The Lord Is in the Details

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Editor's Note: As part of the Japan-125 series commemorating 125 years of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan, members and families are sharing personal experiences that reveal the “hand of the Lord” in Japan. This article is written by Vaun B. Andrus, son of Paul and Frances Andrus, whose lives were closely connected to the Church's postwar growth in Japan. Readers interested in learning more about Paul C. Andrus may wish to read the 2019 Japan Newsroom article, Paul C. Andrus, Pioneer of the Church in Postwar Japan, Dies at 94.

For more than 80 years, Japan has been woven into my family’s story. Looking across four generations, I see countless experiences and relationships that have taught me a simple truth: the Lord is in the details.

Our family's connections to Japan have touched the lives of my parents, my siblings and their families, my wife and I, our children, and now our grandchildren. Along the way there have been remarkable events, unexpected connections, tender mercies, and difficult challenges. Together they demonstrate that Heavenly Father is intimately involved in the lives of His children, often in ways we do not recognize until years later.

My earliest memories of Japan, and those of my siblings, are not of grand historic events. They are of toy fire engines, cicadas, a kind man fixing our leaky shower, and missionaries coming and going through our home. Only later did we realize that many of those ordinary childhood memories were unfolding alongside important chapters in the Church's history in Japan.

Our family's Japan connections began even before my parents met.

My mother, Frances Maluhia Parker Andrus, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 6, 1923, just a few months before the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, and just over a year before the Church would close its first missionary efforts in Japan in 1924.  Heber J. Grant had personally opened the mission in 1901, and he was Church president in 1924.

In 1935, when Mom was 12, Heber J. Grant came to Honolulu to organize the first stake of the Church outside the continental United States.  Her father, Arthur K. Parker, was sustained as second counselor in that stake presidency.

Mom told me that on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, she climbed on the roof of her home and had eye contact with Japanese pilots as they flew in to bomb Pearl Harbor, where her father was employed as a shipwright. 

In late 1947, the Church announced that missionary work in Japan would be reopened. The first five missionaries called were Harrison T. Price, Raymond C. Price, Wayne McDaniel, Koji Okauchi, and my father Paul C. Andrus. All spent time in Hawaii studying Japanese and teaching Japanese Americans before arriving in Japan in June 1948.

In my father's journal from that period, he mentioned attending a gathering at the home of President Arthur K. Parker, where there was a surprise party for President Parker's daughter, Frances.

At the time, neither of my parents could have known how profoundly Japan would shape the rest of their lives.

Mom was called as a missionary to the Japan Mission, arriving in April 1949. Her initial call was to New Zealand, but a few weeks before she was to depart, her call was changed to Japan.  Mom spent most of her mission in Nagoya and Niigata. After serving for two years, she returned to Honolulu in April 1951.

In early 1952, through circumstances arranged by Heavenly Father, Frances Parker received a phone call from Paul Andrus in Salt Lake City, who proposed marriage. Frances asked him to call back in 30 minutes, and when he did, she accepted his proposal. They were married in the Laie Hawaii Temple on July 5, 1952, and established their first home in Kaimuki on Oahu.  I was born in 1953, and my brother Chuck followed in 1954.

Childhood in Japan

In December 1955, our family arrived in Tokyo after my father was called to preside over the recently created Northern Far East Mission which covered Japan, Korea and Okinawa. We were a young family: Dad was 31, Mom was 32, and Chuck and I were just 2 and 1 years old. My other siblings, LaVerna, Jay, and Eva Maile were all born in Tokyo during our parents’ service as mission leaders. The mission home in Hiroo became the center of our world.

Historical accounts of those years tell of rapidly expanding missionary work, Church publications becoming available in Japanese, and the strengthening of local leadership throughout the region. Dad was deeply involved in many of the developments that helped shape the Church in postwar Japan. My memories, however, are much simpler.

When the first copies of a newly translated Japanese Book of Mormon arrived at the mission home, Chuck and I were far more impressed with the toy fire engines that the president of the publishing company brought for us. Only years later did I realize I had witnessed a historic milestone in the Church's growth in Japan.

Within a few years, Chuck and I had become close friends with Okumura-kun, who lived next door. Having watched missionaries practice discussions hundreds of times, we decided to teach him ourselves on the front lawn of the mission home. Our favorite part was removing the "foundation" of prophets and apostles and watching the flannel-board building collapse.

The mission home had a good-sized yard, but when we wanted more adventure, Arisugawa Park was across the street, and we spent years exploring every corner of it. We would catch pollywogs in the spring and cicadas in the summer. In the 1950’s all the side streets were dirt, and most of the buildings were wooden with old Japanese-style architecture. There were still wood-burning taxis because other fuels were scarce.  The mission home had three housekeepers, and they would often take care of us while our parents were involved in church work.  LaVerna had a strong bond with Yaeko, who later married Kan Watanabe, and they still have that bond to this day.

Missionaries regularly came and went. Some used the Andrus children to test their Japanese. If they spoke to us in Japanese and we answered in Japanese, they felt encouraged. If we answered in English, they knew they needed more practice.

We also had other visitors, but as children, we didn't necessarily know who they were.  LaVerna recalls: “There was a particularly kind and warm gentleman who always took the time to talk to us children. He had memorized the address of the mission home and recited it to us in song format. It always put a smile on our faces. This kind man was Elder Gordon B. Hinckley. I am grateful to him and his wife for their friendship with my parents.” 

I remember one day when Dad and Elder Hinckley were about to leave for the day. Elder Hinckley mentioned that the shower was leaking and that he wanted to fix it. He asked Dad for a pair of pliers and a washer. Dad said he had pliers but no washer. Elder Hinckley said he had seen an inner tube on the side of the mission home and would use a pair of scissors to cut out a washer.  So, before they left, they went upstairs and fixed the shower.

Japan Never Left Us

When our family's mission ended in July 1962, we had been in Tokyo almost seven years. Japan had infused itself into each of us in ways we would not fully recognize until we were adults.  Eva Maile wrote the following: “I was born in Japan. I lived there until I was almost 2 years old, when my family returned to Hawaii. My mother was Hawaiian, and I have always had a strong connection with my Hawaiian side. Though I am not Japanese, I have a strong connection with Japan as well. Part of it comes from being formed in my mother's belly while there. The feeling, taste, and beauty of Japan were infused into my flesh and blood - so much so that my mother thought I was a Japanese baby the first time she saw me!”

All five Andrus children returned to Japan as missionaries.

I served in the Japan East Mission from 1972 to 1974. When I arrived at church my first week in Sapporo, I met Sister Tamano Kumagai. She had joined the Church in Japan in 1908, and was the same Sister Kumagai who met Dad and his companion at the Sapporo train station when they arrived in 1949 to reopen missionary work in Hokkaido.

Chuck served as a missionary in the Nagoya Mission (1973-1975), LaVerna in the Tokyo South Mission (1982-1983), Jay in the Fukuoka Mission (1978-1980), and Eva Maile in the Okayama Mission (1981-1983). Looking back, it seems remarkable that the country where we spent our childhood would become such a defining part of each of our lives.

Threads Across Generations

As the years passed, the connections continued.

Chuck married Kit Duran. He built a successful career making surfboards and worked extensively with Japanese surfers and surfboard companies. One day I heard him speaking Japanese on the phone but could only understand half of it. When I asked what language he was speaking, he said, “That was surfer Japanese.”

LaVerna still feels drawn to Japan and enjoys visiting with her husband, Rick Stapler. The hymn Lord Dismiss us with thy Blessing is set to the same melody as Musunde Hiraite, a beloved Japanese children's song. Whenever the hymn is sung, she says, the Japanese words and hand motions from her childhood come flooding back.

Jay and his wife Nalani are flight attendants for Hawaiian Airlines and have many experiences in Japan. When I heard that Jay had memorized speeches by famous Japanese people, and asked him about it, he immediately launched into quoting one of the most famous speeches of a Japanese emperor.

Eva Maile and her husband Steve love to travel around Japan.  After a recent trip, she shared, “While in the front seat of a taxi, the sun was setting, so I started singing ‘gin gin gira gira yu hi ga shizumu’ (the bright, glittering evening sun is setting). The taxi driver, shocked at first, joined me in finishing the song. It was a sweet moment where the essence of Japan warmed us in a blanket of connection and oneness."

Mom was one of the best cooks I have ever known and LaVerna and Eva Maile continue using recipes that trace their roots to Mom and Hawaii and Japan.  One family tradition was gathering each New Year’s season to make more than 100 rolls of norimaki and platters of inarizushi for family, friends, and neighbors. We did this for decades until Mom’s 98th year.

In 1982, I moved to Los Angeles for work. With my new bishop’s encouragement, I decided to visit several young single adult wards in the area. On the third Sunday, I met Shawna Pusey in the Studio City First Ward. In the hours-long conversation after church, we discovered that Shawna's father, Gene, had served as a young missionary in Japan with Mom and Dad. We were engaged 12 days later and married in March 1983. Our daughter Jessica Mariko (真光子, a Japanese name meaning “child of light and truth) was born in 1984, and our son Parker followed in 1987.

In 2001, Brigham Young University sponsored a centennial celebration in Provo, Utah commemorating 100 years of the Church in Japan. Shawna and I attended with her parents, Gene and Shirley. At one dinner, we shared a table with two gentlemen who had served a number of years earlier in the Fukuoka Mission. At the time, it seemed like nothing more than a pleasant conversation.

For years, Gene had talked about returning to Japan, more than 50 years after serving there as both a member of the occupation forces and later as a missionary. In 2006, Shawna and I joined her parents on a two-week trip to Japan. One evening, while traveling by train to have dinner with the Fukuhara family, whom Gene knew from his missionary days, we met two young missionaries in a train station. One had arrived in Japan only three weeks earlier. We spoke for a few minutes, wished them well, and then went on to have a wonderful dinner.

Then came another unexpected connection. When our son Parker entered the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) in 2007 after receiving his call to the Japan Nagoya Mission, we unexpectedly received an email from Norman and Shirley Tong, who were part of the MTC branch where he was assigned. They had both served as missionaries under Mom and Dad in Japan in the 1950s.

When Shawna and I traveled to Japan at the conclusion of Parker’s mission in 2009, another connection came full circle. The two gentlemen we had met during the 2001 celebration at BYU turned out to be Parker's mission presidents: first Gary E. Stevenson and then Bruce Traveller. Shortly after Parker arrived in Japan, Sister Lesa Stevenson called to let us know he had arrived safely. We were surprised to learn that she was an Andrus through her mother's side of the family.

Even the missionary we briefly met in the train station in 2006 reappeared in our story. When Parker arrived in his first area in Shizuoka, he showed family photographs to his companion, Elder Kuettell. His companion responded, "Hey, I met them at a train station in Tokyo a year ago when I had just arrived in Japan!"

In 2014, Parker married Nichole Edstrom, who had served in the Tokyo South Mission. After he finished graduate school, he accepted an offer from a Japanese company, and they have lived in Tokyo three times. They are raising their family in Tokyo. Three of their four children attend local schools. Parker serves as the bishop of the Tokyo 2nd Ward. On Sundays they worship in the building next to the Tokyo Temple—across the street from Arisugawa Park where I played as a child. When I first recognized that connection, I had to stop and smile. Seventy years after our family arrived in Tokyo, another generation of Andrus children is building memories in the same neighborhood.

Lessons Learned

Our parents served as mission leaders for nearly seven years. Five young children with a father fully devoted to demanding Church responsibilities experienced challenges that were not always visible from the outside. And when we returned to Hawaii, our parents essentially had to start over to provide for a family of seven. Everything that needed to happen for the Lord's work to move forward happened, but there were personal costs. Looking back, I see the hand of the Lord in our family’s lives. I also recognize that difficulties and challenges along the way were an important part of our journey. The blessings were real. So were the sacrifices. Both became part of who we are.

A Continuing Story

In March of this year, I visited Parker and his family in Tokyo. While attending church, a sister approached me.

"Aren't you an Andrus?" she asked.

She introduced herself as Terry Chang Weber from the Kaneohe Ward where our families had known each other years ago. Noting that she was serving as a senior missionary in Tokyo with her husband Larry, she then shared something unexpected.

"I dreamed last night that I would run into you and would ask you to write an article about your family's experiences in Japan."

This is that article.

My father passed away in 2019, and my mother followed in 2022. Today my siblings and I are all in our 60s and 70s. Yet the connections they helped establish continue to ripple across generations.

One of my favorite photographs shows all eight of my grandchildren in front of the Tokyo Japan Temple. Four are the children of our daughter, Jessica, and her husband, Spencer Hale. The other four are the children of our son, Parker, and his wife, Nichole. In many ways, that single image tells the story of our family's relationship with Japan better than anything I could write. When I look at that picture, I think about Hawaii, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya, Arisugawa Park, the mission home, the missionaries, the members, the friendships, and the countless experiences that have linked our family to Japan for more than eight decades. I think about the many ways the Lord has guided our family through both blessings and challenges. And I am reminded once again that the Lord truly is in the details.

Aloha gozaimasu.