Since we have been home, we have been joined by many of our missionaries returning to their homes: the first group was Shaya Muir, Chelsea Blyle, Taylor Taniuchi and Bryce Shurtliff . The next wave included Rie Imoto followed by Ryo Kashima and Naoto Takashima. This month, Parker Ackerman, Raymond Clinton, Reece Butler, Hironori Kobayashi, Yurika Niiyama and Katherine Gingrich returned. You see all of the wonderful missionaries come home and you wonder how the work will continue. It is amazing to see the younger missionaries step up and fill the void. The work moves on and the Lord is always preparing his next group of leaders. We are looking forward to having a reunion with our returned missionaries.

We have a number of mission engagements and we are excited to see so many of our missionaries move on with the most important decisions in their lives. This week, Elder Luke Brown from Australia announced his engagement. We also received an invitation to the wedding of Heidee Beaven - Australia is on a roll. In the USA, Steven Raymond was recently engaged. We also have another mission couple: Shinji Naganuma and Mariko Tsuji are engaged and will be married in Japan and then return to BYU Hawaii. Kaori Saito will be getting married in January and Sayako Kaneko will be married in March. We are excited for all of these engagements and look forward to the weddings.