Dear Family,
Whenever I can't think of a cool subject I just write it in Japanese. Then it seems a lot cooler than it really is :) あまりかっこいいサブジェクトじゃないけど、
Man, we had a crazy week. It was up and down and full of adventure and miracles. I went on companion exchanges twice this week. Once with the Kawasaki Elders and once in an area called Kamiooka. It was fun being able to go back to my old area and hang out with Elder Kuniyuki again. We met up with Yuuki, the big rugby player man and went out to ramen with him. He said that he has been thinking a lot about baptism recently and is just trying to figure out his life and his future. He loves the missionaries and loves the church, but he is trying to figure out if it is right for him.
The elder I went on splits with from Kamiooka is a new missionary, his second week in the field, a bright young missionary named Elder Wright from Utah. He is right out of high school and barely 19. He had his mission call for like the last 4 months of his senior year! Isn't that crazy! They are so young!!! But he is a way good missionary and we learned a lot together.
The day I was on splits with him, the plan was to hunt down one of our investigators, Sasaki San, who hasn't come to church in a month. He doesn't have a phone, but we knew where he lived and basically what he did all day. So I made this grand plan to visit the library and his home and some stores in his neighborhood in hopes to find him and get him to come back to church. Unfortunately, some things came up and we had to run to Costco of all places and do some emergency shopping. Therefore, we didn't have any time to follow my plan. Later that night we were dendoing with the sister missionaries at a train station close to our home. After we were done talking to people and making contacts, we started to mosey on home and talk to people as we went. I knew a short cut that would take us home by means of cutting through a local shopping mall called Aeon. I felt like we should cut through so I started heading that way. As we were walking into the store I was giving Elder Wright this epic speech on how listening to the spirit and sometimes just moseying around town can lead to great miracles, when as we got to the back of the store I saw this little Japanese guy sitting on a bench by himself (I know you haven't been to Japan yet so you don't know, but basically the whole country is little Japanese men sitting on benches) and I kept walking a few more feet, but then I turned around and it hit me that it was Sasaki San!!!! So, with a giant smile on my face, I grabbed Elder Wright and took him down the hall to Sasaki San. I walked up and gave him a big hug and he was so happy and so surprised to see us. We sat next to him and talked for like an hour on everything from church, the plan of salvation, the Cuban missile crisis, the doctrine of Christ, commandments, WWII, Japanese Pop Culture, and coming back to church. The first thing he said to us was that he was really sorry that he hasn't been coming to church recently and that he has no excuse. I was like yea, you don't have any excuses!!! No, just kidding, I was nice. But after talking for a while, he told us that he feels very out of place at church. He is very poor and when he comes to church he sees all the rich and wealthy and noble people in the ward and he feels out of place. And to be honest, they haven't been the most friendly and welcoming to him so I don't blame him. But we talked for a while about that and got him recommitted to come to church and he was very excited to come back. Unfortunately, he didn't come on Sunday cause it was raining, but hopefully he comes back next week!!! I love that little old Japanese man. He is so humble and pure, he just needs to see that in himself as well.
On Saturday, we met up with about 70 youth from around the Tokyo area and had a mission prep fireside and dendo blitz in the area. I went on exchanges with a guy named Masaya who is 19 years old thinking about a mission and we went out and dendoed together for like 2 hours. We handed out two BOM's in that time and just had a blast making friends and creating defining moments in the lives of many people. It was a great opportunity to take part in such a large event. I think many of the youth who went to that were a little iffy about going on a mission, but for sure we changed their image of missionaries and had a ton of fun preaching the gospel.
Later that night, President Wada came to the Yokohama Stake center, that is my church building, and he held a life lesson fireside for our investigators and potential investigators. He showed clips from the movie Gandhi and talked about how each decision we make has lasting consequences and choosing to go down the path less taken makes all the difference. We had about 50 people come to that event and President Wada's training was way awesome. He used to be the CEO of Universal Studios Japan so he has access to like any movie he wants!!!
Yesterday, Sunday, I was at the church from 8:30am to 8:30pm straight with out leaving it, haha. We had Ward Missionary Coordination Meeting from 8:30-9:20, then church from 9:30-12:30, then Ward Council 1:30-3:30, then PEC 3:30-4:30, then a youth missionary fireside 5:00-7:30, then we helped teach the sister's investigators lesson from 7:45-8:30.
Our ward is on the brink of a real change of heart. We are so close to the hearts of the members changing and them being involved in dendo. Our Ward Mission Leader is changing himself and realizing the importance of his calling, our ward just set baptismal goals and is in the process of making a ward dendo plan, we don't have any ward missionaries (we haven't had any for over a year, the only ones we used to have were deaf so we couldn't really work with them, haha) but they said that they would call some!!
I know that Mom and Dad are in leadership positions in the ward right now, so I would like to ask you guys, what is the Ridgecrest Ward Mission Plan, what are the goals, what kind of missionary activities are you trying, and what is the mind set that the leaders have towards missionary work? In the ward I am in, there is no one who is proactively doing missionary work. If we ask people to, they will help out with lessons, but in the 2 months I have been here now, not a single person has ever talked to us about their dendo, asked us about our investigators, or had us over for dinner. But they are in the process of changing that and catching the wave. It's going slow and steady, but at least its going :)
I look forward to your email! Have a wonderful week :)
Love,
Elder Crandall
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