Transcripts: Enjoy Life Forever!

Transcript: I Learned the Purpose of Life
[Terumi walks alone on a road lined with cherry blossom trees]
Terumi: A road for racing, bicycle racing against my rivals down a road; a road I travelled just for myself. That was my life course. I started road bicycle racing when I was a university student.
[Photos of her racing]
I won practically every race in Japan. I won the Japan National Championship twice and even participated in the Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Of course, I was always happy when I won. But that happiness didn’t last very long. Every time I won a race, I would be expected to win the next one, and I was overwhelmed with tremendous pressure. That frightened me. So, I immersed myself in training.
[Bicycle wheel spins]
Train, race, train, race, I was racing down a road with no end in sight.
[She walks alone on an empty beach]
After the Seoul Olympics, I was devoted to practice.
[Three cyclists speed past]
It was then that my younger sister Rie, who had become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, gave me the Happiness book. I really agreed with what that book said. In 1989, I started to study the Bible seriously.
[She walks through a forest]
Even so, I just wasn’t able to believe in the existence of a Creator. So, I studied the Creation book. When I read about the structure of birds’ wings, my eyes were opened.
[She reflects and nods]
I thought: ‘There is a Creator! The Creator made this!’ When I was convinced of the existence of the Creator, I was able to understand the purpose of life. It’s just as Ecclesiastes chapter 12 says; the purpose of life is to know the Creator and live for him.
[Sat reading the Bible]
I was so relieved. In 1991, I dedicated my life to Jehovah and started on the Creator’s Road.
[She smiles in photos]
The following year, I started pioneering and my sister and I moved to a congregation where the need was greater. But later, I was found to have kidney cancer. And in 2005, I had to quit pioneering after 13 wonderful years.
[Sat alone gazing at the ocean]
I was really discouraged. I could no longer do the things I had always done, and it was difficult to keep my self-respect. However, at that time, timely publications and encouragement from the elders gave me good support. So, I tried to find joy in what I could do.
[Happily, she plays fetch with a small dog]
Later, I got my strength back to some extent and I started pioneering again in 2012. I was overjoyed to attend Pioneer Service School again. Jehovah really helped me to continue on this road.
[Walks with sister, both have big smiles]
In this system, we think we have a lot of time in our lives, but in reality, we don’t. People should live thinking about what is really important in life - in the time they have. Of course, we can learn from the things we experience.
[They preach at the harbour]
But the wise course is to learn from the truth and from our relationship with our Creator. I really want young people to learn that lesson.
The road with real value is not the one we take for ourselves. It is the road we take for the Creator.
[They both laugh and chat as they walk along the road with the cherry blossom trees]
(Logo: Black capital letters JW.ORG inside a white box. Copyright 2015 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania)