Concert a Rousing Success!

Our district and part of the neighboring one hosted a concert, put together by Elder Monahan, our district leader from Gilbert AZ and Sister Utagawa from Tokyo. Sister Utagawa has a CD out of Japanese versions of Janice Kapp Perry songs. Sister Perry and Sister Utagawa's family have worked together on this album. Mostly though it is our Sister Utagawa that is doing the singing. We advertised the concert as "Shiho Utagawa and Friends". A lot of members also participated and all of us missionaries sang three choral numbers. The concert was really beautiful and lots of hearts were touched. We had a good turn-out of members and non-members. Our two newly baptized members were there--the sister I talked about last week was baptized today and another sister was baptized last night. Last night's baptism is a medical student who plans to go to the USA for her residency--in cystic fibrosis. She has excellent English and it was fun to talk to her. It definitely helped my credulity that I have three active LDS brothers who are doctors. Jeff, we pull you in when we are talking to the students studying law, or when we want stories about small branches.

We sang our songs in Japanese. This may sound like quite a feat for me, but Japanese consists of some 30plus syllables that are exaclty alike and can be written in roman characters called romaji. One of the syllables is just the sound "N-n-n-n". The rest of the syllables are consonant and vowel combinations--na, no, te, ta, shi, etc. So a song is just a string of these syllables. It is so fun to sing the "n-n-n" syllable that I'm afraid we kind of sing that one with a great pride that says, "WE are Japanese missionaries and you are not. You (whoever that may be) have to sing regular syllables, but we can spend a whole note just saying "n-n-n".

So my cheat sheet consisted of these syllables in romaji. Here is the first line of "Sisters in Zion." 

Shi o n no mu e me shu no wa za ni

I sounded just fine as long as I remembered to give the vowels the correct Nihongo pronunciation and not the English one. Since I knew all of the tunes, it wasn't as hard as it sounds. And since I stood next to Sister Utagawa, who has a wonderful, loud soprano voice, I just made sure I blended.

Our last song followed the testimony of our zone leader who is going home to Ogden on Thursday, Elder Gardiner. Although I couldn't tell what he was saying, I could tell that he was crying so of course I cried too. This would have been alright, but we were all standing behind him while he spoke so everyone saw. Dad also was crying. We know they noticed because our single adults commented afterward. They are very observant. Or maybe they love us.

Yesterday I wrote my testimony of missionary work to our Northern Far East Missionary group. I am sending it here so that all of you can read it. A lot of fellow missionaries responded, some who are also working with Outreach Centers in Europe. These are all returned Japanese or Korean missionaries, so how did they get to Europe? One elder says that his wife is the one who speaks German and he is in the position of trying to learn. He has probably found, as I have, that a great many young people want to practice their English so that communication is not as hard as it sounds.

Our NAVI arrived and it IS all in Kanji and spoken Japanese. Several of our YSA have helped us to work with it so that we can at least find HOME when we get lost. Now we don't mind wandering so much, because at least we can get home at the end.

Our Kumamoto buses shut off when they wait at traffic lights, no idling. We have quite a haze that hangs over the city, so at least the buses are not contributing to it by idling at stop lights.

Have a wonderful week. We are.

Here's the testimony:

Wayne, as one of those senior couples mentioned by Pres Iwaasa ( and the non-Japanese speaking half as well), may I add my testimony about the amazing excitement and success the work is having in Japan at this time. There is hardly a day go by that we do not participate in a discussion with an investigator. These investigators are found by the wonderful young
sisters and elders in our district and they invite us to help. Since my Japanese consists of trying to say the correct greeting for the time of day, I have learned that I can contribute my prayers during the discussion and my simple one line testimony from the missionary handbook. Luckily the young missionaries can explain what I said if it is too incomprehensible and the spirit can convey the message anyway.

I served my first mission in England and Wales. We taught discussions, but not at this rate. It is truly amazing and wonderful and breathtaking, nearly every day.  Beats watching TV and reading novels and being generally thought to be too old, that's for sure. The members love us, we love them, the food is even better than you remember it from before and nearly every
one speaks some English, if you just say the English words with a Japanese accent and speak very slowly and simply. If you really want to be impressive, for you other non-Japanese speaking spouses, just memorize a simple prayer in Japanese. Then everyone thinks you are really neat, even if they didn't understand what you said, they could still tell that you
were trying.

Please come. Retire early. Put in your papers. Hope for Japan. You'll love it. You'll really learn to love the Lord. He really wants you to be exactly who you are, an experienced couple in the church with a working testimony of the gospel, because you have lived it and seen what changes it makes in people's lives.   Gambatte! (Which means, "Go for it!")

Love, Mom, Kandie, Grandma as the case may be.