Hello

Wow what a crazy week it sounds like back home..... I mean first off Courtnie had her baby which is so awesome! I will have a new buddy to play with when I get back!! So congrats to you Courtnie and Dillon. Also my two siblings are getting all ready to head out to be amazing missionaries!! I have thought alot about my best friend Connor too this week. He has really been an example to me and always been a brother and someone there for me! I'm grateful for his example and for the love/charity he has for me... 

Lets see for me, I have had a great week it started off really good. We had Zone Conference which I always love!! It was a long one... from 8:30 in the morning until 5, so it was nice and long.... for some reason after those I'm like drained spiritually, mentally, physically you name it. But it's also where I feel like I receive so much revelation for me and for the area! So it was a great start to the week. This conference we have been focused on baptism. Our mission seemed to be focusing to much on good numbers rather than baptisms, so we refocused our purpose as missionaries and are seeing a dramatic change in the mission. Last week we had 29 date sets in the mission this week President told us it has jumped to 52 dates sets in just one week.... so we are all repenting and being better at our purpose as missionaries.

This week me and my companion found some new people who we are excited to teach. the first one is a single mother who is 24 or so and has one kid. She comes from a Shaman family and knows absolutely nothing about God or Jesus Christ. So it's a long and slow process but it has been good it has taught me how to teach simple..... I mean really simple!!! ha ha but it has been a great experience. She came to church this Sunday as well so we were excited for that and are ready to baptize her!!!!!!

We also found an older couple who is in there 50 or 60 they go to a different church right now, but they are having a hard time there because every Sunday they have to pay 50 dollars each just to go to church. Its pretty crazy!! So we taught them about our church and shared the Restoration with them. Its a bit hard and its all in hmong and I pretty much have to give the whole lesson because my companion is still new to the language.... but he is learning fast!! He is really quiet so I do all the talking...I feel like a girl because I talk so much!!! ha ha jk.

Well the highlight of my week was.....I had to give a talk in Church I'm sure most of you have heard the recording but if not you probably will soon haha.. thanks mom!! :) Anyway, the second counselor of our branch called me Saturday morning and asked if I could give a talk on Sunday about enduring to the end...I mean it's an easy subject but it was in Hmong and I was the concluding speaker so I was a bit nervous!! but as I got up there I only had my note card and my notes to tell me what to talk about and I just started "flappin" my jaw.... kinda like my dad does at the store when he talks to people!!! ha ha but it was about a 20 min talk! I was quite surprised I could talk that long in Hmong ha ha but it was a testimony builder and awesome experience. I think I'm finally feeling fluent in Hmong.... soo for those that are going to be learning a new language don't get discouraged because you can't speak or understand.... because I'm now almost 15 months out and starting to feel fluent so no worries it takes allot of time, practice, work, and faith so keep pressing forward. 

Well I love you all and hope you all have a great week.

Love always,

Elder Crandall 

Hello Family!

Well this week has been pretty good. We were not in our area for two day again this week because on Wednesday we went to the new missionary training meeting in Bloomington. It's where we all go back and President gives a training to the new missionaries. It was really good, I remember when I went to mine... it was virtually the same but it was really good.... it lasted all day, it went from 8:45 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon! Man, meetings that long are killer!! I was so tired from that though.

 
Right after that we went on exchanges, I went with Elder Abbott and my companion went with Elder Abbott's companion. It was really good to have someone who could speak Hmong too instead of just me! ha ha but we just blitzed St. Paul so we weren't even in our area but it was good! We helped out the Frogtown Elders area allot so it was fun. 
This week we met some new people...we met this older lady who has a daughter who is 20 and she was like whooooa you guys speak Hmong really good and she told my companion that he should marry her! It was super funny to see my companions facial expression because I forgot to tell him that Hmong people do that allot because we can speak Hmong so well!! It was really funny because I just remembered my first experience like that!

 
We have allot of good experiences out here but on Sunday it was the Mission Presidents fireside. We took Yer's two twin nieces they're both 18  and are really awesome!  but right now as far as the work is going we are just finding new people we are trying to focusing on families. We have found a couple of families, we just need to go back and teach them.

 
This week was really weird, just because we weren't in our area for a 2 days but it was all good and I really like being with Elder Abbott! Me and him get along really well and it was really nice to work with him again. 
We were talking about how us Hmong missionaries are so lucky because there is no other mission that you stay around the same few Elders for as long as we do. We are like brothers and we know that we have all been called here for a reason and that our friendships will last after our mission as well! 

So its been a good week had allot of great times except for my camera broke so y'all wont be getting pictures for a little while.... while I get it all fixed... sorry about that but I hope you all have a great week this week.

Love,

Elder Crandall

Hi there!

Well week two down of training.... its been a good experience so far but I am going to have to say, I have never been so tired in my life until now!! ha ha it takes everything out of you physically, spiritually and mentally but its been a great time and we have had some good times already!

 
It looks like they had a great time at the temple this week as well, just wished I could have been there but i'm very grateful to see pictures and to hear about the experience they both looked really good, and hunter had a nice tie on.  ha ha!! 

     

This week was kinda weird, we didn't work in our area for 2 full day but we had a great week! Thursday we had district meeting and it was really good and after that we just stayed in St. Paul and did an exchange blitz with Elder Abbott and his companion Elder Meyer. I went with Elder Meyer, he is a good missionary....actually he is really good! We had a good time we had allot of miracles together, we met allot of new people for them! It's fun to work with different missionaries.

On Friday we went to the AP's area and did an exchange biltz and stayed the night there. I went with Elder Johnson, he is a great Elder, I have never worked around him before but we got along really well and it was a great experience. We had some fun times and we taught some cool people. We were teaching this African American guy he had a strong accent so I asked him where he was from and he was like I'm from Accra, Ghana! I was like, "ahh no way that's sweet my brother is going to be a missionary there!" he was pretty excited too and started talking about Ghana, he was really nice! I think Hunter will really like the People of Ghana! 
But that was that experience...we had a really good time bonding with other missionaries!

This week we saw Yer a member of the branch open her mission call, it was really exciting! She is going to the Philippines and she is really excited. she is the only member of her family and her mom was mad at her and was kinda giving her a lecture about it....I felt really bad I tried to talked to her mom and help calm her and comfort her, but I just felt really bad and had such compassion for Yer and such respect for her as she has to deal with allot of opposition in her family. I just wished I could help more!! 

We had a fun experience!!! We gave Johnny a hair cut....well Yer did and we supervised ha ha!!! Johnny is the young man me and my trainer found and was baptized last year. He is a really funny kid who wants to serve a mission.... he sat by me in sacrament meeting and was like "what do I need to do to be an Elder like you?" I told him "you need a hair cut man!" and he was determined to get one that day! So we gave him one after church it was really funny!!.. 

That's about it for me I hope you all have a great week I love you all!! 

Elder Crandall
  p.s here are some pictures! enjoy!

Nyob Zoo Tsev Neeg‏‏

Hello Everyone.. 

I hope you all enjoyed the super bowl without me ha ha!! I had a fantastic week!    

Well first things first, at the start of the week we got the transfer calls as you all know and then Tuesday it was mine and Elder Ly's last day together which is always a bummer to say goodbye to a companion.  We had to wake up the next morning and get straight to the Mission Home for transfers. The people who were training had a training meeting before transfers took place. Elder Thao left as well and man I'm really going to miss him! We were so close and had a great friendship, and this is his last transfer so I won't see him until probably after my mission. So after everyone got their companions, all the Trainers had to stay in Bloomington and go work around the mission home for about 4 hours while President went and got the new missionaries from the Airport. We had to be back at the Mission Home at 5 and that's when they told us who we were training. 

During the meeting it went like this......they set the chairs up facing each other and all the new missionaries sit on one side and the trainers on the other side... so we were looking at each other... then they introduce the new missionaries and they gave a little explanation about themselves and then they announce who will be training who! so it's really intense ha ha.......

My new companion is Elder Angeles, he is from Las Vegas, Nevada and is 24. He has a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science so he is really smart!! He is also half Filipino! He is really quiet and reminds me of myself before my mission, but because I think I have changed.... we are complete opposites.... but we get along well!! 

The first night right after we picked them up we went straight to an appointment to an older Hmong couple.. I think he thought we would go home and unpack but we just went straight to an appointment. The next day it was about -18 outside and I was like "ready to go tracking Elder?" I think he was a little surprised we were going tracking in -18 degrees.... but I'm trying to work our hardest so that he will know how to work for the rest of his mission. I think this experience of training a new missionary has been really good for me, it is going to teach me how to be a better dad in raising my kids, for example by letting them fail and learning from it and help then help them correct it.

This week has been so exhausting because the new missionaries come out and are unsure of what to do, so you're the one doing most of the stuff, but it shows the new missionary what kind of missionary you are. I think the biggest thing that I could do for him is for me to always have a great attitude toward everything! It really hit me how that can be such an impact on them....last night all our plans fell through and I was kinda having a rough night because my pen exploded in my shirt pocket. and he said to me "your not having a good day are you?" and I said "no, but that's okay because that just means tomorrow will be better!" and later that night when we got home, he asked me why I have such a positive attitude when things are hard and it's just not your day? I told him,"if we have faith in Christ, there is never bad moments in life because the next moments will always be better and we will always get through our trials". So it was a testimony builder to me that our attitude in life is so important for us all and if we all have faith in our Savior there is no need to get down in life when he has suffered everything for us. 

Well I love you all! I think this is the happiest time on my mission so far!! 

Love you all, have a great week.
Love always,
Elder Crandall    

P.s. sorry for not sending pictures but I will next week... we haven't had enough time to take any!! love yall