February 26, 2013

Crazy week this week. First, Mom bumped shoulders with a bank robber?? I wish she was there when he robbed the bank. She totally would have saved the day. ;) Sounds intense. I'm just glad nobody got hurt.

Saturday was Elder Dolbin's birthday. It was awesome. I got up early and made his bed....haha, He didn't want to make a huge deal out of it, but we all had cake and it was a fun time. BUT! Later that day, we were planning for TRC with our teacher brother Taylor. We were all kinda sleepy because we were doing weekly planning and at this point, we don't really know what we want to learn for Japanese. There isn't much the teachers can teach us as a group anymore. Most of the stuff they are teaching, we can find ourselves in a grammar dictionary. So, we were all kinda quiet. Brother Taylor got kinda frustrated and decided to have us all stand up to wake us up a little....It didn't.....but we woke up after a few seconds. As I stood up, I looked across the room at Elder Rowell. I told you that he has had a couple of medical problems. As he stood up, I watched his eyes roll to the back of his head.I thought he was just tired, but then he fell backward and hit his head on the desk and then hit his head on the wall....pretty hard I might add. Elder Hutchison describes it as the Desk-Wall combo. It was really really bad hit. It gets worse though. We all started walking over to see if he was alright....and then he started having a seizure. All the sisters in the room started screaming. Brother Taylor and Elder Hutchison ran to him and checked his pulse and what not. Unfortunately, when someone has a seizure, you can only let them go. There isn't much you can do. I ran to the wall and called the front desk. It was the scariest thing of the week. The security team came and took him off campus to the ER. He's ok now.

After that, Elder Dolbin and I went to TRC where we taught Watanabe Shimai. She is the mother of a sister in our branch. She brought her son with her who spoke very little Japanese. It was so much fun. SOOOO much fun. i loved it. At the end of the lesson, we asked if her son knew how to pray in japanese. He did not.....so....we taught him. Haha, why not. We do it with our investigators. It was so fun. Then she asked if we wanted her to send a picture of us to our mothers. Haha, of course we aren't going to decline. So, she did. She was so awesome.

 

 

On Wednesday, earlier this week, I got to Host for new missionaries. THAT was a blast. You can probably imagine how much fun I had. I just remember how difficult it was for me on the first day and ever since then, I wanted to be a host so that I could help new missionaries with the same problems I had. There was a lot of tears and screaming. Haha, it was so so sad. It was always scary when I walked up to a car and watched 8 or 9 people get out. Two missionaries coming to the MTC and lots of tears. I guess I was lucky. Anyway, I was Hosting an Elder who was going to Philidelphia spanish speaking. When I walked him to his classroom, I ran into brother Weist. Jake and Jon probably know him really well. He was my temple prep teacher. Probably, one of my best friends in the singles ward. He's just an awesome guy and he gave me loads of advice for my mission. He wasn't allowed to speak English in the classroom so he pulled me out in the hall and we had a quick conversation. Haha, he's such an awesome guy. It was great!

Yesterday, as District Leader, I thought it would be a good idea to get the district working hard on Japanese. Sooo, we decided to have an English Fast. Zero English all day. It was so great. I'm shocked at how much we've learned....however, I know that when I land in Japan, i'll be shocked at how little I know. I don't know. Right now, it feels great. We spoke Japanese all day. It was really difficult, but it was really good.

I'm doing great dad. You don't need to worry about me. I'm kinda nervous to get into Japan, but I'm sick of the MTC. It's getting a little old. I'm so so excited to get into the field. I'm just worried about the priests in the ward. I don't think they know what they are missing out on. This mission is the best. It makes us all work hard, trust the lord, become responsible, and learn to love each other. Since i've been here, i've been falling in love with the hymn "Love One Another". Haha, it's great. I feel so great. I hope I come home satisfied with how I served. I'm doing everything I can to make sure I fufill that wish of mine.

How is Sam and Clint? I'd love to hear from them. Clint's birthday is coming up here. That's exciting! going to be a deacon. :)

How are Brad and Zack? I miss them tons. I miss Brad making fun of me for eating too much ramen and then proceeding to borrow a couple packs of it because.....well....they are the best. :) I hope Zack and Jon watch the voice together when it starts up again. Haha, I'm sure that there will be lots of fun conversations about the voice. I hope that the ward is doing great as well.

I'd also love to hear about mom's school. It's so much fun to hear about.

Anway, I'm out of time. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Randy Kazuhiro Low

February 5, 2013

I have lots to say and not much times so here it goes.

First, I sent a picture of our branch snowman. The zone leaders put me on splits with Elder Pollister in the front. He's from Hawaii and had never seen snow before he came here. I've never seen someone get so excited about snow. It was so fun to see him light up. He was in heaven.

Also last P-day, something crazy happened. My district's service assignment is to clean up after devotionals.....kinda like what I did at UVU. We usually get back pretty late. The branch president just tells us to get to bed as quickly as we can. Dolbin Choro and I had gotten back around 10:12 and were heading to our rooms on the third floor. The snow was pretty wet that day. While we were running up the stairs, he slipped. We both laughed. He felt dumb and got up and kept walking. All of the sudden, I got a really sick feeling and looked down at his shoe. It was covered in blood. I freaked out. He pulled his pant leg up and there was blood everywhere. It was a lot of blood. I ran to the bathroom (which was a few steps away) to get some paper towels. On my way there I ran right past the branch president. He looked confused so I just yelled that Elder Dolbin had slipped. I got some paper towels and a first aid kit. The branch president said that he thought it looked ok and that we could handle it. He was right. We cleaned it up and bandaged it.

Everything was fine, but for some reason, both of us still had this sick feeling in our stomaches. I told him we should go see Elder Wirthlin because he was an EMT. We went up there and showed him the cut. He said it looked fine. We thought maybe it wasn't a big deal. Then Elder Wirthlin asked if he had hit his face when he fell. The answer was no...he just slipped. Elder Wirthlin all of the sudden got really serious. He pointed at Elder Dolbin's face at said, "You have Raccoon eyes. They only happen when the body has severe trauma." We looked and sure enough, there was bruising under his eyes. We couldn't figure it out. We cleaned the cut. It was pretty deep, but it was ok. Then things got crazy. Elder Dolbin in a matter of seconds turned white. He looked at me and said, "Elder Low! I'm going to pass out!" and he dropped. Elder Chung (one of the Elders in the room and our new zone leader) and I caught him before he hit the ground. We all got super scared. Then, the branch president walked in. He said he felt the need to come back and saw that Elder Dolbin had just passed out. He told Elder Wirthlin and I to go get help.

We ran to the front desk and got a security guard. He got there, started playing with Elder Dolbin's leg and it started bleeding like crazy.

Around midnight, we had cleaned his leg up again. He asked me to give a blessing. Elder Chung and I gave the blessing (with oil) and Elder Dolbin went to the doctor the next morning. He's ok. He apparently had cut all the way to the bone so his body was freaking out. He's fine now though.

That's the biggest thing that happened this week. I got a new teacher. Her name is sister Tingey and she served in Fukuoka. She's very nice.

I'm trying my best. Good news is Elder Dolbin and I are learning tons. I love the rest of my branch and the work is HUGE!

So, Elder Mikkola on the right from Finland and his companion Elder Lazorro from Brazil. Lazorro Choro has been here for 15 weeks. The MTC lost his visa. He's incredible.

This MTC is too full. There are too many people at meals. Everyone is always late.

Anyway, I'm out of time. I love you all and miss you.

Hope to make you proud.
Love,

Elder Randy Kazuhiro Low