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JG: Okay, and then tell me about your next appointment. You, you, that's when you returned to Southern California and took up the, a position at West L.A. United Methodist Church.

MN: Right. I was fortunate to be appointed to the West Los Angeles Church in 1994, and, and again, to come back down to Los Angeles, to return home to Los Angeles in 1994, and I was at the West Los Angeles Church for six years, from 1994 up until 2000, and again, that appointment, the way that appointment happened was done in a very unorthodox way. It was an appointment that was across conference boundaries. [Coughs] Excuse me. I was literally changing conferences and, which meant that I had to get permission from the bishop of the other conference, meaning the bishop here in this conference, who was Bishop Roy Sano. Well, what had happened was I had actually sought permission from my district superintendent up north to seek other church opportunities beyond that conference, and thankfully my district superintendent then, Reverend Ron Swisher, gave me permission to contact the bishop's office down here, and really what happened was I called down here, left a voicemail, just expressing interest that I was open to any possible church opportunities that might come up down here, and a few days later I, received a call. In fact, I will never forget this; I was on my way to visit a family up in Sacramento, actually to talk about them, to talk with them about some funeral arrangements. The husband, the father had passed away; I had gotten called to do the funeral. So as I was driving to visit them my cell phone went off at that time, and so I pulled over to the side of the road, answered the call, and it was actually the superintendent here, Reverend Dr. Robert Smith, of the Los Angeles district who was calling me. Asking me, actually not asking me but telling me that Bishop Sano would like to appoint me to the West Los Angeles Church, and I thought to my mind, wow, how is this happening? Because I knew that just the previous year the West L.A. Church had gotten a new pastor, Reverend Dr. Ken Heaton, and so, and plus they had had an associate as well, so I was wondering how that was all working out, but anyway, Robert, Reverend Dr. Robert Smith said that Bishop Sano would like to appoint me to the West Los Angeles Church and would I be interested. And I said yes. [Coughs] Excuse me. I had known about the West L.A. Church. In fact, growing up the youth group here at Centenary, we had done activities with the youth group at the West L.A. Church. Back in the seventies, one year one of my classmates, in fact, my freshman year at UCLA, '73, one of my classmates in my English 1A class was Glenn Murakami, whose father was Harry Murakami, who was then the pastor of the West L.A. Church, and so anyway, I immediately jumped at that opportunity, and to make a very long story short, I was appointed to the West L.A. Church beginning in 1994. And so I was there from 1994 to 2000.

JG: Okay. How, how did your role and responsibilities change with your new appointment?

MN: I was appointed to the West L.A. Church as the senior pastor because we had, we had an, actually a Japanese language associate, who was Reverend Dr. Richard Kuyama who's my associate in Japanese language now here, and I had known Richard, we go back to the time when he came over from Japan. Actually, our Japanese American caucus was instrumental in bringing him over from Japan back in the late eighties, and he actually started out in Northern California as a Japanese language pastor at our Japanese language congregation in, both in Berkeley and Oakland, so I had known Richard from his time when he started out in Northern California. Also, on my first trip, on that very first trip to Japan that I took in 1985, I actually stayed with Richard and his family for several days during that time because I had previously met him back in the late '70s when he came out to do an internship here at the old Centenary Church with Reverend Dr. Jonathan Fujita, who was the Japanese language minister back at Centenary throughout the '70s and the '80s. So my history with Richard, or our history, had gone back a number of years, so coming to West L.A. in '94, knowing that he was the Japanese language pastor there in that way made it easier. I had an associate who I knew and it's not like there was gonna be this honeymoon period between myself as a senior pastor and, and an associate pastor who I didn't know. Also, knowing some of the members at the West L.A. Church helped me there. Some of the Sanseis there were folks I had gone to UCLA with and so it was good to have some familiar faces there. Also knowing some of the parents of other Sanseis who I knew either at UCLA or growing up with UC, growing up with, during my UCLA days and who were from the West L.A. area also helped a lot. So it wasn't as if I was coming to a church where I didn't know anybody, which is how it was when I had gone to Sacramento. I knew some members there and that made it easier. Also just knowing the lay of the land, knowing the West L.A. area, having lived out in West L.A. during that four year period between my graduation from UCLA and entering the seminary in 1982, just made it a whole lot easier. It's not like I had to know, learn my way around town, a new town or anything. I could just hit the ground running, so that was very good in that respect.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.