KOBUCHIHAMA, JAPAN

Takao Osawa balanced himself as he walked around what was left of the cement foundation that used to be his home on the Oshika Peninsula in northern Japan. He pointed to the empty spaces and described the tsunami.

Nine months ago, when the alarms sounded on March 11, 2011, Mr. Osawa's neighbors looked to the harbor and their boats. The ocean was quiet. Then the wave, which hit dry land through another inlet, struck them from behind.

"It came from behind us and washed them down this way. A lot of people were caught off guard and washed away."

Turning his attention to the remains of a neighboring home, he said that some people didn't even realize they were in danger.

"In this house there was an old lady that was asleep," he recalled, explaining that the woman's daughter ran to her to save her. "Both the mother and the daughter were swept away."

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and powerful tsunami left 15,547 people dead, displaced thousands and destroyed more than 551,000 homes in northern Japan. To date, some 5,000 people remain missing.

In the days after the disaster, senior missionaries from the Church made their way to Kobuchihama, Mr. Osawa's village. "Not a house was still standing," said Elder Conan Grames. Elder Grames and his wife, Sister Cindy Grames, and Masahisa and Faith Watabe, had heard there was a village with survivors.

When they arrived in Kobuchihama they found a convenience store and 588 people — including Mr. Osawa — who were living off of processed noodle soup and rice.

The missionaries gave them blankets and returned two days later with fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and clothing.

In the following weeks another senior missionary couple, Elder Masamichi Watanabe and his wife, Sister Moto Watanabe, began completing weekly food orders for the village. They delivered the food each week until their was no longer a need.

Although the tsunami is hard to talk about, Mr. Osawa said he and the other survivors in his village — like their parents before them — are determined to never forget.

A large rock pillar stands among the demolished homes. It is carved with a reminder of the 1933 tsunami in Japan which "came up this far."

Mr. Osawa says when the 2011 tsunami carried the monument away, villagers — determined to remember the past — found it and returned it to its original foundation. — Sarah Jane Weaver