Seated on the sofa is Sister Matsumoto, Elder Jankowski, Elder Sakahashi and Elder Akasaka.  They are leaving us to go back to their homes.  We love each of them and will miss them.

We have a tie cutting ceremony where I keep a tie from each missionary going home. I will eventually make a remembrance quilt out of them.

Our returning missionaries at the top of Maruyama Mountain overlooking Sapporo.

A very warm welcome to Elder Robinson from Lindon,Utah and Elder Chang from Kona Hawaii. Elder Lawler is next to me and will be Elder Robinson's trainer. Elder Chang is next with Elder Raymond, who will be his trainer.  

We had a mini Sisters Conference for the sisters that where transferring. All but 4 were here.  They are an amazing group!

The Moiwa ward had a cherry picking activity.  You pay 700 yen and can pick and eat all you want.  After, if you want to take some cherries home, you need to pay extra.

Some Elders and Sisters having fun with 2 recent converts and a girl that works at the farm.

Elder Dennis with one of those crazy hamburgers.  Elder Yoza waiting for his food.

Elder Christian with a katsudon (deep fried pork over rice with egg) dish.  Elder Willis is in awe.

Last week we attended the Muroran Ward.  We has taco rice with the missionaries.

After dinner picture with our Kotoni Elders and Sisters and two Odori Sisters.  Our crazy puppy Bella wanted to be in the picture.

One of the baptisms this last week.  Sister Hansen and Sister Sato with our new Sister Kikuchi.

Lunch with the Hokodate Zone.  They all love Lucky Pierrot.  They have these huge hamburgers and the Elders love them.

Hokodate Park golf outing.

Over the weekend we had a branch conference in Abashiri.  It is the northern most part of our mission.  We stopped in Kitami and took some of our Elders to Pizza Hut and bowling.

We took our July 4th celebration on the road.  This group is from Obihiro.  We celebrated with hot dogs, rootbeer, brownies and watermelon.  We played park golf and a little tennis, soccer and ultimate football.

We try to host a fireside at our home every other week.  Our missionaries bring investigators and share why they each decided to serve a mission, why they left everything behind and why they wanted to share this message.  It is a powerful way to share the gospel.

Eniwa District training meeting.

Ebetsu and Toyohira District Training Meeting

This past week we held all of our Zone Conferences. We started with Obihiro. We had our medical missionaries, Elder and Sister Brown and Elder and Sister Mead from Tokyo, attend our zone conferences and meet with the missionaries. It was wonderful to spend a week with them in Hokkaido.

We held our Hakodate zone conference in Muroran

This is our Asahikawa Zone. Almost every one of our zones are evenly split between Japanese missionaries and non-Japanese.

We had a joint Atsubetsu/Odori Zone Conference. On P-day, we celebrated the 4th of July at one of the parks in the mountains. We had soccer, kick ball, football, and park golf as activities. For lunch, we did a typical US style picnic with hotdogs, chips, watermelon, brownies, and root beer. Thank goodness for Costco.

It has become a tradition for our Sisters to sing at our joint zone conferences