I enjoyed a wonderful devotional with the performance of a Japanese brother/sister group called BLESS 4
yesterday. There are 2 brothers and two sisters ranging in age from 20 to 28. They are amazing dancers/singers!! Remind me of the early Osmonds......They have a number 1 song "Dandelion" in Japan and have done music backup for work on Disney films like Stitch, etc. They only made their debut as recording artists in 2003, so are quite new but really amazing! They wrote up a contract before signing with any record company, explaining that they would not perform on Sundays, as they would be attending their church meetings, would not promote in any performances, immoral activities, sex, drugs, etc. During a summer tour the producer came in and said to them, "ok kids, it's summer you need to show some skin". They refused and reminded the producer of their contract.
Their parents met at BYU and spent ten years in the states - explaining why their children speak English beautifully. They live in Kawasaki, Japan since 1997 but tour all over the world. They do great original pop music as well as beautiful gospel music like I am a child of God. They have done numerous fundraisers for the people of Northern Japan who were devastated with the earthquake and tsunami.
At the end of the program, they asked their mother to bear her testimony...........when she concluded there was not a dry eye! Her mother grew up in Japan the 4th of 8 children. Her father was a very unhappy alcoholic. She was very frightened of him when he was drunk. She never felt loved by her father. When she was 11 yrs old, he died. Ten years later she joined the LDS Church. One night after she had her father's temple work done, she awoke in the middle of the night and her father was kneeling at her bed. He was crying and telling her how sorry he was for the way he had treated her. She said he kept bowing and tears were running down his face. Then one of the times he was bowing and lifted his head his tears went from sorrow to joy and he said to her "thank you". She said it was an incredible thing to know that her father loved her. She said it was a testimony to her that our Heavenly Father never, ever gives up on us. ~~
