メリディアン・日本語：

メリディアン

日本語

帰還宣教師から

From Returned Missionaries

Dwayne N. Andersen-Excerpts from Autobiography

Mission President continued

JAPANESE CHAPEL BUILDING PROGRAM

The Japanese people as a whole are rather materialistic in their nature. To the Japanese, buildings and other physical evidences such as schools or hospitals, demonstrate the importance and stability of the church in Japan. In 1962 all meetings throughout the mission were held in remodeled homes, schools, and rented buildings. Upon my arrival in Japan, I found building supervisors from the United States were already settled and ready to start building chapels. My responsibility was to call young Japanese members to become building missionaries. This was not easy because construction people were at the bottom of the Japanese social scale. However, there were many dedicated young men who were ready to accept the challenge.

Each of the American supervisors was assigned enough Japanese building missionaries so they could start on a new chapel. The chapels were beautiful and comfortable, but were small compared to the chapels in the United States. The first groundbreaking ceremonies were held at Tokyo North and Tokyo West Branch. It was miraculous to see how fast these non-Japanese-speaking supervisors were able to find ways to communicate and demonstrate the building skills to these unskilled missionaries. The local financial share for these chapels came from the thousands of dollars that were donated over many years by the U.S. servicemen. Our central building construction office was located in Tokyo. It consisted of four American building missionaries with their families. Their duties were to coordinate and supervise all the other building projects in Japan. There were 11 other American building supervisors, some with children and some without. Eight of these supervised the building of new chapels, while two of them supervised the remodeling of existing buildings into chapels. One supervisor was assigned to build a new addition to the existing mission home and also to remodel the mission home. There were over a hundred local Japanese young men who were called on a two-year building mission. These missionaries were divided up among the various projects. A formal groundbreaking service was held for each of the eight new chapels. The Japanese members attended these services with great excitement and enthusiasm. During my time there, two chapels were completed and dedicated: Tokyo North and Tokyo West. The two existing buildings remodeled: Tokyo East and Fukuoka Branch. The building projects at Gunma and Naha, Okinawa, were completed but not dedicated. There were four other chapels under construction: Abeno, Tokyo South, Yokohama, and Sapporo. The new large addition to the mission home was completed; and they had started to remodel the mission home itself before I was released. With the help of the head building supervisor, seven other building sites were purchased. The building program was a great boost to the overall missionary work.

An interesting experience happened one day. A Japanese architect came and wanted to look over one of our chapel sites. I took him to see the Tokyo North chapel. He was very surprised at the workmanship of these unskilled Japanese building missionaries. He shook his head in disbelief at what he saw. He told me he had worked on New York skyscrapers, but had never seen any better concrete work than was found in our new chapels. I thought to myself: THIS IS BECAUSE THE LORD’S HAND IS GUIDING THE WORK. Each chapel was beautiful with its unique American architecture in contrast to the oriental structures around them. The physical evidence of outstanding chapels increased the status of the church in Japan as well as the spirituality of the Japanese saints. Elder Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated Tokyo North and Tokyo West chapels on April 26, 1964, doing one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. A number of government and city officials were invited to the chapel dedications.

One government official, a member of the Diet, was in attendance and was asked to speak. He said that he passed the building site often and felt a special spirit as he went by. He thought to himself: “Something very special is being built here.” And as he spoke to the audience, he said: “ Now that I am here in this meeting, I feel a strong spirit that I have never felt before.” Both dedications were overfilled with members and the spirit of the Lord. To the excited Japanese members, these were very special, historic events in the growth of the church in Japan. In Japan, public buildings are rather dirty and shabby. No one seems to take pride in public buildings. It took a lot of training to get the custodians and members of the branch to take pride in the chapels and keep them clean and neat. During my time as mission president, two of the branch meeting places were accidentally burned down by the missionaries. These buildings were living quarters for the missionaries as well as a gathering place for the branch members. These were Japanese homes converted to accommodate the missionaries and saints.

The new chapels that were being built were a great boost to the development of the kingdom of God in Japan. It increased conversion, developed more reverence, increased the spiritual level, and added pride and greater devotion to the Japanese members. There was only one serious problem that I encountered with the building missionaries: One building missionary began praying longer in his personal prayers and claimed that he was receiving revelation. He said that he was told not to eat rice, pork, and apples. This caused quite a stir among the other missionaries. He had gained a couple of followers. I called him in and told him that any revelation concerning the building missionaries would come through the priesthood leaders. He was called to repentance, which he agreed to do. However, he continued to cause confusion; so he was released and sent back to Hokkaido.

A few months later he showed up at my office, in ragged clothes, shaggy hair, and was dirty. He said he was sick and asked for a priesthood administration. This was the only time in my life that I was impressed to deny a priesthood blessing. I gave him some money and sent him to obtain medical assistance. A few months later he appeared at my office door again. This time he was cleaned up and wearing a nice suit just like a first-class missionary. He asked for forgiveness with a sincere, humble heart, saying that he had repented and had a great desire to finish his building mission. I called a meeting of all the building missionaries where he had been working. I had him speak to them and ask for forgiveness. I took a vote of the missionaries to see if they would accept him back. It was a unanimous vote in the positive. He was reinstated as a building missionary and became one of the most outstanding building missionaries.

The building missionary program proved to be a tremendous asset to the strength of the church in Japan. Many of the young men developed skills that turned into a lifetime profession. They also developed into strong leaders in the branches and districts and later in the wards and stakes.