The sixty students of Mochi Elementary School in Nara Prefecture have two special American friends, Luella Steil and Zephyr Baker. These two sisters, one living in Georgia and the other in Ohio, regularly exchange cards, small gifts, videos, and e-mail with the students, teachers, and principal of Mochi Elementary School. The school holds an annual "Mary Day" celebration in honor of the doll received in 1927 from Luella and Zephyr's mother, Mary Louise Williamson Steil. Zephyr describes the relationship with Mochi Elementary, "This is a wonderful cultural exchange and an ongoing friendship all because a six-year-old girl told her father, 'I want to send a doll to Japan.'"

In 1926, the father of Mary Louise Williamson served as the superintendent of the Market Street Baptist Church Sunday School in Zanesville, Ohio. When he came home one Sunday with news of a nationwide project to send American dolls to children in Japan, his young daughter Mary Louise really wanted to send a doll to faraway Japan. She sent a small doll with dark hair and a light dress. She named the doll "Mary Louise" after herself, and her father included the church's address with the doll.

Many years later, in 1985, when Market Street Baptist Church celebrated its 150th anniversary, Mary Louise again took out the box addressed to the Sunday School. When asked by the church pastor to share stories of old times, Mary Louise showed the contents of the box and "told the story of friendship and sharing a doll with the Japanese children." Later that year, she went to Ohio State University and received help from a Japanese student to translate some of the letters. She found out then that the papers were letters from children thanking the giver of the doll who could say "mama" and could open and close her eyes.

In the early 1990s, Mary Louise got involved with a local doll club so she could find out more about the 8 to 10 dolls she had kept from her childhood. One day in the spring of 1997, the president of her local doll club called to tell her of an advertisement about the 70th-anniversary celebration of the Friendship Doll Exchange sponsored by the Japanese Asian Doll Enthusiasts (JADE). This was the first time she even heard of the 58 Japanese Ambassador Dolls sent by Japan to the U.S. in 1927 as a thank-you gift for the nearly 13,000 American dolls that arrived in Japan in early 1927. In July 1997, Mary Louise, her husband, and her two oldest daughters (Zephyr and Luella) attended the JADE convention in Anaheim, California, to tell the story of the doll sent 70 years before and of the special wooden box with its precious contents. Mary Louise said, "It takes the common man, not government, to make peace."

Mary Louise and her family participated in a school assembly, where the children sang songs such as "A Small World" to greet the special visitors from America. Mary Louise presented to the school a new brown-eyed doll named Mary to replace the original doll sent in 1927. The students of Mochi Elementary presented Mary Louise with a small Japanese Ichimatsu doll in return. After the visit to Mochi Elementary, the group had an opportunity to visit another elementary school in Nara Prefecture to see one of the original American dolls sent in 1927.

In November  2001, Luella and Zephyr visited Mochi Elementary School for the second time in order to attend the 4th annual "Mary Day" celebration in honor of their mother's visit in 1997 and the two dolls she has given to the school. Zephyr says she was in "sheer awe" during the visit, and Luella exclaims, "of all the places I have been, that trip topped them all." About 200 people, including alumni and other residents of the town, attended the "Mary Day" ceremony. Luella entertained the audience by doing a clog dance with a traditional dress, and Zephyr sang "Let There Be Peace on Earth."