"One of the most memorable of these early culture festivals was in Chubu in September, 1982. It was pouring rain and all the organizers got together at 5AM to do morning gongyo. When they finished at 6AM, Sensei turned around to ask the YWD behind him if it was going to stop raining. She didn't know what to say, and Sensei said, "You are merciless. We are not God so we have no way of knowing whether this rain will stop or not, but our prayer should be that it must stop no matter what." Sensei ordered 30,000 towels to put on the ground so it wouldn't be so muddy, and thousands of umbrellas and raincoats. He went to the field very early and said, "Congratulations on this great victory!" Then he went from the first base to the outfield to encourage 20,000 flashcard youth division. They would have to be there for 8 hours awaiting the late afternoon show. For the last 2 weeks they had been controlling their meals so they wouldn't have to go to the bathroom on this day. Still, many of them wore diapers as a precautionary measure since it would be impossible for them to get up once they were seated. Many of them had been inactive members, older teenagers who had showed up with their girlfriends for the first practice. Sensei realized how important it was that they have as good an experience as possible this meetings." -- From a lecture by top senior leader Richard Yoshimachi at the Northern Virginia Community Center in 2001
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