I Have Another Baptista

(September 8th letters were personal to the family and not published.  Much of the content from September 14th is removed as well).

 This is my new comp and this was dinner last night it was so good those little peppers were so good! Elder Baptista is from Brazil he is a really cool guy, he speaks 4 languages its really cool. We had a first lesson, it was great! The work is picking up, I'm not sure what I need yet I'll let you know when I do need something though. Yeah my face is doing a lot better, there is still a hard spot where I bit through that I hope heals and goes away. That really hurt I would suggest not doing that ever haha! Grandma Benninghof's cards are pretty interesting she names them for me and tells me to feed them and water them hahaha!

 Mom, I love you so much.  Thank you for all the pictures you have sent me, I love seeing you guys and my puppy. I miss you all but, I'm on the Lord's mission and its where I am ment to be. We have a baptism coming up he is 12 and asked us if he could get baptized. It was a great lesson. He is a great kid very smart too.
The Lord puts in our paths the people we need to meet; president told us once sometimes you are sent on a mission to find your spouse because there wouldn't be any other time you would meet them.  I'm excited for that (marriage).  I truly think a mission is to help us prepare not only for future church leadership, but to be parents as well. I have been able to control my anger better and learned to love more I am learning to become a better husband and father in the future. By coming on my mission and it was all because of the push you and dad gave me. Thank you for not giving up on me, I love you so much always remember that.

Dad,
I have done a baptism once in Kearns. It was fun teaching him, you never knew what funny thing would come out of his mouth. We haven't had a whole lot of success, but I got a new companion. He is from Brazil his name is Elder Baptista haha! The day he came in to the area someone called us and told us their grandson wants to get baptized. We had the first lesson and he is very smart and is going to get baptized on the 26th. I'm so excited to baptize someone here, I know the members want another baptism in the stake haha!
 We get a lot of praise out here and its hard not to get a big head sometimes, because they call us the best elders they have had in a while. But hey, it's great to know people like us here. I'm loving South Jordan the longer I stay here. Which can be bad to I might get too comfortable around the members and we cant have that happen. At the end of this transfer I'll have been here for 4 and a half months, its nuts I've been out for 6 and a half going on 7 months. Time is flying by here.
 I also miss my puppy, does mom still let her on her lap, or no haha? It's good she is doing well without Dixie there, but I think us separating them a few times really helped that as well. I cant wait to give her a big hug when I get home. [In an answer to a personal prayer he felt] it was the weirdest, but coolest thing I have ever had happen to me. I think in that moment I gained a stronger testimony that the Lord truly is there and loves us. He will put the people we need to meet in our paths, our president says that sometimes that's why we are sent to where we are (on a mission) is to find our spouses and I think I have found mine. The Lord could have sent me anywhere else in the world the second time and if it wasn't for Elder Munyer I wouldn't have met her at all. So I know the Lord is there and answers prayers.
It's amazing the way he works sometimes and when I come home from my mission I know that my training out here will help me. When I become a husband and a father someday to keep a cool head and not blow up like I would. It's helped me to know how to find the deeper concern in peoples lives to help them out to the best I can. It's funny I can make people promises as one of the Lord's representatives, and He will keep them. In lessons we tell people as the Lord's representative we are teaching you the things Christ would be teaching if He were here right now; and I know that He loves you so much; that He has put us in your path this day to bring you closer to him. He loves you more than you can even imagine and because He loves you, He wants you to be a part of His people and we can do this by being baptized. I get to say something like that , and I'm going to miss being on a mission, but afterward I'll be called to serve as a husband and father. That promise I'll make will be worded differently, but mean the same.I love you dad, thanks for not giving up when I did, and giving me the push to be better.

Love,
Elder Crawford

Mom I got a BooBoo

Dad,
My week has been filled with pain. Wednesday, I busted face on the road, that's where I got the fat hole in my lip.

Then Friday I did the same thing, but this time on grass; so it was much more pleasant haha!! I learned how to ride a bike with no hands in Kearns and I was caring corn from a members house. I got to close to a wall and I pushed off the wall with my arm and shouldn't have done that.  Because it made me flip over my handlebars. When I bailed from my bike to not crash in a tree, so there was me and corn who both went flying that day--there is my cool experience I had Sunday that's in mom's email you will have to read.

Elder koo is doing good he laughs at me every once in a while about my wreck Wed. He found out that N. Korea and S. Korea are going to be nice to each other and not war against each other because they have American troops in South Korea to help train them.  Sister Burrows is doing great she can't wait to meet you guys, nor can I wait.  I'm learning so much right now we are to challenge you to read the Book of Mormon and highlight every part that talks about the atonement so start that if you haven't. It is amazing how much the book testifys of it and we got to go to a car show in our stake so thought you would like to see. 

Well I have to email president and get ready to give a blessing here soon, I love you.

Mom,
My lip kills me every day sense Wed. So the story is we were on exchanges and I had to use someone else's bike.  Well, on my bike the break only works on the front tire to stop and the break isn't that great.  Well on the bike I was using the front break works very well . So when I had to stop going at a fast speed I used the front break, the bike threw me over the handlebars and my face was the first thing to catch me on the road. I had to use the other missionaries helmet which didnt have a strap so the helmet didnt work at all. When I landed my lower teeth bit a hole into my lip almost through my lip. I have road rash on my lip and when I got up I was angry, not hurt feeling yet ;angry like look out I'm coming to get you angry.  So my companion for the exchange ran to help me out of the road because there were cars coming. I was fine for 5 to 10 min then I felt like I was going to pass out. Elder Koo said when he pulled up to get me I was very pale. That picture shows how pale I was, but we went to the hospital and they said no stitches and my teeth will be fine.  Well the next morning my wrist started to hurt, but nothing happened to it' it's just sore from getting ripped off the handlebars. My nose might be a little broken it looks a little off place, but I'm not sure.

 Transfers are not this week, but next week. I want to stay, the area is picking up now and I'm loving it here. The members are awesome and I think to help out with the members to pick up the missionary effort is that they need a little pep talk --it is not the missionaries job to find people to teach it is the members. There is a talk that President Bednar gave on that; I'm not sure what it is called.  The missionaries are set apart to teach, not find so that might help out some.

 One thing that went well this week was that I didn't have to go get stitches in my face haha! We had an open house for a new church building Saturday.

We  had 5 non-members show up and a lot of less active members. So that went well and there was a dedication Sunday. When the stake president was talking about the scripture of John 5: 1-9 the window started to glow white like an angel was there telling us the building is well with the Lord.  It was so cool, I'm looking forward to Christmas and maybe seeing you, the family, and Blair. I'm looking forward to getting married someday.  We teach about temple marriage and it makes me want to be sealed and to start a family of my own.  But I need to finish the mission first, don't worry that is first on the list!

 I'm not sure what I need help with right now, but the package was great! Elder koo was suprised that you really sent him stuff.  He said, "Did they send this because I'm Asian?" haha! I told him you said that, so he said it because he knew you thought that. haha!  Elder Koo is awesome!  So the first picture is me with a replica of the Sword of Laban from the scriptures.

(the one Nephi killed Laban with)

This is what we saw we were teaching this family last night, and the little girl gave us the stink eye. 

 It was so funny.

 

Love,

Elder Crawford

 

The Atonement Project

Dad, (no pics this week, but better than the mini email to one of us last week.)
My week has been pretty good, the weather has been hot and we bike everyday.  So I'm losing weight. I hope I sweat like no other, but it gets us lots of water haha!  I'm doing pretty good at not snacking much and eating normal size plates of food. The teaching is going slow out here, but its all working out some how or another.

 I love the mountains! I look at them everyday they are very beautiful, but lately the mountains have been hard to see because there are fires going on in California. So the smoke makes here very foggy.  I have a picture of the mountains and if you just look at it looks like a picture from home, you can't see the mountain unless you really look for them.

We don't have a car so we can't really drive anywhere, but I wish I could hike the mountain again. I miss the nature here, it's just a jungle of concrete. Elder Koo thinks it's heaven here because back in China where he lived the air was bad.  But for me the air smells and makes me feel funny at times. He might have to be shipped back home to Korea because the war between North and South Korea is getting bad.

 What did Colton do to break his back; was it from the car wreck he was in?   Does mom still play that video of me to Blair?  We were talking about that the other day at dinner.  Well I love you guys, be good, don't get into any trouble haha!

Mom,
 We are teaching 2 investigators one is Steve Z. his whole family are members.  He comes every week and plays the organ every other week, but he is still learning.  The other is named Shiley R., she is 11 and her grandpa won't let her be baptized because if some bitter feelings with the church.  Now grandma wants her to be baptized and so does her mom, but she lives with her grandparents. I guess grandpa can get mean, so those are our two that we are working with.

We are also teaching a less active guy, named Brent he is Samoan and is awesome!  He wants to come back and he is trying to get a temple recommend so we can do baptisms. In about a year he and his girlfriend are going to get married in the temple!

Oh, did you hear?  Jordan River Temple is going to close for a year and a half for updates. It's going to halt the temple work; this temple is the biggest for doing endowments it has 4 rooms for it. Each holds 150 people so it is the work horse temple.

 We help out this 90 something year-old guy do yard work. It is a great time when we are there! Well one thing I have learned is that the atonement is real. Our mission is doing what we call the Atonement Project.  So we read the Book of Mormon and highlight the verses that talk about or have something to do with the atonement. We were told to invite our families to do the same.

 We met a guy who lost his faith and we felt bad for him. Reading the Book of Mormon helps build it (faith).

I'm finding it is hard to control my ADHD as a missionary.  Our personality and senses are heightened, so the ADHD is worse than it was before. But, I am handling it ok. I find myself wondering in thought so much more, someone will be talking to us and the surrounding will catch my attention and then I remember the guy was talking to us. I am lost to where the conversation went.
 I love you and I will talk more later

Feel like Running through a Maze?

 Well, maybe not literal mazes, but Dakota got to meet the author of Maze Runner, James Dashner.

and he got authentic Chinese food, from a woman who lived in China.

Thank you for reminding me, Hronek sent me an email as well; he is living in Drapper.  He is working in a garage fixing cars, he said to give him our number to call us to take us to lunch sometime. So I need to send him that I hope those guys email me so I can get in touch with them.  You never know why things happen, like you getting called into work when you were supposed to be going to the temple; maybe you were saved from a car accident that would have killed you and mom. So, I'm glad for that false alarm.

 I am loving my new companion, he is great, funny in his ways too; he does some odd things every now and again. He says some pretty funny stuff too. He is a great kid, came out right after high school, graduated same time as Kayla. So he is only 19 as well. Maybe she would date a Korean guy? hahahaha! He is going to BYU after his mission so he will be in the states for a while. He wants to be an accountant.

  I read from preach my gospel every day and learn how to be a better missionary.  I will keep up the work. Mom didn't write me back last week I always get a response from you both after I send you an email so it was weird not getting an email back. 

Elder Koo is from Korea, but was raised in China all his life. He is awesome, he is keeping me on track with things helping me study better and to not be lazy in my studies.

 My district is a little bigger this time we have 4 sets of missionaries in it so 3 sets of elders including my and Koo and a set of sisters. The names of the missionaries are Elder Araujo and Elder Rogers, Elder Goins and Elder Fuller, Sister Hanson and Sister William, then Elder Koo and I. My zone is huge I think 20 or so missionaries; which now that I think about it, it's most likely average.

My suggestion to you for teaching social studies like Mr. McBee is, to do as many activities as you can like he did.  For one he showed us the movie Last of the Mohicans, but would block out the parts of violence like when the Indian scalped a guy.  But then he would do other things like the powder horns the settlers used, they would carve in them then put oil over them to show the carvings. So he printed out powder horns for us to draw on. When you talk about the slaves he had shekels to put on the kids who wanted to do it (and had parents permission) and they had to keep a journal and this would last a week. I think he would warn the teachers because it will get distracting, but it showed the kids how the slaves felt. Decorate your room with a lot of stuff from the eras you are teaching that will help out the learning. I just remember his room and Mr. Miller's room being decorated with all this cool stuff.  Do the walnut dye for the kids too, bring in the white t-shirt and they can dye a t-shirt and stuff like that. Don't just teach them about it, show them about it, that my thoughts for you.  

 

(wish I knew why the bike helmet was cracked, but he didn't mention the why...)

 

New Companion

Yep, that's my new comp, he is from Korea; his name is Elder Koo.

 His English is very good and yeah, things are going very well now!  I'm excited for this transfer, to maybe learn some Korean and talk to Uncle Kory in Korean, Hahaha! He would have a fit.
Sister Burrows, she is awesome to talk to when I get the chance to talk to her which isn't often, but we email on p-days.  So it's pretty cool learning about England and Scotland from a loca'ls point of view.
The days are meshing together now haha, it's nuts to think at the end of this transfer; I'll be out 6 months in the field. Then I only have 3 quarters more to go. I'm excited for all that will be waiting for me.

(next part is personal between the Kyle and Kota)

How is Blair doing? Is she still the better dog that doesn't get into trouble unless Dixie starts it? Does she retrieve yet, or is she still too wild for that yet? I miss my dummy haha!                       

There was this guy that stopped us while we are walking (by the way we lost the car they gave it to other missionaries). I was pretty happy, but he said you want to take a picture on my jet ski to send to your parents? So we got on, took pictures; it was great!

The next picture is of my last district.  The Hawaiian girl I came out with this time, she is awesome!

Then in the larger group is of my old zone.  A few of them went home, they were great guys to hang out with.

 The M3 album cover is of this guys band where Elder Munyer, the other guy and I made a few songs together. He has a studio in his house, so we recorded them on p-day it was great!

  They sound pretty descent.

I thought dad would get a kick out of the old skid steer we saw haha!

 Then there is a night view of the Jordan River Temple. It's the temple we live by and it's the busiest temple in the world it's so cool...

Our appointments didn't go over well this week, nobody was home when we would go by so it was a dump week. But, we are starting to get a roll on things.  We invited a guy to be baptized last night and he said he would pray about it.  So pray for S-- Z-- is his name. The rest of them are baptized. S.Z. comes every week and plays organ every other Sunday. So he is what we call a dry Mormon haha! I don't know really need anything from back to school stuff yet, or not I'm fine right now. I'll probably need something when it's not on sale anymore most likely haha!
Kayla has sent me a few videos from her iPod but other than that if you link it to a website I can't see it cause of the restrictions on my iPad.

 If I told you all I learned so far I would be typing a long time haha! I will send you my study journal when I fill it out and you can read what I've learned from that. It's been interesting though, one thing I've learned is faith in Christ will give you pretty much what ever you want as long as it's expedient in Him. You can help people to become baptized with just your faith alone.  Ether 12:14 shows this, Christ has said if you have faith in me, I will give you all things; or in other words what you need to let the Lord take over and he will use you to guide.  We can't force people we have to invite them to do something and we show love and trust they find out for themselves.

 I think you and dad should read preach my gospel and read it through. It's funny how it applies to everyone not just non members or less actives. So food for thought.

 

Members Find Them and We Teach Them

This is my friend Sister Burrows, she is from Scotland and she is going to get me a flag, how awesome is that. Well my week was interesting, my comp is unmotivated, doesn't like to work and wastes the Lord's time. When we work I make him get out of the car so we can talk to people on the street.  He walks super slow and and will take a route that isn't fast to get anywhere. We need to go and I have to yell at him that he is wasting the Lord's time and my time. He gets mad.   Yesterday before dinner he wanted to sit in the house and do studies for one and a half hours.  I told him we were going to work and he got mad at me for telling him what to do cause I'm the junior comp, but when we went out and worked, we set up two lessons with a part member family and a non member family.
 Usually when I tell him to work something good happens, and he is frustrated that I was right to push him.  He did tell me he was glad I made him work or else we would have lessons this week with these families.
Thanks for asking about the packages, I'm happy and with the packages, stuff is fine. The places we have in Utah, we don't really have back home other than McDonald's Taco Bell or Burger King for gift cards. So, I'm fine with the stuff in the packages.
 To help the elders out back home this is the secret to finding people to teach... MEMBERS! It's not the missionaries job to find  people to teach.  We have been set apart to teach, Elder Bednar said it, the members are to find people to teach for the missionaries. So they need to go by members house and ask for Referrals if they don't ask they won't find very many. Well that's how we find everyone we teach, almost.  Another great way to find is going to apartments they are full of people that have difficult lives and are looking for ways to make their life better.  The message we share will turn peoples lives around. Look at our family with out the gospel and now with the gospel. Where would we be without it?  I don't even want to know, but those are some of the ways we are finding out here.

Hard Work Pays Off

The big group of people is our district here in Sojo (South Jordan) and that is the temple we went to last week.  It is one of the smaller ones out here, but it is beautiful.  I love it out here so far its getting better ,we have 2 new investigators in the area, for the first time in a while here.  Its great ,the Lord is helping us out so much!

 The hand picture is from after we did service for a member here.  

We were digging a trench for a water line he was putting in his back yard. I had to get on my comp (companion) because he was standing there the whole time and wouldn't' help much.  He would do a little, but it wasn't making progress in the work.  He got mad at me and said, well looks like I'm not doing excavation when I go home. I try doing service for him, so I'm thinking the best service is to make him do the stuff and teach him to be self reliant.  He needs to learn to  just do it; its hard sometimes cause he gets angry easy, but i dont put up with it.  Just like you and dad didn't with me; so thank you for the push you gave me. A mission president said to some missionaries, "Successful people got to the top because the were strengthened by the resistance of the trials they overcame."

I'll be praying for Grandpa for sure. I hope he passes fast and with as less pain as possible. How is Grandpa Lee doing from all this? I wish I could be there to help comfort him and maybe teach him about the plan of salvation. To show that there is a purpose to life and show him where grandpa is going.  The words of the preacher still haunt me today (from grandma's funeral) when he said we dont know why we are here... That's not the answer, the answer is to prepare for living in the Celestial Kingdom with Heavenly Father and Christ, to have eternal families,

(the next part is personal)

I have learned while on my mission, I need a wife that is going to be strong and will be a faithful saint.  I need a temple ready person to help keep me strong when I fall short.  You and dad support each other and keep each other strong and temple worthy. I need that as well, I can't be the only support or the marriage will fail; and I will not allow that! I think you and dad were right when you said I would find a wife out here.  (this part is personal too) 

These are my feelings and thoughts so far in my mission. I will try to be wise but I'm putting the Lord first I promise! His work is coming first and then I think about the person I'll be sealed to in a few years. I hope she will be like you, how you keep dad strong and how he keeps you strong. Send me your thoughts on it.