Monday, February 25th, 2013

Hoooiiii!

These are the things that I do know about the new mission in Tokyo.  My mission is splitting in two, Tokyo and Tokyo South missions.  The new mission president is a way cool guy who is Pres. Budge's bishop right now, haha, so it's way funny.  We have no idea how the missionaries are going to be separated so no one knows the final decision for things.  They probably won't tell us until a few days before, is my guess.  The stake that I am in right now is going to stay Tokyo.  If I stay here until July then maybe I'll stay, but I don't know anything for sure.  But, I really really really want to stay in the Tokyo mission with Pres. Budge, haha.  The North is doing way better than the South stakes.  Like, 70% of the baptisms last year were in the northern half.  And President Budge is just a boss.  All around amazing guy.  We had Matsudo Stake conference this last Sunday and he came and spoke at Sunday session.  He really threw down the member missionary work and really started to get things fired up for the ward members.  Then, right after the conference, we had a dinner at our bishop's house with the Ward mission leader and a few other ward leaders.  We shared a powerful dendo message and then committed them to have a missionary experience in this next month and then to testify about it in Sacrament meeting for April.  If we can get 4 ward leaders to stand up and bear testimony about member missionary work in one key testimony meeting, that will take this ward to a new excitement level. 

 

Other than that, nothing too exciting happened this past week.  We have an investigator named Yashiyo, from Columbia, and he might get baptized on the 10th of March.  We taught him and had a good brt dinner with him and became his good friends.  His ideology was that he can read and pray on his own and doesn't need to go to church in order to get help from God in his life.  We dug into this issue and found out that he used to get dragged to church as a child and he felt that church isn't a pleasant experience.  We told him that our church is totally different and that it is a very fun and uplifting place.  We used the example of a bowl of ice cream that we are saying is delicious.  He can't know if it tastes good until he eats it right?  He thought about it and decided that he wanted to come and check it out.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, he wasn't able to make stake conference, but will come next week.  Good kid, I like him a lot. 

 

Man, I wish I could see Kyle's play so bad!!!!!  I wish I could see any play so bad, but especially one with my brother in it!!!  Ureyamashiiiii!  Jealousssss!  I will pray for Connor and for him not to get sick.  That would be way unfortunate.  What did you guys decide to do to my room?  Kelsie's room?  Does Tuxedo have his own room now??  I miss that guy....

 

Just another year and 3 months till I can see Brendin, and then you guys too :) haha.  It's way weird that he is already finished with his mission in Brazil.  I met a Brazilian lady yesterday at church.  Spoke Portuguese with her for a while and then she took pictures with me and uploaded it to her facebook.  She was nice, but now I'm on the wall of some random Brazilian lady!

 

It's still cold here, but should get warm soon!  We have a special event going on this week and I'll tell you all about it in my next letter :)  Have a wonderful day and I love and pray for each and every one of you :)

 

Peace! (this is what our Liberian investigators always say in their deep voices)

 

Elder Crandall