I appreciate all of the love and support you and our friends have given me with this big switch in my calling. It's been a big change, let me tell you a little bit about this last week.
So on Tuesday, we had Elder Evans of the Seventy come and visit with his wife. I got to see all of my buddies from the North Mission that I haven't seen in like 5 months and everyone was freaking out that I am serving as the assistant now. I don't know how, but everyone already knew. Pres. Budge must have leaked it out or something. But it was just way fun to see everyone. The conference was great. Elder Evans is funny and shared a lot of cool mission stories with us and shared a lot of what happened during the decision process for the missionary age change. I was only able to stay for half of the conference. I had to leave half way through with all of the returning missionaries. We hopped on a bus and went to Narita Airport. Then, Pres. Wada took us out to a way nice sushi place at the airport and then we picked up the new missionaries right after that. We had 16 new missionaries come in and they are as green as they could get. One of the new missionaries is Elder Crandall from Salt Lake, haha. Maybe some distant relation?
All day Wednesday we did a bunch of different trainings with the missionaries and went out and dendoed with them for a little while. Thursday we had the trainers show up and we paired them off and did a bunch of trainings and then sent them off to their various areas. Then we taught English class (well, actually Bible class, but we do it in English) and had a fun sports night.
On Friday a sister missionary came to the honbu 'cause she was having anxiety problems, which eventually led her to leave today to go home. We had to help her get settled and get ready to go home. Then we had a meeting with the mission presidency, Pres. Wada, Pres. Stevensen, and Pres. Welch make up the presidency. Taught a bunch of lessons in between it all.
Sunday we had church, and it was fun. There is a black guy in our ward, he is from Zimbabwe. He served his mission there a few years ago and now he is a college student in Japan. His name is Brian, nicest guy ever, also the most interesting guy ever. Brian is black, but he actually is albino so he is white. He is a black albino from Zimbabwe. Blonde hair, white skin, yellow brown eyes, but with big lips, nappy hair, and a thick black Zimbabwe accent, haha. Coolest guy ever. I'll try to get a picture with him.
On Monday, we got to hop the border into the other mission and hang out in Tokyo. I had to go get my license translated into Japanese so that I am eligible to take the driving test and get my Japanese license. I don't have a date for the test yet, but my companion and the office recorder have driving tests on this next Tuesday. I am waaaay nervous of all Asian drivers on the road! Pres. Wada let me park the car the other day so at least I have some practice in, haha!
Then the past few days have been way crazy. One of the new missionaries wants to go home so we just moved him here with us to hang out with us and see if we can't help him overcome his problems. We had to give some emergency transfers this past week so that people fill in all of these holes. There was a bike accident, a sister lost her credit card, an elder got his keys stolen, President Wada has been up in his eyes in emails and phone calls from the mission office regarding the missionaries that want to go home. We have had a few therapists come over here to help the missionaries overcome their challenges. The big problem here is that these missionaries that want to go home don't know how to cope with their challenges and relieve their stress. If there is a problem, they ignore it and ignore and don't try to resolve it. Eventually all of it turns into stress and that compounds on itself and becomes a time bomb that explodes into anxiety and home sickness. These new missionaries are way young, have never been away from home and when opposition arises, they have no idea how to handle it. So some words of wisdom to people preparing to serve, resolve concerns about the work with your companion and surrounding people and expect the mission to be hard. It's okay to have stress, just learn how to get rid of it. We have had 3 sisters go home and 1 elder is trying to go home right now. All of them are Japanese. It's been way hard to see my friends and people I love go through hard things like this, but it has been a testimony to me about the power of a freed mind and enjoying being a missionary.
Last night at like 10:15, Elder Blake, the Mission Recorder whom I live with, all of a sudden blacked out. Elder Medeiros caught him before he fell, luckily, but we put him in a chair. His face was ghost white, no color in his skin or lips, eyes wide open and pupils dilated like you wouldn't believe. He wasn't saying anything and was limp like a doll. It took about 15 seconds before he started to respond again. He looked like he was about to die but finally he started to talk again. We told him not to fall asleep again and to keep answering our questions. Sis. Wada called an ambulance and we kept asking him questions. He eventually started to be able to see again and his pupils were going in and out of being massively dilated. Pres. Wada was there talking to him, keeping him calm. By the time the ambulance came, the color was starting to come back into his lips and face and his heart rate was picking back up. The doctors came, asked a bunch of questions, then brought out the stretcher. As they were rolling him out of the honbu, he reached over the end of his stretcher and grabbed a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets to take with him, haha. He came back home a few hours after he went to the hospital and is fine now. Just a little cherry on top of our busy ice cream Sunday, haha.
We have another busy month ahead of us. Today we are going to have Thanksgiving dinner in the Wada's home!!!! Yaaaay! And after today we are going to get ready for Christmas! Yaaay!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everybody!!!! I love you all so very much!!!
愛していますよ！
Elder Crandall
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