Testimony

Tonight was our Relief Society birthday party. Lesa Stevenson (wife of Presiding Bishop Gary Stevenson) spoke to us. Through their calls as mission president, Seventy, and now presiding Bishop, they have still kept a home in our ward.

She recounted the devastating series of earthquakes (over 500) that hit Japan two years ago. They lasted for days. Lesa said, "You were always rocking." The earthquakes generated a tsunami, which swept away nearly 30,000 people and took out the nuclear power plant. She said she was with friends who had come to visit when the first earthquake hit. They were to meet Gary for lunch, when they could see smoke in the distance and their tour boat kept crashing into the dock. Luckily, they found cabs to take them home and were able to contact Gary moments before the entire cellphone network in Japan went dead. There was no communication for sixteen hours. She showed message boards in disaster service centers where people pinned notes saying they were there, where they were going, and who they were looking for.

She showed pictures of the "yellow shirts" worn by LDS volunteers as they cleaned up the wreckage.

Lesa told of Reid Tateoka, the Sendai mission president, who went against protocol and invited every missionary in his district to attend a leadership training in the mission home (high in the mountains). Four times he went to his wife to tell her what he wanted to do. Every time she told him that it wasn't what they had been trained to do - which was to invite only the district leadership. Finally, he said that is what he really felt he should do. The leadership training was March 11th - the very day the earthquakes hit in Sendai. Every missionary was safe.

Lesa told of a mission in Tokyo in which the mission president's wife needed to leave for a medical treatment. Before she left, she felt prompted to bake. She filled up all the freezers. She bought extra supplies. She stored lots of water. Her husband couldn't quite understand why she was doing it. She was gone when the earthquake hit, but because of following her promptings, there was food and supplies for all of the missionaries who descended on the mission home.

A few weeks before the earthquakes, Elder Holland came to tour the mission. As he met with the missionaries, he asked to give them an apostolic blessing. He did so, and it was wonderful, but before he ended, he paused and began again to bless all of the members. Towards the end, he paused again, and blessed all of the people of Japan and the political leaders. While such blessings are not usually, recorded, he gave permission for this one to be recorded and shared. So touching.