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.
No comments:
Post a Comment