An Account of Our Stewardship

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello again from Tokyo, where we continue to stay busy and work hard. Here is a small update for you that we hope you enjoy.

Sunday Activities

Yesterday Elder and Sister Esplin from the Area Presidency made a surprise visit to our branch and attended Sunday meetings with us. We really love the Esplins. They were Sam’s mission president before becoming a general authority and we’ve got to know them well.

Elder Esplin spoke about discipleship and testimony and how gaining a testimony is done by action – by living a disciple’s life. We learn by doing.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

-John 7: 17

After sacrament meeting Elder Low huddled with our branch president, President Murakami, and we decided we could quickly cook up a lunch so that Elder and Sister Esplin could enjoy a meal with our wonderful YSA kids before heading home. Supplies were already in the fridge. So – Elder Low threw together a big pot of curry while Sister Low cooked up the rice and made cinnamon rolls for dessert. We fed a surprise lunch to 65 wonderful people. It was so fun to be together with them all once again.

Then last night, President and Sister Murakami from our Shibuya Branch invited us to their lovely home for dinner. It was great to be able to sit together and enjoy a quiet meal with them. Usually when food is involved, the four of us are running in and out of the church kitchen, hauling in food from Costco, chopping, cooking, serving, and cleaning for large groups of kids. But last night it was just us.

We cannot put into words how much we love and respect these two people. They are amazing. They are true Disciples of Jesus Christ, who have consecrated their entire lives to the kingdom. That’s not an easy thing to do here in Tokyo, Japan. Over the term of our mission, this couple has become a literal brother and sister to us. We truly love them.

YSA Temple Night

Last Wednesday we had 13 YSA members join us for temple night. Our YSA temple night attendance continues to steadily grow and we love it.

Because of our gradual success with YSA temple night, a couple of improved changes recently happened. First, we now have a budget to buy food for the gathering we have after the temple session. Up until now, we were paying for snacks on our own. But with increased attendance comes increased attention, and the blessing of a budget.

Second, the institute has added “YSA Temple Night” to the calendar for Wednesdays. This means there are no institute classes on Wednesdays now, and instead, institute students are encouraged to attend the temple with us. This has widened the reach of YSA temple night beyond just our Shibuya branch. Now every YSA member in the Tokyo metro area is being encouraged to attend. We are thrilled.

One thing we have learned to be true: The best way to strengthen the rising generation is to bring them to the temple.

Senior Dinner

Last week, President and Sister Tueller invited all the senior couples in our mission to their home for dinner.

Elder Low was shocked to realize that we are now the senior senior couple in the mission. All the other couples have arrived here after us, and many have arrived recently.

It was really fun to sit together over a delicious meal and compare notes. It’s a big city and we seldom have the opportunity to see each other.

An Account of Our Stewardship

Our mission is winding down. We have just a couple of weeks left, and then we’ll return home.

This morning Elder Low was pondering and started to wonder to himself, “Just how much have we done?” He always worries whether he’s being an effective missionary. This question led him to doing a little research and looking up some numbers. And that led him to create a spreadsheet with some calculations.

He named the spreadsheet “An Account of Our Stewardship.” Here are the highlights:

Meals

We did a lot of cooking. We cooked for our 3rd Sunday big YSA gathering events, for branch activities, institute gatherings, and for Family Home Evenings, and we also cooked breakfast for the missionaries in our district every P Day.

• Number of events where we cooked food: 641

• Number of meals served: 8193

Teaching

Our primary responsibility was to teach the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. For most of our mission, we taught two institute classes every week. We also taught Temple Prep classes, Relief Society classes, Sunday School classes, and Self Reliance classes. On top of that we joined with our young missionaries, and with them taught their investigating friends.

Then there were the Japanese tutoring sessions we had with our young missionaries where we helped them study and learn how to teach the Gospel in the difficult Japanese language. We also taught a weekly Japanese class where we helped people from other countries who have immigrated to Japan learn basic Japanese.

• Number of Institute lessons taught: 128

• Institute lesson encounters with individuals: 5120 (where 1 encounter equals a person attending 1 lesson)

• Japanese tutoring sessions with missionaries: 1296 individual sessions

• Japanese classroom sessions for immigrants: 60

• Japanese lesson encounters with immigrants: Over 300

• Family Home Evening lessons taught: 72

• Family Home Evening encounters with individuals: 2520

• Other gospel lessons taught: Over 50

• Total number of teaching moments: 1606 lessons

Temple:

• Temple ordinance sessions we officiated: 66

• Ordinances for individuals we officiated: Well over 3500, but really impossible to count.

Clerical Work for the Mission

• Trips to City Hall: 36

• Forms filled out for processing at City Hall: Over 4200

After looking at these numbers, we are overwhelmed. We’re shocked. It doesn’t feel like we were that busy. Every day has been a fun adventure, not stressful. But these numbers are incredibly humbling.

Lesson learned: We are surprised at what we were able to do as missionaries.

And there is still more to do. While we’re now prepping to return home, we still have teaching and cooking and helping to do. It’s going to be a bittersweet time for us.

There’s one more statistic we’d like to share:

• Smiling: 100%

Scroll back up and look at Sister Low. In every picture, she is grinning ear to ear. In fact, go back and look at previous reports we’ve sent. Always smiling. That’s how it’s been every day of our mission.

We are happy. We love what we do. We are grateful. We are blessed.

There is still more to come. So stand by.

Until then, we love you all,

Elder and Sister Low