Heavenly Father is aware of his children

As part of the branch membership records cleanup, we looked at mail that were sent out to members but were returned as undeliverable.  Among those returned was one to the Iwashitas, pictured above.  Sister Lee was about to move their records out of the branch, among other records of members verified no longer living at their last known address and has no new known address.  However, it was reported from one of branch members that Brother Furue may know where their business is located.  The Iwashitas own an insurance business.  Sister Lee discovered the name of the insurance business and did some searches on the internet.  She found it and the owners of the business matched on name.  She consulted with me if it would be OK to call the business, confirm they are the Iwashitas who we were looking for, and if so, get their new address.  Japanese tend to hold the value of their privacy very high.  I felt inspired to say it would be better to visit in person.  Looking up their business address on Google maps, it turned out it was only a 15 minutes walk from our apartment.  We decided to go over early one morning after businesses open (In Japan, most businesses open at 10 a.m.)

We were received very warmly when we entered the business and were ushered into a conference room.  We learned they were baptized on Amami Island back in 1984.  As the practice of many businesses in Japan, it is customary to transfer their employees around to different locations every few years.  This practice include teachers and school administrators.  Obviously it included insurance agents as the Iwashitas moved several times.  Undoubtedly this contributed to Iwashitas losing contact with the church.  Not sure how long it has been since Iwashitas received any kind of contact from the church, but they were glad to see us.  As we talked (i.e. they talked with Sister Lee and I jumped in when Sister Lee translated something that was asked of me), one of the things that they were really interested in was finding the missionary who was instrumental in their baptism, an Elder Ron Whitehead.  They asked if there is a way for them to find this Ron Whitehead.  Even though I knew the church does not provide a means to connect converts with former missionaries, I had this strong impression that I could find Ron Whitehead for them.  Therefore I promised them that I would find Ron.

I figured that all I had to do was get onto one of those websites of former missionaries and quickly find Ron.  Boy, was I wrong.  There were no Ron Whitehead registered on those websites.  I sent emails to registered former missionaries that served roughly the same time but alas no responses.  However, perseverance is the name of the game and it helps when I get inspired ideas on what to do.  Piecing bits of information from whitepages.com and public records in San Diego area, I felt I had located phone numbers for Ron.  However, those numbers were no longer in service.  I found phone numbers for whom I thought possibly are his inlaws, but those numbers were not in service either.  I sent a message on facebook to someone whom I felt was his brother-in-law, but again no response.  I was inspired with a thought that older people may not look at their facebook messages very often, that I should try younger people.  So I messaged a younger person who is a facebook friend of this brother-in-law and indeed I was able to get a response.  She turned out to the daughter of this brother-in-law and confirmed that Ron Whitehead is the person who I was looking for.  However, apparently Ron and her aunt had divorced some time ago, but she would contact her dad to have him contact Ron.  After a few days of hearing nothing from her dad, I reached out to her again and this time her dad gave Ron's contact information to her to relay to me.  From that I reached out to Ron Whitehead, who responded and expressed excitement in reconnecting with the Iwashitas.  He gave me his instagram ID and we helped the Iwashitas open up an instagram account.  Time will tell when Iwashitas will return to church but at least they now know that God and the church has not forgotten them.

Inner Fukuoka Mission Zone Conference

Christmas Eve 2019 - Currently there are 7 zones in the Japan Fukuoka Mission.  Okinawa Zone will have their zone conference this Friday on 27th.  The remaining 6 zones had theirs yesterday on Christmas Eve in Fukuoka.  Normally zone conference is done for 2 zones at a time, where Kagoshima zone usually do it with Kumamoto zone.  This time it was for 6 zones.  Needless to say, we had the Fukuoka Stake Center jam packed with missionaries.  For lunch, all the senior couples chipped in to serve the younger missionaries.  Sister Lee and I were designated as "runners", i.e. continue to bring food out from the kitchen to the serving tables to replenish items that run low.  We did other things in between "runs".  The menu consisted of baked potatoes with chili, cheese, Greek Yogurt instead of sour cream, onions, other toppings; rolls, mekan, tossed salad.  It was a festive day.  Besides some comments from President Mack, we had a wonderful solo from Sister Kakazu singing O Holy Night, and a round of carols by everyone.  We capped off the day by watching It's A Wonderful Life with Japanese subtitles.  There are many lessons that all of us can learn from this great film.  No matter how things we do that we may consider small, their ripple effects may be huge.  As President Mack said, "We may not know the full impact of our lives until our next life." 

When the group photo of this large gathering is made available, I'll post it.

Christmas in Kagoshima

After Sunday services last Sunday, we brought these presents home that branch members gave to us. For couple weeks they had these tables set up in the hallway with boxes for members to drop off presents.  They also had sheets of paper for missionaries to declare their wishes.  Some of the younger missionaries asked for gloves, scarfs because weather is getting cool.  We left our sheet blank because we basically have everything we need, yet members filled our box as well.  Since we have presents, I decided we needed a tree.  One of the prior senior couples left a tree (4-5 ft. tall), so I set it up.  There were some garlands so I wrapped them around the tree and there was a star to put on top.  That's our simple Christmas in Kagoshima.

Baptism

This is Sister Khin.  She was baptized on Dec 15.  She is from Myanmar (formerly Burma), going to school here in Japan, learning Japanese.  She speaks a little bit of English, so when she was taking gospel lessons from the young missionaries, they would Skype with couple missionaries serving in Myanmar.  Very interesting mix of languages spoken in the gospel discussions.

Buildings near Elder Lee's hospital

The building on the left is a local government building.  The building on the right is the Kagoshima Prefecture government building.  There is a sky bridge connecting the two.  There is some kind of arch structure below the bridge.  From this angle, it looks like it is supporting the sky bridge but it is not connected to the bridge.  One of these days, we should go explore these structures more closely.  I took this photo while sitting at the red light after picking up stuff from the Elder Lee's apartment and going back to the hospital.

Here is a view of the Kagoshima Prefecture government building from the street of the back entrance to the hospital.

Shiroyama Hotel

Dec 9, 2019 - This was the date that young Elder Lee was released from the hospital.  By the time he was released, it was about 11 a.m. and his companion was leaving from a baptismal interview to go to lunch up at a restaurant up at Shiroyama Hotel (on top of Mt. Shiroyama).  All the young missionaries were invited to lunch by a Mrs. Yamamoto, who is not a church member but who likes associating with the young missionaries alot.  All the young missionaries were taking one of the free Shiroyama Hotel shuttle buses up to the restaurant.  Since Elder Lee was invited and needed to meet up with his companion again, we drove him up to Shiroyama Hotel.  The hotel was having 2 wedding receptions, so the place was a zoo, just filled with cars.  By the time we got up there, most of the parking spots were taken.  However, the parking attendant directed us to what I would consider a VIP parking spot, near the exit, only 50 meters to the hotel and restaurant.  Even though the other missionaries got on the shuttle bus before we even left the hospital, we actually got to the restaurant about 15 minutes earlier than they did.  Mrs. Yamamoto said it would OK if we joined in the luncheon (making 12 missionaries altogether).  Lunch was a buffet (Sister Lee found out it was 2000 yen / person, roughly $18.50).  We didn't see her pay.  She just walked out of the restaurant.  She must be some VIP who probably has her own tab with the hotel / restaurant.  The following photo is of Sister Lee with young Elder Lee with a view from the hotel of Kagoshima and our ever active volcano Sakurajima.

Preview of Use of New Church Building

Dec 6, 2019 - It seemed so long ago when they announced the merging of Taniyama Branch with Kagoshima Branch and that there will be a new church building.  8 months later and still the new building is not ready.  No remodeling has started to turn the 3rd and 4th floors into a chapel with classrooms, etc.  Latest estimate is now maybe June 2020.

A few months ago, I approached President Mack about an idea of using part of the first floor as a new teaching station.  Nothing happened for couple months about my suggestion.  Then suddenly we were invited to tour a remodeled portion of the first floor, remodeled for the explicit purpose of a new teaching station.  We were told it would be on a one month trial basis to see how we like it.  So far we are happy with it.  The classroom is slightly bigger than the old.  There are more restrooms available instead of having to share one tiny bathroom.  There is parking available, which the students who drive really love.

Since the new teaching station is close to the train station, it is really easy to pick up President and Sister Mack for Interview Day.  The following photo is taken in the lobby of the first floor because President Mack is using the classroom to do his interviews, so we set up in the lobby for the district training sessions.  Since the heating system is not functional in the lobby, we brought our apartment portable heaters to warm it up as best as we could.  However it is really nice to finally able to make use of the building.

Christmas Concert

Dec 7, 2019 - Kagoshima Branch Christmas activity this year was a Christmas Concert.  There were many wonderful performances.  Sister Lee and I participated in a group consisting of missionaries and any English class students who decided to join in singing "Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer".  After the performances, we had refreshments.  I ate a little and then I disappeared and reappeared as what you can see in the photo below.  In a branch correlation meeting a few weeks earlier, even though I can't understand Japanese, I can recognize Elder Lee in Japanese, which is "Lee Choro".  I heard "Lee Choro" and "Santa" spoken in the same sentence, so I knew I was in trouble.  How can I refuse?  It is amazing that quite a few people wanted to have their photo taken with Santa.

It was fun.  Good thing the children didn't sit on my lap and ask me for presents.  I didn't know how to ask if they have been good all year.  The only thing I didn't like was that fake beard kept getting into my mouth.  Yuck, that cotton.

Elder Lee in the hospital

Dec 1 - 9, 2019 - Yep, Elder Lee was in the hospital during those days.  That's Elder Lee the Younger.  Yes, we happened to have another Elder Lee serving in the Japan Fukuoka Mission.  So when I write emails, I usually end them with the elderly Elder Lee to make sure people can distinguish which Elder Lee.

Anyway, young Elder Lee was working in Taniyama, which is about 1/2 hour driving wise south of Kagoshima.  He and his companion went to church on Sunday, Dec 1st.  He started getting sick at church and tried to sleep it off back at the apartment.  But it simply got progressively worse.  By late evening, he was rushed to one of nearby clinics by ambulance.  Given the symptoms that he was exhibiting, the emergency doctors thought it might be meningitis but that clinic was not equipped to handle meningitis.  He was then rushed by ambulance to a larger hospital close to us.  We got the phone call from his companion around 10 p.m. that he was going to be transferred to the larger hospital but at that time, unknown location.

When we found out later the exact hospital, we rushed over there.  We literally drove around the block looking for the hospital parking lot.  We eventually found one, drove up to the gate, pushed the button to lower the driver side window to pick up the parking lot ticket.  The parking lot was pretty much empty so I took a spot closest to the front entrance of the hospital.  We rushed to the front entrance and it was locked.  We figured that we must enter at the emergency entrance, which I saw when I drove around the hospital building.  We walked briskly to the emergency entrance and was able to enter.  By this time it was somewhere between 10:30 and 11 p.m.  When we got in, two nurses were surprised to see us enter by the emergency entrance (we later learned the back entrance is open for normal use during off hours as well as regular hours).  Nurses were helpful and directed us to where Elder Lee's companion, Elder Vawdrey, was waiting.  The doctors were running tests and so we just had to wait.

About 11:30 p.m., we were still waiting.  At that time, another couple entered the waiting area.  It was 1st counselor to the Japan Fukuoka Mission, President Sano and his wife, who happen to live within the Kagoshima Branch.  We didn't call them and Elder Vawdrey didn't really know them, so I was curious how they found out about Elder Lee being in the hospital.  Mission office knew we were at the hospital so there is no real need to send anyone else.  It turned out that one of the ambulance emergency caregivers was a Kagoshima branch member so he called President Sano, who of course rushed over from their home.  This scenario demonstrates to me that Heavenly Father is well aware of his children and he is going to make sure his children understand they are watched over.

Finally, another hour passes and we were allowed to go in to talk to Elder Lee.  We learned that they will keep him over night and we were to come back around 9 - 9:30 a.m. and check on what's next.  They had given Elder Lee a spinal tap and he was in substantial pain from that.  We then took Elder Vawdrey to the Kagoshima Elders apartment so he can be in a temporary threesome.  When we got out of the hospital, it was pouring rain hard.  We borrowed some umbrellas and walked to the car.  When I got to the car, I realized that in my hurry to get to the hospital, after getting the parking lot ticket, I had forgotten to close the side window.  Needless to say, my seat was wet and thus my suit jacket and pants got wet from sitting on it.

Next day, we went back to the hospital at the prescribed time and learned that the spinal tap was clear, no meningitis.  So they were going to run some tests, but at the very least he would stay another 3 days.  We needed to go to their apartment and pick up some things.  So for the next week, we basically ran errands, bringing missionaries to visit Elder Lee.  On Friday, Dec 6, it was interview day, so we shuttled President and Sister Mack to visit him as well.  Eventually the doctor pinpointed the problem to tonsilitis.  It was decided the best thing was to send him home to have surgery and then he can resume his mission after he is well.  Tokyo decided to fly him home from Kagoshima instead of normally from Fukuoka.  On Dec 9th, Elder Lee was released, now strong enough to travel.  While driving to their apartment, Elder Lee, thankfully remembered that he didn't have his passport (all passports for young missionaries are kept at mission office).  So after dropping Elders Lee and Vawdrey to pack, I took Sister Lee to the train station where she made a quick trip to the Fukuoka train station where Elder Sorensen from the mission office handed her the passport and she turned right around and came back to Kagoshima. 

So on Dec 10th, Sister Lee and I drove Elder Lee to the airport, ending a very interesting chapter in our mission experiences here in Kagoshima.