Stories: Labor missionaries By Marden Woolsey
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| Wayne:
Elder Rodney Zaugg and I both worked as labor missionaries there in Tokyo for a number of months at the end of our missions. I came in a couple of months before my thirty month proselyting mission was to end. (1963). Just before I went to Tokyo as a labor missionary, I was the Branch President in Kofu Branch (Elder Kikuchi had been there as a missionary BP just before that). When I left, a branch member, Nonogaki Kyodai was named Branch President. He was a long-time member, who had been baptized before WWII, and had endured the bombing of Tokyo while he was a member (ironic, isn't it?).
I was asked to go to Tokyo as a labor missionary, because I knew how to lay concrete blocks (pre-mission university support means), and that was the material from which Tokyo Kita shibu and Tokyo Nishi shibu kyokai were going to be built. My job was two-fold.......teach new native Japanese labor missionaries how to lay blocks, and to act as tsuyaku-sha for the Kita shibu supervisor ,Brother Clarence Katwijk, the church building supervisor from the States. Brother and Sister Katwijk and all their children live nearby in Washington State, and I got to see all of them again just a couple of years ago. When Elder Zaugg came in, he worked on the Nishi shibu site. I believe a Brother Hales was the supervisor there.
All we rodo senkyoshi lived in a large warehouse at the back of the mansion property the church had purchased for the temple. The upper floor of the warehouse was tatami matted, and there was room for all of the 15 or so labor missionaries at the start of the chapel projects, and the many more who came later. We had a pair of "dorm-parents"...a wonderful older couple......Brother and Sister Nara, who were long-time church members. They cooked our meals and basically acted as parents to all of us there. Elder Zaugg (who, like me, was from Southern Alberta) came in at the end of his mission, which would have been the same as mine, since we came through the Mission Home and to Japan together). We had actually worked as companions for a few months in Otaru (Hokkaido), before I was transfered to Abeno Branch (Osaka).
As labor missionaries, we travelled from our dorm each morning to the chapel job sites in little Datsun Bluebird pickups......2 in the cab, and another 3 or 4 or 5 in the truck box (a topper, with little benches along the sides). On the 40 - 50 minute ride we talked, and"made rings". Sounds crazy, but we used American quarters to make rings. We would drill and file smooth a finger-sized hole in the middle, and then use our mortar "striking" tools to slowly hammer the edges to a smooth curved shape. Since quarters used to be mostly silver they made lovely rings for our friends.
On the job sites, we worked hard, and fairly long hours 5 or 5 1/2 days a week. I acted as interpreter for Bro. Katwijk, as the labor missionaries gradually learned their jobs (and English), and as concrete and lumber and steel delivery trucks came and went (none of their drivers spoke English). At the job site, members, both Nihonjin and Gaijin, would come to work as volunteers, so there was always plenty of interpreting to do. I always took great pleasure in the soba, nikutori and jagaimo vendors that came around with their hibachis and carts. Japanese street food was (and still is) one of my favorite things in life.
The labor missionary experience was a unique one, indeed. It was a total language immersion situation in the dorm. It taught me more of the colloquial Japanese that one never gets comfortable with as a missionary. We had more freedom than proselyting missionaries, as long as we travelled in pairs (we usually went in groups of 4 or 5, anyway, as we shopped and went to movies). What a unique experience it was to sit between 2 young native Japanese at a chambara movie, while they translated the mukashi Nihongo into modern coloquial Japanese!
From time to time, missionaries who were about to be released would come and work with us for a week or so as they awaited their trips home. One I remember particularly well was Elder Paul "Pops" Laimana. He was called Pops because he didn't come on his mission until he was a little over 30, I think, and to those of us who were 19 or 20 or 21, he looked fairly old! He was a great and humble guy, and I enjoyed the conversations I had with him.
Rodney Zaugg and I came home together in the summer of 1963, having been on our missions for about 33 months.....a great experience.
One of the labor missionaries I worked with there has been in touch with me lately. He is working to compile information on that Church building program. His name is Brother Kudou, and his E-mail address is sanway@jcom.home.ne.jp Perhaps you could contact him.
Keep up the good work, brother.
Go-kurosama. Marden Wolsey |
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