Conference at Conference

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello from Tokyo! The weather here has turned to amazing. October is always the best month of the year here. Every day is blue skies and 74 degrees. The humidity is gone and a calm breeze blows into Tokyo Bay every evening. We love it.

Here’s an update on how we’re doing.

Zone Conference/Mission Tour

A couple of weeks ago was zone conference. This month’s conference was our annual mission tour. That’s when a general authority visits the mission and attends every zone conference. This time our visiting general authorities were Elder Kimo Esplin and Elder Christopher Kim, along with their wives.

It was really great to be with them. As you may know, Elder Esplin was Sam’s mission president when he served here in Tokyo South. So we feel very close to him and Sister Esplin.

Just before the zone conference started, Elder Low dashed out the back of the room to go pick something up in the office. As he was walking out, Elders Esplin and Kim and their wives walked in. Elder Low was surprised and sort of jumped when he looked up and saw them coming toward him. Then Elder Esplin pointed and said –

“Elder Kim – that’s Elder Low. The one I told you about.”

“That’s him??” said Elder Kim.

“Yikes. This can’t be good,” thought Elder Low.

But then both Elder and Sister Kim ran up to him and hugged him and introduced themselves. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

To be honest, it was a little intimidating at first. But Elder and Sister Kim were so wonderful and kind.

The entire zone conference was wonderful. All four of them taught us about how to study the Book of Mormon, better ways to approach and talk to people, and Elder Esplin taught some details about the restoration of the church that were just incredible. “I hope you can clearly see that this wasn’t made up. It’s not fake. It all really happened.”

We had a breakout session where Elders Esplin and Kim, along with President Tueller, met with all the sister missionaries, while their wives met with all the elders. It was an open Q&A session. Ask a question, get an answer. It was interesting that both meetings evolved to the topic of what to do after your mission. What to look for in a spouse, what to study, and how to strengthen your testimony. Elder Low listened to the three wise sisters teach the young elders so well. It was amazing.

 

General Conference/YSA Conference

This past weekend was General Conference weekend in Japan. Because of time zone differences, we watch it a week later than back home. This weekend there was also a nationwide YSA Conference held here in Tokyo.

On Sunday, instead of meeting in our building, our YSA branch went to the YSA Conference and we all watched a session of General Conference together with the YSA Conference attendees. (How’s that for “conference”? Three times in one sentence!) It was held at the old 1964 Olympic Village in Yoyogi – same place as last year’s YSA conference.

After watching the General Conference session, Elder Esplin again came and did a wonderful devotional. Then we all had lunch together.

There were a lot more attendees at this year’s conference – somewhere around 350 YSA members from all over Japan came. We kept telling each other how good they all look and how fun it was to be with them. The YSA here in Japan are delightful. It really is a joy to visit with and shake hands with all these wonderful young people. In addition to branch members, many of our former institute students were there and it was fun to see them again.

The church is aggressively increasing these events. It used to be that there was only one YSA conference every other year in Japan. Now we have YSA conferences every year, and this year there are four, including ones in Kyoto, Sapporo and Kyushu. Some of our ward members travel to multiple conferences and make friends from all over the country.

As the population in Japan continues to age, and as the marriage rate continues to decline in this country, these events are critical for the church here. The church has been operating in Japan for over 100 years. Most of the YSA kids we know and love are third generation members. Strengthening the rising generation is so important at this time.

 

Institute Class

We’re back to teaching two institute classes a week. On Friday night we had a great turnout and nearly all who attended were members of our branch. Over the past year, attendance at Friday institute has really grown. So this semester the staff decided to break it into two classes. We teach the class for older institute students, between the ages of 26 and 35. But since most institute students are younger than 26, we’ve had sparse attendance until recently.

This week we studied 3 Nephi 17-19. Here are some of the questions we asked and discussed:

• If you heard the Savior pray for you specifically, what do you think He would pray for?
• If you had a friend who knew nothing about Jesus Christ, but knew that you were a Christian, what would that friend think about the Savior?
• Why did the Savior call down angels to minister to children? Do you think angels have ministered to you?

It was a wonderful discussion. The Spirit entered and taught us all. It’s interesting – on that last question – President Nelson answered it in General Conference this weekend.

 

Temple

One thing that Sister Low taught in institute this week is how important being in the temple has become to her. Although she’s always loved going to temple, recently, as we’ve served there weekly, it’s become an extremely special place to her. She feels God’s presence. She feels she’s being taught by Him. She feels more love for those who are in the temple with her. She gets revelation directly from God about what she should do.

As you know, we’ve announced that every Wednesday night is YSA temple night for our branch and that’s the night we work in the temple. We’ve seen a lot more young people show up on Wednesday nights lately. Two weeks ago we had 8 members in the temple on that night. Some members of our YSA branch are now temple ordinance workers.

It is such a blessing to have the temple in our lives and so close to us. It’s only a mile away from our apartment and church building. You can’t get much closer than that. We’ve learned that the key to strengthening the rising generation – and ensuring future strong generations of the church – is found in temple attendance.

Well, that’s about it for now. But many more exciting things are coming, so stay tuned.

We love and miss you all,

Elder & Sister Low