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

November 26, 2012

Wow Markel's call is so cool Houston Texas Spanish speaking!!!That is sweet!! Its going to be a struggle for mom since she is always tempted to see her children ha ha.... but we all know mom won't do it ha ha!!! and Kelsey's call is super cool too!! New York Spanish speaking.... hopefully Markel and her aren't in the same Spanish class in the mtc ha ha that would be a rough one on the teacher.. also Markel can now find her brother a Texas girl...just kidding y'all! :)

So first things first, this week was a really good week. How was everyone's Thanksgiving? I had a interesting one.... probably the first and last Thanksgiving that I will have like this! ha ha. We had Duck instead of turkey and no potatoes and gravy ha ha but it was a really good one!! I mean Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving right?

So this week was the Hmong New Year and as you see from the pictures it was crazy!! There were so many people there and the cloths that we are wearing are the traditional clothes that the Hmong wear.. They're pretty cool. I'm gonna have to get some before I leave! This event marks the end of the harvest season and its been going on for over 1000 years. When they lived in China, Thailand and Laos and they do this celebration here in America too, so its pretty cool! There were so many people, I say around 30,000 to 40,000 so it was cool that's for sure. Sorry i took mostly videos and I can't send videos over the email because they're to big so you will just have to see when I get home! At the Hmong New Years they have a pageant that they do, like Miss Hmong America or whatever it's called so that's the main purpose  of the event.
 I met a guy from Thailand, he was pretty cool and was like.... " wow you speak Hmong?" he was surprised a tall white guy could speak Hmong ha ha but it was funny. I got allot of weird looks with the Hmong clothes on but allot of compliments because I was white and wearing Hmong clothes.
 So another cool thing too was there was a Hmong girl from China. There are allot of Hmong people in China and she actually is Mormon and is living in SLC right now. She is promoting a CD and a family from SLC sponsored her to come to America and study and sing and stuff. She was really cool, she asked me what part of Utah I lived in and told her the Provo area. She was like okay cool when do you get home from your mission? I told her next November, she was like awesome I will give you my phone number and when you get home you can come up to SLC and I will cook for you and you can bring your friends. It was cool because now I got a Hmong friend in Utah!! She speaks Hmong, Chinese, and I assume English but I'm not sure about English because I didn't talk to her in English. :) so that was a really cool experience her name is Ling Lee so you all can check her music out but it will be in Hmong.


I wished you all could have came to the Hmong New Years! It was an event I definitely want to come back to.

This week was great and looking forward to the next... its so cold here ah ha but luckily I only have to survive one winter yeaaaaay!!  

Well I love you all! Have a great week.
 
Love always, 
Elder Crandall 

     

November 19, 2012

HOLY MOLY!!! I'm just astonished at Hunter's Mission Call. It's going to be a very great experience for him. I am so excited for him to go to GHANA and teach the Africans.... It's kinda cool because Minneapolis and St.Paul are really diverse there are people here from all over. In our Zone there are 5 languages spoken and our Mission was the first Mission ever to receive a native missionary from the country of Napal!! Most of the missionaries in Napal go and serve in India so it's cool! There are allot of Africans from all the African countries over here, I have met a couple of people from Ghana so it's really cool... they are really nice and humble people so it will be just perfect for Hunter!!

I'm ready to hear the Mission Call of Markel as well!!! I'm excited to hear where she is going.... it's going to be awesome! Oh and also Kelsey! It just boosts my desire to serve when I hear other peoples calls and where they are going especially people I love like my brother, sister and Kelsey... they are close to me and it truly brings me joy!!

So this week was Mission Conference. It was really good! Elder Gaverett from the Presidency of the 70's cam. he is a great man and I received allot of revelation for myself and for the work here. I'm excited to get to work and find those people! 

This week when I was on exchanges in St. Paul and Elder Ly and Elder Abbott were in my area. I asked Elder Ly to go see this girl that's in a part member family. Her older sister is a member... so they went. I had met her a couple of weeks ago but we just couldn't get back in with her. Elder Ly and Abbott got back in and she had just recently got baptized in a different church as her sister and they were attending that church. The family had fallen away from the church and had recently just started their faith up again and they just went to that church. But we invited her to baptism and she was like, "so does that mean my baptism didn't count?" and we were like uhhh............ "it was a good experience because that's all the truth you had at the time, but it was not done by proper authority." she was like "oh okay sure I will be baptized again if mine wasn't done by the proper authority then why not?" We were so relieved and she is scheduled to be baptized on the 15 of December!!

 
So hmong people do celebrate Thanksgiving but not like we do. It will be interesting knowing how they eat a turkey dinner with potatoes... they never eat potatoes its always rice, so it will be interesting ha ha!! It is the big big hmong New Years celebration too, it last three days and we will be going two of the three days. We are excited for that! Hopefully we can find some people and I can experience their culture more!! 

Anyways... not to much else going on this week just working hard and doing the Lords will!! I love you all and wish you to have a Happy Thanksgiving..
Love,
Elder Crandall  

November 12, 2012

Well, well, well, its beginning to look allot like Christmas that's for sure! Last night was super cold and it snowed but it didn't stick but it is still snowing...today it is only 9 degrees and it only November!!!It's crazy haha! As you drive and with the humidity here, you can actually see it freezing in the air!! It's like sparkles in the air and it is actually kinda cool!! 

This week just went by so fast for me....its crazy how fast a mission goes...

Elder Gavaret from the Seventy will be coming up to speak to us all. We are excited for that it should be a great experience for us. This will be my first Mission Conference. 
 
This week has been goo..., me and Elder Ly,  my new companion who is from Sacramento California, we are doing good and we get along well. We have met some cool people already. Elder Ly's dad is the Bishop of the Hmong ward in Sacramento. There are 2 wards and a branch there so he is Bishop of one of the wards in North Sacramento. 

This week we went down to south Minneapolis, we live in north Minneapolis which is the ghetto of Minneapolis.... there are shootings and gangsters here all the time so its was really different going from north Minneapolis to south, but while we were down there we ran into this huge community of native Americans and it was actually kinda cool because I had just got done reading from our family history from the Crandall side about how we are part native American so I was like, I need to teach all these people!!! They are all Lamanites and we have the Book of their ancestors....it was cool.. 
        
 We have found some new investigators, two couples so we are excited to teach them. They are really cool too. We have been trying to find part members so we are working with all the part members. This coming week will be a good one with the Mission Conference and we are planning for the Hmong New Years Celebration again. This one is in St. Paul and is the biggest one. So we are preparing for that and are excited for it!! Allot of preparing in the next week. I am hoping to receive revelation at Mission Conference our theme will be prayers of faith so I'm excited and ready to receive revelation for myself and for my area!!

Anyway, I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week..
Love always,

Elder Crandall 

   

November 5, 2012

Whaoozzers this week has gone by so quickly. I can not believe how fast it's going but its been good so far... so last week was my birthday and I had a great birthday and it was very fun!

 First we went to a members house and learned how to make egg rolls... because egg rolls are the best!!!!! They also baked me a cake and we had cake as well so it was good!! also that day was the big hmong New Years celebration. It was one of two that they have. The next one is in 2 weeks and will be held in St. Paul so we are excited for that but it was really fun and cool to go to. We had some traditional hmong vests on! It was cool... I am trying to find someone who will make me some traditional hmong cloths because they're awesome! It was held at the Metro Dome where the Vikings play so we got to go on the field ha ha!! It was allot of sports and traditional hmong dancing and it was a great experience that's for sure. I'm excited to go to the next its supposed to be the biggest one so it will be fun!!!

This week we did allot of service for people. We raked allot of leaves and had fun doing it! We were at a members house raking leaves and they had so many leaves that we had a pile that was about 6 feet tall. It was crazy! I took a video of me jumping into it ha ha but it took us allot of time to rake all of their leaves and Elder Abbott lost his camera when we jumped into it and it took us about 2 hrs to find his camera. It wasn't until the next day though that we found it...

   So yesterday we were tracting and we were walking up to this door and it was a young couple and they were taking in a desk and so we offered to help. As Elder Abbott was helping him take it in I was talking with the wife and she was saying how lately she has had an yearning for some kind of faith that she could rely on and at that moment I just felt  Heavenly Fathers love for me and for her and I just wanted her to hear what we had to say and feel the spirit and joy from it.. so we got the desk in and all moved and the husband invited us in and we sat down and had a chance to share with them a spiritual thought it was really awesome.. After we had a very heart felt spiritual lesson with them we asked if we could come back but they didn't give a specific day and didn't give their phone number to me and it broke my heart. I just want these people to accept and learn more of the gospel! But we will not give up there!! We will be persistent and go back!! It really increased my testimony on the love of Heavenly Father and how we are all his children seeking for truth.. I felt a little bit like Alma in Alma 13:27. He describes his feelings when the people wouldn't accept the gospel.. I could relate to his feeling that night!!

Well today was transfers as well. I will be staying here in Minneapolis and Elder Abbott will be going to St.Paul. My new companion is Elder Ly from Sacramento, California. I'm excited to work with him and to stay here in Minneapolis. It's a great place to do missionary work!!

Well I hope you all have a great week! Thank you all for your birthday wishes to me and letters and packages!!

Love always,
Elder Crandall

PS- Shout out to Darci for writing me a sweet letter!! Thank you very much cousin and love you loads!        

October 29, 2013

Wow this week has gone by really fast for me! I don't know why but its been a quick one that's for sure.

It is also getting COLD here which is not to great ha ha just kidding.... its usually 40 degrees or in the 30's so it's getting down there. Its been a wonderful week though on Saturday we had an Elders Quorum activity where we played football and they cooked Talapia fish and we had sticky rice. It was okay, I'm just not a fan of fish that's for sure. Anyways, they put me and Elder Abbott on opposite teams because we were the two white people ha ha, but I was QB most the time... yea y'all can just call me Tom Brady!! Just kidding ha ha but it was really fun and I am super sore from it!! I got out of bed on Sunday and today and I can barley walk ha ha!!

So we had some cool experiences this week... as well as some not good ones. Our date set dropped us and her parents don't want us meeting with her anymore so it was really sad but we just keep moving on... President Clements encouraged us to do service for the investigators and members of the ward, so we took that in and did about 8 hours of service this week raking leaves. There are so many leaves here that's for sure ha ha but its good to do service. 

So just last night we taught a really cool lesson to a former investigator and we had no gas left in our car.... like it was empty and we were worried about making it home and so we said a prayer and it was the craziest experience ever. We were about 8 miles from home and every time we go home from this place we usually hit allot of red lights, but this time every time we got to a light it was green! It was an answer to our prayers that's for sure. We got home with enough gas. We actually went over the miles that our gas things said we had left.

We have picked up two new investigators this week who we are really excited to work with and they're both older people. We are so excited they are really interested in the gospel and doing what God wants them to do.

We are preparing for Mission Conference on November 13. Someone from the 70's will be coming so I'm excited for that!! This past Tuesday we had interviews with President... it was a good time! He told us that we will be getting 3 new Hmong Elders in January so to start preparing for them. We are excited!! That will put us up to 8 Hmong Elders once they come.

Many of you are have wondered what I'm doing for my birthday on the 3rd.....they have a big Hmong New Year's celebration and it's held in the Metro Dome where the Vikings play so I'm excited for that! They hold two of them and the other one will be the 23 or 24 November. That one is in St. Paul.... it's bigger than the one we are going to be going to here on my birthday. We have allot going on in November. Mission Conference, and two Hmong New Year's Celebrations!!! 

My mission has been so great and I don't really see how I have changed but I feel others have! I will be 20 on Saturday and everyone tells me I have to be an adult! I don't feel like I'm an adult or even close to being a adult haha like my parents, uncles and aunts and grandparents who have taught me so well. I hope one day I will be like you all. 

My mission has changed my life that's for sure and its brought me closer to my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I know that missions are the best thing in the world and that all my cousins and the people who may read this, if they are deciding whether or not to go on one... I CAN TELL YOU RIGHT NOW THAT YOU NEED TO GO ON ONE! 

I LOVE YOU ALL and have a great week!

Love, 
Elder Crandall

October 22,2012

This week has been a good one we taught allot and overall had a great week, lets see this week has been pretty cool and its starting to get cold out here we have had to ride are bikes a little bit to and man at night it got pretty cold but it has been good. It is usually about 50 degrees on average so not too cold but colder than it has been.

This week we I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Thao who was my companion when I was in St. Paul. It was a really good exchange we get along very well and he is a great missionary who has gone through some difficult times! He was born in Thailand and moved to Wisconsin from there. He is a very funny person, he really opens up to me and we always have good talks, I try and help him too and understand him we had a great time. Here is just one experience we had.
  So we were teaching this older lady and her husband they're about 60 or so and one of the ladies friends who was actually the pastors wife at the church they attend, but as we shared the restoration with our investigator and her husband the pastors wife was asking us all these questions and we were politely answering them and than we ask our investigators to be baptized.  It was super bold by Elder Thao!!  I thought the pastors wife would be offended  but she just sat there and listened to us. It was really cool as she didn't say anything it was like God was constraining her to not say anything. It was a good time!

I came to realize how much people look at us and things like that, on this exchange Elder Thao told me how he appreciated when we worked together because I always looked for the good in him and helped him with whatever it was and that I was really open with him. He really enjoyed the time we had together and it just made me think how much people look at us..

 So this week was President's fireside where we take investigators to the mission home and people that recently got baptized share their testimonies it was a very spiritual experience and our investigator grew allot from it! She said that she loved it and was really touched by the testimonies and its been cool to see her grow from when we first found her. She had no idea who God was as she was raised Shaman so it's been cool to see her testimony develop as well.

Also on Sunday we got a new Branch President, he is a really nice guy with a nice family and has a very strong determination to help our Branch grow. Its been really cool to see the process and we are excited to help and work with him and have him in our Branch!

Its been a great week here. I hope everyone's week goes well and love you all!

Love,

Elder Crandall

PS. Here are some pictures of President's fireside and other things.

October 15, 2012

Nyob zoo,
Well this week was a challenging week, but it also was a week where we have learned to endure our trials!!
It wasn't the best week.... we had about 10 lessons planned for 3 days and they all fell through!! It was really frustrating but has been a good experience to learn how to have more faith and endure.

A cool things we had this week was the branch Halloween Party. It was really good and allot of people came both non-members and members so it was a great opportunity for us missionaries too. We had a booth of our own and we had 2 litter bottles and went and bought some little pumpkins and played bowling with them it was fun. I think everyone like our booth the best.. :) there was always a constant line of kids there and we had fun with them.

I have really grown to love the people in this branch. The kids and adults...everyone! They're are the nicest people I have ever met in my life!! They come from a background of persecution and poverty over in Thailand and Laos and yet they are the most humble and giving people I know! They are so willing to help you out and would give you the clothes off their backs for you. That was a highlight of the week! we got to know the members better and had a great time.

This week in my spare time I have been reading some of the genealogy my mom sent me. Its been so much fun learning and looking at how they lived there lives.  Grandpa and Grandma Waite were some amazing people. I just wished I had the opportunity to meet them. I'm grateful to read about them though and learn more about them and ways that I can become better and have more faith like them. I can see the kind of people they are through Grandma Hunt and my mom also, my uncles and aunts they have touched many hearts and their examples have carried on through out the generations. My biggest desire is to meet them. I want to so bad but it takes patience and time and one day I WILL meet them! 
I thought it was funny how Grandma Waite said that Grandma Hunt wasn't the cutest baby, but I don't agree with that... cause how did I get all my good looks??? Maybe from my Grandpa Hunt....?? I don't know though ha ha!!

Well its been a long week but a great one! Its always great when your a servant of the Lord.

I love you all and hope you all have a beautiful week and keep working hard and doing your duties as members of this church, love you all.
Love 
Elder Crandall,