June 25,2012

Hey family!!
Wow, this week has been great and was a great success! We had 3 baptisms today in the branch from the other Elders. It was a great baptismal service and it's always nice to see President Clements at the baptismal service. The young man that was baptized, me and Elder Mearns found back in May so it was cool to see him get baptized! He is a good kid and really wants to be a missionary. It was pretty funny, he went up to President and was like Elder Crandall is the person I need to talk to so that I can be an Elder....I was like uh... no! ha ha but it was funny! He really likes the church and read the whole Book of Mormon in 6 days. It was insane. He calls President Clements "Boss" its so funny. The highlight of the week pretty much was the baptismal service!

This week I went on exchanges with Elder Ly in Minneapolis. It was a really great experience Elder Ly is a really funny guy he looks like he is 15 but he has a big heart and strong will! We get along really well together and we had a great time together! We got lost in Minneapolis for about 30 min but it was cool seeing allot of Minneapolis but I did have to show off my mad navigation skills with the map! So yea just letting you all know! ha ha
We found some cool people for them so it was a great experience. I love working with other missionaries!

This week though went by really fast... probably cause I went on exchanges! This week should be really good too. Today Elder Belliston is coming to my area for an exchange. I'm pretty excited, he is a great missionary from Salem, Utah and we know allot of the same people from back home. He is a really good basketball player too! Also this Friday and Saturday is a big sports tournament called J4. it is only Hmong people and they come from California and Oklahoma, really all over. It's really a big tournament so we get to go and contact all day there and probably watch some games! It should be a great experience and allot of talking Hmong!

My Hmong is coming along pretty good I'm not feeling total confidence in all my conversations because there is just so much vocabulary that I don't know but its getting better each day! Hopefully we find some people that have a desire to learn more about the gospel!

Alright funny story for the week.... me and Elder Lor were driving to our next appointment and I see this little black kid about 4 years old and his pants were down. I was like what the heck??? He was in the middle of the sidewalk too so I was really confused and we got closer and he pulled his under wear down too and then started to squat down and take a poop!!! ha ha!!! Man we just stopped the car right next to him and were laughing so hard! He was just staring at us like "What? I'm going the bathroom"! it was so funny, I was dying! My abs got a good work out!!

Anyways.... thanks for everything from everyone I love you all and keep me updated on everyone's July 4th experiences!

Love you all,

Elder Crandall

P.S. MIAMI baby took it all the way!!!!! Sorry Madison, Markel, and Cami!!!! Oh and by the way Lebrons the greatest player ever!!!

June 18,2012

Hello family!
Well not much has gone on since we last talked on Thursday, but it has been kinda a rough week this week for our area.... all our investigators are not really progressing right now and so were doing allot of finding, tracking and all that fun stuff if you could say that! It's okay though there is opposition in everything so sometimes things go good and sometimes things go bad you just have to push through it!!
It's kinda fun though we meet allot more people cause were constantly finding and its really cool talking to people and seeing where they're at in their lives! We are at the library and the mayor of St. Paul just walked in and presented an award to this lady that works here... it was kinda random but I'm on the news in Minnesota now!!! What now Markel bet you didn't think I would be famous in Minnesota right?? ha ha just kidding sista!


Today is a really humid day and man the humidity is such a killer!! All of you remind me not to live somewhere humid!

Anyway on Saturday there was this family party at the church that one of the members invited us to and it was like all these pastors from different churches and it was really weird. They did it in our building though so it was really weird and they were like giving blessings to some of the families and we were like...."you don't have the authority to do that" ....it was funny but kinda just a bad feeling and stuff too!

There has been nothing really going on much in Minnesota lately just really hot and humid allot of parties we go to because hmong people have allot of parties with there familes and stuff so its pretty cool!!

My Mission President is an amazing guy! He is a very successful lawyer and overall a really successful man!! He is so in-tune with the spirit it's amazing! I have found that he truly receives revelation for all of us missionaries here in the mission. It's an amazing experience just to be with him and around him. I truly love him and I know for a fact that he will influence me the rest of my life! He is all about obedience and using our time wisely and also being bold with people. It's all good things and all things that I need to work on..... especially boldness ha ha! But I can see how my mission will change my life and affect the rest of my life.... already its been such an amazing experience and I'm loving every minute of the mission. I'm so grateful for all you and all your support and love you give me. I am so thankful for all of my family and friends, I am grateful for my brother and my best friend Connor and how they inspire me to be better and how they are helping me every step of the way as well as keeping me updated on the NBA play offs!! GOOOOOOO HEAT!!! anyway that's about it from Me in Minnesota.
Love you all
Love,
Elder Crandall

June 14, 2012

Dear Family!!

Wow another week has passed by! Last week on Thursday the 7th was my 6th month wooooooooooooooooooooooow! Can I just say time has flown by it's absolute crazy how fast my mission is going but I am growing and learning more and more each day and have loved every moment of my mission.

First off.... for all my cousins or anyone who is preparing to serve a mission here is advice from Elder Crandall...
If I were all you, I would be familiar with the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel! I wasn't that familiar with either sadly I have to admit, but I promise you it will make you one step further in being a better missionary!
Now the next thing is, I have seen allot of missionaries go home for different reasons and most of them say it's to hard or I miss my family or things like that... well a mission is supposed to be hard!! It is the point in our lives that Heavenly Father is stretching and remolding us to be the people he wants us to be. A mission takes faith and determination and when trials arrive we all need to rely on our Savior and his atonement!

Some things I have been studying is enduring to the end. Its been on my mind lately and I can see it all over in the scriptures. But there is a certain story that comes to my mind.. the story of LOTT. Lott was commanded to leave the wicked city and to take his family away and God gave him one commandment and that was to not look back and his wife decided to look back for some reason and a pillar of salt she became! You know we need to not look back on the past and to move forward in life we need to forgive and forget the things of the past! We need to take in consideration that our future will be better than our past and that if we have faith and rely on the Lord that is when we make the change and our lives and our future will be better than our past.. it's better to forgive and forget than to be stuck thinking about our past, that's my spiritual incite for the week.

I have enjoyed this week I got a 6th month package from my mom and family this week and the ball with allot of peoples signatures on it. That was awesome! it really made my week!

Today I had the opportunity to go to the temple. I met President Hugh, one of Grandpa Hunts life long friends. He gave me the biggest hug when he found out I was Grandpa Hunts grandson!! It made me feel so loved and welcome.... it felt like family!
It made me appreciate Grandpa even more. He is such and example to all of us and has impacted my life tremendously. I look up to Grandpa and want to be just like him and have the strong spirit he has when I'm around him!
It was a great experience. President Hugh went through the endowments session with us and gave me an experience I will never forget.

This has been a great week and I love you all and wish you all the best!! I will be holding a fast this sunday for Papa hunt anyone who would like to join is welcome thanks so much for everything.

Love,

Elder Crandall

Trip to the St. Paul Temple with Elder Mearns, Elder Lor, Kelby, Elder Abbott
Apparently Kelby to chorus from James Dunaway that stressed to NEVER stand with a Fig Leaf! :)

                                              St. Paul Temple.....and Elder Mearns head! :)

                                                        Hmong District at the Temple

                                 Kelby with President Kent Hugh. (St. Paul Temple President)
          A friend of his Grandpa Hunt. They taught Institute together for many years in Cedar City.

                                             Kelby with President Hugh and his wife Karen.

                                                 Kelby and Elder Lor overlooking St. Paul

                                               I can almost hear him say "Bring It On"!!

                                  "And we will be the Lords Missionaries to bring the world His truth"!

                 Kelby's 3rd Companion Elder Lor from Fresno California (Elder Lor is serving as DL)

                      Beautiful view of St. Paul and 2 of the Lords finest! (if I do say so myself!)

June 4, 2012

First letter in 6 months that sounds a little discouraging......

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU THAT ARE SUPPORTING HIM THROUGH PRAYERS AND LETTERS! He may not be able to tell you all personally how he is doing and answer all of our questions but I hope you can see in his letters to the family how much your support is helping him and how grateful he is for all of you!

Shawn you were definitely inspired by a loving Father in Heaven that knew Kelby would need this kind of support and love in order to be the successful missionary he is becoming. We are truly blessed to have each other and it has not been more apparent to me at any other time in my life than it has been in the last few months how very blessed we are to have such love, care, support, and most importantly RESPECT for each other. There is nobody to give more credit too than our amazing parent. Mom and Dad...thank you for raising us in such away that we KNOW we have the love and support of you as parents and grandparents as well as raising us to love each other, care for each other, and respect each other!

The Hunt family mansions in heaven may not be the "party" place but it will certainly be the place to find love, support, respect AND homemade noodles and rocky road ice cream!! :)

Love you guys!

Lorie

Well another week down and still moving forward with the work! This week has been good, I had to translate in Gospel Doctrine class on Sunday and man it was so so so hard!! I don't know Hmong as well as I thought. I think the Lord was just trying to humble me so I don't get to prideful. Man, they use all these words that I have no idea how to even say them!! ha ha.... it was horrible but a experience I will never forget!

Other than that the week has gone good. So on Tuesday Elder Lor had a leadership meeting at the mission home and so I went with a English Elder to West St. Paul. It was and interesting experience because we cover that area too for the Hmong people so we were doing like zebra work English and Hmong. It was pretty scared at first cause the Elder I was going with has been out 18 months and I'm only at 6 months and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to understand the people when they talk to me and I was all alone with my Hmong. So we started the day and this other Elder... i don't know what it was... but he just didn't really lead out that much and he made me make all the lesson plans for his investigators so I don't know..... it was weird when we taught his investigators I was the one leading the discussion so I don't know if he is just lazy or what.... but it made me grow allot on leading everything and making sure the lessons went well and with the Hmong it went pretty good there were some points when I was like, "I did not recognize one word you just said to me!".... so it was kinda funny, but overall I got through it and just found that I have the help of the savior on my side! I have gotten some great letters lately thank you all for the great letters you have giving me and for the great support you all are to me I hope you all are doing great!

This week has been kinda hard. We had a guy ready for baptism and had the interview set up for Thursday but the man wouldn't commit to paying his tithing and it just so sad. His wife and kids have been members for 20 years now and he just can't commit to paying tithing.... he comes to church every week and stuff but just has not been baptized yet we fasted for him and prayed but he is really stubborn but that's okay he will soften up in time!! Lately we are just trying to find people to teach to get our teaching pool up and to find people who have the desire to want Christ in there lives. Its been really good to see people change and its brought me much joy and also much grief when I see people so close but just can't quit make it.

But anyways.... on Thursday nights we teach hmong class for people who don't know how to read or write hmong. We go and teach them at the church its really fun! its cool teaching them. Most hmong people don't even know how to read or write there language so it's a struggle at some times but its been good to find ways to help them.. but that's about all from me. Thank you all for everything and the love and support.

Love Always!

Elder Crandall