We had another busy week this week. This last Tuesday and Wednesday we had to do Zone training meetings with all the missionaries here on Okinawa and the ones down on the islands. It went really well. We did a training on teaching people without a Christian background. All the missionaries seemed to like it.

Also this week we had a lesson with F. I wrote about him forever ago. He called us because he wanted a job and he's getting desperate......so I told him to meet us at the church and he came. We talked about his situation and....He's in pretty bad circumstances. Every day, he walks for hours because he can't sit down. He's almost always thinking about suicide and his family situation isn't very good either. When we meet him he doesn't seem like he has depression, but whenever he talks about his personal life, it is very clear how bad he's doing.

We promised him the blessings of the Gospel and he said that he didn't know if he could believe it, but we didn't want to give up on him so we asked him to try. He was able to make a Baptismal date for the 24th of August. He's not super interested, but he agreed to give it a shot.

On Wednesday, we went to English class for the first time in a very long time. It was really fun. However, right after that we had an appointment with the Stake Presidency about all the Baptismal dates in the zone. I was very pleased to report that we had one in every single ward in the zone. The Stake President was very impressed. The Missionaries are working very hard. I was so excited. The zone is doing very well.

Me and my companion in the rain.

The heat has gotten a lot worse in the last couple days. Humidity is so high that we start sweating the second we step outside. I'm getting really tan though. Even though it is getting super hot down here.....I don't really want to leave. I love it down here. Also, today is our transfer calls. We'll be finding that out later, but next Saturday is a huge conference with ALL the members on Okinawa. If I don't transfer, I'll get to see Brother Miyagi from Nago! I hear he is the best member missionary up there. He gives me a call every once in a while (Technically against the rules, but nobody gave him my number.....I don't know how he knows it. President laughed when I told him about it). He always invites me to Nago ward activities. I don't think he understands that I can't go to them, but he called me and said that I had better come to the Okinawa conference. I hope he doesn't get mad if I transfer.

Naha at night

The last Monday, we got to go to Zone p-day and spend the day with all the missionaries in this zone and Ginowan zone. It was so awesome. We played dodgeball for an hour and then watched an approved movie. It was called Ephraim's Rescue. It was probably the best Church film I have ever seen. It was about Ephraim Hanks. It had two people that I knew as well. (James Gaisford from my EFY company and my English teacher Mr. Anderson) I was absolutely amazed. It might have been because I haven't seen a movie in a year and a half.....but I would recommend it to all of you. Maybe watch it for FHE or something.

In other news, I'm translating more than ever now. We now have 2 Japanese missionaries in our zone that don't speak English at all so I had to translate ZTM for them. Then, there are also about 7 non-Japanese-speakers in our ward and now I'm translating for them. Also, I was assigned to translate for somebody in Stake Conference next week. I feel so bad for everyone that I translate for. It is SO hard. I always fall behind and then start simplifying everything. It also wears me out. Haha, it's a mental battle to think of words fast enough. When I translate into English, I often say the words in Japanese on accident. We never say "Study". Missionaries always use Japanese for that word, so the poor people listening to me ask what the heck I'm talking about and then I fall behind. However, I  do feel pretty cool when I remember really difficult words. I think the missionaries in my zone just think I have Horrible Japanese though.

Anyway, that was my week. I love you all and hope you had an awesome Father's day. Things are going really well out here.

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

I had an unforgettable experience at church yesterday. It was pretty amazing. Elder Tashiro (Area Authority) came to our sacrament meeting. It was completely unexpected. The ward put his name as the only name on the program and everyone in the ward was very shocked and excited. He walked into the chapel and saw that his name was the only name on the program and thought that was inappropriate. So, he asked for the Bishop and two missionaries to bear testimony. He asked one of the sisters and my companion Elder Gordon. They didn't really have anytime to prepare, but they all gave great talks.

Then he spoke about Baptism. It was kinda interesting. Most of the congregation had already been baptized. Not that it's a bad topic, but I was a little surprised that he choose that. Anyway, it was a very, very powerful talk. Elder Tashiro is a very genki guy. He's pretty bouncy when he talks and has a lot of enthusiasm. He's really easy to listen to.

Anyway, in the middle of his talk, he started talking about our responsibility to share our baptismal experiences with our friends and people who don't know about baptism. Then he jumped into talking about this "friend" of his that sees lots of success in missionary work from testifying about baptism. He said that you could see the change that baptism had made on this friend. Then he said that the friend was going to come and speak for all of us. Then he looked right at me.

"Elder Low, will you come up here and share your Baptismal experience?"

I was pretty freaked out. He spent all this time talking about this "Amazing" friend and I was getting really excited to hear from this guy. I didn't realize that he was talking about me. I didn't even think he knew my name. Then, out of nowhere, he asked me to bear my testimony about Baptism. I made the long walk up to the stand. I had no idea what I was going to talk about so I just shared my Baptismal experience and my testimony. I'd never really felt so much about my Baptismal Experience. I was 8 just like almost everyone else I know, but for some reason, I started crying at the stand over this experience I was sharing.

Afterwards, Elder Tashrio jumped up and said, "Thank you my friend! I love you!" and then he hugged me. Haha, he's a great guy.

So, I threw that experience in the journal and smiled all day.

Also this week we went up to Fukuoka for our presentation on how we were going to help our zone.  It was kinda a weird meeting. He asked all the zone leaders to pull together a special presentation to show how their zones are doing. It would usually take a lot of time because there are 10 zones in our mission. We went first, and after our presentation, Kaicho (President) talked to all the zone leaders about what we were going to do and then everyone else only had about 5 minutes to present what they were doing. I felt pretty bad. The only thing we really talked about was the language of the mission. Most of the missionaries in the mission can't speak Japanese. ....Like, at all. We have missionaries that have been out for more than a year that still can't communicate with anyone. That was the main focus of most of the meeting.

Also, this week, Elder Gordon and I are going to be doing nothing but training missionaries. We have our ZTM on Tuesday, and then Kaicho is sending us down to Miyako for the rest of the week so that we can train the missionaries down there. So, we are going to be really busy.

Last thing, Y-san is done with all of her Cancer treatments! She's getting much better! I'm so excited for her. I've been praying for her since the beginning of my mission. It looks like the sisters can probably start teaching her this next week or so.

Things are looking good and I'm loving the work.

Anyway, I gotta go. I love you all.

Elder Low

Elder Glover, Elder Gordon and me.....We were very tired.

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

 

English Class

Elder Dursteler found these. ‏

Elder Glover and me ‏

My Area.

(Click Image to Enlarge)

 

 

OK! Quick experience. I got yelled at by an Okinawan who told me to go home because I didn't understand the Okinawan people. I told him to help me understand, but he just yelled at me and told that I was just another American. Then he went on and on about how the American's came and killed his ancestors and how we were all about war and violence. He slammed the door in my face and I felt like garbage.

 

THEN! Later this last week, we had a dinner for fast sunday. We ate at the Yoza family's house. They were so nice. There house is kinda like Grandma and Grandpa's. Grandparents on the bottom and the kids up top. Anyway, Grandpa Yoza was born in 1929....when Okinawa didn't have electricity. He's also a really quite old grumpy looking guy....like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino....only Japanese. Anyway, I shared this experience about the man and he stood up and grabbed me by the collar and said, in English (I hadn't said two words to the guy before so I didn't know he spoke English) "Come here Elder. I have something to show you".......I was pretty scared, but he threw me into a chair and started digging through his bookshelf. Then he threw this huge book into my lap and said "Look at this."

 

It was a huge book about the war of Okinawa and it was a pretty gross book. Lots of dead people.....Then he told me about how he had fought in the war. He was 16 years old. He saw all his brothers die in the war. Also, 72 of his classmates died. He was  a POW for about a day. Then he said, "They told us that the American's were not human. They were a demon. A monster." Then he flipped to a page of a American helping children and another of American's feeding babies. "Does this look like a monster to you?" he said.

 

He said that the whole thing was Japan's fault and he hated Japan after the war. It was pretty intense. I learned so much. He's an amazing guy too!

 

As far as the work goes, we have another suicidal investigator, but he's getting happier as we go....still pretty depressed, but it's a work in progress.

 

Things are going great. President called me and said that he was really amazed with the NAHA zone numbers for the month of April. He told us that Elder Dursteler and I could take a break.....Unfortunately, Elder Wells and I had a couple appointments.....so Elder Dursteler took a break and we worked in the rain. Haha, It was good though. 

 

Anyway, I will let you know if I transfer or not! I love you all and hope you have a great week. Talk to you all on Sunday!

 

With the Young Single Adults

 

 

Elder Low

 

Well, it's been a pretty long week. It's been a good one, but lots of weird things going on. I really don't know what to report. We have been working really hard, but it was just one of those slow weeks where you kinda get down from being rejected so many times. It happens though. Here are some of the good things that are going on.

 

K kyoudai is doing awesome. The only problem is he lost his apartment key.....haha, and he doesn't have a spare. Poor guy. He's spending most of his time in his apartment because he's scared someone will take it while he's gone one day. Haha, he's a funny guy. BUT, he  has such a testimony. Last Sunday I taught Gospel Principles about the atonement. When we went to visit him the other day, I asked him what he remembered about the Plan of Salvation. He said that he doesn't really remember anything....but then continued to draw out the entire atonement. How it works and what we have to do. He drew the two obstacles from the fall : death and sin. Then he drew how we overcome them; through the Resurrection and Gospel of Jesus Christ we can all return to Heavenly Father.....then he said, "I'm sorry. I've forgotten most of it." I was pretty impressed though. If he taught what he showed us to an Investigator, it would have been solid. He's a solid guy, and now he laughs....Something that didn't happen 5 months ago.

 

Also, I was able to talk to Y san again. Her chemotherapy is pretty rough and we still haven't been able to have a formal lesson with her. However, she's praying on her own and reports that she feels God's love. I hope we'll be able to meet with her soon. For now, we just pray that she'll be ok.

 

Elder Dursteler and I had a junkai in Yonabaru with Elders Ho and Robinson. They are great Elders and both work really hard. It was a little rough though. With Elder Robinson, we worked all day long and hardly even saw anybody. We tried housing and it wasn't really effective, so I thought we would go streeting, but nobody is out on the street. It's a tough place, but those two are really great.

 

Rain season just started up. It makes Dendo a little more difficult. I really hate the rain when you're riding a bike. But missionaries who work hard in the rain get blessings. 

 

Geez, I don't know what else to say. Church has been pretty rough. I was surprised attacked again and asked to teach Gospel Principles again. The sister missionaries were assigned, but they "weren't prepared" so I got to do it......It wasn't so bad though. I think the ward mission leader was a little upset though. He sat in my lesson and asked why I was teaching again and that he had asked the sisters......So, I don't think I'm going to be teaching again next week. However, he did comment that he loved the lesson...Haha, probably just to be polite.

 

I love our Ward mission leader. He does way too much for us and he knows missionary work really really well.

 

Other than that, I had a pretty average week. I'm sorry I didn't have much to report this week.

 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Low