YANAI, Japan — Wedged between its own modest seaport and lush, green mountains that rise dramatically skyward is the community of Yanai. A relatively small city of 30,000, Yanai appears mystical beneath a canopy of misty clouds hanging low on rugged peaks. It lies on the coast of Japan's inland sea on the southern edge of Honshu, the nation's largest island.
Remote and isolated, Yanai is a world apart from the well-known, massive population centers of Japan such as Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and others where the strength of the Church is clustered. But just the same, the quaint community is home to the Yanai Branch, a group of saints whose faithfulness and humility are exemplary.
Getting to or from any other city of significance from Yanai is a challenge. It can involve an hour or two on a seagoing ferry or on a coast-hugging commuter train, or in a car on a winding highway. To have a branch in a city so remote and small is, of itself, commendable. The Yanai Branch began with the conversion of some stalwarts five decades ago and continues through their efforts and the faithfulness of those who followed them.
Stake Patriarch Tadao Hayashi, who was baptized in the Pacific Ocean in 1952, has been anchored in the Yanai area his entire life.
"I am grateful there is a branch in Yanai," he said during a Church News interview. "There are lots of children in the branch, so the future looks very good as well."
Members of the branch acknowledge wonderful blessings that have come as they have been valiant in meeting and overcoming challenges.
A challenge they shared in common with many small branches was the lack of a permanent meetinghouse. When members decided they wanted a meetinghouse, the branch faithful had much to do. Sister Sumiko Matsuoka, who was baptized in 1957, recalled that to reach the average attendance required to qualify for a building, she and other members spread throughout the community with enthusiasm, sharing the Book of Mormon and their testimonies with their neighbors.
Brother Hayashi noted that branch members had to participate in projects to help raise money. And branch members generally credit Koichi Takeuchi and his family with making the meetinghouse possible. A member of the Church, Brother Takeuchi was a native of a village near Yanai, but emigrated from Japan to Hawaii where he prospered in the construction business. He made regular visits back to his hometown and was supportive of the branch there. Brother Takeuchi offered what financial and other assistance he could to help make it happen. And when the small meetinghouse was approved and building missionaries arrived to build it, the sisters fed the missionaries and the brothers helped with its construction.
The building was dedicated in 1969 by Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve. Today, the building continues to house what continues to be a strong branch of the Hiroshima Japan Stake. The meetinghouse, constructed of light-colored brick, is different from many others in Japan which, in larger cities, are tucked snugly into small pieces of expensive property. In Yanai, the building sits on property that once was a rice paddy in a sprawling residential area of lavishly landscaped, tile-roofed homes. There is sufficient room inside for branch meetings and outside for parking. The one drawback is that the building isn't near any public transit lines, making it difficult for members who do not have cars to attend Church.
However, the members cooperate generously. Those with cars gather the rest from bus and train stations and shuttle them to the meetinghouse. Attendance at Sunday meetings is regularly around 100 members and friends.
A drawback that affects not only the Church, but the city in general are the typhoons which every few years blow in off the Pacific and wreak havoc. Members talk almost casually about the storms typified by torrents of rain whipping horizontal to the ground in winds that can level trees and buildings. Several times typhoons have torn the roof off the Yanai meetinghouse. After the last time, the traditional tile roof was replaced with a less expensive corrugated steel roof.
Even before the effort to construct a meetinghouse began, a challenge faced by the earliest members, remembered Patriarch Hayashi, was the desire to do temple work when temples were so distant. He and his wife, Toshiko, had been married nine years before they were finally able to make a trip in 1965 to the Laie Hawaii Temple to be sealed. Brother Hayashi said they joined other Japanese members in raising money to charter a plane to Hawaii. He recalled that an album of sacred hymns and Japanese folk songs was recorded by a Church choir in Yanai. The album was sold to the public as a fund raiser. They also sold tie tacks to earn money.
As a final challenge, the Hayashis had to travel several hours to Osaka to meet with priesthood leaders to obtain their temple recommends.
Since the Tokyo Japan Temple was dedicated in 1980, it has become somewhat easier for Yanai members to do temple work. Now, even closer is the nearby Fukuoka Japan Temple, which was dedicated in June of this year.
Young branch president Hiroyuki Fujikawa, who has been serving in that calling less than a year, is faithfully looking ahead to continued progress in the branch. He knows he has a foundation of faithful, longtime members and the dynamic strength of younger members working with missionaries to maintain a solid core of the Church in an out-of-the-way corner of Japan.
E-mail: ghill@desnews.com