Strangers in a Strange Land
"I have been a stranger in a strange land" (Exodus 2:22). So often the Lord asks us to go where we may feel inadequate, or unprepared. That has been the case here in Japan without any language training and living on the local economy. But a strange land can also be other places such as working with a lot of inactive where you're not sure if you're reaching them, or on the Navy base to where we have been called, but still find everyone a lot younger and different from when we were in the Air Force 20 years ago. We remember that Heavenly Father has called us to serve here at this time, so "We move trust in the Lord and do good" (Psalm 37:3).
Early on a cold morning, we had gone to the fitness center to work out. We also use this time to talk with some of the staff members and others there. On this morning somewhere in the building the fire alarm was set off. Everyone had to immediately leave the building. We were about to leave already, so it wasn't a big problem other than waiting patiently for three fire trucks boxing our car in. So we waited for a little while. What was most interesting was a young Japanese man had to leave the indoor swimming pool with just his swim trunks and a towel. He said he was OK, after his body adjusted to temperatures in the 40s.
We had another wonderful experience attending an endowment session with the other missionaries from our zone. It's great to see some missionaries that were in our area in the past and to reconnect. The Spirit among these young men and women is impressive. Seeing them in the temple with the mission president and his wife, it always strikes me how in the celestial room where we all dress the same, the feeling comes across me that we are all the same in the sight of our Heavenly Father as his children.
As a bonus during this period, we were able to attend the temple one other time to do family initiators We stayed that night at our usual New Sanno hotel, this time trying out a new restaurant, Theo's, there on the property. The motif was around the US National Parks and Theodore Roosevelt; fascinating.
It takes a little over an hour to drive home, depending on the traffic. On this occasion the traffic seemed a little heavier. Towards the end of the drive Elder Melton did not come to a full stop and was pulled over. The officers are always so nice, even when you do something wrong. We decided though not to offer our license up until the officer asked for it, which he did not. But he also asked "Do you only speak English?" to which Elder Melton responded "yes and also Spanish." He motioned us to wait while he went back to his car and got his translator. We think he may not have completely understood what we meant, because when he showed us his translation, it was indeed in Spanish. It essentially said that spot was a little tricky and be careful. He then let us go bowing with a smile and an "arigato gozaimasu".
Working with the young adults continues to be one of our main areas of focus, and still one of the most challenging things in our small branch. So we take any small thing as a positive step. We have still been holding our Monday evening Game Night at the base to let the inactive members know we are there and reaching out to them. The past couple of week we have had six people attending: ourselves, two of the Elders in our district, one non-member and one YSA. Yet the non member will soon be moving to Hokkaido on the northern end of Japan. Also, the Mission President has realigned the district meetings to take place on Monday evenings rather than Friday mornings. Although we attended the Friday morning ones, this will make us unable to attend. We enjoyed attending, but for us they were not required, so for now, we will keep our focus on reaching out to the YSAs. But that does leave us with just the one YSA. There is another who has been gone for four months, but should be back sometime next week, which we hope will help in rebuilding the group again, We had one of inactive YSAs accept a facebook invite from Elder Melton, which we consider a small win. We've seen a couple of other inactive YSAs on and around the base. They still have little interest in coming back at this point, but they are always receptive to talking.
Although the time of the district meeting is changing, we made the most of the last one with Sister Melton making Jambalaya. It was something that many of the missionaries, especially from other countries had never heard of. But it was such a huge hit that a few of the missionaries asked for the recipe. Sister Melton wrote it down and we distributed it to everyone, trying to make it as missionary friendly as possible; as in easy and quick to make, not drawn out like more authentic recipes would be.
Our involvement with the young missionaries is still pretty active. There are two Elders and two Sisters in our district who are assigned to our Branch. Although they serve both our Branch and the Japanese Ward that meets in the same building, sometimes the member meals are sparse. So we have had both companionships over at different times. ring this period we also said good bye to Elder Baquiran who was not only one of our zone leaders, but was our district leader several months ago.
On another occasion, we had all nine young missionaries participating in a clean-up project just off base. During this time they are able to engage with the other participants and introduce themselves. As usual, even one of our inactive YSA was attending the service project again. It has always made me wonder why he doesn't want to get involved with the church, but has still identified himself as a member to our other missionaries. We still honor his request not to identify him to the branch, so we just keep trying to set the example.
When we're not busy with something else, we started supporting the other missionaries, by attending their English class on Friday nights and Japanese class on Saturday nights at the chapel. The missionaries just proposed changing the Friday class with another Game Night that would still be held at the church with everyone from both the English and Japanese units invited. We talked through some of the details at our dinner table. We are looking forward to starting this up in the next couple of weeks.
We had a three week hiatus from teaching the temple prep course. One Sunday there was an unusual snow storm that came through and reduced the number of members attending church. Our two students were also gone the other two weeks for various reasons. Both were back this week, so we held the fifth lesson and plan to combine the last two lessons in one for next week.
All of these activities were some of our more unique activities. We were still busy with many other ongoing activities which included the following: Attending the Protestant Service on base, supporting a couple of the Red Cross Coffee Carts at the security building and the health clinic, reading to children at the library's Story Time program, coaching a girls basket ball team, Sister Melton starting to teach a "Budget for Babies" class for expectant mothers, and Elder Melton attending the base weekly Bible Study. Yet, with all these activities, we did have one day where we were able to take some time off to visit a nearby Aquarium and celebrate Valentine's Day.
Perhaps as we go through life, we will be tried and tested, but the Lord is faithful in sustaining each one of us as long as we trust in him. This is a beautiful experience we are having here in Japan, and we know that he loves all his children wherever they are. One of the beauties of temple worship is the reassurance that we can do the work for everyone so that none are denied the opportunity to return to him. From the active member to the inactive member who has turned away, to those of other faiths, to those who may not have the opportunity to hear the gospel in this life, all will be able to return to his presence.
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