Monday, January 27th, 2013

Hey everybody!

Sorry about last week and all.  The email deleted and I couldn't find
any saved copies anywhere, so I wasn't really happy and I didn't want
to write a rage page of frustration, but this week was just as good as
last week.

We have been going around doing various zone conferences and things
like that.  We have 7 zones in the mission right now, but we are going
to make another one in a few weeks.  Most of our mission is doing
really well.  We had 3 baptisms in the mission this last week and we
will have 6 more this next week.  We still have some areas that are
lacking and so we are going to do some extra training in a few zones.
But this next week we are distributing iPads throughout the mission
and a bunch of people from Salt Lake are coming out here to assist in
our training.  We will be busy doing that this week, hopefully it all
goes well.

So about those 2 kinjins (golden investigators) that came to church last week. Their names are Toru and Kazuya.  Toru went to Boston to study at Cambridge for 3 months recently.  There he met some members and became good friends
with them.  He went to church with them many times, felt the spirit,
wanted to learn more.  So now he has moved back to Japan and last week
he came to church by himself.  He acts just like a member, looks like a
member, so we thought he was a member. Then he started asking us about
baptism.  We asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yeah.  So
we set up some lesson appointments with him, and this last week we met
with him five times and he has basically heard and accepted everything
in the gospel.  He has a baptismal date for 9 February.  He is going to
Nagoya for a week for some job interviews this week, but once he comes
back we will continue his preparation for baptism.  Toru is a bro.  He
is a way cool guy, about 29 years old and loves American football.

Kazuya is a Chinese man but has lived in Japan for many years.  His
girlfriend is American and she is a member of the church.  He has been
coming to church for a while now but has been going to the American
Ward.  However, he does not understand English so he doesn't know
what's going on.  In order to understand the gospel he started coming
to our ward.  We asked him if he wanted to join the church and he said
yeah.  So we have scheduled times to start teaching him the gospel.  He
is in extremely nice man and already has a small testimony within his
heart.  Much like a small seed of faith that is ready to grow into a
big tree.

The sister missionaries in our ward had an investigator named Aki and
Aki got baptized this Sunday!  She is from Mongolia and is 20 years
old.  She goes to a very prestigious university down the street and met
the missionaries on the bus.  She is very nice and has become a good
friend of mine over the past few months and she asked me to perform
her baptism.  I am attaching the pictures of Aki to this email.  Her
name is very hard to pronounce because it is Mongolian but I practiced
a lot with her and I think I got it down enough where people can
understand what I was saying.  It was a great experience for her and
for everyone in the ward.  And Toru was able to come to the baptism and 
he loved it very much.

Elder Medeiros goes home in under three weeks!  Yabai.  But he's doing
really well, working very hard, and staying focused.  As for me, I'm
doing all I can to be patient with certain missionaries in the
mission, I'm trying to love them like the Lord loves them.

I mostly got all of my university (BYU) stuff ready to go.  Pres. Wada told
me to just wait till our next president interview to do the
ecclesiastical endorsement.  Which is cool, I don't think it'll be a
problem and it's really convenient and I can just do it any time
because I live below him.  I have to start thinking about housing
though.  I don't know where to live and what to do, but mom, if you ask
around and come up with some good ideas I'll start thinking about
it.

It's great to hear you boys are still doing good. It sounds like
you're having quite the party, Kyle, doing SHREK: The Musical.  At
least someone in the family got the musical talent genes.  Good luck
with your test Connor.  Hopefully you actually got the smart talent
genes.

Dad, I haven't really started thinking about where I want to go when
you guys come to Japan.  But for sure I want to spend some time
visiting some of my old areas. Especially Yachiyo city as well as
Kawagoe city and Kawasaki city. Other than that, Kyoto sounds good as
well as Hiroshima.

Well I have to be going now, but I love you all very much.  I love
serving the Lord and I love all of the great miracles that He lets me
be a part of.  I hope you all have a great week and are able to find
success in school as well as in your church callings.  Shout out to
Kelsie and Cameron and little baby boy, and Quinton going on his mission to Uganda!

Love
Elder Crandall.

This is Sister Aki who got baptized.  Also, Toru is in the back of the picture on the left. And the Japanese lady in front of him is Aki's friend that she brought to church.  She is Jehovahs Witness, but after seeing our church and a baptism she is waaaaay interested, haha.  Member dendo!