I am not in Naha right now. We flew up for Mission Leader Council. So, I'm spending P day with the Okinawa zone leaders in Fukuoka. I'm way stoked. It's going to be pretty fun.

Forgive me for today's email. I don't have a lot of time.

This last week, we had a exchange with the Yonabaru Elders. That is a tough area. The Elders there are working so hard. There is just not a lot of people home during the day. Also, with all the hills and heat it's really easy to get tired. However, those Elders are working super hard and they know what they are doing. I worked with Elder Miyanishi. I was so impressed. He had planned his day so well. We never had a second of time. We were going the entire day. He packed the day in so well, and he had his travel time down. I was really impressed. He's also a really good teacher.

Also this week, F came to church. I was really nervous because he's a really shy guy and he really doesn't like being in front of people. He really liked it though. He was taking notes during Sacrament meeting and he also had the chance to talk to the bishop about his situation with work and his physical problems. He has a mild back injury. The bishop was really good to him and we were able to figure out a game plan for F san and he seems pretty hopeful. We'll have another chance to meet him later this week as well. Things are just looking good with him.

Along with all that, we're still working as hard as we can. It is so hot. There is no way to not smell bad. I always have deodorant and all these other things to keep the sweat down, but it's not possible. I just feel bad knocking on people's doors looking like I just ran a marathon. It makes people wonder why we are out here though. AND we get lots of free drinks. Sometimes they are tea, but it's always nice to have people watching out for us. Okinawan people are either really really nice.....or SUPER rude....Or sometimes just crazy. It makes dendo fun though.

Anyway, I'm really sorry about this letter. I really don't have lots of time. I just hope you all know I'm super grateful for your support and I love you all! I'm doing the best I can. The church is true!

Elder Low

So, this week was a little rough. We got a surprise call on Tuesday afternoon. President called all the zone leaders for a Mission Leader Council. So, Elder Gordon and I left the next day to Fukuoka with the Ginowan zone leaders. Those Ginowan zone leaders are the best. They are fun and fun to be around, but they also know how to be missionaries.

So, we all went to MLC thinking that we were going to get yelled at. However, it was a really good meeting. Kaicho asked everyone to share specific plans in order to achieve our goals. We shared that one of our goals was to get the missionaries every teaching opportunity as possible. There are so many wards in the zone that ask the missionaries to teach Gospel Principles and we usually try to give that to the ward, but we talked about how maybe that's a really good teaching chance for the missionaries. When we shared that at MLC though, it seemed that a lot of the missionaries were bugged about it.

Some of the other zone leaders were talking about how Japanese isn't important to be a successful missionary. I think they might have had the impression that I'm leading a Japanese school. In the end, President backed me up and said he really liked the idea. Later in the meeting, he actually committed all of us to be teaching as many lessons as possible....including Gospel Principles in order for the missionaries to be able to speak more fluidly. I think a lot of the missionaries in the mission aren't learning this language. It's so difficult.

So, this Sunday, I gave a talk in church. I talked about the blessings of sharing the gospel. I talked about Mom and Dad and their "How they met" story. (by the way, all the missionaries in my mission think my parents have the cutest story. KACHAOW!) The ward seemed to be really touched. It was wonderful. After that, we taught Gospel Principles class, because the ward asked us to and then we taught a special PMG class to the youth of the ward. That's going to start being a thing here. The bishop was really pleased with us this last week.

As far as the work, our area has had a lot of neglect recently. We had the week away in Miyako and the week away with the Yonabaru issue and the trip to Fukuoka. All of our investigators have kinda disappeared. I was so upset with our numbers last night. However, we are going to pick it up this week. We still have our couple and we're going to go find a couple more people this week so we can start teaching people again. Our golden couple's appointment was the day that we were scheduled to come to Fukuoka so we had to postpone our meeting, but they are doing really well. I'm SO excited to meet them again. They are SO cool! I can' wait.

Anyway, thank you all for your support. I am overwhelmed with all your emails of encouragement. I feel pretty special. So thank you. I love you all so much.

Going to make you proud,

Elder Low