Elder Christopher Crandall: Monday, July 22nd, 2013

My dearest beloved family,

First of all, I need to set the scene a little bit. It's still really hot outside and every day as we walk to and from appointments and hop on the trains, I feel like I'm going to drown in the humidity. I'm good at swimming, but 3 years of swim and water polo can't train you for the humidity in Tokyo. Our apartment only has one cooler and so at night, we all try to huddle in one room and as for now I'm on the futon on the floor. Not too bad actually. The centipede problem is virtually gone, we went "Rambo" on them one night when it rained and they all headed for the shelter of our apartment and we got most of them. Everything was going really good this last week, not a whole lot going on Monday. But then Tuesday rolled.

Tuesday morning. We got a phone call from President Wada with our transfer calls. I picked it up. He cut right to the chase and told me that I am staying in Kawasaki and that I am going to be training a new missionary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaahooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I then passed the phone around to the other elders in the apartment and they got their calls and what not. Then the phone came back to me and President Wada wanted to tell me something else. He said, "Elder Crandall. I had the privilege of talking to your father via email this last week. He says you're a great young man. I agree with him. He also told me that I should give you a challenge. I agree with him. Therefore, Elder Crandall, you are going to be training TWO NEW MISSIONARIES!!!!!!!!" And all I said was, "WHAT?!??! Are you serious?!" And he told me that I was to continue training Elder Kuniyuki, who is on his third week and we've lived together for those three weeks. (FYI, Elder Kuniyuki is the brother to a kid named Sho who was in Kyle's group at Especially For Youth this summer!)

So, we went to the mission home on Thursday morning with Elder Kuniyuki and picked up my fresh sickle. His name is Elder 三田美 and he is from 沖縄. (I totally did that on purpose, just to see if it would bug you.) He is about 4'11, 95lbs, and the cutest little ball of fun and energy a missionary could ever have. I'll send some pictures. So now in Kawasaki, we have just us 3 missionaries working here and so there is a little bit more space in the apartment. I know President Wada thinks that he is giving me a challenge with these two new Elders, but to be honest, both of them are 100% obedient, work hard until 10:30, study the language hard, and dendo like transfer 5 missionaries. But the best part is that both of them, especially Elder 三田美, are way dang funny and we are having a super fun time. It's been hard having to balance the study schedules and training time between appointments and such. We have to do comp study for 2 hours each day and both of them are on the 12 week new missionary program, but at different parts of the program. However, everything connects together and I am having some fun sharing all of my fun dendo stories and all the crazy teaching experiences and finding experiences that I have had.

Marilyn and Marie are going to have their baptism interviews tomorrow! We had a practice one yesterday and it went awesome! They are trying so hard to repent and be forgiven of all the bad things that they have had and want to be washed clean from their mistakes and guilt. Like I mentioned before, they live in a special safe house from their abusive husbands and they have shared many of the problems that they are dealing with with us and it has opened my eyes to the reality of the cruelness of the world. We are going to have the baptisms on Saturday after a ward party. Pictures to come! We also have begun teaching their son, Masaru, officially and getting him prepared to be baptized. Possibly he will get baptized in 3 weeks or so.

We had some fun yesterday and went to the Cup of Noodle museum in Yokohama City for our Zone Leader, Elder Young's, birthday. I'm attaching some pics.

I have to get going but life is going great!!!! I love you all so much! Be happy and safe!!! Tell Kelsie to write me or else!!

Love,

Elder Crandall

PS. The new Elder's name is Mitabi and he is from Okinawa :)