Happy New Year!

Hello family and friends,
Well its been a while since ya'll heard from me, since I didn't write a letter last week. There is allot that has happened but I don't have time to write about everything so I will give you the highlights.

So first things first... we had our branch Christmas party it was really good we as missionary's sang Silent Night in Hmong it was scary ha ha!! I'm not a good singer and there were allot of people there, but it was really good. President Hugh was there. It was really good to see him and talk to him he told me to tell grandpa hi.... so yea.

i think the second thing was Christmas and Christmas eve: so for Christmas Eve we did missionary work... we went and caroled for some members and it was really fun! We went to a members house and had dinner. He is the only member in his family but it was really fun. He has a big family and we played some games with them. His sisters gave me and Elder Ly a tie for Christmas so it was a great Christmas Eve. On Christmas day we woke up opened our presents and then we went to the institute building on the campus of the University of Minnesota and played ping pong and pool with our zone leaders. It was fun! We also had two dinners that night and I though I was going to explode! I couldn't eat anymore!! The highlight was obviously talking to the family we skyped and it was a great experience! I got to see them all!!  We had fun talking and catching up on everything.

Well I have about 11 months counting January left! Time seems to go by so fast and its just not fair but I have enjoyed my mission so far and am ready for another adventure this year 2013. I think right now all the hmong Elders are just excited for the end of January because we will be receiving 3 new hmong missionary so we are all excited and looking forward to some change ha ha I have been in the Minneapolis area for 4 transfers now and I was in St. Paul for 4 transfers as well....I love the branch I am in and I'm glad i get to stay in it a long time and really get to know the members. I think it would be harder to keep moving around to different wards.I have really enjoyed staying in the same branch my whole mission.

I am now starting to feel comfortable in the language it takes a while but its now going great. I can express my deepest feelings and communicate with them really well now so it's going great.

Tomorrow is our p-day we just get to email today but tomorrow we are going ice fishing with the branch so I'm excited to go ice fishing and ready to freeze! I think tomorrow its only supposed to be 10 degrees for a high and -5 or so for the low so it will be a cold one!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and a great New Years! It's the time to set goals for ourselves and make ourselves progress in life!

Here are some recent pictures. enjoy
Love always,
                 Elder Crandall

Elder Abbott, Elder Thao, Cindy Her (member), Elder Ly, and  Me

One of the many Minnesota lakes frozen over for the winter!

Just a little modeling on the lake!

Hello!

Hello family,

How is everyone doing this fabulous time of the year and day!!
 Well not much happened here this week.  Today was transfer calls and nothing is happening to us Hmong Elders so we are staying the same. This will be my 4th transfer in Minneapolis and its been great, I love the area and the people.... so its good to stay another one!

 
 This past week two recent converts who I believe all the missionary grew really close to moved to North Carolina.... I believed that has been one of the hardest moments on my mission to see them go. I had such love and charity towards these two young girls and I just want the best for them they have brought light and joy into my life and I just hope they do well where ever they are. I never thought it would be so hard to say goodbye to people but it's super hard! I don't even want to know what the last day of the mission is like but I still have a bit....so no worries!

 Lets see.... this week we taught a young man who is about 22. He had an uncle in the church so he has been to our meetings before but he is now attending the CMA church which is probably the biggest struggle I have found on my mission is the other church they go to. There are more Hmong people that go to church I believe than do the shamanism. We taught him the restoration and focused on authority at the end he was like, "I got a question?" he said, "so what you guys are saying is my baptism didn't count or it is not valid right?".
I was like oh no we can't lose him! but we testified and taught authority again and talked about how Jesus walked 60 miles to John the baptist to be baptized. He is doing good and we are going back to teach him the Plan of Salvation because he had questions about how the way we believe in the after life!!

So this coming Saturday is our branch Christmas party! We are excited for that and we have been preparing for it and inviting allot of people too. It is going to be from 4 to 8....long for a Christmas party but we are ready and excited for that!
 I did receive the Christmas letter Clayci, thank you for writing that! it was really good and I enjoyed it so much. You do have a sense of humor don't you...I wonder where you get that from? (Grandpa Hunt) 

This past Wednesday was also our Christmas conference it was so good!! I learned allot about goals and goal setting and how to make our lives successful and how it all is learned on the mission it really hit me at that training from President Clements! 
I believe the best part of the Christmas conference was President let us watch October Sky.... oh man how I love that movie!! I totally forgot about that movie then watched it and man such a great movie!! One of my all time favorites. We also found out that the actor who plays Homer Hello family,

How is everyone doing this fabulous time of the year and day!!

 Well not much happened here this week.  Today was transfer calls and nothing is happening to us Hmong Elders so we are staying the same. This will be my 4th transfer in Minneapolis and its been great, I love the area and the people.... so its good to stay another one!

 

 This past week two recent converts who I believe all the missionary grew really close to moved to North Carolina.... I believed that has been one of the hardest moments on my mission to see them go. I had such love and charity towards these two young girls and I just want the best for them they have brought light and joy into my life and I just hope they do well where ever they are. I never thought it would be so hard to say goodbye to people but its super hard! I don't even want to know what the last day of the mission is like but I still have a bit.... so no worries!

 Lets see.... this week we taught a young man who is about 22. He had an uncle in the church so he has been to our meetings before but he is now attending the CMA church which is probably the biggest struggle I have found on my mission is the other church they go to. There are more Hmong people that go to church I believe than do the shamanism. We taught him the restoration and focused on authority at the end he was like, "I got a question?" he said, "so what you guys are saying is my baptism didn't count or it is not valid right?".

I was like oh no we cant lose him! but we testified and taught authority again and talked about how Jesus walked 60 miles to John the baptist to be baptized. He is doing good and we are going back to teach him the plan of salvation because he had questions about how the way we believe in the after life!!

So this coming Saturday is our branch Christmas party! We are excited for that and we have been preparing for it and inviting allot of people too. It is going to be from 4 to 8....long for a Christmas party but we are ready and excited for that!

 I did receive the Christmas letter Clayci, thank you for writing that! it was really good and I enjoyed it so much. You do have a sense of humor don't you...I wonder where you get that from? (Grandpa Hunt) 

This past Wednesday was also our Christmas conference it was so good!! I learned allot about goals and goal setting and how to make our lives successful and how it all is learned on the mission it really hit me at that training from President Clements! 

I believe the best part of the Christmas conference was President let us watch October Sky.... oh man how I love that movie!! I totally forgot about that movie then watched it and man such a great movie!! one of my all time favorites. We also found out that the actor who plays Homer Hickem lives by the Mission Home.... kinda cool.

From the shootings in Connecticut and the Myan calendar thing we have been getting allot of questions of the end of the wold and all that!! Members asking us about the Second Coming too. Other than that this week has been pretty normal and fun, allot of weird questions that we have been asked week ha ha!!

That's about it from Minnesota talk to you all later (SIB NTSIB DUA)

love 

Elder Crandall

Can you believe all this snow?

Elder Ly and I taking a break

Oh shoot....this is not good!

Ice skating!

December 10, 2012

Hello everyone!
Well I have finally got my taste of winter here! If you all haven't seen on the news well we have about 2 feet of snow that we got all in one day and today it was 4 degrees and tonight its supposed to be -19 so here we go into the cold for about 4 months ha ha!

 This week was a great week for me and Elder Ly. We had allot of success and taught allot of people. We set a date with a girl so we are excited for that now and hopefully we don't get transferred ha ha! Some of you may wonder how many Hmong areas there are in the mission, well right now there are only two Minneapolis and St. Paul but there are 2 areas in Wisconsin but no Hmong missionaries are there. President is giving it a rest for a while. Hopefully sometime during my mission i will get to go outside of the twin cities but I like the cities, it's fun and exciting.

Lets see I'm sure all of you by now saw our singing we did.... Well it was pretty cool! I think ha ha!! but you all probably got a good laugh out of it and that's what it was intended for!!
  
For our Christmas gift that we are giving to President this year, every missionary had to record them reading a chapter of the Book of Mormon then the AP's are putting it on a cd and giving it to them. Its a cool gift. I had to read 2 Nephi chapter 15... its an Isaiah chapter so it was fun!! 
This week is our Christmas training and party thing. We are excited to here from President Clements and be with all the other missionaries.
 
Well let me tell you all about our experience with the snow.. so here when the road are bad we aren't allowed to drive. We have to keep the gas half full at least all the time to prevent the gas line freezing and we have to wash the car 2 times a month. So it's allot and I have to drive until the end of December because President said the person who has had the most experience driving in snow needs to drive until the end of the month and my companion is from California.... so yeah I won by default!! :)  but anyways.. yesterday we got about 2 feet of snow and it was insane we had to walk every where. We just went out and helped people shovel. We walked for about 3 or 4 miles and it took us from 2 to 7 to do just that! It was so exhausting but fun! It was a big storm that's for sure!! Walking in snow up to my knees but we had fun!! 


Well i hope all of you are staying warm and are having a great Christmas season! Love you all!! 
Love,
Elder Crandall

December 3, 2012

Hola Familia (Nyob Zoo kuv tsev neeg)‏

Well let see here.... this coming week is my year mark and it doesn't seem real!!
First of all I always thought that day would never come and look.... now it's right around the corner.  Lately I keep saying to myself that missionary life is normal life and I don't remember what the other life is like, and I'm really scared to go back and worry about a job and all that stuff. But all I can say is when you serve a mission live every moment because time goes by so fast and you want to live every moment to the fullest!!

So this past week we had a good time. Me and Elder Ly set up a movie night for the YSA and youth. We got our investigators there and Less actives and we watched 17 miracles. It was so good! I love that movie. It is so inspirational and it really humbles yourself knowing that we will never have to go through those trials or struggles. Our investigators really liked it.
 
So President Clements challenged the whole mission to start reading the Book of Mormon again so we are all reading it. We read 6 pages a day and mark all the scriptures that talk about the doctrine of Christ. It's been such a awesome experience so far and so many new things pop out to you when your looking for them and studying them!

This week I also went on exchanges with Elder Abbott. It was a great time! I love working with him, he is a great missionary and we have had allot of great experiences together.
 
Since it's December and the Christmas season, when we are finding, we are sharing a Christmas message in which we read the nativity scene out of Luke to the people. Its been a great success because most hmong people don't know why everyone celebrates Christmas they just think it's another holiday but don't recognize the meaning behind it. 
i really love sharing it too its such a spiritual message that the people can feel and feel the holy spirit. So right now its going good sharing to the people about Christmas and all that fun stuff!

The work is picking up here in Minneapolis and we are getting more and more people to teach we have some people who we are trying to figure out when to baptize them. We are so grateful and excited everything is picking up. We are using our faith and really relying on the Lord to direct our paths each day in which I know for a fact that if I try doing it by myself it won't turn out as well. We always need to rely on the Lord and ask for his help. He is always willing to give it to us!! i really like the scripture in Mathew 7 about asking our father for things we need!! It's also in 3 Nephi 14 I believe.
 
Well I hope you all have a great time and stay warm!  love you!

Love always, 
Elder Crandall