Area Seventy Training

We were at the airport to welcome the Asia North Area Seventy, Taegul Jung from Korea and his executive secretary, Yukihiko Hattori from Japan. We also witnessed a sister missionary returning home from the Philippines after serving for 18 months. As you can see, she was in tears as she was greeted by family and friends. She came right up to us to tell us she served with the Shamrell's (a senior couple from Gresham) and that they said to tell us Hi. What a small world.  Not in the picture is a new missionary to the island, Elder Lee from Utah.

 As we were preparing for the training of all the leaders in our island, I sat down with Brother Hattori on the left in the picture below. I asked him about his conversion to the church. What a story! He was an engineering student in  the 70's and was a part of the protest movement then against the USA and the "establishment".   Because he was a science student, they asked him to prepare the perfect bottle bombs, which he did.  He experimented with many different types of bottles and flammable liquids. Interestingly, a coke bottle was the worse because it wouldn't break.
He was interested in many different philosophies and religions. He came across the Joseph Smith story and dismissed it because it had such a similar story as other religious leaders, in that spiritual manifestations often came to a young boy. He was also not convinced that God would show himself to anyone. One night he had a dream in which God told him that He could in fact appear to a man. The next day he came across missionaries from our church. After just a few lessons he was ready to join the church and was baptized within a week at the age of 19.

 We had breakfast the next morning with these leaders. They were very interested in knowing how the Seminary and Institute programs were going here and also how the church was progressing. Elder Yung, standing next to Lenda,  is a member of the 8th Quorum of the Seventy and travels all around the Asia North Area. He was so kind and easy to talk to.  Elder Jung is also the area director for seminary and institute.

Elder Jung was here to train the stake and ward leaders in Pohnpei.  It was a great spiritual and learning experience for us.