Dear Family and Friends,
Here’s the latest news from our adventure in Tokyo.
Zone Conferences
President Node continues to work together with us to help young missionaries learn and teach better in Japanese. This past week the president asked us to provide training in zone conference on study skills and how to use the app the MTC provides missionaries to help them learn Japanese. We have three zones in our mission, so we had the opportunity to attend three zone conferences over three days. That also meant we were able to meet and be with all the missionaries in our mission over that time.
It turned out to be a busy week with a lot of train rides. But it was such a great experience. These missionaries are such a joy. We ate lunch with them all, chatted with most, and really enjoyed being around them. They work so hard. We love being with them and we’re doing our best to support them.
Food Adventures
Last week, President Murakami – our YSA branch president – told us he expected a big crowd for Sunday meetings. That would be the Sunday before Thanksgiving. So, we planned for food as part of the day, where we’ll provide a meal after church for everyone. President Murakami told us to plan on at most 80 people attending. We decided to do Taco Rice, which is popular with the kids. It’s basically a taco salad over rice.
We’ve often wished that we could get to Costco to buy food in bulk. Feeding 80 people is a prime example of why. But we don’t have a car and Costco is far away. This time, we decided: “That’s it. We’ve got to figure out how to get to Costco and bring back all the food.”
Elder Low mapped the journey out on his phone. Sister Low emptied our suitcases we brought to Japan. Then we carried our empty suitcases on the train out to Costco in Kawasaki. It turned out to be about an hour and a half via train. We had to go through three stations, change trains, then get on a bus.
We walked into Costco in Kawasaki with our empty suitcases. The staff stopped us at the door. “You can’t bring those in here.” But they kindly allowed us to keep them behind the service information desk.
We bought a lot of food. We were also thinking about Thanksgiving that was coming up and bought supplies for that event as well – things like vegetables and potatoes for mashing. Then Elder Low made a discovery: Costco has turkeys. Oh my gosh.
We picked out a turkey that we thought was as big as could possibly fit in our small oven at home. We ended up buying a lot of food for two big meal events. After we paid for it, Sister Low asked where a good spot in the store would be for us to put the food into our suitcases. The answer wasn’t good. “You can’t do that in here. Wait, you’re putting all this in a suitcase?!”
So we did it on the sidewalk in front of Costco. We opened our suitcases and packed a turkey, 15 pounds of hamburger, 20 pounds of potatoes, a case of canned corn, 10 pounds of sweet potatoes, lettuce, tortillas, avacados, tomatoes, salsa, chips, and a bunch of other stuff. We’re sure we were quite a strange sight to behold, and we did get some stares. We think the suitcases weighed well over 80 pounds each when we were done. Then we hauled them onto the city bus, back to the station, and took the train ride all the way back home. Three stations, a dozen escalators, tunnels and crowded platforms. We had to stand the whole way. It was a real adventure, for sure. We laughed the whole time.
That Sunday, the Taco Rice meal was a hit. Actually more than a hit. It was a feeding frenzy. Madness that turned into panic. Instead of 80, we had about 105 show up. They came from all over the city. We’re not sure, but we think the word got out: “The Lows are cooking again this week.”
Halfway through serving the food, we went into crisis mode, trying to spread it out as much as we could. But by the time we’d served everyone, we only had a few spoonfuls of meat left. Everything else was gone. There wasn’t a grain of rice left in the three rice cookers. Many people only had meat and cheese to eat because we ran out of toppings. President Murakami was astounded. He’d never seen this many come to church.
We were thrilled at the participation but worried about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Apparently, the YSA branch has always had a Thanksgiving type of dinner party every November. So that got us thinking: “We could run out of food again on Thursday.”
Yup. We need to go back to Costco.
Fortunately, Sister Node just happened to call us and mention that she’s headed to Costco on Monday and asked if we wanted to ride with her. She kindly drove us all the way out there. We picked up another 20 pounds of potatoes, more sweet potatoes, butter, cream cheese, and a bunch more stuff. This time we didn’t have to bring suitcases.
We spent all Thursday morning and afternoon cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the branch. We used the kitchen in our apartment, along with the kitchen at the church to do the job. Our apartment is a block away from the church building. Both of us, along with the sister missionaries were dashing between both locations to get everything cooked.
While we were cooking, President and Sister Murakami made a third trip to Costco where they bought 10 of those roasted chickens, three bags of dinner rolls, and 5 gallons of clam chowder.
After the turkey was done, Elder Low made the gravy at our apartment. When it was done, we made another bizarre scene: Picture Elder Low carrying a hot, cooked turkey down the street past dozens of passersby, delicious smell wafting. Following behind was Sister Low, carrying a tray of two dozen hot homemade rolls, still steaming, and a big bowl of gravy. Yes, we got lots of stares.
When it all came together, madness once again ensued. We had told the missionaries to get as many people as they could to come to dinner. We advertised the dinner on our branch chat group and told them to bring their friends. Well, they did.
We’re not sure how many came. We lost count in the mayhem. But it was well over 90. We ran out of tables and chairs. There was nowhere to sit, and some ate standing up. If attendance keeps growing like this, we’re going to need a bigger building.
It was a traditional thanksgiving dinner that most had never eaten before: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. The part that wasn’t traditional was that everyone ate with chopsticks.
Here’s a video of how it went down: https://youtu.be/S1yGGiJOAJ8
Everything got devoured. The piranhas picked the bones clean.
President and Sister Murakami just stood and watched with their mouths open. They looked stunned. “I’ve never seen anything like this….” Once again, we had more nonmembers than members attend. Sister Murakami counted four tables where there were no members at all sitting, just nonmembers. “I don’t know most of the people here.” President Murakami had to take some time and introduce the church, what we’re about, and what our YSA branch is – because most of the attendees had no idea.
Towards the end, our young missionaries stood and taught us all. They taught about gratitude and asked everyone to write down what they were thankful for and testified of their gratitude for the Savior. It was great.
President Murakami gave us the ultimate compliment: “Last year we tried to mimic a Thanksgiving dinner. This year, we had a real one.”
And once again, it got better on Sunday. It was stake conference today and we had six nonmembers who came to Thanksgiving dinner show up. What a joy.
We’ve already started planing for our branch Christmas meal. It will take at least one Costco train run, for sure. But we’ve got it down now.
So we’re staying busy, having fun and enjoying the adventure every day. We love it here. But there’s more to come. Stay tuned.
Love,
Elder and Sister Low
ロウ長老姉妹
Elder & Sister Low 