Meetings.....

Hello everyone,

This week has been splendid and one packed full of spiritual revelation and long hours! But hey it's all good and it has been great and I can't complain.

  

Just like Hunter we also had a zone meeting on Tuesday of this week. It was great, we kinda talked about the same things that Hunter explained. Pres. Clements is a wonderful man and one who I look up to so much. We talked about burying our weapons of rebellion and be converted to the Lord. We focused on Elder Bednar's conference address in Oct 2012 conference. It talks allot about conversion and how we obtain conversion,because all of us are not converted. We may think if we have a testimony we are converted but our testimony is just a pre- requisite to our conversion. One of my favorite scriptures I have come to love on my mission is in Omni 1:26 which tells us "offer our whole souls as an offering unto him" meaning Jesus Christ. It seems easy to offer our whole souls to Christ but it is challenging for us because we are natural. But how do we offer our whole souls? I found as we take the advice from the anti-nephi-lehi's and burying our weapons of rebellion that's how we become converted to the Lord.... you bury them deep and you never look back. Our weapons of rebellion, I feel all lead back to that one great sin of pride. I know it is hard to do this but like Hunter said as we do this WE CAN FIND REST IN THE LORD.

On Wednesday we went to Bloomington and had a new missionary training meeting where the new missionaries get a special training that lasted all day. It was good, but I was just ready to get out and do something as I had been sitting around for two days in training's.

This weekend was Stake Conference here. It was great, we had two days that we went to and I don't remember much.... sorry....because I was translating the whole thing but it was great. 

Well the week has been great! The weather has cooled way down, it's kinda chilly now. I thought to myself and said "I swear I just got thawed out from the snow!!" but now its right around the corner. haha!!

Love you all and stay cool why your away from school!  

     love always

             Elder Crandall  

Check out these Wild Animals

Spent Pday at the Zoo

Check this out......a McDonald's sign in Hmong....so legit!

  

Is it really September?

Hey Family,

Wow I can't believe it's really September, man time is just flying by. I seriously wonder if I'm even alive because time goes by so fast. We weekly plan every Friday and every time we have too weekly plan I'm like, "dude I swear I just did this like yesterday", its crazy!

So this week we were on exchanges pretty much all week long. It was really fun but also you just have that feeling that you just want to go back home and work in your own area ha ha. So at the first of the week we stayed in our area we just did some great work and taught "Bill" (name has been changed) He is from Laos and such an amazing guy! I'm so glad I have had the chance to meet this guy towards the end of my mission. He just astounds me every time I talk to him. He really wants to teach me Laotian, or Thai so that's kinda cool haha!! I really want to learn one too but we will see. But just the faith and the desire he has to learn more about God is amazing!! He grew up Buddhist and then went to church after that. He is just amazing and he really wants me to come visit him in Laos. So we have set a baptismal date with him for October 26th, so we are excited for that! 

The work has progressed allot and its going really good and we are picking up allot of new people.

 

So this weekend we got to go on exchanges with the Ap's and they're a bunch of good Elders! I will be going home with both of them and they are such good guys. We are good friends. I went with an Elder from Vegas and he is a track star. He is really cool and we had a great time. We had a crazy experience, we were talking to this guy.... he was so drunk and he was like "come here" so we went over and I guess the Elders knew him so we just started talking to him. He was like, "come check out my little friends" and so we go by an old rusted truck and there are hundreds of wasps in there and he is like, "they're my friends" and sticks his hand in a hole and pulls out like 4 wasps on his finger and he is like, "they don't hurt me they're my friends!" and we were freaking out because there were like 50 or so wasps just flying around our heads..... it was pretty funny and scary ha ha!

The next crazy thing that happened was on Sunday there was a funeral for an older lady in the Branch. Her family decided to do it through their church so another church was doing the funeral service and Pres. Hawton the Branch President was suppose to go and speak there but he couldn't. So he was like last minute, "hey Elder Crandall I want you to go take my place and speak and share the Plan of Salvation with them". I was like...." uhh..... okay." So we go there and there is honestly like 100 to 200 people there. I was like, "oh my gosh, I'm the only white guy here and I have to share a message to them about our church in hmong"!!.. Man I was scared.... mostly because of how many people there were. But the ward came and sang so some people where there and the 2 councilor in the Branch Presidency was there. I was like, "why didn't he just ask you to speak? You're Hmong and you know all the culture things and all that".... but I ended up doing it and it wasn't scary. Before the people were kinda talking and then they see this white kid go up and start speaking hmong and it went silent immediately. They were like mesmerized that a white guy was speaking such good Hmong to them ha ha!! But after my 30 min sermon ( yeah I felt like Jesus then) a ton of people came up to me and was just like,  so glad you know Hmong and everything and it was just a cool experience that was for sure! But yeah that was the week here in the 651 or in Minnesota ha. Well I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week!

  

If y'all have time check out Helamen 3:28....I really love that scripture!  

Love always,

      Hlub

                           Elder Crandall

Hmong Elders after Church!

Tender Mercies

So its kinda ironic that my last letter was about the tender mercies of the Lord.. because I have definitely seen them this week. 

First things first, this week we had many wonderful and great people that we went and taught. We taught these two young kids who's father is an inactive member and he wants them to be baptized but he doesn't want to come back to church due to family opposition and cultural practices. It is hard, the kids really want to but it is a little risky baptizing them because they come to church by themselves. There is a boy who is 11 and a girl who is 10 so it's sad they have no family support at church. But the branch does well with it, its just a bit risky but there doing very well.

So the miracle which we have experienced this week was this Saturday there was a baptism for a young man in the branch, and we have been trying to teach a recent converts mom and so we asked her to invite or bring her mom to the baptism, but her mom said that she couldn't because she had to help out one of her daughters do a service project and so we were invited to do it with them and we accepted and planned to do service with them after the baptism. So about 10 minutes past after that conversation and she texted back and said, "hey I have a co-worker that really wants to know about the church, he has only been in America for 1 month. He is from Laos and he will only be here until January", so we were like yeah totally bring him to the baptism and we will meet him there. So they came to the baptism and we met him and the first thing he says to me was "wow, this is really weird having a white man speak hmong to me"..... haha, I just laughed. We got to know him more and he is 30 and has a wife and kids back in Laos and he is very educated. He knows hmong, Laotian, Thai, and now is working on English! He is an amazing person. I invited him to come to church to see the young man receive the Holy Ghost and he was so excited to come. He ended up coming to church and after church he was like, I have so many question! I want to learn more. I told him we would love to come and answer your questions. He told me the reason for coming to America was to learn more of the American culture and to go back and apply it. He wanted to learn more about Christianity.... he is already a christian but here are selected churches back in Laos, I then told him that the reason why he came was to meet us and to take the church and gospel back to Laos!!! So we are super excited to see what happens with him. I don't know yet because he will be leaving and I don't think the church is in Laos yet. But it was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord. 

I'm grateful for all your prayers and love that you have given me thus far and I wish the same for you all!

Love you so very much.

       Love 

             Elder Crandall

Lessons in the Park

Getting home after Church