Yuji Yokoyama, “I kept Missing Busses”

I joined in Hiroshima, Japan in August, 1969. In February, 1969 when I was 16 years old and a high-school student in Hiroshima, I was waiting for a bus near my high school. A woman (Mrs. Yukie Sawamukai) approached me at the bus stop. She asked me if I believed there were an absolute truth and almost immediately showed me the table of contents of the Divine Principle. She went through the Divine Principle table of contents from Introduction to the Second Advent item-by-item while I kept missing buses. When she mentioned the country where the Second Advent takes place, I asked her where it would be. She immediately started showing me a magazine with the Little Angels photos, and I understood that her answer was South Korea. She handed me her own Divine Principle book. I arrived home that day more than an hour late.

I was busy preparing a high-school art exhibition at that time, and I did not have time to read the Divine Principle. About a month later, Mrs. Sawamukai visited me at home and retrieved her Divine Principle and sold me a new one. I felt guilty, because I had not read even a page, so I bought the book. That night I started reading the Divine Principle from the Introduction and read through Principle of Creation and the Human Fall. It moved my mind and heart, and I became convinced that this was the truth. Right after that, I read through the Gospel of Matthew and had a spiritual experience with Jesus as I was reading about Peter's betrayal and Jesus' forgiveness. I wept for more than one hour. The next day, I visited the church center after school and listened to the introductory lecture. This prompted me to read the Book of Revelation, and when I was reading about the first resurrection of 144,000, I made up my mind that until I actually meet the returning Christ, I will not get married or touch a woman.

For the next few months, I went to the church every week to listen to lectures bit by bit. In the early summer, one lecturer recommended that I attend a seven-day workshop. So, I attended the seven-day workshop in Takedao, near Osaka in August 1969, and at the end of the workshop, I had a deep, spiritual experience with God. At that time, I decided to devote myself completely to the cause.