Pierced to the Very Soul

Dear family and friends,

Christmas Season

The Christmas season is in full swing here in Japan. We hear Christmas carols in every store, and holiday lights hang from trees lining the streets. Now is the time when everyone is ordering their Christmas cakes from the bakeries in time for Christmas Eve. 

Sister Low is determined to fully participate in the Christmas season. Last week we learned that there are many Christmas Markets here in Tokyo – the traditional European style of markets – and she is determined to visit all of them. Elder Low thinks it’s the combination of Christmas and shopping in one event that makes her so excited.  So far, we’ve visited markets in Shinjuku, Roppongi Hills, and Yoyogi Park. We’re planning to go to a big one in Yokohama with all the senior couples in the mission later next week. 

The Japanese do an amazing job of adopting western cultural items and then improving and changing them to fit their own culture. Like everything done in this country, the Japanese-European Christmas market is done at an extreme level of quality and skill. They’re absolutely beautiful and fun. 

Family Home Evening

For Family Home Evening this week, Sister Low invited everyone to go with us to the Christmas Market in Yoyogi Park after the meeting. About half of the FHE attendees were able to come with us and we made the walk together up the hill to the park. We gave everybody a Santa hat, and all wore them as we walked through central Shibuya. That got a lot of attention, and passersby who usually say nothing while walking smiled and shouted out to us, “Merry Christmas!” It’s fun to see people start to break out of their shell. 

We wandered around the lights in Yoyogi for about an hour. It was really spectacular, and our YSA members had so much fun. The sister missionaries brought one of their investigators and she had a wonderful time as well. 

The Family Home Evening we started having every week has evolved into a really great tool for the missionaries and members. We’re so glad we started it. Attendance continues to grow, and missionaries bring investigating friends every week. Branch members rely on FHE every week to boost their spirits. Many of our single members are in the big city all alone, far away from their families, and don’t have a social life outside of work or school. They come to FHE and combat the pandemic of loneliness. The same goes for the friends the missionaries are now bringing every week. 

When planning FHE, we try to follow Elder Low’s Four-Step Law for Successful Youth Activities, which is, in ascending order of importance: 

1. Have fun
2. Eat good food
3. Learn something
4. Feel the Spirit

Some weeks, FHE has gone very well, and together we have had some powerful spiritual experiences. Other weeks are learning experiences on how to improve going forward. But we try to plan something every week that is fun, uplifting and helpful for all. We always read the scriptures together. We’re always amazed at the insight our YSA members have when they share their thoughts about the scriptures we read. They’re really incredible. 

Christmas Day is on Monday this year so we’re now in the planning stages for Christmas Night Family Home Evening. We’ll see how it goes.

The Week in Review

Here’s an overview of what our past week looked like: 

Sunday was church meetings, followed by branch mission council, followed by branch council. Then we cooked Sunday dinner for our sister missionaries at our apartment. That was a lot of fun. After that the mission president wanted to meet with both of us for 2 hours. That was followed by a devotional at Tokyo Temple Square for all temple workers. We really didn’t have much time left on Sunday and went to bed tired at the end of the Day of Rest.

Monday was P-day. As usual we woke early and headed to the church and cooked a pancake breakfast for all the missionaries in our district. We do that every week. We’ve even bought an electric griddle for the job. Of course, the cute missionaries love it. Then we called family members and talked to grandkids. After that, we went shopping and ran errands for the week, including mailing Christmas packages home. Monday night was Family Home Evening that’s described above.

Weekdays: During the day from Tuesday through Friday, we met with about 30 missionaries in individual half hour sessions to help them with their Japanese studies. This takes up big chunks of our mornings on the weekdays. That ran from 9am to 2pm those days. 

Then the rest of this week went like this: 

Tuesday evening we spent working on translations for the President. Also on Tuesday we prepared a Japanese vocabulary lesson for all the missionaries and sent it to them to study. We do this every week and it takes an hour to two to prepare. The president requires them to study it and we’ll test them on the vocab at zone conferences. This is another tool to increase their language skills in this difficult language. 

Wednesday we sat in on an investigator lesson taught by Sister Malouf and Sister Cutright. It went so very well and we’re amazed how these young sisters can teach with such incredible power and do it so simply and humbly. It’s like they open the window and let the Spirit flow in, and the investigating friend can feel it. And they do it using very simple Japanese. We love our sister missionaries and we love to see their friends progress as they are taught. 

At the end of the lesson, the sisters asked their friend to say a closing prayer. 

“Please bless me that I can begin to understand these great teachings I have learned. And please bless me that I can come to know that the Book of Mormon is true.”

Imagine what it feels like to be in the room when you hear someone pray that. 

Then, later Wednesday evening was our temple shift that went from 5 to 9:30pm. Elder Low’s white jacket finally came in from Salt Lake on back order so now he’s a bonafide temple worker. Apparently, there aren’t any people his size in Japan who need white jackets, so it had to be specially ordered. 

This week, both Elder and Sister Low were working at the veil when a very familiar face came through. She looked up at Elder Low, stared for a second, and they broke out into a big smile. Elder Low instantly recognized that smile. It was sister Akiyama from Marugame. Sister Akiyama always smiles and has a patent on her unique grin. 

Some you may know that we lived in Marugame many years ago when Elder Low was hired to teach junior high school English. Our first son Jacob was born there. Now over 30 years later, here is one of the sisters who lived in that branch, in the temple, and recognizing us. It was a sweet, tender, tear-filled reunion for all of us, much like it’s described in Alma 17. She’s still there, still going strong, still faithful. To be there with her is really what heaven is like.

Thursday evening is usually missionary sports night, followed by English conversation class, but we weren’t able to attend this week because we were behind on lesson prep for our area institute class that night. So, we prepped for the class and then taught institute starting at 8pm until 10pm. 

Friday we had another lesson with the sister missionaries as they taught another investigating friend. They planned to teach their friend about the atonement of Jesus Christ and asked if we could be present to help them with this critical lesson. 

Keep in mind that Japan is a peaceful and prosperous country. People here live honest, honorable lives, are very considerate of each other, and live in safety and comfort. They don’t know who Jesus Christ is and don’t understand the need for an atonement. “I’m happy and live a good life. What do I need to be saved from? By who?”

In that light, once again, we sat in awe as the sisters so carefully and lovingly taught this young woman about the need for a Savior and the hope of eternal life because of His atonement. At one point, as our friend was telling us how she felt, she stopped speaking and the room fell silent as she was moved to tears. The Spirit filled the room. For a moment, Elder Low couldn’t breathe. Then we all cried together in silence for a few minutes. 

Dear family and friends – we can’t put into words what it feels like when we experience events like this. It is so powerful and amazing, yet so simple and pure. The way it feels is similar to the situation described in 3 Nephi 11 –

“And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.”

As missionaries, we get to experience this daily. It’s incredible! Then we get the opportunity to follow up with our own testimonies. This was one of those moments that becomes a real treasure that will remain with us for the rest of our lives. As the madness of the world moves by, we get to be here, experiencing real, revelatory experiences on a daily basis. 

After that incredible lesson the sister missionaries asked Sister Low to teach them how to cook katsudon. So, Sister Low ran to the grocery store and then we had a cooking class with them followed by eating the delicious food. We loved it, and we think it really boosted the sister’s spirits. 

Then, Friday night was institute class in the Shibuya building followed by institute gathering time that went until 10pm. 

Saturday was an absolutely crazy fun day. It was transfer day and we said goodbye to two wonderful sisters in our district – Sister Malouf and Sister DeMoss. Both are amazing and we love them. 

Like every transfer day, President asked us to provide Japanese language training for the new incoming missionaries as part of their orientation. We had 10 new elders come in on Saturday and we spent the morning and afternoon with them, helping them get set up, and showing them the study routines we’ve created for the mission. These young missionaries show up excited and terrified at the same time and they’ve landed in a situation where they don’t understand anything being said around them. Our job is to put them at ease, reassure them that they’ll be fine, and help them start to use some tools that make learning the language a little easier. 

We were with the new missionaries from 8am to 2pm at the mission home. When we were done with orientation we rushed to the stake center at Tokyo Temple Square and took part in a Christmas concert. 

Christmas Concert

What? We performed in a concert? Yup, we sure did. On top of everything we had going on this week, we made time to put together a performance for a Christmas concert. 

Last week the mission asked our district to come up with “something” as part of a special stake Christmas concert that could be added to the program. So we said, “Sure. Why not.” 

We consulted with our missionaries during district meeting and brainstormed what we could do. We found some children’s hand bells stored in a closet in the building and decided it would be great for us to do a hand bell choir song. Sister Malouf and Sister Cutright figured out an arrangement and chords for “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” And in the midst of everything we were all busy with this week, we made time to practice our hand bell song enough to sound halfway decent for Saturday night. 

But when it came time to perform in the concert on Saturday, two of our handbell choir members had transferred out and new missionaries replaced them just a few hours prior. There was a crazy hectic 45 minutes before the doors opened where we practiced the song about a dozen times. It was really frantic. An hour later, the stake center was full, and “here we go.”

It went really well. Well, fairly well. Everybody seemed to like it. Probably not memorable, but acceptable.

And now comes another Sunday and the beginning of another exciting week. This Sunday we cooked beef stew for the branch after church meetings. This time, we planned for 80 and had 85 show up. We fed them all. During the luncheon, four of our branch members showed up with their wind instruments and played Christmas carols while we ate. It was unplanned, unannounced, and totally voluntary on their part. Nobody asked them; they just wanted to do it and went forward.  Another example of what heaven is like. You can watch here:

For the two us, this really filled us with the Christmas Spirit. All together, eating good food, listening to sacred music played by our branch members where love abounds. 

We wish you all a Merry Christmas. If you don’t hear from us before then, please know that we love you all, are doing well, and are treasuring our opportunity to serve Him and build His kingdom. We wish you the best this season.

Love,

Elder & Sister Low