcibly humbled anymore.  Seiji lived a sad childhood and was an orphan at the age of 12.  Both his parents and sibling died of cancer when he was young.  His wife divorced him after a few years of marriage and he virtually has no family and very few close friends.  He loved the family atmosphere at church and wanted to be part of a loving group.  Teppei has very little jishin (self confidence?) and is very quiet and gets embarrassed easily.  It seems as though he has very few friends and he wants to overcome his weaknesses and be more confident in life. 

And especially me, as I learned very early on, like the first day in Japan, that Japanese is way flippin hard and that I can't learn this language on my own, I was really humbled and needed to rely on help from God in order to learn it.  Now, when people say to me, "日本語うまいですね! ” (your Japanese is great!) I say, "ややや神様はたくさん助けを下さいました.” (God has given me lots of Help!) Then I ask them if they think God exists (cause if I ask them if they believe in God, they will say no, so I just jump to the next question) and half of them will say yes, the other half will say that they are not sure.  The people that say yes, I then ask them why they think so; the people that say no I ask them if they have ever been to church before (90%will say no--to them I get them to commit to a church tour because we usually dendo [missionary work] around our church building and then teach them the restoration during the tour; the people that say yes I jump into knowing which religion is correct and transition into the Joseph Smith story). Back to the people who say yes to been to church before, I ask them what their personal image of what Church is like, then I teach them our image of our church (It's a big family where we can learn and grow) and I teach them how the teachings of this church will improve the quality of their life and then I get them to come check it out on Sunday. 

BOOM, you all just experienced what streeting in Japan is like! It can be very easy, relaxed and comfortable if we make it so.  Lots of missionaries like to walk down the street and throw Jesus and Religion at everyone and it's not terribly effective.  Like maybe 1/150 people that we tell them right off the bat that we teach about Christ and that they need to get baptized will listen long enough to give their number and meet again.  But what about the other 149 people? The majority of the Japanese people do not have a good image of Christianity or religion in general.  They don't like it.  Their first instinct is to run the other way, it's taboo to talk about any religion.  Therefore, it is essential that we build trust and relations with them and soften their hearts to the point where they will not freak out when we start talking about religion.  I like just having good conversations with people and then slowly transitioning into gospel topics.  That's what I did with Teppei and he turned out to be golden. 

Elder Nelson is coming to the mission in the beginning of March!  We are way excited for that and I have been reading his talks on lds.org during my study time.  We are also preparing for the bazillion sister missionaries that are coming into the mission within the next few months! 

I attached some pictures! The Asian guy is Brother Chiba! He is now chillin at the MTC as a Missionary.  This was our bye bye party for him at the stake president's house.  The other picture is the dinner we had two nights ago with our Peruvian members, and the Sisters.  It was a legit beef and potato and carrot stew.  And the last picture is of this morning.  Snow once more!

Well, I hope you are all safe and sound at home! I sent Kelsie an email last week.  Maybe she'll write back..... kamoshirenai! ;)

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Crandall  

Sending Chiba off to the MTC in Provo

Monday, January 21, 2013

Hello Family!

 

Well, this week we spent a lot of time helping our friend Chiba get ready to go on his mission.  We went over to his house and helped him clean it and get him packed up.  His house was disgusting and a complete disaster!  He doesn't have anything really to come back to.  His parents are anti-gospel and they don't really talk anymore, he doesn't have anywhere to put all of his stuff like his clothes, phone, games, bed, books and things, so we packed up the few missionary items that we had into one suit case and then threw away everything else that he owned.  He gave everything he had for a mission and now he only has like 100 dollars and a suitcase full of clothes and scriptures to his name.  It was way powerful to see Chiba so willingly throw the world away so that he can serve.  He is one of my best friends from the mission for sure. He has a lot of faith and was always saying that the things that he is throwing away are not important, the mission is important. 

 

Yesterday, we were able to stand in on his setting apart to be a missionary which was a way cool experience.  We went over to the stake center and spent the day with him, the stake president, and a bunch of single adults that are preparing for missions.  I didn't know that missionaries could stand in on someones setting apart, so we had to call President Budge and ask him and he said it's okay.  Who knew?  Afterwards, we went over to the stake president's house and had a big dinner with like 30 people.  I love Japanese people.  They love to have really big extravagant feasts with lots of people.  We said goodbye to Chiba last night and now he is flying to America. 

 

On Friday we went to a Karate class with our investigator and his son.  Elder Clark has been doing Tai Kwan Do for 12 years and is a black belt and is 6'6" so he worked over all of the sensei's and stuff, haha.  He was sparing with our investigator and he accidentally kicked him in the face and knocked him out, haha.  He had a bloody mouth and a fat lip the next day, hahaha.  Elder Clark felt so bad about it, haha!

 

We went bowling on Saturday with the young men in our ward and an investigator that we found last week.  He is Filipino, but his best language is Japanese.  He got recruited by San Diego State for baseball a few weeks ago.  He is a boss catcher and he is way excited to go to America, although, his English is not the best, haha.  He knows it though so he loves hanging out with us and talking about Christ with us.  His name is Hyuma. 

 

Asada is doing very well.  He came to church and has a great time.  During Sunday School, our ward mission leader asked him why we close prayers in the name of Jesus Christ and he said, "it is because Christ took upon Himself all of our sins when He died upon the cross, therefore He is our Savior and Redeemer".  Everyone in the room was silent and then one of the sister missionaries said, "Yabai Sore"!  Which means like Holy Crap!  They where like, "Where did you find this kid?"  We found him at the train station and as of two weeks ago he had never had an opportunity to study about religion before and he wanted one so he took his study seriously and knows it's true, cause it is true!  If people actually study the gospel they will find out that it's perfect and it answers all of the questions of the soul!  It's perfect!   Our only concern is still his parents, but so far so good. 

 

This next week is going to be a good one! We need to find new people cause we have been dropping a lot of not progressing ones recently.  It's sad, but that's the way it is.

 

It's great to hear that everyone is doing fine and I hope you all have another great week!

 

Bye Bye!

 

Love,

 

Elder Crandall 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

HAI!

 

For the record, I do know that dad served in Chile.  It's just that like I meet with Peruvians everyday and I had Peru on the brain while I was typing :)  gomenasai

 

Well, that's terrible that it's cold in Washington and not snowing, it's really cold here.  In fact it snowed like 4 inches yesterday!  I'm attaching pictures.  Everyone here was tripping out cause of the snow.  They all kept saying," It never snows here!  This is dangerous and annoying!", haha.  Japanese people are so funny. 

 

I went on splits with an Elder Martinez from Mexico City/ Spanish Fork and we had planned on using his Spanish ability for our Peruvian friends.  But, it snowed so no one wanted to leave their houses and meet :(  we didn't get to use his skills ,but he is a way cool guy and it was fun getting snowed in with him, haha. 

 

Here is an explanation of the pictures I sent:

 

332- President Budge in a Santa suit at our Christmas Eve mission party

337- Jumbo shrimp that was dinner at a members house

339- Our Bishop, his wife, and one of his kids named Kirk (After Captain Kirk, haha), the Sisters and their Chinese Investigator named Helen, Elder Clark

344- Game night, wide shot of our investigators and stuff

345- The Sisters at game night making Mexican food

349- Our backyard this morning! Snow!

 

I've got a bunch of fun videos and stuff that I took but I can't really send those, haha. We have had a killer time teaching investigators and recent converts recently.  It's really interesting trying to teach Fernando in like half Spanish/English/Japanese cause he isn't very good at the latter 2 of those three and we are no good at Spanish, haha.

We just got done teaching an investigator that we found last week named Asada.  He has no background with religion, God, or anything.  Like literally we've been teaching him from ground zero and he has grown more in the past week than I have ever seen in a Japanese person.  He came to our lesson today having read 200 pages of the BOM in a week.  He said that he had time on train rides and stuff and so he figured he should just read while he goes about he daily life.  We asked him if he believed the BOM was true and he said, "Ummmm well that's hard to say.  I haven't read all of it, but from what I've read and prayed about so far its true. It's hard to understand, but I really like Nephi's dream and the tree of life and his faith."  And we were stunned.  He had only been taught one lesson, but he understood and applied faith, prayer, and daily study into his life.  We taught him how to receive answers to prayers through warm feelings of confirmation, then taught the Plan of Salvation and the importance of baptism. When we asked him what he thought about baptism he said, "Well, in order to go to the celestial kingdom, we have to apply repentance into our lives through baptism.  I think everyone should get baptized so if I can I would like to have an opportunity to get baptized." And we were like, "Oh ya, we will make sure you have the opportunity." Then we set up a new date with him for the 3rd of February and asked him to pray about it.  He said the closing prayer and during his prayer he asked if he should be baptized.  Then he paused and was like, "Thank You".  He then prayed and asked if he should be baptized on the 3rd or 10th of February.  Then he paused and was like, "I understand. Thank you Heavenly Father.", and closed.  After his prayer he turned to us and said,  "I should get baptized on the 3rd.  God wants me to get baptized.  I can feel a special warm feeling in my chest.  That's the Spirit."  and we said, "Yes it is. Yes He does. Let's meet 4 more times, come to church 2 times, and we will baptize you my friend."  He said, " Right. Lets do it."  and oh how great was our joy!  He is an absolute miracle. I've never seen someone apply our teaching so well before.  He studies more than we do and recognized the Spirit right as he felt it. 

 

Well, that's my miracle story for the week. Tell Kelsie I say hi and Cameron as well, por favor :)

 

I got a letter from Spencer Norawang the other day, he is in Sendai not Sapporo so he won't see my friend.  But he was companions in the MTC with the elder that Elder Shibuta just transferred to go train.  I also got a letter from Dallon Coombs this past week and he is doing great.  

 

It's cold, but I'm very happy and I'm excited for this next week :) !

 

Have a wonderful week and good luck in school boys!  It's great to hear that you guys are enjoying life and everyone is genki!

 

See you, BU-BYE,

 

Elder Crandall

 

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Hola!

 

How's it going over there? The New Year's craziness is finally starting to slow down over here.  Honestly, I don't like New Year's in Japan. Everyone is even busier and we had a lot of appointments cancel on us.  It was way frustrating, but we found some new investigators and made the best of our situation. 

 

Yesterday, we had lunch at the greatest place on the planet.  It's called Stamina, it's an all you can eat BBQ and Sushi and desert and salad buffet for $11!  We went there with the sisters in our area and the Member named Chiba that always hangs out with us.  He is leaving for the Sapporo Japan mission in two weeks and we don't know what we are going to do without him.  He is the best member in the world. 

 

I wrote quite a few letters to people, but still need the grandparents address! Onegaishimasu! I love speaking Japanese to you and you having no idea what I said :)  Es muy bueno.  Like, my plan is that when I get home, when you ask me to do the dishes or something I can just say whatever I want in Japanese, talk back or something, but then go do them of course, like I always do :)

There is still so much Japanese that I do not know.  At this point, it's just like random vocab and advanced grammar.  I understand significantly more than I can say, but If I don't know a word, it's hard to figure out what it is.  It's not like Spanish where it has a Latin root.  BTW, I am the only missionary in the area right now that can speak any Spanish so I am teaching like 4-5 lessons per week in Spanish by myself, haha.  I can't say much, but I mix in a lot of English and Japanese to make a Frankenstein of a language which they understand, haha.  But, that being said, we set up another baptismal date with Ninoska on the 20th and she expressed some old concerns that she has that kept her from baptism and we were able to resolve those with her and she is feeling a lot better.  She has much more "Fe" than she had last month :)

 

I feel like there isn't a whole lot to write about on my end either, haha.  Elder Clark is great! We get along great.  He knows like 1300 kanji, which is about the same as the average 9th grader, which is really good for a foreigner.  He has been teaching me and I learned like 130 kanji last week.  It's not so hard really.  It's just like memorizing lots of little pictures :)

 

I don't know how long I will stay in Yachiyo.  I get a feeling that this will be my last transfer here.  I feel like I've learned so much form this place and I need to spread that knowledge forth to other areas that don't do so hot in the dendo.  It's been a great humbling experience and has really defined me as a missionary and really helped me understand what my dendo style is.  I rely a lot on the Preach My Gospel and kind of newish dendo styles to find people and teach the gospel.  The missionaries older than me are very old fashioned and follow an older dendo style that is very Christian focused and to be honest I don't believe it to be effective.  If it was the most effective way then the mission would be seeing significantly more investigators.  Japanese people as a whole are very scared of Christianity because they are generally Buddhist.  They don't want to learn or even hear about a Christian message.  My focus is on getting them into the church building so that they can see what it is like, judge for themselves, and then punch them with the message of the restoration.  Lower their guard and then teach them. 

 

Idk, to each his own and the Lord will work through us depending on our abilities and such.  I testify that He does. 

 

I love you all so much! Have a great week and talk to you later!!

 

Love,

 

Elder Crandall

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Dear Family,

Hey hey hey hey how's it going.  Long time no seeee :)

Quick update on life in Yachiyo.  We had Seiji's baptism as planned on the 29th and it was absolutely awesome!  We had a lot of ward members and less active people come to it and it was way spiritual.  He had been an investigator for over 5 years so he had a lot of friends that came to his baptism.  He will get confirmed next week and hopefully go to the temple not long after that.  Both of his parents passed away when he was very young and so did his siblings so he is very excited to do baptisms for the dead for them. 

Transfer callz and I have a new companion! Elder Shibuta got transferred to the Brazilian branch out in the boondocks and he is pretty excited for that.  My new companion is Elder Clark and he is from Bozeman Montana.  He went to Montana State for a year but he doesn't know Ben, haha.  He is dirt ped in Japanese, fluent, and is on transfer 12.  He is 6'6" and just towers over all of the Japanese people.  He is a way fun guy to be with, not one for many words, but a very powerful missionary and a way loving guy. 

Unfortunately, he doesn't speak Spanish so we are kinda in trouble as far as the Spanish investigators go.  We are going to have to drop a lot of them.  But the one gator named Ninoska who is very close to baptism didn't get baptized this last week, but we are working to get her in the tub within this month :)  She is awesome, but we are not quite sure how we are going to teach her, we will have to use Fernando and some other recent converts to finish her lessons I guess.  IDK, not gonna lie, I was pretty frustrated at the fact that President transferred a Spanish speaker out and not another one in, it's way difficult and we are going to loose a lot  of investigators.  But I know that the Lord knows who is ready now to hear the gospel and He is in control of who is where and we are suppose to be in our areas for a reason :) it's all good!

We have had two dinners so far for New Years and it's been way fun to work with the shimai and ward members over sushi and lots of meat :)

One of the sisters transferred out and the sister who transferred in was a sister that was with me the whole time I was in Kohoku, haha.  She is following me around Japan, but she is way funny and is fluent in English although she is Japanese. 

I got the letter from the Ward and it was way way very much amazingly super to hear from them :)  Please give them my love and wish of a Merry Christmas.

And thanks to the boyz who wrote me the good email.  You guys got an iPad Mini?!??! Doshite!!  Is it superly awesomely cool? I'm not even gonna talk about how I feel about Halo 4 and especially the Hobbit.......mecha trunky dayo. It's weird cause it doesn't even feel like Christmas over here.  The spirit of Christmas is a lot like Japanese Fathers, practically non existent cause they are too busy at work :) sad, but true, haha

Ma, things are going way good here.  Last transfer, we were the most successful area in the entire mission.  We taught the most lessons on average and found the most investigators per week on average.  Last transfer, in Kohoku, I taught 15 recorded lessons.  Last transfer in Yachiyo, I taught 75 lessons. :)  pretty big difference than the average area right, haha.  This place is special and I have hope and faith that we can be just as successful this transfer as we were the last.  Honestly, I worked my self to the point of exhaustion last transfer.  I'm dead tired, but I need to do it again this transfer and the amazing thing is that through the gifts of the spirit we are physically as well as emotionally re-energized every week, every day, and every hour if we are truly giving it our all in this work.  I realized that I can't hardly do anything by myself.  I was significantly humbled.  But as I continue to remember that thought and rely on the Lord in all that I do, the miracles will continue to flow and we shall see a great harvest here in Yachiyo :D

Akemashite Omedeto! Kotoshimo, Ichinen, Yoroshikuonegaishimasu!  Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Crandall

Seiji's Baptism

Monday, December 24, 2012

Dear Elder Crandall,

We are so excited to talk/Skype with you tomorrow!!! :D  We can't even stand it!  Warning - I will probably cry, so be prepared! ;)  Kelsie and Cameron will be here with us when we call you so you can talk with them too!  Right now we are getting ready to decorate our Christmas tree. Did you decorate your apartment with the little fun Christmas things I sent?  I hope you have felt a little bit of home with you this Christmas season. :)
Love you and we will talk with you tomorrow!!!
Mommy

<christopher.crandall@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Dear Family,

Okay, Lets Skype! We are going to try to be done with both of ours by like 1-ish.  We are going to try to keep Skype at about 1 hour per person.  We will try to call while the other one is Skyping just to balance it out so that we don't wait around all day.  BUT IM SO EXCITED TO TALK TO YOU! ! !

Skypeing with Elder Crandall on Christmas Eve

Dear Elder Crandall,

Hirro again!  We had such a wonderful time Skypeing and talking with you today!! You look so good and amazing!  We love you so much and are so glad you are doing well! :)  What a wonderful Christmas present, to be able to see you and talk with you!!!!!!!

We just opened Christmas Eve jammies with the boys and Kelsie and Cameron and had them put them on and then re-created the Christmas morning shot of everyone sitting on the stairs before coming down.  We had the poster of you creepin' around the corner and popping in on the picture!  It was great!  We'll send you a pic of it next week with some other pictures from Christmas (see picture below). 

Then, we gathered on the floor around the tree and opened the Christmas box you sent to us.  I read your letter out loud and passed out the gifts to everyone.  The boys LOVE the action figures and Kelsie and Cameron love the calendar and Dad loves his tie!  Kelsie and Cameron are putting the calendar up in their house, for sure! ;)  Thank you so much for the wonderful letter you wrote to me.  It means so much to me to have you know and understand what Dad and I have been teaching you your whole life, and that is what it's all about!  That is the best gift you could ever give me!!! 

We hope the rest of your Christmas Day is wonderful.  

Merry Christmas!!!
Love you, 
Mommy