OCR Text |
Show H, ROBERTSON WRITES OF VISIT TO JAPAN From President Hilton Robertson Robert-son of the Japanese mission located lo-cated in Honlulu, Hawaii, recently came an especially interesting letter let-ter written to his brother, Bernard Ber-nard in Springville concerning the unique and pleasant trip which President Robertson recently took to Japan, in the interest of missionary mis-sionary work. President and Mrs. Robertson filled a mission in Japan, 15 years ago and during his recent trip there, contacted many old friends and made many new ones. Concerning his trip and conditions condi-tions in Japan he writes in part as follows: the letter dated May 12, and written at sea on the return re-turn trip "I left my work in . Japan on the 11th but could easily i have used another month. I went i like a mad man every place but i just couldn't get it all in the 27 1 days, I had there. Every place 1 ' went they were happy to see me : and I was thrilled to see them. j Not only was I treated with love j and appreciation by the saints i and friends but by strangers and i policemen and the general public, where ever I went. People often put themselves out to help me. My picture and a write up appeared ap-peared in the Osaka Manichi newspaper which has a circulation circu-lation of over three million telling tell-ing of my visit and that I had formerly taught a school there. I had enough letters to take over the government tout did not have to use any of them though one never knows in time of war. Yet one would not know that there was a war unless of course he had lived there and had seen the advance in prices gradually soar. No doubt they are having a struggle of which the world will never Know.' Metals I learned for manufacturing of different exports ex-ports and items for home consumption con-sumption were scare and many businesses were suffering greatly. great-ly. Every scrap of paper and rags and metal was being salvaged, nothing was wasted. I met with the saints and the j articles -which came out in the papers asisted me greatly to locate lo-cate some of them as well as other friends. My trip I feel has served to unite the saints who have not been together since we left and found tnem to be still with the church but with varied degrees of faith as we would have at home under similar circumstances. circum-stances. In Osaka, 1 baptised five. In Sapporo, Sister Kumagai's sister sis-ter 64 years old, I baptised in a roaring ice-cold river and at Yokohama Yo-kohama two of Sister Suzukia's girls, one 23 years old, and another an-other 14 years old, so I found my trip was very profitable. It was not uncommon day after day . to find myself the only foreigner with thousands and thousands of Japanese on the streets, trains, underground and on top, but never once did I have any more uneasiness than I would have had on the streets of Utah and far less than in our own larger cities. Japan has greatly changed since our departure in 1924. The population of Tokyo and Osaka has doubled being 6 million and 3 j million respectively. This great in-j in-j crease has come irom the intlux due to great manufacturing plants and office work. In both of these cities they have constructed many miles of subway, street car lines large schools and manufacturing buildings. New streets have been l -ned transforming ' the city. Everywhere I went there were great changes. In Yokohoma, every thing has been built since the earth-quake. All the large cities have modern and up to date hotels. The best hotel in which I stayed was at Osaka, built the past two years. I paid seven yen per day or $1.77 including 10 per cent tip, for a nice room with bath, fine bed and otherwise nicely furnished 1 room. At Tokyo I paid $5 yen or $1.15 for similar accomodations. All the time I was there I don't believe I spoke more than an hour in English. I didn't find any of the saints who would speak to me in English who had formerly spoke fine in both languages." |