When more missionaries, including Adeline Nako and her partner Lillian Samson, arrived in Japan from Hawaii in 1953, they were assigned to the cold northern city of Sendai.

Lillian recalls: “For the first time in our lives, we learned how to chop wood for a cookstove. There was heat only in the kitchen, so we would try to warm our beds with a yutanpo, a metal Japanese bed warmer. During the day, we would buy ishi-yakiimo (stone-baked sweet potatoes), place them in our pockets as hand warmers, and then eat them for lunch.”