Novemember 23, 2013

      

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, 메리 크리스마스, کریسمس مبارک, In whatever language you speak.

  
       
         This week has been really good like amazingly good. 

So last week you know how one of our investigators wanted to be baptized? Well this past week we had a lesson with him and he set the baptisimal dat of the 12th of January. In fact it was a very cool lesson. We went into his restaurant(that is where we are teaching them). We began teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and about halfway through in walk some members from my old ward (specifically the boldest and most zealous and dedicated person i have ever met about sharing the gospel and she is the Relief Society President and who are currently serving a service mission for BYU-I). So we about to invite Sam when in walk the missionaries(whom the member was going to feed). So by the end of the lesson their was a very very powerful Spirit there with 6 set apart missionaries, there because they loved this one man. Oh yea previously we had contacted this same member about Sam for some help with local fellowshipping and she has been sending every person from the ward that she can their to wat at his little restaurant. We are pretty sure that she also had the YM/YW go caroling to them at the restaurant. Super cool.

Sam also came to church and he brought his son. Who lives in TEmecula which is like 2 hours away! they loved it and his son said he would search out Lds people there and try to go to church there. We also knew of a baptisim that Sunday and so we invited Sam to it and he said he would come. He cam a little late and missed the actual baptisim because the GPS told him wrong but  it was good anyway because he was able to see some of the confirmations which he loved. We were also able to use the powerful Spirit that was there to help us teach him the Word of Wisdom. Which he then committed to keep it.

Saturday we had an amazing Christmas party with Sister Larson. Who invited everyone she could along with our investigators. So the amazing thing was that when all was said and done everyone their was either a member and most being Recent Converts of 5 years to 2 months or at some level investigating the church. which was super incredible especially when our mission President stopped by because he was invited too. HE was able to see so much good work that has been done by the Lord for the Persians in  preparing them to receive the gospel. So cool until they had us give a talk in Persian. Which was super cool and super hard. So we read a scripture in Persian and bore our testimonies about Christ and the truthfulness of the season. Super cool. They also had us pray in Persian. So i did the opening prayer to bless the food and i forgot the word for food! I won't know that like 20 people have told me what  it is. It was awesome.

So on Friday we had our Christmas Devotional. It was so good. There was an incredible Spirit there as we sung and heard scriptures from all of the Standard works about the birth of Christ during the program. Then we also had an amazing testimony meeting about our Missionwide Book of Mormon reading. It was so amazing to see how it has changed the culture of out mission from when i first got here to now. This past year has been absolutely incredible. unexpressably so.

Elder Craner

Re-post from Novemember 11, 2013

I re-posted this letter so that as you read down you wont get too confused. Elder Craner is now speaking Farsi and working with the Persian people in Los Angeles.




Hey Mom, read this real quick and respond.

My call has been changed and i am no longer speaking Korean for the rest of my mission. Instead i will be starting a program in Farsi and be the District Leader of the new group we are 1 of two missions in the world with this program and one of 8 in the world proselyting to Iranians and other speakers of Persian.

Also my new companion did two years at Westpoint in NY do you know anything about that school? I'm pretty sure it is a military academy. Write more in longer letter.

Went to doctor and yes going to be sticking with what worked for ADD and yes i am planning on going back to running and or at least jump-roping.

Elder Caner

December 19,2013

       So it is 80 degrees and a week before Christmas. I'm not sure what to think about this. Great thing is it means we can play Volleyball in December. WOOO!

      Miracles are abounding all around us where ever we serve. and here in Babylon it is no exception. This past week was amazing. The matter of us just being in peoples hiomes with Spirit has been incredible just to see them start to progress and want to learn more even if they at first don't want to.

There are two families that we are working with to "learn" Persian. Where we go into the house with the Spirit and they help us learn how to speak read and converse in Persian. This past week one family has really opened up and asked us a couple questions about God and about us as missionaries. NOt only that we had the chance to serve the father (thanks Dad for giving me the small foundation of computer knowledge and teaching me to problem-solve) and this opened him up the tiniest bit and he now more actively engages with us when we are at their home. They are already Christian and we are going to be taking a few more steps this week with them and another man that we are working with to learn Persian told us as we invited him to the Visitor Center performances this month said that "you know Islam didn't work for me maybe Mormon will." HE is such a sincere and wonderful old man we love him.

       Another absolutely amazing and incredible miracle that happened last week was last night. There is this wonderful man Sam that we are working with and he came to the Visitor Center last night and he brought Eli (his wife)!! Which was awesome and we also had a member family with us at the Visitor Center who themselves are converts From Islam. That family is so strong and awesome. They helped us teach and testify so much about the restoration of the gospel. WE watched the Restoration video with them and the Spirit was so strong. Then we sat and listened to the Christus statue exhibit with them. She felt the Spirit and she believes Christ but she wants to know to really know that Jesus was the Son of God. All we could do was testify and she said she felt our words in her and we know it was the Holy ghost testifying to her. Before we closed with them Elder Larkin felt impressed to challenge them to close their store on Sunday and observe the Sabbath day. A commitment that we had been talking about extending to them. Sam was all for it as was Eli but she was a little hesitant. In a previous lesson we challenged Sam to read 2 Nephi 31 and before we could follow up with him he told us that he had read it and that he believed it and that he wanted to enter into the waters of baptism and that we needed to tell him when he could do it!!! So now we are going to sit down with him and figure that out. It was amazing and so was the prayer that was offered at the end of the lesson before they left. We truly love these people and we ant to serve them in any way we can.

       Then literally right after they left while we were still at the Visitor's Center another couple walked in and desired to know more about the church. HE told us that they are going to move to America soon and that they were here visiting their son who is at UCLA so that they could buy a home here and eventually move and become a resident. However because he is going back to Iran soon we can teach him and help him come unto Christ but we aren't sure if we can baptize him until he can come back. However he wants to die a christian. Good thing we teach people about Christ. So our next official appointment with him is Christmas night back at the Visitor Center for a sing-along program! What a wonderful Christmas we are super excited for it.

Elder Craner

December 9, 2013

        This week has been a very good one. We were able to have a lesson on Sunday with Sam at the Visitor Center and it was incredible. All though there were times he couldn't express himself because of his lack of English and our lack of Persian. He felt the Spirit so strongly and well it was simply incredible to see him just desire that change of life that the Book of Mormon gives. He wants to learn so much. He describes it as him being thirsty for knowledge. We are so excited to be teaching him.

We have also been working with the Ganjineh family and they are awesome and they came to the Ward Christmas party. Super cool. They also asked questions at the party about us being volunteers which surprised them and they were wondering if we got payed and such which is awesome and we hope to be able to talk to them more about it as we continue to meet with them.

This past week i had the opportunity to go on splits with both Elder Cockriel and Elder Fry and they both pointed out something that i hadn't seen before. A characteristic trait that we all (the Persian program) share. We like to lead and be in charge and we realized how much of a benefit because it will drive us all to improve and be better. it is but it is funny and interesting to see how that can also cause small problems. 

On the personal side i think that sometimes i am too serious and i am working on lightening up. I know i am a tough companion. Anyway. i have just been trying to learn the skills necessary for this new program and trust in the Lord and put him first more so than ever. Because of this i have begun a new reading of the Standard Works with a very specific question.

Elder Craner

December 2, 2013

   Hello y'all,

        This week we have worked with another Persian family again this week and we encouraged them to invite some of their Persian friends to dinner with us next time. They started naming people and they really want too and they said that they would after we learned how to testify because they how important and powerful it would be for their friends to feel the sweet spirit in their own language. So we are going to learn that this week and visit them again on Friday so that way we can continue to build our relationship with them. 

Tuesday we met with some referrals from Sister Larson. It is a family of three and they are awesome and we are really excited to be working with them. They are excited to teach us Farsi and we are excited to learn how to talk to them about the gospel. The wife and daughter seem open and the husband has come to church before. So we are going to see if we can get them to the ward Christmas party and to the VC for a performance and to church of course.

        We've done lots of contacting on Westwood and we are going to try Pico this week. That has been an experience as funnily enough i haven't ever had to street contact because there weren't places to do that in Korean C and when i was in Malaga Cove no one walked outside when we were tracting. So it has been a very humbling experience in which i have learned a lot from Elder Larkin and continue to learn from him. Funny thing i realized is that in his last transfer (which was his first in the field) he probably gained the same amount of teaching experience i have over the past year. Such a good Elder.

Friday was amazing. We followed up with the 'point in the right direction' from Sis. Atkinson and we went to Longburger, (which for 3$ you get 12 inches of really good burger that is healthier than other fast food joints just ) Anyway we went and we ate there and we began talking to the woman at the cash register and she was semi-interested but not really. However, as soon as we started talking to the chef, the owner of the restaurant, the conversation got so much better and he was very excited to find out who we were and what we do. He gladly accepted the Book of Mormon in Farsi and the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and we are planning on going back on Friday to follow-up. The amazing thing is he volunteered to be accountable to us about the reading! 

        Saturday we met with another man who is teaching us Farsi. He love us but he himself isn't to religious. So we are having him teach us the Articles of Faith in Persian. It is pretty cool. He really seemed to be enjoying them. After that we will hopefully be able to move to the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and slowly teach him as he is teaching us and we talk about it. 

       Thanksgiving was good we ate with a member of our ward. Since the only times we can are if they have a referral for us. A YM ( there has been a problem with getting them on missions. They are hoping that having Elders in the ward will help. They have had Sisters there for a long time because they are a Visitor Center Area.)  and or if it is a holiday.

Elder Craner

November 25, 2013

This week was good.
        Monday we met a member who taught us how to pray in Farsi and that was super cool and fun. WE are trying to pray as much as we can in the language but we have to switch back a lot so that we can still express ourselves adequately. However lately it has been such  a wonderful time praying.  Something that was put into words for me by someone else "is that we should all be jumping at the chance to talk to our God and Father"  and lately i feel that my prayers have been more meanngful than ever and this something that our mission president is stressing is that we should be praying as if our lives depend on it and then acting. We should be expressing deep faith. Faith that we show in our prayers that is very heartfelt and sincere and specific.
Wednesday we went to the temple and it was so good. i just love the feeling of peace and love of God that pervades there and i would that everyone should come and feel that spirit. If not inside then at least walk the grounds and feel and know God's love for you. After that we went and attempted to find a Less Active member, we ended up getting lost but we did find it we think but noone was home. 
Thursday we had zone conference where we were trained mainly on trying to use our time effectively and realizing that we need to pray with deeper faith and work with more diligence. Our president declared that the Lord is giving us miracles  but the floodgates are not yet open and the Lod wants to be pouring them out on us. Also this quote was given to us as well "the devil is the master of complexity. The Lord is the master of simplicity." This was given in connection to the emphasis the church is putting on teaching simply because the gospel is simple and trying to do away with analogies and other gimmicks.
Friday we had District meeting with our Mission President and that was super nice because we were able to cover a lot of subjects in a very short amount of time and do it efficiently. Our presidenti s very excited on the progress that we are making. After that we got permission to move part of our Preperation day to Friday so that we would be able to go and visit a museum that is currently hosting a Persian Empire treasure the Cyrus Cylinder. It was very interesting and cool and a great peice of histiry and culture. While there Sister LArson ( the member who is teahing us Farsi and is our host into this new culture) brought her brother (member) and two more non-members with her and we began to build really good relationships with them. 
Sunday was good. The talks were really good and so uplifitng. and this ward is good and it will get better.
The language is coming along well. We are working on memorizing the Joseph Smith story right now and tons and tons of vocab. 
Love y'all

Elder Craner

November 18, 2013

سلام

 In Farsi they read from right to left. this means peace. It is used to say hello. Click on the link below to haer the word.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85
       

      This past week. has been very stressful as we do our best to figure out how to start a new program in the mission and to learn a new language. We have a lot of support though both from our new ward and other missionaries and our president. For now we have been allowed 3 hours of language study a day and we are working with some members (who are from Iran) to learn Farsi. to the point that we have classes with them several times a week. Our area is the mission. So far no geographical divisions between the two companionship but that may come with time. Mainly one will take Member work and the other will work through referrals and some members as well. We are doing our best to find ways to fill  our time well and have it be effective. mainly right now it is striving to learn the language and develop the gospel terms and forms in it as we work with our teacher and meeting members.  Our teacher who by the way cool fact is working on the translation of the Farsi book of Mormon and is on fire about the Gospel and helping as many as she can come into the gospel. She herself being a convert from Islam.  We did get a new apartment and it is ok and i really can't complain because i know there are a lot worse apartments that missionaries sleep in around the world so i won't other than i was spoiled in the my last apartment. My companion is good we get along but i think we will be even better once all of our stress wears off and we can actually start to find work. He is good. The other Elders as well we all seem to get along and work well together and i think that the next year together will allow us to become a formidable team and district.

Sunday was good and our ward is excited to have us not only to have us speak Farsi but also to have Elders in there ward. They haven't had Elders in a long time just Sisters. which i thought at first was weird because everyone else begs and wants sisters really bad. I guess the grass is just greener on the other side and a missionary is a missionary.

Thank you for all of the prayers i love you all.

Elder Craner

Novemember 11, 2013 New Mission Call

Hey Mom, read this real quick and respond.

     My call has been changed and i am no longer speaking Korean for the rest of my mission. Instead i will be strarting a program in Farsi and be the District Leader of the new group we are 1 of two missions in the world with this program and one of 8 in the world prosylyting to Iranians and other speakers of persian.

Also my new companion did two years at Westpoint in NY do you know anything about that school? i'm pretty sure it is a military academy. Write more in longer letter.

.

Elder Craner