Family History Week-end

Yesterday the Kumamoto ward relief society asked us to talk about our ancestors, relief society, pioneers and anything else up-lifting we wanted to talk about that would fit into 30 minutes total. Since filling 30 minutes with Japanese is still quite a struggle, we handled it this way. Keith prepared a power point presentation with slides from St George and clips from Legacy of wagon trains traveling through desert and sagebrush. He also had a section of his family tree to show his connection to the grandmother he was talking about. I wrote Uncle Jeff and had him send me some of the pictures of the Swiss church and village where Elizabeth Trachsler Boshard lived before she was baptized. I also spoke about Christina Charlotta Pehrson Olson from Sweden. So my power point slide had their names and dates on it. Both of these great grandmothers were widows with children who traveled to America because of the church, so it was fun to talk about their similarities. (This is really baby Japanese still, so it sounds a lot like a 4-year-old's primary talk.) 

Dad gave his entire presentation in Japanese including the story of the Indian grandmother who knocked on Grandma Sophie Rusch Mathis' door begging for food. I gave (read) the first few sentences and the last few sentences in Japanese and had an interpreter for the rest. I gave her a copy of the talk ahead of time so that she would feel more comfortable in her presentation. The two languages are very hard to translate back and forth. A sentence in Japanese turns into almost a paragraph in English and vice-versa. It's probably the same with other languages, but I only have experience with French and Japanese. It really seems that English and French were just a matter of getting the word order correct, but the basic thought was still the same. Not so in Japanese. The whole sentence has to be rethought and maybe many more sentences added to get across the same or similar meaning.

We were asked to introduce ourselves first. It has taken us some time to understand what this means--introduce ourselves. In America, that means list your accomplishments--job, family, awards etc. Here they want to know what your favorite color is, what your hobbies are, what is your favorite food, where your hometown is--among other things. These questions have thrown us for quite a loop until we figured out what was happening. So this is what I said, "We are from Utah and Idaho. Our favorite food is Japanese food. My hobbies are reading and walking (two acceptable hobbies here) and my husband's hobby is memorizing kanji (this was greeted with a lot of blank stares so I'm pretty sure this one did not translate correctly). We have 5 children and 10 grandchildren. We are very happy to be here in Kumamoto." 

I did not say what our favorite colors are because we are not sure what to say here. Since all colors are great and Dad tends to want to say things like, "We are from the moon. My favorite color is chartreuse..." Our presentation was well received, but anything from us is greeted with such kindness that we really don't know if it was good or not. We always have a grand time.

One of the questions that they asked afterward was this, "How did you get to come to Japan for your mission?" We explained that we had always wanted to come here and had really been planning this for 40 years. But the main thing that happened is that last year in March, the Lord told us, "I want you in Japan in January." We began to make all of the preparations--with a lot undone as Kathy and Donna can testify--but here we are. This fact is still amazing to me. Every time I walk back to the apartment from the church, I think with total amazement, "I'm in Kumamoto and I live on the 8th floor right next to the church and I get to teach the gospel every day. How wonderfully amazing is all of that!?!"

I ordered a Japanese/English dictionary from Amazon.jp.com. In tracking the package I see that it is coming from the Tokyo area to Kumamoto by SHIP! Now, how about that? Of course the last bit has to be by rail or truck, since Kumamoto is an inland plain, but that amounts to a two hour drive only. Most of its way, the book is coming by SHIP.

This whole posting is actually about ancestors. It becomes clearer and clearer to me the more we get to talk about family history, that our ancestors are very close to us and care about us deeply. They really do want us to know about them. They know all about us. I have a feeling that they feel as proud and pleased as any other grandparent when it comes to their own grandchild. So here is a little challenge. Take some time this month to find out a story about a grandparent. Take one to the temple if they haven't already been. Learn a name and a date and a place so that you can start connecting some history together in your mind. Be happy that they are your ancestors. They're happy that you are their children.

Love, Mom, Kandie, Grandma

for pictures, check out our web-site  <prisbreyfamily.blogspot.com> 

Investigators

The attached picture shows two of our investigators (‘our’, meaning that Kandie and I have been teaching them discussions together with the young missionaries). Kandie is talking to one, the man our age. I’m sitting next to and slightly behind the other at the left (back of her head only), and her recently baptized son is looking at me taking the picture. This picture was last night at our ‘movie night’ at the center, and included cooking and serving Curry Rice to the group of over thirty.

Love, Dad

Yellow Haze

We had quite a haze over the city yesterday. I mentioned it in the last posting. I've thought that it was from auto exhaust, but it turns out to be yellow dust from China! That almost makes it standable. Today the haze is gone, due to rain, but all the cars and sidewalks and cement are covered with stripes and drips of yellow dust. What about YOUR haze? Do you get yours from China? How cool is that!

FHE Group Games

We have funny papers, eyebrows and rosy cheeks, on our faces after this FHE game, Monday night. Love, Keith

other Baptism

Here is a picture of the two baptisms this weekend (Saturday and Sunday), of investigators that Kandie and I helped teach.
Not a good picture, it turns out. The wife is not in the picture, but the husband is standing in the center, and will be baptized probably in the next couple of weeks. Love, Keith

Kandie's investigator English Class for Primary

The first picture is of Kandie’s investigator English class for Primary age kids taught during the day, Saturday. She teaches it with one of the Full-time sister missionaries, and she is slated to take over when they are transferred (this week?). It is a hoot. I watched the singing, heads-nose-knees-and-toes and similar activities, gospel stories, and all the other primary things, including opening and closing prayer. The mothers absolutely love it, and they almost all are now taking missionary discussions and trying to get their husbands to come.
The last picture is of a model family home evening (Saturday afternoon) held in our apartment for an investigator family. The Sunday evening concert was a blow-out success. If I my eyes would have stopped tearing up, I would have contacted even more non-members who came. But Kandie and all the other full time missionaries were in there swinging hard. Woops. The first meeting just arrived. I’ll send all the picture later. Love, Keith

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.