Welcome to Japan

Hello family and friends.

The last week has been a blur and it’s amazing how much has changed in our lives in such a short time. We wish we would have had some kind of preparation training to help us understand what was about to happen to us, but I guess there was no way to do that.

Just one week ago we had no idea where our visa was, or if it was ever going to be issued. Saori was losing sleep over it. Today, we’re moved into our apartment in Japan, attending church, working with members and leaders, and helping guide missionaries. It’s completely different than last week when we were holed up in what we called “the Lord’s flophouse” at Temple Square where all the visa waiters hang out.

It took three phone calls into Church Travel last week to find out where our visa was. Turns out it had been sitting on someone’s desk at the Church Office Building for about 10 days. Yes, the visa processing system for Japan bound missionaries is a mess, and it’s getting messier, and everyone is still trying figure out how it now works. We’re not sure anybody has a full picture of the process, since so many detailed steps are involved with government and church entities in both Japan and the US going back and forth.

We were in a training room in the Family Search Library learning how to teach visitors how to use Family Search when Saori looked at her phone and started to cry. Chris thought something had gone terribly wrong. But no.

“They’re here.”

We dropped everything and immediately ran over to Church Travel to pick them up. Turns out Church Travel is the most secure spot at Church Headquarters (the real Holy of Holies). You have to have your face scanned before they let you in the door, and that’s after you’ve cleared Security on the first floor. I guess everybody is rushing into that office asking about visas and such. Anyway, we got in and they gave us our passports, along with the visas and the additional paperwork the Japanese government now requires. That was last Friday.

From that point on, things happened very quickly. Within one hour we had travel plans booked. We were scheduled to fly that next Monday morning. We had emergency meetings with our mission president in Tokyo, so he could prepare to to have someone at the airport when we arrive and we also had to work with our mission president at the HQ mission to hand off our assignments, security passes, and flophouse apartment keys. On Friday night, Kate and Sam dropped by to see us one last time and then on Saturday, Jacob, Jessica, Maddy and Randy all dropped by with our amazing grandkids to have a few minutes together. Then we packed. On Monday morning at 4am, our wonderful son Clint drove us to the airport. Fourteen hours later, we were in the mission home in Kichijoji, eating dinner and getting trained by the president and his wife.

We want to pause here and talk about our mission president and his wife. Many of you have heard from young missionaries how much they were amazed at and loved their mission president. Ours are particularly amazing and we’re in awe. Honestly, we don’t know how he and his wife do it.

In the ‘good old days’ missionaries travelled in groups from the MTC to the mission, usually on transfer day. But those days are nowhere to be seen now. Because of covid and the travel restrictions from the Japan government, along with the months long delays in getting visas for missionaries, our president has no idea when his missionaries will come, or how many are coming. He usually gets a 48 hour notice that a missionary is on his/her way, usually traveling alone. That gives him two days to find him/her a companion and somewhere to live, and get his/her training planned. That usually forces the president to shuffle missionaries around to different apartments with a 12 hour notice, and many times he has to find an apartment to rent, which is no easy task. All on the fly.

Back in December, Japan was still closed to foreign missionaries. There were only 17 missionaries total in the mission – all natives. 17 missionaries covering the biggest city in the world. We’re now up to 90 missionaries, but they’ve all come in the last 8 months, one or two at a time. That’s about two or three new missionaries showing up at the airport every week, but not on the same flight. We’re told we’ll be up to 120 missionaries by Christmas. So you get an idea how crazy our mission president’s life is.

We love and respect President and Sister Node. We adore them.

Our assignment: President Node has asked us to work in the Young Single Adult Branch in Tokyo. So we’ll mainly be working with young singles and their church leaders. We feel this is a critical assignment.

Japan, as a nation, is shrinking in population. The population declines almost 1% annually. At the current rate, the country will dwindle away in about 50 years. The main reason is that people just aren’t getting married, and thus not having children and families. It’s almost impossible financially to afford to get married and have a life as a couple in Japan. Honestly, we worry if it’s ever going to be possible. It’s also difficult culturally. The Japanese government realizes this is a big problem is and doing what it can to help fix it. Some people say it may be too late to be fixed.

The problem is compounded for young single church members in Japan. In addition to all difficulties that are listed above, there’s the problem of actually finding someone as a worthy potential spouse, and then all the other things – worthiness, testimony, commitment to the same values. It’s very, very hard and often times heartbreaking to watch.

While the population of Japan declines, Tokyo continues to grow. You’d think the largest city in the world with 48 million people would be big enough, but no. The viable way to have a career and gain security in Japan is to get a job in Tokyo. A few years ago, the church realized there’s enough young single adults in the city to create a YSA Branch. And it appears the branch is growing in population. Many are here going to school. Others work full time. The branch covers the whole city and some members travel for hours from the far corners to get to the YSA meetinghouse.

When President Node gave us this assignment, Saori was thrilled. It was the exact assignment she wanted. We’d told the president we were worried about the youth of the church in Japan and their future. But it’s safe to say Chris wasn’t as over the top excited about the assignment as Saori was. I guess it just wasn’t what he imagined he would be doing. But that attitude changed quickly.

One sleepless night in the flophouse in Salt Lake, Chris had a distinct, strong impression: “Of all the things the church needs help with in Japan, I’m giving you the most important one.” And it’s true. This is a critical assignment for the church in Japan and we’re taking it very, very, seriously.

We’ve spent most of the past week trying to get know the branch and figure out all the meetings and gatherings they have. We have a lot to learn and our heads are spinning. And we’ll be doing multiple things. Here’s a short list of items we know we’ll be working on after meeting with the mission president and branch president:

• We’ll be teaching an Institute class once a week. It will be taught online. It will have young students from the Asia North Area, including Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. We’ll be teaching the Book of Mormon.
• We’ll also probably be teaching another Institute class in the local meetinghouse where the YSA ward meets.
• We’ll be helping with the weekly ‘gathering’ that happens every Friday night at the church. This is the time the kids get together, hang out and play games. We suspect this will include us cooking a lot of food for them.
• We’ll be teaching the Temple Prep class for all the YSA kids getting ready to go to the temple.
• We’ll be teaching Missionary Prep class as well. We have 8 kids getting ready to go.
• We’ll be in charge of Temple Night and helping get branch members to attend the temple. This may include us being called as temple workers. We’re not sure yet.
• We’ll be helping teach the English class that the young missionaries conduct every week and bring investigators to.
• We’ll meet with the young missionaries every week in district and zone meetings, usually every day, take them to lunch, and go to lessons with them when needed. There is a set of elders and a set of sisters assigned to the branch.
• President Node has asked us to help coach young missionaries with their Japanese skills. Since most of them have been here 6 months or less, there aren’t any veteran, proficient missionaries that can navigate and teach in the very difficult language.
• We’ll visit less active members. We already have a list of about 25 we need to go see.

And that’s the start. The branch has never had a senior couple assigned to it before, so everybody at the area, stake, mission and branch level are raising their hands with help that they need. And there are plenty of needs.

And where exactly are we? The meetinghouse for the YSA branch is in Shibuya, the cultural center of Tokyo and Japan. It’s where young people flock to eat, shop, and have fun. It’s safe to say Shibuya is the aorta of Japanese modern culture. And it’s extremely crowded. It makes sense to have the YSA church house here. This is where a lot of the major train and subway lines in the city converge. Shibuya Station is the second busiest train station in the world and its in the dead center of the city. Millions pass through it every day. Shibuya feels like a combination of Times Square, Blade Runner, and that Star Wars planet that is one giant city.

Our apartment is just down the street from the meetinghouse here in Shibuya. It’s a two minute walk to church for us. We suspect this may be the most expensive senior missionary apartment in the church. The location is incredible.

After we moved in, we learned just how much work it took for the mission president and his wife to get it ready. Sister Node clearly spent weeks working on this apartment – many hours and days. First she hired an agent to show her a bunch of potentials, which took weeks. Then she had to work with the owners of the one she liked the best – which is not easy. Landlords are weary of foreign residents and religious related activities. So that took some convincing and negotiation. Then she had to get it ready. Since we’ve never had missionaries in this area before, she had to start from scratch. She personally furnished the whole thing – all new furniture, including a king size memory foam bed, brand new couch, chairs, desk, new dishes, new appliances including a washer/dryer, oven, fridge, freezer, everything. That required shopping at multiple stores all over the big city and getting everything hauled into the apartment. She even bought and installed a new air conditioning system. It must have taken her weeks to get it ready and it’s been rented and sitting here since July, waiting for our visa to come through.

Then, when we got here, she picked us up at the airport by herself (president is crazy busy), drove us through the terrifying central city traffic for two hours to the mission home, fed us two home cooked meals, drove us to city hall to get us registered with the government, drove us to buy new cell phones, drove us and our luggage to the apartment and helped us haul it in, then drove way out to a Costco in the suburbs to help us buy groceries and get us stocked up with food to eat and drove us back into the center of the city with all the food.

We’re amazed at her. Keep in mind that she’s still being a mom. She has two young kids in school and still needs to get them to school in the morning and help them with homework and all the other things moms need to do. We are humbled and honored by all that she’s done for us.

Our apartment is cozy. It’s about 600 square feet of living space. One bedroom, a living area, and a kitchen. It’s also very modern. When you walk into the bathroom, the toilet boots up like a PC – you see lights blinking and hear fans spinning up. (“They’re years ahead of us!” – Homer Simpson) The lighting in the apartment runs on remote control, and you can fill up and heat the bathtub remotely from the kitchen. We also have a mold prevention ventilation system that runs automatically in the shower room. A definite upgrade from the flophouse at Temple Square.

Our apartment is in a very quiet area. It’s very peaceful. Lots of windows and light. We have a private little garden area right off the veranda out back that’s very green and relaxing. We lay in bed and listen to crickets chirp at night. Sitting here in the quiet, you’d never know that by walking down the street for five minutes, you’re at the famous Shibuya Scramble intersection – the busiest intersection in the world. It’s really a weird feeling to walk out of the peaceful apartment and then suddenly be surrounded by skyscrapers just by walking a few blocks.

Here’s a link to a map with our apartment pinned. It’s fun to set the map to satellite mode and then zoom out to get an idea where we are in this huge metropolis: https://goo.gl/maps/RtL5JgvMDsnKyveTA

This is Shibuya Scramble, five minute walk from our apartment: https://youtu.be/Bi61ue_cpMY?si=Sc82azNARaIuCjZT

 

This what a typical walk is like for us now:

 

Our current stomping grounds:

 

Speaking of walking – looks like we’ll be doing a lot of it every day. Yesterday, Chris’s watch clocked 7.5 miles of walking. 17,000 steps burning 1200 calories. That will most likely be the norm from now on. And it was all in 90 degree heat and 98% humidity. We have quickly learned that every day is going to be a battle against humidity. It’s a brutal war. Your whole body becomes a steaming sponge saturated with swamp water.

Yesterday we finally had a few hours of free time and took the train out to Machida to visit Saori’s mother. We had dinner together. It’s such a joy to be with that amazing woman and we think it’ll be a comfort for her to know that Saori isn’t here just on vacation. We’ll be able visit her and the rest of the family regularly for many months to come. Keiko looked wonderful. She is wonderful.

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on in our lives right now. We’re sometimes overwhelmed but we’re so grateful to be where we are. We have felt your prayers and support. We miss our kids and grandkids a lot. We worry about them every day. We love you all! We pray for our family members by name every day (including you). Hopefully the power of missionary parents praying for their children and grandchildren will bless them richly.

To our grandchildren: We hope you continue to pray for Grandma and Grandpa. We feel blessed when you do. We love you.

And that’s it for this week. But there’s more to come. Stay tuned.

Love,

Elder and Sister Low