Sunday-Iwakuni Church

Sunset on the Expressway

We went to church at the small military branch that supports the Marines at Iwakuni. Originally this weekend was supposed to be District Conference for all the church members of the Japan Honshu Military District. With all that has gone on this week and the pending evacuations of Americans from Japan that was canceled. So I would suppose they were very happy to have two missionaries show up as guests. Especially since Elder Arnell is on the High Council and could represent the District Presidency.

There was one other member there who was invited to bear his testimony before we spoke. He had been living in Kichijoji, which is just west of Tokyo. After the earthquake and all the issues with Nuclear stuff he didn't know what to do since he was getting conflicting information from his employer, the news and well meaning friends. He talked to his father in law and was told "Just follow the missionaries." Whatever the church was doing for the missionaries that is what he was supposed to do. According to Elder Holland's press conference on March 15th if the Japanese government said to move people 10 KM away from the affected areas then the church would move them 30; if they were told to move 30 km then the church would move them 90. So he packed up his family any moved them down to the Hiroshima area. I guess this answers my question on why there was so much traffic on the road when we got to that area Saturday night.

It was very nice to finally meet the members of the Iwakuni Branch. Before these events they were out of our mission area but still in the Military District. Now they are actually in the Fukuoka mission boundaries. We will be down in Okinawa but there are planes that go between Iwakuni and Okinawa every day so we can catch a hop up there whenever we want.

After church we drove the rest of the way down to Iwakuni--about four hours. The mission home is in the bottom portion of the Fukuoka temple. We felt very blessed to be able to spend the night there in what they call the "General Authority" bedroom. I will post pictures in the next blog.