Nossa que FRIO!!

Hey that's great that summer started for you guys over there, but the down side is it is winter down here and it is super cold! Haha it doesn't help that our house is full of (mofo, i think its mold in english) haha I have been sick these last weeks, but nothing is going to stop me! Yea those who thought brazil is hot 24 hours, its not, here in São Paulo its getting down to the 40's which is cold for me! I think I am going to die when I get home because I am so used to hot weather. 

This week was awesome! We met a lot of new people. We found a women/girl because she looks older, but is only  19 years and she is from the Baia and was taught by the missionaries and everything, but then moved to São Paulo and never meet up with the missionaries and didn't know were the church was. She is going to be baptized next month on the 14th. Also we meet a family super elect! We went to the house of a women that we marked for baptism, but wasn't home, but there was a man standing outside his door talking to another women. He looked at us and said he was curious to know who we were and what we do. I said we are missionary's and everything and asked if we could come by another day, but then he asked if we could come in now...shocked a little bit I cheerfully said EMBORA which means lets go! We went in and they said they have been praying to know a church that could bless his family, because here in brazil there are a  load of churches that just want to steal your money and they have had a few bad experiences. So after a few years without going to church they felt the urge, the need to go to church so they prayed and `POP´ we showed up at the exact moment and meet up with Adaílton and his family of 5! I know that this is the lords work and that I am apart of it. It may be an insignificant part, but I am glad to see the miracles around me. Seeing humble people accept the gospel and seeing people chance. I have also seen that I have changed a lot and I feel like a powerful tool in the hands of the Lord. I know that this church is true in spite of what others may say, I KNOW. 

Com Amor 

Elder Crandall 

birthday pizza.

Last Birthday in Brazil

Wow time is literally flying by, I can't believe I am going to be 21 on Tuesday. Time passes by really fast. Dad don't worry I will buy a huge pizza on my birthday because the missionaries have been buying pizza here for along time and the owner likes us and he usually makes these huge pizzas for us so I am going to ask him for an even bigger one haha. So I don't know if Scotty Cox knows it but I am in his old area haha yea everyone here is asking me about him and if his headaches have gone away. Also tell scotty that irmã Mercês wants to get in contact with him.

Also tell scotty that Lazaro will be baptized on the 7th an investigator that he and elder Maia were teaching.

On Friday I got to go on a division with the zone leaders to my first area Riviera Paulista! It was awesome! I got to see a lot of my old friends from church and got to talk with a few people that I baptized as well (firmes). It was so much fun to go back to my stomping grounds and I was showing the zone leaders some areas that were good and we made some good contacts. It was a lot of fun and everyone had a huge surprise on their faces when they opened up their doors haha. 

Mom I think the guys at the mail office are enjoying my fishy crackers...but that's alright at least someone else is sharing my happy birthday spirit. There is a women in our area who is the only one in her family now that is not baptized and all the elders here call her Mãe (mom). Mãe said that she would make a cake for me with a Brazilian flag on it so that will be great and so far everyone in the ward is trying to get us to come over to their house to eat cake with them so they can throw eggs on my head...yea a weird brazilin tradition, but I am game if I can throw eggs at them too haha. 

Being in the same zone as the one I was in one year ago I have had many opportunity's to reflect on my progress. My attitude is different, I am more focused on others them myself, I pray for others rather then myself, I am speaking a lot better then I was speaking, and I am more experienced in all the phases of the work (finding people to teach, teaching clearly, etc.). Its been a hard week and we have walked a lot in my huge area, but this week will be a lot better. 

Love you all so much and 

ATÉ Mais! 

Elder Crandall

And the rain came down and the floods came up

Wow it just keeps raining! it just stopped right now, but this entire week it has been raining and not just Seattle rain, but rain rain! Luckily I brought my umbrella that I found in my last area with me. So yea I was transferred...I loved my last area and I am missing it still, the people there are great and the people baptized and the people that are preparing to be baptized were awesome. So I was transferred to my first Zone in Guarapiranga again haha its a great zone, and what is funny is I did a few divisions already in my area before so some people already know me haha. I am serving in Ranieri which is close to Riviera Paulista which is my first area. I am excited because my first area changed to the zone leader's area and I marked a division with them so I will be able to meet up with all of them again on Friday! This area unlike my last area is HUGE, yea it has way more then 20 roads that's for sure. I am with a brasileiro this time his name is Elder Sabino from Pernambuco and has 7 months on the mission. gente boa, but he is quieto... ou calado (i forgot how to say that so look it up sorry). Its going to be a fun experience because we are starting from ground zero and have no one in our teaching group. This week we managed to mark 3 people for baptism, but our goal is to baptize 3 next month so we need to mark a lot more then that. The church has a stat that to baptize one person in one month you need to have 10 people go to church and have at least 22 people in your teaching group. So we have to have 66 people in our teaching group and 30 people go to church, so yea we are going to  have to work our tails off. 

This week was awesome as well because we saw the dedication of the temple of Manaus. President Uchtdorf dedicated the temple and  put the corner stone in with Elder Cook their wives and some kids that were watching. There was also a celebration that was held on Saturday that was really cool. All the stakes in Manaus danced, the primary did a funny jungle dance with costumes, then there were a bunch of other dances by all the organizations. The best one was the Cowboys, did you know that there are Cowboys here in Brazil? they did a cool dance and I am sure the Cavalcanti's are jealous that they weren't here to watch haha. President Uchtdorf gave a great welcoming speech on Saturday, but unfortunately the translator wasn't hearing him so he was struggling to translate, until Uchtdorf put his arm around his shoulders and started to speak easier for him haha it is crazy to think that I can speak more then one language fluently. I hear the English speakers first, then the translation in portuguese and understand them both and I hear the same thing being said. Its funny because Elder Uchtdorf is really funny and he cracked some good jokes and I would be the only one laughing and then the translator would speak and everyone would laugh afterwards. I even beat the translator some times giving the  translation first haha. So maybe I might be able to come back to brazil in 2014 to be a translator during the world cup and get paid and meet up with everyone at the same time. 

This week we are also going to the temple! I love the temple and I will miss it when I am gone, but luckily I have at least 2 or 3 more times before I go. Yea so its starting to hit me that I am getting pretty old on the mission, I only have about 8 more months on the mission and judging how my time has been passing by lately, its going to fly by. I will try to do my best to take advantage of my time here e aproveitar os bons momentos and do my best to bring more children of God back home. I love you all and hope you all have a great week and that Brian doesn't get lost in Europe and that my next sobrinha será bonitinha like Ella. (Dev and Bec don't call here Beatris its a beautiful name in portugues but doesn't work out in English) 

Love you all so much! 

Abraços e Beijos 

Com Feijão 

Elder Crandall

Transferred

It has been another great week here in Jd. Lucélia, but just to start it off yes I have been transferred. We have so many people to baptize now its great haha I know the next elder will like this area now.

The baptism of Erlán and Larissa was awesome! there were two more people baptized that day and we did them all together. I baptized Erlán and at the last second Larissa chose Elder Blackford to baptize her. It was funny because Erlán didn't want to use a white jumpsuit so he asked if he could use Elder Blackfords cloths. And just before the baptism Larissa chose him and so we gave him the white jumpsuit and he baptized here. The only problem was that he didn't bring any extra cloths sooo luckily it was a hot day that day and he was able to dry out after lunch.

Everything worked out with Erláns interview and we even bought pizza for everyone because they are a great family, and Erlán said he will serve a mission as well so I will support him as much as I can sending letters and picture from my next area. AHH I want to know now were I am going! I can't believe I have been in this area since Christmas, the time passes really fast and now I can only look back on the good times I had. I love all the members in my area and I know all their names front and back, They are my extended family and I will for sure miss them. They have been helping us out every week and I have never had so much members support in any other area. So as a present me and Elder Blackford will print out our awesome picture we took walking in the sun and give it to everyone. So we already printed off more then 10 pictures so we are almost done.

Mom I am looking forward to my package and hope their is something American to eat. 

Also Papai Feliz Dias dos Pais!!! Happy Fathers Day!! This will be the last fathers day away from you I promise, Hope all is going well. Sounds like your golf swing is flawless still so keep up the good work and when I get back we will hit up the greens and go riding on the ATV. and motor. Thanks Dad for being such a great example to me, you are a great leader in the church showing your love and compassion for the sacrifice of our savior by serving others, I am proud to be your son and will do my best here to represent our savior and our family's name (which no one is able to pronounce Crandall, but I am still representing it). Love you all so much and I will have a lot of fun stuff to talk about next week since next week the Temple of Manáus will be dedicated and their is going to be a great celebration!

Love you all so much

Abraços

Elder Crandall

Só alegria

Wow what a week! I hope you all had as good as a week as I did, Dang we did really well this week! We baptized Maria Aparecida this week and we had enough people to do the baptism because it was on a Friday and everyone is usually working, but we had a surprise and bishop showed up and it was a great baptism. We also marked more then 10 people for baptism this week as well so we were on fire this week. We did the math and we only spent 11 hours that week not teaching so that is pretty dang good. We also taught almost every single lesson with members so to put the week in in one phrase "everything went better than planned". It was a great week! We will have two more baptisms this week and the 5th is transfers so I am feeling that my time is coming to an end here in Jd. Lucélia. I am really feeling that I will leave this area a lot better then when I found it. The members are awesome here and I hope my next area is as cool as this area because it is a really great area.

Also this week we will do a blitz in my area which we will invite all the institute students to do contacts in my area and give us references. The institute teacher lives here and we also planned a family night in his area which he has invited more than 6 families to come so it should be a great turn out. We have been doing a great job with family nights here in the area now and the bishop is making more plans to mark family nights every week so we don't have to run around and mark and plan for them any more. The person next to me is distracting me because he is choking out his friend and screaming. Anyways this could be my last week in this area and I will be really sad when it is over because I like working with Elder Blackford, I think he has been my favorite companion so far not just because he buy a lot of food and we eat a lot more at night, because he has a great attitude about anything. Doesn't matter what day or what situation he is always happy and looking to improve. we are both very alike and we have gotten very well together and I think I have grown the most with him in every aspect (for example he taught me how to solve a rubik's  cube and he taught me how to multiple by 9 using your fingers a very handy trick I might add). So it has been a privilege to work with him and hope that I get a companion who is as good as Elder Blackford if not then I will fix him up to reach his potential. Also I hope I get a Brazilian companion  because I want to loose my accent. Love you all and look forward to next week!

Elder Crandall

Altos e baixos

First off mom good job on the costume haha dad I hope you have that filmed for me to see when I get home! I don't know if I am able to watch videos, but I will ask and get back to you next week. That's great that my letter got to Sandra it has been super hard to sit down and write a letter and then I need to find someone who can go to the mail office to send it for me because the mail office is out of my area But I love getting mail. 

This week has been great and bad at the same time. It was another one of those weeks were I really learned and grew. Our baptism Sunday as I said last week didn't work out and our baptism on Wednesday didn't work out either because everyone who we invited to participate bailed out on us and we didn't have a second witness haha. But that didn't stop us! We were sad for a little bit then we used this disappointment as motivation to work harder. We just went crazy and got in and taught and found and marked so many people for baptism. We changed our planning from planning per hour to planning per 30 minutes. We found that we are more efficient and we are having more success. I feel I still have my pole vaulting attitude on the mission. On the mission we have goals for  how many lesson we teach and people we mark etc. and the mission has a standard set. This is great to have a goal because a goal is like a height in pole vault, the only way to get over the bar and clear that height is to look up and go over. If your eyes are under or at the bar then you will hit it and will not be able to clear that height. I too look over the "bar" and set goals that will make me clear the height. I want to take advantage of the mission and clear unimaginable heights so that when I return I can continue to set up the standards. 

This week we will baptize Erlan who is the son of a recent convert and he is really great, he is talking a lot about the mission and he is going through all the steps of repentance with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I am so happy to be in the middle of all of this because not only does his life change, but my life and my aspects change as well. I love you all so much and I hope you like the pictures this week. Brian there is one that looks like "cool guys don't look at explosions" from SNL. Its a pretty epic pic and hope you all like them. 

Boa semana e faça metas diariamente, vai ajudar! 

Te Amo 

Elder Crandall

P.S Sandra its about time you notice Braço em vez de Abraço haha 

Skype and Mom I LOVE YOU

Wow it was great to talk to you all yesterday! the time flew by so fast, I didn't know what to say haha. It looks like everyone is healthy and happy over there and Dustin is look-in pretty Brazilian with his tan haha. I have a really bad t shirt and watch tan and for sure the first thing I will do when I get back is get rid of them haha. Its getting cold and is raining down here a lot lately, but what do you expect it is almost winter down here. 

You asked me what I want for my birthday and something cool that I want for my birthday is fishy crackers and a tie haha I am pretty easy to please down here.  Hey that's awesome that Brian will be graduating next month...it's about time haha just kidding when I get back I will probable do collage for another 7 years because I forgot so many things (if it wasn't for my American companion I would not remember English anymore). 

I don't know what else to tell you I pretty much told you everything that I had to tell you yesterday, but this p day started out great with the Zone Leaders who came and studied with us and we did some math and found out how much time we spent during the week teaching and we found that we have a lot of room to improve. We have a lot of left over time so we have made some plans and we will start teaching a lot more efficiently. Also we watch 17 miracles today and we got about 3/4 of the way through then it stopped! We were devastated and then ran over here to email you to relieve some of the disappointment. We will probable go over to Erick's house again and watch the rest while we still have time. 

Tomorrow we will have more money on our accounts so I will definitely buy pizza and eat it in remembrance of mother day for you. Tell Sandra that I am excited for them to move back here and tell them that Pizza is on me and that after my mission we are coming back and staying at their house haha.

I love you all so very much and just six more month until I talk to you again! My challenge to my family is to find something to improve on and work on it until my next skype call and I will follow up on it. But it has to be gospel related like family night every week, study the scriptures every day, pray together as a family. 

Love you all

Chapel they are still working on.