Japan Special Convention 2013: Day 2

At the hotel, we had time to nap before being picked up for a reception with the Yayoidai congregation at 4:00 p.m. When we arrived in the parking lot of the Kingdom Hall, we were warmly greeted by a crowd of brothers and sisters. So many of them (including children) came up to us, introduced themselves, and asked us some personal questions in English, like: "How old are you? When were you baptized? How long have you been in Japan? Is it your first time here?" A few of the sisters there, we noticed, had notebooks with pre-prepared questions in English on them. It was very heartwarming to see the amount of effort they put into trying to communicate in our language.

As we made our way into the Hall, to our left and right were displays that had various items native to Japanese culture. We were given gifts and drinks as we entered the auditorium. Traditional Japanese food was prepared for everyone. That included, to my knowledge: sushi, various meat and rice dishes, and also a special kind of fish that is supposedly only acquired for special occasions. After associating some with the brothers and sisters, a prayer was said over our gathering, and the first part of the prepared program began.

First up, we were blown away by an adorable welcome song, sang by 4 or 5 young children who had prepared it just for us.

Next was a video about Jehovah's Witnesses in Japan. An interesting thing we learned from the video was that Japan received the truth from U.S. missionaries years ago. The truth spread quickly across the country, and at this point in time, there are over 210,000 Witnesses there. Because of this, the brothers really don't need help with working their territory. There is not a need per se for people to learn the language and move to Japan.

The rest of the program consisted of interviews and an entertaining trivia game. One sister who had fierce opposition from her family when she learned the truth was interviewed. She talked about the challenges of her situation, but the blessings that resulted from her staying faithful to Jehovah. Then, an American brother was interviewed who is a C.O. and who had moved to Japan with his wife. Very encouraging interview. After this, a brother and sister (dressed in Kimonos and everything) played a game where they would show us a Japanese object, and give us multiple choices as to what the purpose of this object was, then we would guess. When we all raised our hand to indicate which purpose we thought the shown object served, the sister would randomly pick someone from the audience and come over and ask them why it is they picked that option. Then the right answer would be revealed. Whoever guessed correctly on most of them would get a prize.

At the close of the program we sang a song. Half of us sang in Japanese and the other half in English. The Japanese brothers and sisters sounded way better. Then we closed with a prayer, which was in Japanese. Though we could not understand what was being said, we knew it was a heartfelt prayer to Jehovah, and that He was listening to it. It was a very emotional ending to an up building and refreshing gathering with our spiritual best friends. We didn't want to leave. - Alec

The brother who introduced every event on the program

with dad and I. This brother also works at the Bethel in Japan.