SO, I will only email you guys one last time after this....It's a little bit crazy. I'm getting really scared. Haha, It's a little bit ridiculous. I had a good week though.

This last Saturday, the Omuta branch went to the Fukuoka temple so I had the opportunity to go with them. It was my first time going to the temple to do a session in Fukuoka. It was SO great. I was so happy and it was also the first time for me to go to the temple with the new changes. I had so much dendo fire after that. AND the Fukuoka temple is beautiful. I just love the temple. Also, while I was there, I ran into Nakaima Kaicho. He's the Stake President of the Okinawa stake. I was so excited to see him. He told me all about Naha and how things are. He's wonderful and it was great to get to work with him there.

This last week, we found a sweet couple to teach. The K couple. They brought us into their house and tried to give us tea and coffee. It was a great teaching opportunity and they are going to let us come back. They wouldn't stop feeding us. Haha, they gave us just about everything they could find to feed us. They were very sweet.

T san is kinda sick. It looks like we can't visit her. Maybe we'll drop off some fruit for her family or something. She just doesn't have any hope for anything and because of that she won't try anything. We're really just trying to lift her up now. We'll see how it goes.

Other than that, I'm still just going as hard as I can. I'm getting so so tired and temptation tells me that I can't really accomplish anything in two weeks, but I'm still going as hard as I can. Haha, I didn't think that the end would be this rough. I still love it though. I love sharing this Gospel and I love representing my Savior here in Japan. I'll be emailing on Tuesday next week so that will be my last email from here.

Ahhhh. that's so sad.

Anyway, I'll make every second count!

Love you all,

Elder Low

Me and Elder Glover in downtown Naha

 

As far as this week, we were in the rain a lot. It was kinda rough, but we saw some good things happen. First, we went out to eat with the couple missionaries. We had the cleanest  apartment in the zone so they took us up on base to eat. It was way fun....but kinda crazy. The Military bases are pretty strict. I thought that it would be nice because everyone is American and we would fit in.....Haha, I was wrong. We weren't allowed to wear our nametags, but EVERYONE knew who we were. It was still nice though.

This week, we had a mission wide goal to have 200 non members in Sacrament meeting. It was a pretty huge goal because this mission has never broken 100. We got the whole zone pumped up and we all worked hard to achieve this goal. Elder Gordon and I were able to take C san and F san to church, as well as a couple older investigators. In the end, the mission was able to achieve the goal with 208 non members at church. It was a miracle. I'm sure Kaicho is having a party in the Honbu.

So, you remember how I told you about how C san is kinda interesting? So, he went to his Baptist church last week and broke his foot there. He thinks that it might have been God punishing him. Haha, so he's getting easier to meet. It's been great.

Today, our wonderful Ward mission leader is taking all the missionaries to the Aquarium. That one up in Nago! :) I'm pretty excited. Nobody else in Naha has gone, so they are all freaking out. However, today is transfer day. I'm pretty nervous. I'm the most likely to leave the zone. I've been here the longest. ....but I don't really want to go. I'm pretty nervous about it. I would be fine finishing my mission here, but I don't think that's what's in store. I'll go wherever I'm asked.....but I'm kinda scared.

Anyway, that's pretty much how my week has been. Lots of working hard in the rain and sun. I love Okinawa and the people here. It's the best.

The district

Dinner at the Camachos

 

I love you all.

Naha skies. You never know when it will rain.

So, another tough one this week. Mostly busy, but it was good. We had interviews on Wednesday with President which was great. I spent the entire day at the church translating for the Japanese Elders and Sisters. It was a pretty long day.  I was the last person to be interviewed and Kaicho was pretty worn out, so I didn't have lots of time to talk to him. It was a quick talk about the Zone and what we were going to to do.

AP's and the Naha Elders

Also, I had the chance to go out to Itoman to do splits. It was a really good exchange. I was really impressed with the Elders there. I worked with Elder Silver. He's a really hard worker. Elder Silver has a lot of confidence and he knows the vision. I had a lot of fun working with him.

With Elder Silver on the beach at Itoman

In other news, we saw Brother K yesterday. He's really struggling. He has a hernia and can hardly move. His diabetes is also getting pretty bad. He didn't come to church. He seemed pretty upset about that. He really really wants to go to church because he gets depressed when he's not there. We're working on getting him there.

F san is doing well. He also didn't come to church this week, but we were able to meet with him and talk about some more commandments and he is willing to follow them. He's pretty solid. I think he's still a little bit nervous for Baptism, but we still have a little bit of time with him.

Surprisingly, I find that the more I learn Japanese, the harder it gets to talk to people. I actually know that they are denying me. Haha, it's forcing me to be a lot more bold, but I think it's a good thing. I'm learning to be "politely bold". Haha, I had a couple bad experiences before. I'm getting better though.

Dinner at a member's house

So, we had a the worst garbage experience ever. Because of weather, the garbage person wasn't able to come for a really long time, so we've kept our garbage bags out on the balcony. They rescheduled a day, but we had Elders staying in our apartment that day and totally forgot about it. We remembered when we heard the song (In Japan, icecream truck songs are played on garbage trucks) and we freaked out. We ran out to the balcony and grabbed all the garbage to take it down. As we were running down the stairs, Elder Miyanishi broke one of the bags and a REALLY old onion and it's juices started to poor out. Elder Miyanishi started freaking out! "うんこよりもくさい!!!!"　I'm sure everyone in the apartment heard it. In the end, we missed the truck and had a HUGE garbage clean up. Because the garbage broke at the top of the stairs, the juices dripped ALL the way down and the entire apartment complex from floor 5 to 1 smelled worse than......Haha, well, Elder Miyanishi said it best. We had to clean the ENTIRE apartment complex. It only took about an hour, but it was crazy. Everyone in the apartment was really kind and had a sense of humor so we didn't get into trouble, but it was nuts.

Anyway, that was my week. It's going well. Still loving the work and the people here. I love you all.

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

Well, this week was just really, really busy. Like I said, we had a training meeting for all the missionaries in the zone. Actually, we had two of them. We had a really wonderful training on Tuesday with everyone on Okinawa, and then Elder Gordon and I flew down to Miyako (see it here) to do the training with them there. It was really stressful. However, everything went really well. The missionaries seemed to all love the training. I was pretty relieved. Also this week, we had a companion exchange with the Miyako Elders.....That was Elder Redd and his new bean. It was absolutely fantastic. Elder Redd is probably the strongest missionary in the zone. He knows what he is doing and he knows how to train his companion. I was really impressed. I haven't had such a good exchange in a really long time!

After training in Okinawa

The only bad part was that it was SO rainy. On Friday, Elder Redd and I had planned to work all day together. When we headed out on our bikes, the rain and wind got way crazy. By the time we were out in the city (not really a city....there isn't much out in Miyako) there was flash floods. It was so crazy! As we rode our bikes, our feet were being completely submerged by water.....our rain gear didn't really help at that point. It got so windy that we started tipping over on our bikes. I had to call the other Elders and tell them it wasn't safe to come out to Dendo. Elder Redd and I headed back and then we had an all day study/practice session. It was so fun. We went through a lot of PMG and did a lot of Practice lessons. It was actually a really good use of time.

Rain

In Miyako

Miyako is struggling. There are about 3 active members on that island.  Elder Redd was reading the Prophecy by President Eyring about Japan. The missionaries down on Miyako are getting discouraged. However, we were still able to find some new investigators and teach some awesome lessons. People were pretty surprised that we were working so hard even though it was raining.

So, I'm pretty tired this week. It's a good tired, but I think after we are done emailing here, we are going to take a big nap. We have to do reporting, as well......Haha, I can't wait to sleep.

We came home and went to church and it was great. This week, the ward called the missionaries to start translating sacrament meeting for all the english speakers. It looks like we are going to start next week. We'll get to sit up on the stand with a little microphone that is hooked up to headsets in the congregation.....So cool!

Anyway, I'm just really excited to work in my own area this week. We are planning on working with the members really hardcore so that we can get them involved in this awesome work. We'll let you know how that goes.

Thank you for all your emails of encouragement. I love you all.

Elder Low

As you know, today is transfer day. Sorry I didn't warn you earlier this week. I'm staying. No surprise there.....BUT, here is one interesting change about this week: Elder Dursteler is still the other Zone leader.....but he's not going to be my companion. I am now with Elder Wells. Poor guy wasn't on the Christmas card......so you can't look him up that way. Hahaha, the honbu kinda forgot about him for the christmas card. BUT he's a great guy. He has an interesting personality. He doesn't smile a lot, but I think he's a really happy guy. HAha, just kinda a tough guy. I'm really excited though.

Also, in other news, we're still working with K san......and he quit smoking. He's only quit for 6 days....but that's still pretty good. We're really excited for him. He started showering and dressing nicely every day.. Also, he doesn't have any suicidal thoughts anymore. It's amazing to see the difference. You can see how much this gospel has already blessed his life. We're coming quickly up on his baptismal date. We're going to have to see him just about every single day from here on out. His date is the 6th of April.

I don't really know what else to tell you. I'm going to try sending pictures through the computer today, but we'll see what happens.

I'm really excited for this next transfer. We're going to be seeing tons of miracles. I can't wait.

.....until then, we have a lot of stuff we have to accomplish. We have to go to the airport and help all the new elders come in and all the old elders go out. Then we get to fly to Fukuoka again....I don't know. It's kinda nice. I get to feel like a really rich guy. The honbu pays for me to go to Fukuoka and back....It's a pretty pricey ticket.....I'm really lucky.

I love the pictures of Grandma and Grandpa's new rooms. Made me laugh a little bit. Grandpa really likes his guns....Kinda a scary room. ;)

Anyway, I don't really have much else to say. I'm still just pushing along. We'll see how this picture thing works out. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Low

I have had a really busy week this week. I flew up to Fukuoka and had a great time with all the zone leaders in the mission. It was kinda weird. I had just been in Fukuoka two days earlier....It's crazy. My mission just spent a couple thousand dollars on me so that I could come up to Fukuoka. I feel really blessed. Also, because we have the islands Miyako and Ishigaki in our  zone, we had to have a special Skype training meeting with the two islands. In other words, Elder Dursteller and I have spent the last week training the zone about what we learned from Fukuoka.

The zone is really great. Lots of cool people.... My companion Elder Dursteller is WAY out of my league. His Japanese is perfect. His teaching is amazing. He's a spiritual giant. I feel so bad. I'm trying to keep up. He's just a really really good missionary. I'm learning so much from him.

This week, we made another Baptismal date with our investigator. He's kinda crazy....to say it simply, he randomly cancels appointments and then shows up to them anyway. It's gotten to the point that we just show up when he cancels and he still comes. BUT he is really interested in the Book of Mormon and wants revelation from God.

Other than that, this next month is Zone conference and the mission is going to have a 7 to 8 hour zone conference. President Gustafsen is having all the missionaries prepare to demonstrate how to do all aspects of the work. I'm so so excited. It's going to be really fun.

Other than that, I'm still working hard and we're still seeing great success. The Ward is great and HUGE. I can't wait to see more miracles. We have already been so blessed.

Elder Low

Well, I'm back on the island. I transferred down to the city of Naha in Okinawa and I'm the zone leader with Elder Dursteller from Provo. We have a huge Investigator pool in comparison to Isahaya.  It's also really nice to have a companion that knows Japanese. Don't get me wrong, I love my companions........It's a nice change though.

The other day, we set a baptismal date for an investigator here in Naha. He really really needs our help. He set a Baptismal date kinda cuz he's lost all hope. He's a big focus of ours.

Also, my roommate in Naha....is Elder Brackenbury again. The guy from the MTC that was really......fun. He's kinda weird, but I'm excited to be with him again. He's super nice and he likes me lots. :)

Today, we are flying back to Fukuoka for a conference with the mission leaders and President. We just kinda report how our zones are doing and all that stuff......it's kinda scary though. I don't really know the zone. I'm only been here for like 4 days. I'm basically leaving that all up to Elder Dursteller. The zone is quite an interesting zone. We have two islands off of Okinawa. Miyako and Ishigaki. Sounds like we will get to go to Miyako for a little some day.

So, Elder Dursteller is pretty much a boss. He's a couple years older than me. He's 22. He is way cool though and FREAKING fluent and Japanese. He can read and speak perfectly. It makes me feel kinda stupid, but I'm learning so much from him.

Anyway, that's all I have. I'm sorry about pictures. I will get back to those soon. I've been super busy.

Love you,
Elder Low

April 29, 2013 - Another week goes by

 

Congrats to Jake and Jess for graduating. It looks like it was quite a fun time. I wish I could have been with you.

 

So, not much to report on this week. Elder Gandy and I still just bike around and talk to people. Not a lot of people respond. Our only hope for investigators is college students because they haven't lived here as long as everyone else in Nago that have met the missionaries a million times.

 

Also, transfers were this week. President sent my best friend in the mission, Elder Chung away. I was really bummed. He was the only other person in my zone who couldn't speak Japanese. He flew to Japan with me and now I'm the baby of the district. We have two new bean missionaries, but they are both native and can speak fluently....obviously. On the other hand, my district leader just finished his mission so we got a new district leader: Elder Kurose from Hokkaido. He was my zone leader last transfer, but now he's my district leader and he's training a bean. I'm super excited. He's an amazing missionary and the coolest guy.

We are done with all the lessons with M-san. He's beginning to change. He's a lot happier and he is getting along with the ward. This week's big project is getting him a baptismal date.

Also, we're still teaching our investigator from China. We teach him in English so that's always a pleasure. He's amazing. He has a huge desire to do good and he was freaking out when we told him that Joseph Smith was killed. Haha, he actually had a problem believing in Joseph Smith. I told him that the only way that he could know for sure was by reading the Book of Mormon, but I also mentioned that I didn't think Joseph Smith would endure all he did if he was just making everything up. He really wants to know more about Joseph Smith so we're going to watch the Joseph Smith movie with him.

I really am trying to send pictures. They are super stubborn. But I have them. I'm doing my best. Click on any photo to enlarge:

 

 

Our Zone trip to the bowling alley where I won the contest last week.

 

 

The Okinawa Zone

At Nakijin Castle

The beach in Okinawa

 

 

I'll keep working hard and I love you all.

Love,

Elder Low

April 15, 2013

Lots to talk about this week.

First, I told you that the president told us to spread Eikaiwa (English Class). Well, we did, but there was lots of confusion so we weren't able to go to Ishikawa and help the elders down there. BUT on Tuesday we had the Zone Leaders and the Ishikawa elders come up here and they helped us pass out 2200 flyers in 4 hours. It was crazy. We talked to everyone and it was tons of fun.

 

2200 flyers (Click photo to enlarge)

Our sign advertising the class

 

 

Then this last Friday we came down to Futenma for General Conference. There are six Elders staying the the Futenma apartment right now. It's crazy! So fun though. And yes...Conference was amazing. We are actually still down here because we have a Zone P-day today. I'm stoked! It'll be so fun to be with the entire zone.

 

A couple things I wanted to tell you about that were kinda important

 

1: We had Conference and our investigator came down. He's still not retaining a lot but he has such a desire to be part of the ward. On Sunday we ate lunch as a ward and he was just another one of the members. It's the first time that's happened since I met him. He just has trouble learning. We don't set up any appointments or ask him to come to church. He does that on his own.....We just got to keep praying about him and see how things work out with him.

 

2. I got to go on splits with Elder Ogita.....He speaks very little English. It was Awesome! I feel like the language is finally coming along. But anyway, here's the situation that happened. We went to a door in the pouring rain, (in our rain suits of course) and a man answered with a smile. We then told him that we were misisonaries for The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints. His smile disappeared. He told us to leave because he knew who we were. I asked what he knows about Mormons. He said he doesn't know who the Mormons are. He only knew Christians. Then I asked him what he knows about Christian Churches. He then yelled at us and told us that we were terrible people that murder and killed people. I was shocked. I said that our church doesn't do that. Then his wife came over and said something along the lines of There are not more horrible people on this earth than us and that we should be ashamed of ourselves and that this world would be a better place if we were gone. Then they slammed the door.

 

That happened last night. It's been bugging me ever since. She doesn't know us. I just wish she could give us a chance. I hated it. She didn't let us speak and until she found out were Christians, she was totally genki. So, I've really been thinking about that.

 

Anyway, no much else happened. Conference was more fun than the Super Bowl though. I loved it. It's weird....I'm kinda sad about Sister Dalton and the presidency being replaced even though I was never in the Young Women's program. Haha

 

How's the house doing? I'm missing the house and my car.....but this is getting to be too much fun. I'm actually speaking Japanese now. It's really broken and sometimes people look at me like an idiot but it's fun. I got a letter from Sarah Parker. That was so nice of her. I need to write her back. I don't have tons of time this P-day though cuz we're about to head over to the zone p- day.

 

Anyway, I love you all and I'm going to buy a new card reader this week. Also, hopefully a Dictionary. I know the one I want now.

 

A really great bowl of ramen

View of Nago

 

I'm doing great. I hope you all are too.

Love,

Elder Randy Kazuhiro Low

March 25, 2013 - Week 2

Pictures of Nago

 

 

So, I always start these letters and don't answer your questions. So, first of all, I bought a bike. It's really nice but hard to take care of because of the humiditiy. I'm working on it though. I love the foood........was that even a question. Haha, honestly, it's better than anything ESPECIALLY the MTC.

 

So, big news this week. We went to zone meeting this week. There was two big announcements. The first was this: There are now 112 missionaries in the Fukuoka mission. By November, there will be over 240 missionaries. Yeah, so the whole meeting was about how we ALL need to prepare to be trainers. That totally freaked me out. What the HECK! They said it will be about 3 transfers and all of us will probably be trainers. I have got to get this language down!

 

The other announcement was that we are now free to email friends. The area seventy made a huge announcement. So, no. I'm not breaking rules. You could probably find out on the internet or something. I would really appreciate some email addresses of my friends. That would be super nice.

 

Elder Gandy and I were in the top 10 in contacting numbers in the mission for this week. It was nuts! However, finding is super hard. The residents of Nago are either leaving or have lived here for years. We only have three investigators right now and now of them have baptismal dates anymore. Also, fun fact, my bishop made the receipes for all the Teriyaki Stix. He cooked lunch for us after church once. He's the bomb.

 

Nago has lots of "interesting people." We run into them daily. The biggest one is actaully a celebrity on Okinawa. He rides around Okinawa on a motorcycle and sits under bridges waving pom poms. He has a helemet with hundreds of flowers on it. You could probably google him because everyone knows him.

 

Yes, it was easy to find a picture of him on Google...

 

 

We went and talked to him. He was super nice. He told us that he doesn't believe in religion and he wants to start a religion of natural science. He says he plans to live to one hundred million years old so that he can prove that there is no God. Other than that, he was super nice and he says he loves talking to missionaries because then he gets to speak English.

 

That was tons of fun though. I'm really sad about Elder Wirthlin. I really miss him.....but there is a good chance that I could be his trainer. That would be a miracle. Also, it's super rainy here. Luckly, I have a SICK rain suit. Thank you so much for sending that. It's been a life saver. The rain is HEAVY. It is also super sudden. in two seconds, you can be baptized in rain and not know it.

 

Anyway, that's all for this week.

 

Me and Brother Brinley, my MTC teacher

 

Love,

Elder Low

March 18, 2013 - First Week in Japan

Hello!

It's nuts over here! I'm don't really know how to begin. I really have had so much traveling the last week that there isn't a TON to report on. Let me begin.

So, I left on Monday morning to the airport and called mom and dad. It was so crazy to hear your voices. I really loved it. Then we got on the plane and left for Seattle. Everyone in my group is so cool! I love my Doki. :)

We landed in Seattle and we were there for a few hours. I had the chance to speak to a few Japanese people with Elder Otani (one of the Native Japanese Elders). It was so fun. I still have lots to learn, but I felt like I was understanding a lot of the Japanese being spoken. We also had our first meal that wasn't MTC food! It was tasted SOOoooo good. I was in heaven.

Then, we had our ten hour plane ride all the way over to Japan. It was kinda hard to not turn on a movie. The guy next to me was only watching movies with vampires.....hahaha, he was watching Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer and Breaking Dawn Part Two. I thought it was funny....cuz he was like....50 or something. It was kinda awkard sitting by him. He also really didn't want to let me out of the row to go to the bathroom, but eventually he let me go. Otherwise, it was a pretty good flight.

When we landed in Tokyo, I was so so so happy. Everyone else was exhausted, but I was too excited. I remember landing in that airport 6 years ago. I was having trouble sitting still. THEN we found out that our flight was delayed because there was a Typhoon and we couldn't fly to Fukuoka quite yet. Haha, yeah, so we spent another two hours in Tokyo.

We finally left for Fukuoka and I slept the entire flight. We landed at about 11:30. It was really late. The APs and the President and his wife were waiting there for us. They took us back to the Honbu. Man, that was the coolest thing EVER. We were sleeping underneath the Fukuoka Temple. It was also a really nice house. The president is one of the nicest people. His wife is way cool too. She had me and some other Elders do some chores around the house the next day......It was actually way fun. I miss homey chores.

So, now I'm in Nago and my companions name is Elder Gandy. He's really nice. and yes......it's pretty hot. But it's pretty. My big worry though: People in Nago have a heavy heavy dialect.....Yeah. The Native missionaries have trouble understanding them. That scene in "The Best Two Years" where Elder Calhoon says "That's not the language they taught me in the MTC"....yeah. That's me right now. IT IS SOOO HARD! They also talk super fast and have a heavy accent. It kinda sounds like spanish. I feel really dumb.

Anyway, I don't have tons of time. I love you all and I will send more pictures soon.

Love,

Elder Randy Kazuhiro Low