Your missionary´s arrival at the Brazil MTC

I got a letter telling me that Elder Crandall made it to Brazil MTC, and a picture of all the missionaries that came in that day. Below is part of the letter that they sent to us. (Brendin’s friend Tanner Paxman is in this picture also.)

Dear Parents,

We are happy to send the good news that your missionary has arrived safely at the Brazil MTC.  What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they come through the front door of the MTC for the first time. We promise to    take good care of your missionary.

They now have companions and are settled into their rooms.  They are assigned to a district with capable and caring instructors for language and lesson study.  The branch presidents and their wives, will soon give them a second greeting.  These couples are rewarded in their callings through the love they always develop as they embrace and watch over the missionaries.

The MTC has a full time live-in physician to care for their health needs.  He is assisted by his able wife. We are also happy to report that the Cafeteria food is abundant and very good.

Your missionary will be able to e-mail home on Preparation Day after a morning at the Temple.  This will be either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on individual assignments.

They also said to mail lots of letters but as for packages to send them to  the mission home. I will have that address up later.

We were able to talk to Brendin while he was at the Dallas airport waiting for his flight to Brazil. It was really nice to talk to him and he spoke some Portuguese to us but we didn’t know what he was talking about. ha ha. We asked him if his Spanish that he took in High School helped him out at all learning Portuguese and he said no he wished he never took Spanish. He mixes up some of his Spanish words with his Portuguese words. He sounded happy and said he had a great time at the Provo MTC.  and was so excited to be going to Brazil. He got to travel with Tanner Paxman a friend of ours, and 10 other Elders and Sisters to Dallas. The plane ride from Utah to Dallas he sat by a sister missionary and a girl that worked for the airline.She gave him lots of tips about his area, and were to shop for the best deals. He said there would be about 30 missionaries traveling from Dallas to Brazil. He also told us  that Trey wrote him and gave him some advice about fun places to eat around the Brazil MTC and other tips. Thanks Trey for writing to him it meant a lot to him.

Below is a beautiful map given to me by Sandra Cavalcanti. I meant to put this up earlier . Sandra and Marcio Cavalcanti are a very cute, and very nice couple in our ward, and they are from Brazil. I’m glad that Brendin got to know them before he left. He told me that if everyone in Brazil was as nice as Sandra and Marcio that he would be fine. Thanks Sandra for the map, I love it, I am keeping this on Brendin’s wall in his room  for when he gets back, and it is so nice to have on this blog.

 

Off to Brazil

Elder Crandall is off to Brazil. He left the MTC this morning. I got a few pictures from Brendin yesterday. Here are a few of them. He forgot to send me the traditional picture of him standing in front of the huge map at the MTC were the missionaries take pictures of them self pointing to were they are going on their mission, or standing in front of the MTC building.

I’m glad he sent me a picture of his name badge.

Picture in front of the Provo Temple and P-day (Preparation day) nice to see he is doing his laundry. ha ha

I am pretty sure this is his teacher.

Looks like they had a little fun with the camera. Brendin said on his note that they used erasers for the handle and stuck colored pencils in them and when the light from the camera went off it made this light sabers effect.

I got my Visa!!!!

I got my VISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got my visa, I got my visa, I got my visa….. hey hey hey!!

MOM, DAD tonight at 8 I am calling home so be prepared! That's 8 o clock my time so I think that is 7 your time. Oh my gosh I am so excited to get to my field of labor! I have been a Zone leader for about 5 days so far and I am going to leave on Tuesday!! I fly to Dallas TX and it will take about 2 hours and 35 minutes then I hop on my other plane the AA 963 and it is a non stop to Sao Paulo Brazil and its going to take 10 hours! Thank you everyone for your prayers and your support. I am truly blessed to have a loving family and loving Cousins. Thank you Elisa for the goodies, Kelly, Jordan (and baby James), Also Aunt and Uncle Cooney thanks for the letters and Sean keep up the good work, and work hard and stay worthy to become a missionary. Brother Munk thank you so much for my pen it hasn't given up on me yet even though I have used it everyday (p.s everyone is super jealous of my awesome pen) also for your family it has been a pleasure to grow up with your son Nate and also be accepted as another member of your family pretty much ha-ha. Also thanks to the Galbraith’s. T.J writes me every now and then and I really appreciate his friendship. Excuse me if I make no sense because I am just so excited I can't think right now so everything is just kind of all over the place.

Mom I love you so much and my birthday gift to you is a call home. Also I sent some pictures for you of my MTC experience and I think you and the whole family will get a kick out of it. :) Dad thank you for supporting me on my mission, when someone asked me why I wanted to go on a mission in the first place my response was "because my father went on one and I look up to him and strive to be as good as a person as he is." You have been my hero since day one. We have been on a lot of adventures together and I have grown up in your shadow. You have shown me the way to be a hardworking person and to always trust in the Lord. I think the first testimony that I have ever heard of was you in one of our family home evenings. You love the lord and you chose to serve others because you want to serve our father in Heaven, and show your love for him. Your testimony in him has rubbed of on me. Dad I love you, I too want to  serve the lord because I want to show my thanks for having such a great father, and such a great family.

Brian thanks for keeping me updated in what's going down in your life, it sounds like you will have some free time this spring break.  I challenge you this spring break to read the Book of Mormon again. It has brought joy in my life and I want you to continue to feel that Joy. This challenge is extended to my brothers as well Devin, Dustin, (Becca you are invited too because you are awesome). The book of Mormon is another Testament of Christ. Jesus is the Christ and that he did suffer on the Cross for our sins. Através a Expiacão de Jesus Cristo nós pedimos ser libertoado do pacados. E também Deus praparou um plano para nos ajudar a voltar à Seus presença. Nos pedimos estar Feliz para simpre com nos familias em presençia de Deus.

I love everyone sorry I misspelled a lot of stuff in Portuguese because I want to show my improvements in the language. I can't spell in English, and I can't spell in Portuguese ha-ha.

I love everyone I wish I had more time to write and express my love, but I must go! The next time you get a letter I will be in Brazil

Elder Crandall

Paz forra

Parabens

Oye como vai minha familia!

This weeks has gone by way to fast I feel like I need to work twice as hard just to keep up with how fast it is going! Before I continue on thank you Tommy for the letter. The orange juice crises swept my district for a day, but luckily I listened to your advice and was saved. I have built up my stomach were it can withstand the cranberry juice at least haha oh and they no longer have the tree of life showers:) Tommy you have been a great friend to our family and especially with keeping my brother Devin in shape (by the way I did my first one are pull up when I got to the MTC! it was awesome) :) You are a very strong person both physically and spiritually. You will be a great father which is the best calling of the church I hear. Say hi to Emily and Miles for me!

Thank you Dev and Bec for the emails its good to hear that the weather in Rexburg is over freezing now. Its about time they remodel Brolims haha I hope they still have the awesome 2 bags of cereal for 5 dollars when I get back.

To  Marcio and Sandra I want to let you know that the language is going really well I haven't said an ingles prayer in over 4 weeks! We also do this thing Monday, Wed, and Saturday were we talk portugues all day and if we speak ingles at all we have to carry around this big rock we call it pedra de vergona which means rock of shame haha. I have only had to carry it twice so far!

Mom and Dad I love you both very much! Thanks for your support and I feel your prayers every day.

Dad I hope you are feeling better, take advantage of the nice weather and go golfing for me:) please send some pictures of my High School when it is done. Oh also this may be a little random, but could you send me a picture of that guy we saw at Laguna Beach who we called King Neptune I told the story about him and all the elders want to see him haha. yesterday we sent off one of my best friends at the MTC Elder White who got his visa. We had a fiesta for him and ate a lot of food.

We now have two Japanese speaking elders in our room now which gives me an opportunity to be thankful for the language I am learning. That language makes no sense and their hymn books are impossible to understand! 

My companion Elder Lloyd and I are doing great as a companionship we both know how to work hard, I have to get him on track every now and then because he has a short attention span, but when we are working diligently we get stuff done. We teach by the spirit we learn by the spirit and we concoure with the spirit. O Espirito Santo is a big role in missionary work, its our jobs as missionaries and members to study in our mind the Gospel of Jesus Christ and listen to the promptings of the spirit and apply them in you teaching. I am so excited to go to Brazil and spread the message of the restoration of the gospel and that God still loves us that he has a modern profeta here on the earth to guide his church and guide his children. We were given families to learn and grow together and make it back home to our father.

Cheers

Elder Crandall

Minha Familia!

I have no idea were to start my email this week so I will start it off with an awesome spiritual experience. On Tuesday I had a prompting during our planning session for the next day to fast for tmrw. We planed to fast breakfast and lunch that our sacrifice may help missionaries receive their visas and help my companion and I in teaching with the spirit. So we begin our day starving when we had our gym time and we pressed forward and then we lasted all the way till lunch and were waiting till dinner. My companion and I had no energy to study anymore so we went to the first floor and broke our fast and got some food at the vending machine. We felt better with food in our stomach and continued studying down stairs. After we finished studying we went back to our class room and my really good friend in our district comes up to me with a big smile on his face and says "I Got My VISA!" never before have I seen instant blessing of fasting and praying. not only did he get his visa, but 19 others! I think the visas are starting to pick up so please continue to pray for all the missionaries to receive theirs so we may bless the people of Brazil with word of the Restored gospel. Also that day we had a great teaching experience were my companion Elder Lloyd and I talked with a lady for 20 minutes in portugues and then taught her the second lesson in ingles. We prayed when we studied the lesson then went to the door and did our traditional handshake before we knock on the door and then we prayed for the spirit to teach. Our lesson went so well we were using great examples to teach here certain principles. My favorite my companion gave was to help explain the veil when we loose our memory when we enter this world. The lady we were teaching was a school teacher for 1st 2nd and 4th grade and my companion said "The reason why we cannot remember in this world is because it will help us grow, just as a test. You never give your students all the answers before you give them the test other wise they will learn nothing." The whole lesson was like that, the spirit is awesome at teaching and I just love how I am learning as well as I am teaching.

So as for the MTC I am doing fine my stomach is doing a lot better (probably because I stay away from all juice). No apostles have come to talk yet, but we are due for one sometime soon. Although every fireside and devotional has been amazing and in one devotional I took 4 pages of notes (yea that's good and I am not that big on taking notes either).

It is super dry up here in Utah and I miss the Washington humidity although once I get in brazil I probably won't have that problem anymore. Some elders who get bloody noses from it being too dry get a humidifier which is awesome. I am gonna get one pretty soon, its a little container of water that heats up the water until it evaporates in the air. I love the evaporated water it gives off because I breath it in then blow it out in peoples faces ha-ha. I am getting better at volleyball over here because I play it everyday and have been a spiking machine.

Mom, Dad, Brian thanks for the pictures and the notes I appreciate it and yes no one has them in cube shape. Ahh only 1 minutes left I forgot what I am going to write. I love my family and I love everyone that prays for me and our missionary work. I love you I love you I love you!

Paz

Elder Crandall

Two whole weeks

I can't believe that it has only been two weeks! It feels like I have been away for 2 months, but at the same time weeks are going by faster. At the MTC I have lost all concept of time, its so true one day seems long but then the week goes by fast...I don't know:)

This weeks has been a huge confidence booster in my language learning. The other day a man out in the hall was speaking in Portuguese to this sister after one of my teaching appointments and I just started to talk to him in Portuguese. They were both surprised that I have only been at the MTC for 2 weeks. My companion and I subbed in for two other missionaries who couldn't go to their appointment to teach the first lesson in Portuguese. So we kind of winged it as we went and did half Portuguese and half ingles. I just realized I spelled the word English in Portuguese ha-ha.

Thanks Dev and Bec for writing me! Becca it sounds like you have a great future in store for you and I am glade someone was able to see that in you.

MOM and DAD I love both of you very much and love your letters to me. Thanks DAD for the advice and letting me know that I am in your prayers. Oh mom you know that picture booklet you made for me, well we have a spotlight kind of thing my professor Irmo Halverson does were we share picture of our families and talk about them in Portuguese as much as we can. Everyone is really impressed by the awesome photoshopness of my booklet and everyone was impressed by my pole-vault pictures as well. Thanks again mom for making that for me.

Brian how's school going? have you decided to change up the environment of that other fish tank yet? If you do send me a pic.

John and Caitlyn thank you for the letter, I was happy to read your testimony. Please tell John to write me if he comes up with any more snail jokes ha-ha. Christmas time at Grandmas at the kids table you know what I am talking about ha-ha.

Heidi thanks for the letter I am having a lot of fun at the MTC and you said to look out for an elder Black and I am trying but the problem is there are about 5 Elder Blacks here ha-ha.

Oh yea to my cousins Madison and Britney thanks for the card and the slab of all deliciousness. It was funny when my district leader gave me my package I opened it an there was this slab of fudge with peanut butter chocolate chips were on it. Everyone was jealous and I told them it was the slab of all Deliciousness.

To end my email I want to share an experience I had on Tuesday. Our group went to the TRC for a teaching workshop. At which I was given the opportunity to teach a pretend investigator. His name was Josh and he lived in Hawaii and lives with his mom, and his dad left them a long time ago. He was going through a lot of trials at the time, but he hade a friend named James who was a member of the church who was kind of always there for him. I prayed for the spirit and began looking up scriptures. I found two scriptures that applied to his life and gave him a positive look on life. I gave him hope for his future and taught him how to pray for his family. I challenged him to read the book of Mormon and he accepted and thanked me for teaching him how to pray and be given new light on life. I challenged him to baptism and he said yes. The moral of my story is to trust in the lord with all thy heart because I have never felt the spirit so strongly as I taught and I was able to witness for myself the power of the holy ghost before I go out to my field. It touched the heart of my pretend investigator and he told me afterwards that I reminded him of himself when he was out in the field and how the Spirit was able to touch peoples hearts. It seems now that I am a missionary I have a more powerful feeling of the spirit. In the end there are two things that I credit to my quick learning of the language and the ability to teach with the spirit. The First is the Lord our Heavenly Father and the Second is all of you who pray for me and all the missionaries every day. My Thanks goes out to you:)

Love Elder Crandall

Até lago!