I realized that I’ve said next to nothing about church here….
Of course we’ve passed by and admired several Shinto and Buddhist temples in the area. There are so many! It is wonderful to see in real life what I’d only ever seen in pictures and movies before now. They are gorgeous, both in architecture as well as the grounds. The trees and gardens surrounding them are beautiful and tended to well.
In comparison, very few people even notice The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church in this part of Oyama-shi is a very plain building. White, three stories tall, and tucked away on a corner in a small urban area where many other houses are crammed.
Of course there are few members. I tend to count about 60 at most in the chapel at sacrament meeting, and maybe 20 in Relief Society. It goes without saying that this is very interesting after attending the Utah State wards. ‘Matsujitsu Seito Iesu Kirisuto Kyoukai’ is the full name of the LDS Church here in Japan. Christain population here is already tiny ( less than 1% of the population), and there are only 0.1% LDS.
I figure I’d probably have at least glimpsed missionaries at least once by this point, but because of the earthquake and tsunami – and of course the problem with the Fukushima nuclear reactor – a few months back, they’ve all been further southwest for safety reasons. On Sunday they started talking about the missionaries coming back to the area though, so I hope to see them out “dendou-ing” (as Arthur-sensei would say – in other words, tracting) soon. It’s a great comfort to see those amazing missionaries out magnifying their calling.
On a side note, I opened the door about a week back expecting to see my neighbors, only to find Jehovah’s Witnesses standing there. They were very sweet and we had a short talk (mostly because of my extremely limited Japanese). They also gave me a small map that had the location of their church. At that point, I didn’t know how to say what church I belonged to, so I graciously accepted and bid them farewell. I saw them knocking on the doors at the surrounding apartments for the next hour or so, but it seems we were probably some of the only people who even answered the door.
Anyway, church is wonderful. How could it not be, of course? Hopefully I’ll get better at speaking the language so I can talk to more of the other members. We won’t find many others who hold the same values as we do, so I’d like to make more church friends. That support is important.
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