I've  had a really busy week. It was a little rough.

On Tuesday morning, I woke up and had no voice at all. Nothing but air coming out of my throat. It was awful because my body wasn't really hurting or weak. I had plenty of energy to work, but because I couldn't talk to anyone, Sister Gustafson had me grounded. I had to stay in the apartment all day long. The voice was still way bad on Wednesday so I had to have a member take me to the hospital. We went in and the doctor gave me all these meds.....but failed to tell me what was wrong. I guess he knew what he was doing though because the meds fixed me right up.

On Thursday, we had to go to the airport to pick up all the Elders from the two islands. They came up for Zone Conference. It was really really busy with them because we had 10 Elders in our little apartment and then in Oroku they had about 10 Elders. It was really rough....especially cooking. I made SO much Curry. It was really good though. Also, Zone Conference went really well.

Zone Conference (Click any photo to enlarge.)

After Zone Conference, we had a meeting with the entire Stake Presidency, Ginowan Zone Leaders, the AP's and Kaicho. It was such an intense meeting. I can tell that Kaicho was a pretty serious business man before the mission. At one point, he had everyone in the room on the phone. He really gets down to business. He also wants us to double our Eikaiwa in Naha. That's a pretty big task that we are about to jump on. It's going to be exciting.

After the meeting, Kaicho asked me for our Zone actuals for the month of June. I was so excited to report them. We had more New Investigators and more Baptismal dates than any other zone in the mission. He was so impressed. I was so Ureshii. This zone is doing so well.

Also, Elder Gordon and I found 7 new investigators this week. One of them came to church. Her name is Suzuka.....but she goes by Suzy.She's 20 years old and she's a friend of one of the members here in Naha. She came to sports night and said she's always had interest in the church. It was pretty fun having her at church. There are LOTS of young men, but not lots of young women so the young men were all excited. Haha.

Dinner at a member's house

The only tough thing about this week is we made about three appointments for tomorrow.....and we are not allowed to dendo tomorrow. Apparently, there is a huge Typhoon coming in. Kaicho called and said that the winds will be strong enough to knock a bus over. We were given assignments to prepare today for tomorrow and to not even open up our doors tomorrow. I'm a little concerned. I think everything will be ok though. It will just be a little disappointing to stay inside all day. I already did it twice this week. Maybe we'll play shogi or something.

Anyway, the work is going really well. I'm loving the work.....I really want to go out and work, but it looks like we might be stuck here a little bit. Don't worry about me though. Everything is going well.

I love you all,

Elder Low

Well, the weather here is about as strange as it gets. Mother nature just wants to humiliate us missionaries. Every day we've gone out this week, it has been hot and humid as it gets. Remember me telling you about the heat here last week? It's back. Sweating from every single part of my body. However, this year is a little bit strange. Randomly, for about 2 minutes, we'll get buckets of rain. Not even kidding. We'll be in the middle of a street contact and suddenly we are soaking wet. There isn't even time to pull out rain gear or anything. By the time the gear is out, the rain has stopped. Haha, it's crazy!

We have also been meeting with our Baptismal date F san. He's had a pretty awful past. His depression is severe. Basically, three years ago he had a girlfriend that he broke up with. That day, she jumped off a bridge and died. So he feels like he killed her and he walks every day for about 5 or 6 hours thinking about suicide. We're kinda worried about him. He doesn't have a lot of hope that these things are true. It makes it really hard for him to keep commitments and such. However, we're doing the best we can to help him out.

Also, this week was our first week as a combined ward. It was quite a mess. People are still getting used to it. This Friday, Elder Gordon and I have a meeting with the Stake President, Mission President, the AP's, and the Ginowan Zone Leaders in order to figure out what we are going to do with the missionaries. So, that will be fun.

Anyway, That's really all I have for this week. I love you all and I'm working hard.

 

Love,

Elder Low

Well, I didn't get to go to Disneyland. That's too bad. It looks like you all had a lot of fun. I don't recognize Sam anymore.....except that he's wearing my shirt. ;)

I had quite the week. Let me get started.

Transfers. Nothing happened to me. SO I got to spend the day in the airport waiting for people to come in......it was especially stressful because there was a rainstorm so nobody had correct times. So, Elder Gordon and I got to spend the entire day with Elder Chung from Okinawa. He's possibly my favorite missionary in the mission. I just love hanging out with him. He's so funny and really gets how to be a missionary. Because we had so much time, we had to eat TWO meals in the airport. SO expensive. I hated it.

Zone leaders waiting at the airport

Eating at the airport

Eating out

Ice cream!

So, here's the big news this week.

We had a Okinawa conference. All the members for the entire Island. First, we were separated into stakes for the Saturday session. I was translating for an American woman who had a talk. Sister Jennifer Chenney from Logan. She has lived in Okinawa for 7 years and is the best member missionary I've ever heard of. It was such a pleasure to translate for her. While we were waiting for the meeting to begin, I just talked to her about all the people she knew. All the missionaries she'd worked with.

Then we had a surprise visitor interrupt our conversation. Elder Aoyagi came up to me and shook my hand and said, "Elder Low. It's been a while". Then he gave me a big hug. He is the greatest guy. AND his Japanese is SO easy to translate which was a relief.

The next day, we went to Okinawa to meet with everyone on the island. Every missionary in both zones were there. I walked into the meeting and I heard someone calling my name. Brother Miyagi from the Nago ward came up to me and gave me a huge hug. He bought me two little notebooks. Haha, it was a very thoughtful present. Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me around the HUGE church and introduced me to everyone he knew among the members....which I was surprised at how many that was. He apparently talks about me a lot. All the Nago missionaries laughed and said, "We know, Brother Miyagi. You've told us before". I was so Ureshi.

Then, in stake conference, it was proposed that he would receive the Melchezedic. Priesthood. It was the greatest experience. He was so happy and everyone knew him. He's now building the church.

In other news, the two Okinawan stakes combined and so did the Naha wards....so we now have 8 missionaries in our ward. It's getting really busy over here. We might grow a little bit as a zone as well because of the reorganization of wards. It was pretty nuts. We watched Elder Aoyagi release entire wards. It was kinda sad. Entire wards closed and were combined with others. Nago became a branch. We have lots of work in Okinawa.

Anyway, that was the big news my week. As far as the work, it's SO hot. We sweat all day long. It's great though! I love talking to people. We've met some really awesome people in the last week and now that we have so many missionaries in our ward, I have some really cool Dendo ideas. We'll let you know how it goes!

 

Exhausted in Weekly Planning

 

Weekly plan like a BOSS! Elder Otani always said. 私たちは末日のくみちょうだよ！！！

(We are the boss of the latter-days.) He's way funny.

Love you all. Thanks for photos!

Elder Low

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