For the past 17 years, Sapporo has hosted a dance festival with over 10,000 participants. The Yosakoi festival last for about five days and is one continuous parade of synchronized dances with all of the participants wearing similar costumes. Unfortunately it rained on Saturday when we went to Ohdori Park to watch it but we still enjoyed the event.

Shannon will finish 9th grade at the Hokkaido International School this week. She will depart for the States on the 27th of this month. She has decided to spend her Sophomore year in Santa Barbara and will be living with our friends, the Eltons. We will miss her but we are excited for her to ride her horse again and experience all of the activities that Santa Barbara offers.

President and Sister McArthur from the Japan Missionary Training Center traveled to Sapporo this weekend. He was speaking at a fireside in the Atsubetsu Ward. We then hosted a small meeting with our Japanese missionaries who had gone through the JMTC to seek their opinions on what could be improved to assist in their preparation for entering the mission field.

We hosted a meeting on Sunday for our Single Adult leaders in Sapporo. We are establishing an Outreach Program targeted at the Single Adults. The idea is to have multiple activities each week for the SAs that they can bring their friends to. We also hope that the missionaries investigators will be integrated into the efforts and that we will see an increase in missionary activities. We were informed that we should expect around 9-13 people for dinner. Terry planned accordingly. You can imagine our surprise when 26 people showed up. It was a great turn out and we are excited to launch the program in Sapporo. We then intend to launch it in Hakodate, Obihiro, and Asahikawa.