Our son, Ryan, with one of his most recent converts in Taiwan

Our daughter, Lauren (far right) with a recent baptism in Hong Kong

Sister Daniels and Shannon at the flower farms

A Buddhist Temple and Shrine in Hokkaido

The flower farms in Hokkaido

Elders Thurber, Watanabe, Tashiro, Nelson, Daniels eating lavendar ice cream

The missionaries at work

Hokkaido Flower Farms

Asahikawa Zone Activity and barbeque with Elder Mauai helping with the hot dogs

Asahikawa Zone Activity

We celebrated Elder Park's birthday after the Odori Zone DTM

Morning football with the Ebetsu Sisters: Left to right front row: Sisters Miyawaki, Kawachi, Mayama, Kaneko. Back Row: Elders Muscle man Gremmert, Dickson, Watanabe, Ogura, Nelson and Daniels

This was the first time that Sister Kawachi had played ultimate football. She is working on catching the football with her hands and not her head.

We did not let a little rain and some small puddles get in the way of morning exercise with the Odori District: Dickson, Ogura, Cambell, Watanabe, Nelson, Gremmert, Crompton, Furukawa, Sato, Hansen, Hosan, Daniels

After many years of faithful service, Elder Bin Kikuchi was released as our Area Authority Seventy in Japan. We hosted a dinner with the three Stake Presidencies, the District President, The Mission Presidency and our new Area Authority Seventy, Elder Nishihara

We welcomed four new Zone Leaders to our ZL Council meeting: Elders Williams, Senba, Park and Christian as well as one new AP, Elder Nelson. Elder Nelson is from Canada and is a little sensitive about being grouped in with the Americans. Front Row: Elders Lottermoser, Senba, Watanabe and Nelson. Back Row: Elders Mauai, Sakahashi, Williams, Yoneda, Park, Jankowski, Yoza, Christian.

We need to keep an eye on our Japanese missionaries and make sure we explain the proper eating protocol for American food. At ZL Council meeting, we had hot dogs and chips. Sister Daniels also made a chinese chicken salad. Before we could explain, all of the Japanese Elders had used the chinese chicken salad as a condiment on their  hot dogs. We had a similar experience with our sisters at breakfast. We did not adequately explain that the picante sauce was for the eggs and the syrup was for the pancakes.

We start our ZL Council meeting on P-Day so we can get a little basketball in. You can see how Elder Nelson aggressively hand checks.

We also have a traditional best ball park golf tournament as part of our ZL Council activities.

Every once in a while, we need to include some pictures of our family. Eli turned one in May and is happy living with his parents in Santa Monica

Lunch with some of the sisters after transfer. It was the first time to eat soup curry. From left to right: Sisters Kyoda, Uchida,Ogita, White, Matsumoto, Tsuji

Most of our missionaries need to transit through the main Sapporo Train Station on transfers. It provides a short opportunity for missionaries to visit. Front Row: Elders Thurber and Naganuma. Back Row (LtoR) Elders Weloth, Lazenby and Christensen.

Of our 20 missionaries, 17 are from Japan. Sister Hosan is from Mongolia and we have two from the USA. In this picture - Sisters Uchida, Hosan, Ogita, Mimaki, Hansen

Elders Crompton, Allen and Todd

Elders Ogura, Urata, Senba, Fry, Sato and Brother Unamoto

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.