Turned Hearts

Dear Family and Friends,

The adventure continues here in Tokyo, Japan. The month of October is beautiful here, with perfect weather day and night. It seldom rains and the humidity is gone. We’ll take the good weather for as long as we can get it.

 

Staying Active

We stay very active and are moving around all the time. We clock an average of 5 to 7 miles per day of walking. A car would be nice, but there’s no place to park one. We really wish we had a car that could get us to Costco and haul groceries in bulk for the meals we cook for the YSA kids. Instead, we have to be creative and shop at local stores, then walk things home in heavy shopping bags.

Another thing that we’ve learned is that Shibuya is “three dimensional” when it comes to getting from Point A to Point B. It’s not just walking down the sidewalk. There are overpasses, underpasses, and tunnels. Buildings are connected by walkways above ground and massive malls underground. There are at least 5 levels of underground sidewalks and tracks in Shibuya. And there are 3 levels of roads and tracks above the streets of the ground level. Because if this, we have to use lots of stairs to get around. Elder Low counted walking up or down 16 flights of stairs on the 10-minute train trip to the stake center/temple this week. That’s just one excursion, one-way. On top of that, our church building is 6 stories high. A two-hour block of meetings followed by ward council means around 10 flights of stairs just at church. We think on average we’re climbing and descending a minimum 50 flights of stairs a day. Back home we used to force ourselves to walk up the steps on escalators because standing was considered “lazy.” Now we search for escalators to stand on (unless we’re running late). So this mission is good for our health, for sure.

More Food

Last Friday, for our weekly Institute Gathering, we provided the food. Sister Low decided she wanted to make Chirashi Sushi and soup for everyone. We planned on about 30 attending, but 40 showed up. The sushi turned out great and the kids were once again a hoard of locusts. They were so grateful. Usually, they get convenience store snacks at the gathering. The stake relief society president came to Sister Low on Sunday and was profusely grateful. Sister Low has tricks up her sleeve that makes cooking for a crowd easy. She’s done a lot of homemaking meetings and she has more cooking ideas in mind.

Today we had another baptism and the brother is being baptized on his birthday. So Sister Low baked a birthday cake for the baptism. About 100 showed up for this event at the stake center next to the temple. Sister Low baked the biggest sheet cake she could. Then she hand-carried it through downtown Shibuya, over and under and through the stairs and tunnels and crowds, up and down 16 flights of stairs, onto the crowded train, transferred to the subway, through three train stations, and then walked to the stake center where the baptism was held with sheet cake in hand. That’s what you call an adventure.

Teaching

It looks like we need to learn Portuguese. That may sound crazy but it’s true. About 15% of our missionaries come from Brazil. Most speak no English at all. The MTC doesn’t have curriculum that teaches Japanese in Portuguese. So when these missionaries show up for their mission, they’re handed books they can’t read in either language. By the time they get to Japan, they’re pretty much lost and terrified. We are working with one sister from Brazil right now who’s been here for a month. She can barely introduce herself in Japanese. We can tell she doesn’t understand what’s going on around her. We try to talk to her and help her, but she doesn’t understand us. We’re desperately trying to find materials she can study with and have found some, but it’s limited. We have another batch of missionaries arriving in two weeks and we’re pretty sure there will be more from Brazil. So this problem happens every month. 

We have an elder in our district from Brazil who will be going home soon. His Japanese is amazing, but it took many months of hard work and study to get there, and he tells us the first part of his mission was terribly difficult and depressing. He speaks no English. This forces the other missionaries in our district to speak more Japanese when he’s around. Otherwise, he’s lost.

This week the sister missionaries in Azabu called us at 7am one morning and asked if we could support them in teaching a lesson. They are teaching a man from Argentina who works in a tango dance studio. He is living with his girlfriend and has a newborn baby he’s doing his best to support. He wants to get baptized, but the sisters needed to teach him about chastity and the need to be married before getting baptized. They thought a senior couple could help with that lesson. We gladly agreed to come. When we arrived, we saw that the sisters had also invited the Brazilian elder in our district and his companion as well.

It was an amazing lesson. The investigator spoke no Japanese, very little English and mostly Spanish. The American sister taught the lesson in Japanese. The Brazilian elder listened to the Japanese and interpreted that into Spanish, of which he knew a little. Then the investigator would answer in Spanish and the interpretation cycle go the other way. This was the only way we could teach this man.

We were touched and moved as we saw these four faithful young missionaries carefully and lovingly teach him this important concept, using two foreign languages at the same time. Three different nationalities talking together and not using native languages. We thought to ourselves: “This is what the Gift of Tongues is really like.” You could feel the power in the room. It was strong, but not forceful. Instead, it felt loving and sweet. It was a wonderful spirit.

“And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days.

And they shall go forth and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them.

Behold, this is mine authority, and the authority of my servants…”

(Doctrine & Covenants 1:4-6)

The lesson went very well, and the sisters continue to work with him and his girlfriend.

 

Turned Hearts

Last Sunday we had a big “all together” sacrament meeting at the stake center where all the young single adults in the city met. It was great. We filled the stake center chapel. Afterward, there was a “speed dating” activity in the cultural hall. Hopefully some good connections were made. We sure do pray for that.

While we were standing in the hall after the meetings, Elder Low heard someone call his name. He turned around and saw Sister Node, our mission leader. She was talking with a young man that she wanted to introduce to us. His story was amazing:

Apparently, he walked into the church building a few weeks ago and said, “I heard you can be baptized for your ancestors in this church. Is that true? If it is, I want to join this church and be baptized for my grandparents.” Apparently, he felt “something” from his dead ancestors that prompted him to come in. He told us he felt they were speaking to him from beyond. They led him here.

He was baptized two weeks ago.

His father is Japanese, but his mother is Brazilian and he was raised in Brazil. Fortunately, he speaks great English. He came to Japan to learn Japanese and really can’t speak it yet. Sister Node asked if we could work with the Family History missionaries and help get him set up to gather in his grandparent’s information in FamilySearch, so he could take their names to the temple. The Family History missionaries don’t speak English, so they would need us to help.

“He’s very serious about this,” she said. “He really wants to get this done right away.”

We told Sister Node we’d take care of it. Sister Low reached out to Elder and Sister Aizawa in the Family History Center and set up a time for all five of us to meet. Our new member friend was there right on time. Within an hour we had set up his account, entered in his grandparent’s information in FamilySearch, and filled out government forms to request birth certificate information for his great grandparents.

We wish you all could have seen his face when the printer printed the first name card. His hands were shaking when Elder Low took it off the printer and handed it to him, and tears ran down his face. It was one of those incredible moments.

He’ll be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood and get a temple recommend tomorrow. We have an appointment at the temple scheduled for him on Thursday. When he’s done with that first set of grandparent’s baptisms this week, the Aizawas will have the birth certificate information for the great grandparents ready to go and he can get cards printed for them. He’s on his way. 

Don’t believe in miracles? If so, give us a call. We’ll change your mind. We see real, tangible miracles every day with this job.

 

Family

The best part of the last few days has been the visit from our son Randy, his wife Maddy, and our two wonderful grandchildren. What a joy it was to see them, spend time with them and enjoy this country with them. 

One of the coolest things we did with them was going to the top of the Shibuya Scramble Square Tower. It’s a new skyscraper just a few blocks from our apartment. We went to the roof on the 56^th floor and took in an amazing view of this incredible city. It was breathtaking and overwhelming. Everything in every direction was within our mission boundaries, and it seemed to go on forever – and you couldn’t even see the whole city from there. To think of the millions and millions of God’s children who were below us – it was just incredible.

We arranged for Saori’s mother Keiko to spend a couple of days with Maddy and Randy and she got to meet her great grandchildren. We can’t describe how joyful that was for her. She was in heaven. She is so proud of all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and brags about them to everyone. Being able to spend a few hours with two of them was probably the biggest deal in her life. Randy and Maddy have a wonderful, amazing family and we’re so grateful for them.

We go to bed happy on days when stuff like this happens. Everything in life may not be perfect. We worry about and pray for all of you, and we know of many struggles and hardships. But we feel we’re in the right place. And we hope our family will be blessed and do better because of our service.

May God bless you all.

Love,

Elder and Sister Low

ロウ長老姉妹