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
Tokyo Temple President
Part 32
FURTHER TOKYO TEMPLE MEMORIES
At this time I would like to include a few interesting things about the construction of the temple. These were told us by Brother Nagata, who was the church’s representative from America, overseeing the construction. He said that after the building contract was given to the Kajima Construction Company of Japan, he held a meeting with the top management of that company. In this meeting he showed a church video on the meaning and purpose of the LDS temples. He also explained many church doctrines, including the Word of Wisdom. The company executives were so impressed that they made a badge for each worker on the temple project that said: “I will not smoke or drink alcohol on this job.” Carpenters were on the bottom of the social ladder in Japan; and they seemed always to be smoking or drinking on their jobs. However, the Kajima Construction workers caught the spirit of the temple; and they gave their very best in every phase of the construction. When the building inspector came from church headquarters, to inspect the completed temple, he said to me: “This is the finest workmanship that we have seen in our modern temples.”
There were some problems that had to be dealt with before we could do the construction of the temple. One problem had to deal with the “shadow law” in Japan. The other was the interruption of television reception of the neighbors on one side of the temple. Because of the shadow law, the Church had to pay “a great deal” of money to each neighbor for the amount of shadow which the temple cast on their property. This ended up being a very large sum of money. The other problem was resolved by the church paying for building a TV antenna that could receive the TV signals and then extend a cable to every neighbor whose signals were blocked out.
AND NOW–back to our first encounter with the temple. As we first saw the temple, we were overwhelmed with its size and beauty. Our hearts were filled with fear and anxiety at the enormous task we had before us. But, as we began our labors, the comforting and reassuring spirit of the Lord filled our hearts: “This is the House of the Lord.” We were thrilled and humbled to be a part of its opening. Peggy and I were further truly grateful that we could have some of our children and Mother Andersen at the dedication. Mother came early and was a big help. We found that the demonstration veil was not prepared for use, so Mother was thrilled when I asked her to prepare the demonstration veil. Douglas was already with us. We had offered to provide one ticket for each of the other children to join us in the dedication. Trudy was expecting twins and recuperating from major surgery. Valerie had a new baby, so they could not come. Allen and Lucile were able to be there. Doug, Allen, Lucile, and Mother were privileged to be in the Celestial Room at the dedication. After the dedication was over, we had to prepare the temple to provide endowments for 150 of the local Japanese missionaries. I had Allen teach in Japanese and demonstrate how to put on the priesthood robes before they entered the endowment room. It was a soul-enriching experience to administer the endowment ordinances to these faithful, young Japanese missionaries. There were many more men than women, so part of the time we had to use the women’s facilities for the young men. It took all day and into the night to complete all of this. When the doors were finally opened for the worthy members of the Japanese people, there was great excitement and a wonderful atmosphere. They seemed right at home in the House of the Lord!
At our first break, after the opening of the temple, Peggy, Mother, Allen and Lucile and Doug and I loaded into our brown Toyota station wagon; and I drove us to the Nikko area. We explored the magnificent Buddhist temples nestled among the pines. There is a special atmosphere that permeated the area. Before we reached there, we had been surrounded by the most exquisite array of autumn leaves. The depth and range of color exceeded anything we had ever seen before. This same array of colors flooded the hills as we zigzagged our way up to the top of the hill and to a lake at the summit. We stayed one night in a Japanese ryookan (inn). How we enjoyed the quaintness of the surroundings and the polite service of our hosts. The food was all Japanese. We could eat much of it, but the sashimi (raw fish) was beyond our ability to enjoy. However, Allen gathered up all the sashimi from our plates to finish off his meal.
On our way back from Nikko to Tokyo, the highways were bumper-to-bumper traffic. I had a meeting in Tokyo that night. With such a traffic jam, I would never get to Tokyo until around midnight. I noticed a few cars passing us by on the shoulder of the left lane. So I thought I could try the same thing. It proved to be a blessing, for we were able to pass the lines of cars at a steady speed. We were back to Tokyo in time for my meeting. A short time after this, Mother, Allen and Lucile returned back to the United States to their homes. It was a marvelous time that we had spent together. Douglas stayed to help us for the full six months. He found a job in the daytime, teaching English, because we could only hold endowment sessions from 5 p.m. on each night (in the beginning).
On Saturdays we had sessions for most of the day. Busloads of members came from the various districts of Hokkaido to Fukuoka. Later we added an afternoon session at 2:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays. As I remember, our ratio of endowments per recommend holder was above the average of the other operating temples in the church. (Tokyo was the 18th temple.) After the first year of operations, the Kajima Company made an inspection of the temple to see if everything was okay. They were very impressed with the maintenance of the temple. They offered to make any changes or repairs at their own expense. When we took them to the boiler and machinery room, they just could not believe how clean it was. Kajima’s head man said: “This is the first time that I have ever walked through a boiler or machinery room in white stockings and never got a speck of dust or dirt on them.” They wanted to take pictures of the temple inside and out to put into their company magazine as a model building; but we were not able to permit them to do so. Later, the church temple inspectors came to make their detailed inspection. They could not find anything wrong. They told me that the Tokyo Temple was the best operated and maintained temple in the church.... that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, they would rate the Tokyo Temple as a 9. They just didn’t dare to rate it as a 10! All the other temples rated lower on the scale.