<Begin Segment 14>

DG: So you were living then with your father and your mother and your brothers. They had come by that time.

MH: After 1930.

DG: And you were all living in Garden Grove.

MH: No, that time at Gardena. We moved to Gardena.

DG: And then your father was minister of the Gardena Baptist Church?

MH: Yes. See, Gardena valley is a most town people at the church. So farmers all go to the Buddhist church and then most, and then town people, those people, came to our church. So quite a different.

DG: How did your father start and move to the Gardena Baptist Church?

MH: Baptist Church want him so badly, Gardena Baptist Church lost a minister. And when first we went there, nobody there. And then father told that we going to move to Gardena, no church members. So, oh, father really surprised and then Garden Grove people took us and then sensei some of... kaerimasho, Garden Grove-e kaerimasho, konna church, tsumetai church. Mitakumonai.

DG: Yeah, so he said, "Let's go back to Garden Grove because this church is so empty," right, "and cold."

MH: Right.

DG: Nobody there.

MH: So my father called up Gardena Baptist church member, they are so shock and then, "We didn't know that you people coming today. Minister before didn't tell us." So everybody came so Garden Grove members satisfied and went home. Otherwise, we won't go home. I will take the Reverend Wada to Garden Grove.

DG: So this was a older, smaller church at that time?

MH: Garden Grove?

DG: The Gardena.

MH: Gardena? Yes. Building is a large building, but people is just a few people was first Sunday, only five people. And then ten years later, over 400 Sunday school people.

DG: So your father had a lot to do with the growth of the church.

MH: Yeah.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.