メリディアン
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帰還宣教師から
From Returned Missionaries
Dwayne N. Andersen-Excerpts from Autobiography
Mission President continued
FINANCIAL UNDERTAKING (Hawaii Temple Project)
Brother Lambert, director of the Bee-Hive Tours, quoted us about $300 per person for a chartered plane with Flying Tigers-if we had about 165 persons. The regular round-trip fare to Hawaii was $621, so this was quite a savings. We felt the member could pay $250 per person and the mission could raise the other $50. With 165 people this meant that the mission would have to raise over $8,000. Brother Yamanaka, among other things, was a pearl merchant, so he made it possible to engage in a pearl project. We obtained beautiful, cultured pearls and assembled them into tiepins, single pearl necklaces, and earrings. We gave the pearls to individuals for a ¥700 donation for each pearl. We ordered about 4,000 pearls; and Brother Yamanaka and a few members spent countless hours assembling these pearls. Our returned missionaries in the U.S.A. were going to help us with our fund-raising projects. We found we could send an un-assembled pearl to the U.S.A. without the usual duty charge; so we sent 1,000 loose pearls with an Elder Sadler. We did not know that he needed to register them at the Haneda Airport before he left Japan, so when he arrived in Hawaii, custom officials took the pearls from him and sent them back to Japan. Since they had not been registered, we should not have been able to get them back; but again Brother Yamanaka spent tireless efforts to retrieve them. Finally, after prayer and much work with high government officials, he was able to get them back. However, 100 pearls were missing.
The other project for fund raising was a stereo record called “Japanese Saints Sing.” This was a chorus of about 24 people singing Japanese songs and church hymns. Brother Yamanaka knew the ‘top” man in the music field in Japan. This man arranged for a fine orchestra and the best recording studio to make the stereo record. This little group of singers, which included Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi (now of the Quorum of Seventy), practiced for weeks to get ready. They were practicing at the Northern Far East Mission Home the night before the record was to be taped. They had not practiced with the orchestra yet and sounded quite poor. I wondered how they could ever make a successful record. The next morning the little chorus went to the recording studio early enough to practice a few minutes with the orchestra. Later in the morning I went to the studio to give them moral support. Arriving just as they were going to start recording, I asked the chorister, young Bro.Sato, if they had held a prayer. He said that the chorus group had prayed, but not with the orchestra or studio workers. I suggested that they pray again with everyone present; and he asked me to pray. As the recording light came on, everyone quieted down, and over the loudspeaker came the words: “It is time for prayer.”
I then stepped forward and gave a prayer in English, while the engineers, orchestra, and singers all stood reverently. As “amen” was said, many of the church members were in tears. Later, one of the chorus women remarked: “My voice was tight and tense all morning, but when you prayed a feeling of calm came over me and I sang without tension.” Others felt that same calmness. After recording one song, they played it back so we could hear it. I could not believe my ears!! It was just beautiful and sounded like a large chorus. One member told us that they felt like angels were singing with them! It was the first time that an entire record had been taped in one single day. Since the orchestra could only put in an eight-hour day, they taped the last three selections, and the chorus had to sing their numbers with the taped music. Earlier, in trying to record, the orchestra’s rhythm was very “swingy” for “Oh, My Father.” So the chorus sang it a capella to first show the orchestra how the rhythm should be. For the other songs, the orchestra leader then tried to have his people follow the chorus. The entire day was just one big miracle. We had many people, after hearing the record, ask us if it was the Tabernacle Choir!
We produced 3,000 stereo records at a cost of about 400 yen each. We then gave them to people for a contribution of 700 to 800 yen. (I am not sure of the actual amount.) The money used to purchase both the pearls and records came from a large building fund within the mission that had accumulated over the years from contributions from the L.D.S. servicemen in Asia. It was in a savings account; we borrowed from that fund and then returned it as the money came in from the projects. Once again we encountered problems with getting the records through the U.S. customs on the west coast. As before, it took much prayer, work, and time of our returned missionaries to clear and make available these items for fund-raising in the U.S.A.
This kind of fund-raising had never been done in Japan before. Truly it was a pioneering effort. One prominent member, who opposed the temple project, went to the government tax office and told them we were buying articles and selling them for a profit. “Shouldn’t they have to pay a tax?” he questioned. The officer in charge replied: “Yes, they will have to pay a tax.” However, when Brother Yamanaka and I explained that we were only giving them away to those who made contributions, the officer agreed that they should not have to be taxed. He added: “But, since we have already made up our minds, you will still have to be taxed.” We hired a lawyer to get the decision reversed; but he was unable to do so. Fortunately, at the end of the year, the mission had lost so much money from subsidizing Sunday School manuals that it cancelled out the taxes they wanted us to pay on the fund-raising projects. Satan seemed determined to block our temple project on every turn. Somehow the Lord and Brother Yamanaka opened the way to turn things into success. There seemed to be a lot of opposition from some of the older members in the Tokyo area, which resulted in gossip–and a very small contribution to the pearl and record projects from the Tokyo saints. The American servicemen in Asia gave us a lot of support, as did the returned missionaries and other friends in the U.S. Even so, it was not until May 1965 that the bills were paid off and we could start putting money into the temple fund. When the money all came in, the Lord had blessed us with about $9,000. The total statement after the temple excursion showed that the mission had used about $4,000 for the Hawaii Temple excursion, leaving about $5,000 for the next temple excursion.