Another hard working week in Tamana. It's such a hard area. I ride the train twice a day....it's kinda fun. I feel super Japanese. I do my best to talk to people on the train, but some people really don't want to talk. We taught one guy on the train yesterday who wouldn't shut up about how much he LOVES President Obama.....Haha, I don't think he knew what he was talking about. He was talking about how impressive it was that Obama was Black and was able to go from a slave to President. .....He might think that we still have slaves in the U.S......he was a little crazy. It was fun though.

The area is picking up, but because it's so far away from the Church, people don't want to come to Church. That is our biggest struggle right now. I think we'll have to just take a different approach on how we invite people. We have one investigator who looks like we could get him to Church. He's our strongest investigator right now....which isn't saying a lot right now, but he looks like he might progress.

We also had an open house at the Omuta branch yesterday. It was a blast. The members made a little lunch for non-members and we had a lot a fun videos about the church with music and stuff. I played the piano.....haha just a little song I made up. I re-arrange "A Child's Prayer". It went pretty well though. The High Counselor started crying and stood up and shared his testimony about how much he loved that song. He talked about the meaning of the first line. "Heavenly Father, are you really there?" It was a super powerful.

Anyway, that's pretty much my life right now. I go to Tamana everyday and we find all day. We are seeing great successes though. We are finding people and people are listening so I couldn't ask for anything more.

Things are going great. I love being a missionary and I love feeling the Spirit guiding us daily. Can't wait to report more to you next week. I love you all.

 

Elder Low

So, Elder Kikuchi and I are working SO hard. I come home so tired every single day. It's a good thing though. We have to carry our bikes in bike bags on to the train every day and then we can't come home for dinner. There is too much work to be done. However, we found a lot of cool people this week. We ONE lesson this week. Haha, it was THE first lesson that has been taught in our area.....baby steps. Things are picking up though. :)

We found a couple this week. They are Lutheran, so they have a good Christian background. They seemed really interested in the Book of Mormon. That was really good. They also gave us really expensive juice. I was happy.

We had English class and I was in charge of the Kid's English class. It was the cutest class. Nobody is older than 12 and they are all very energetic. We did body parts for the class. So, we sang "Head shoulders knees and toes" and played a lot of games. All the moms loved it. Apparently the last missionary who was here got angry easily so they were all super happy last week that there was a new teacher. Elder Tabuchi was so happy that he wants me to teach children's class every week.....Haha, it takes a lot of energy, but I guess I'll do my best.

I don't know what else to tell you. I really just go and work every single day. It's great though. We are super busy, but it's fun. For a lot of people, we are the first missionaries they have seen. It's great to represent the Savior everywhere we go. One of the investigators we found this week was by playing soccer with a bunch of kids in a park. We were finding and they started yelling English words at us so we went and talked to them. They were pretty cocky about soccer so we showed them our skills (haha, I don't have ANY soccer skills). They had so much fun and then their mom came out and asked us to come back to explain what kind of volunteer work we are doing......Haha, it was perfect.

Last thing, living with the other two Elders is the best thing ever!  Elder Nara has a book of 100 Donburi recipes.

He decided that it can be our countdown for when I go home. A new Donburi every single day. It's been so much fun! Cooking in this apartment is SO fun. :)

 

 

Anyway, I love you all. I love this work. It's hard right now, but things are picking up. I'll have more to report next week!

 

Love,

Elder Low 

P-day last week in Nago

At the Nago Aquarium

 

 

I left Naha. It was the hardest transfer I have ever had. The  ward came to the Church for Eikaiwa, because that was when I was leaving. I left with Elder Glover and Sister Sharp (She went home. Just finished her mission). I haven't had that hard of a goodbye since I left you all in Utah. Before Eikaiwa, I went to see Sunagawa Kyoudai (our blind member) and I thought that was hard. At the Eikaiwa, there were lots of tears. Everyone told me to come back to Naha. It was especially hard saying goodbye to the ward mission leader. He's been the best. Naha just became my home and I didn't want to leave. 

 

However, now I'm done with being a Zone Leader. I have a new "special assignment" from Kaicho. I'm in an area called Tamana. It's in Kumamoto, but I live in Omuta......which is in Fukuoka. In other words, I take a 45 minute train ride to my area everyday. There are 0 members that live in my area. I'm part of the Omuta branch, but I can't work with them a ton because MY area is so far away. The area was opened last transfer and nothing happened. Literally. Not one investigator. Kaicho wants me to pick it up. So far, we're doing good. We're finding investigators and stuff, but It's going to be hard getting people to church and stuff like that. Member present lessons will be almost impossible. It's going to be a challenge. However, this will likely be my last area. So, I don't intend to just "Find" every single day. I am going to do everything I can here. 

 

I'm living with Elder Nara and Elder Tabuchi. They don't speak English. And then my comp is Elder Kikuchi from Utah.  There isn't lots of English spoken here. It's fun. I hope I can learn lots of Japanese here.

 

SO, unfortunately, I don't really have anything to tell you all. So far, we've found 2 investigators. It's tough though. We'll see where it goes.

 

So, I hope I have lots to report on next week. I am working my butt off. I hit my bed hard everyday which is a good feeling. I love being a missionary and I'm not going to waste any time.

 

I 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.

Another busy week this week. The month of August was a difficult one. I'm really excited to start up a new month.

Interesting thing happened this week. Do you remember me writing home about a C san? He had a Baptismal date a while ago, but we had to drop him because he's a Baptist and doesn't "need" to go to the Mormon church. He was dropped back in March or April. This last week, he came back. He called me and asked if we could meet. He's kinda a awkward guy, so the conversation was very quick.

"Hello?"

"This is C. Can you meet at the Church?"

".....Oh. Hi.....right now?"

"Yes"

"....Yeah, I think so"

"Ok"

 

Then there was a click and it was over. Haha, he showed up and we were lucky to have a member there with short such notice. He came and sat down and started talking about how great the Baptist church is and that we should go see it. I asked him why he wanted to meet and he said that he had a question about the Bible. He opened it up and it was marked up like crazy. Then he told me that recently, he can't feel God when he reads the Bible. I asked him if he had been reading the Book of Mormon. He said that he hadn't because it's not the word of God. So, we gave him the challenge to read the Book of Mormon to see if it was the Word of God. Then we testified that it was and promised him that he would feel God if he read it.

 

Long story short, the Book of Mormon won. He's meeting us again. That was exciting.

 

Also, we took F san to church yesterday. However, he couldn't come to our ward so Elder Gordon and I did six hours of church Yesterday. It was LONG. I was way tired, but It was WAY good to have F at church. He's progressing again. 

 

We also had an activity teaching "District meeting" to all the young men in the ward. It was really great. We taught companionship unity. It was so fun. We did "Duffy san Mogi lessons" In other words, I took my little stuffed Duffy to the church and he was our investigator. It was fun and the young men got excited. I thought it was a blast.

 

Last night, we also had a dinner with a ward family. The Yoza family. Brother Yoza was the brother who fought in the war of Okinawa when he was 16 years old. Also, his daughter lives in Machida! He is the most interesting person. I could talk to him forever. He's REALLY intense too. He is SO Japanese. 

 

Dinner at the Yoza's

The Food

 

 

In all, it was a pretty good week.

 

Elder Miyanishi is ready for his steak.

At Han's Steakhouse

With Elder Kemp overlooking Naha

 

 

 

Love you all,

Elder Low

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, I had a busy week this week. Not a lot happened. I'm still in Naha.....and I am happy that way. I was really worried to leave. This has been my longest area, but I really really love it here. BUT because of transfers this week, I got to do the big Airport day on Thursday. All day long waiting for new missionaries in the Airport. I didn't take pictures this time because it was really boring. We just....sat. At one point we tried to weekly plan, but that didn't work super well. It was a long boring day. We're really excited about the new missionaries in our zone though. They are all way cool! We also have a new bean sister missionary. We'll see how that goes.

This last week, we met with F san twice. He is progressing like an animal. He said that he knows God is guiding his life and he LOVES to pray. Before, he was telling us that God doesn't exist. So, that is huge progress. Here's the problem. He has lots anxiety problems and he came to church a couple weeks ago.....and he knew one of the members that gave a talk that week. He said that he didn't really get along with the member because the live across the street from each other and are always fighting......so now, he doesn't want to come to church because K kyoudai is there. So, there's something we need to work on....

Typhoon season is getting pretty crazy. We had another day inside. President called me and told me to assign the zone to teach three hour long lessons to their companion and then report back to him that night. I'm sure Jake and Jon can testify that teaching lessons to your companion is SO awful. Nobody likes it. But the whole zone did it so that was good. :) I didn't want to have to tell president that nobody in the zone did it because they don't like to practice with their companion.

Some other sad news. There is a convert in this ward....she baptized maybe a week before I got here. Her name is A. Everyone just calls her Popo. She left for Virginia to do a nanny job. She's been really struggling with the church. I also found out that her Baptism was WAY too rushed. There wasn't even a member of the ward at the Baptism. Not even bishopric. So, now we can't really help her. We gave her addresses to churches around where she lives. I really hope she goes.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for the week. From what I hear, there is a huge Typhoon coming this next week so we probably won't get to work a ton on Wednesday and Thursday. It's supposed to be worse than the last one. We'll have to get all emergency stuff ready and stuff like that.....Ugh. I would much rather Dendo.

Anyway, Love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

Elder Low