New Leadership in the Fukuoka Japan Mission, 6-25 to 7-01-12

This was another week of travel, apartment checks and goodbyes.  This time it was the Nagasaki Zone missionaries.  We also said welcome to President and Sister Gustafson and "see you soon" to President Sherman and Sister Sherry Margetts who are returning to West Jordan, Utah.  They have all of our winter clothes that we shipped home with their stuff, so we will need to retrieve the boxes before it gets cold.

 Family Home Evening gang: Yasuaki, Furusho Kyodai, Watanabe and Hoffman Choro, Bess, Sho, Mueller and Furusawa Shimai, Tom, sitting:  Furuta and Honda Kyodai, standing: Kikue Shimai and Shimoda-san.

The Tuesday morning "can man"  It must have been a wild weekend as there is no room for him to ride.

Omuta Choro:   Swasey and Wada.  Shaved ice treat.

Isahaya Choro:  Harvey and Nagafuchi.  Bakery treats!

Nagasaki Shimai:  Meline and Uchida.  We took them for sushi!

Beautiful Shimai in a celestial apartment!  We will soooo miss Uchida Shimai!     

Fireworks display.  No legal way to get them home to Utah.

Nagasaki Choro:  Gregory, Montes de Oca (who goes home this transfer), S. Okada and "new bean" Ishikawa.  They ate Mongolian Barbeque on the Navy base with us.

Nagasaki Zone Leaders: Shima and Ikari Choro.  Shima Choro flew to Japan with us. We brought them up from Nagasaki Thursday morning and then took them on over to Saga on Friday morning. They were doing junkai with the other missionaries.

Saga Choro:  Hodson and Murukami.  Ice cream treats.  We spent over an hour working with them dejunking their apartment.  Hodson Choro who just moved in is happy.  Saga apartment is very old.   

Happy missionaries!

Kurume Choro:  Stennett and Woodward Choro.  A tub of ice cream from Cosmos.  

 

 

 

 

 

Friday evening we stayed at the Fukuoka Toyoko Inn down in the Tenjin area.  We met Elder and Sister Beus, the office couple, for supper.  We are serving with wonderful people!

New and Finished Mission Presidents.  President and Sister Gustafson and Sister and President Margetts!

  Change of     Command!

Do something good for someone and always more comes back!    

The missionaries tell us that they all loved these movies when they were growing up!  Disney makes an English version of these.

 

 

Today is a pretty low key day.  We needed this day after being on the road the last two weeks!  We are very thankful that senior missionaries aren't expected to run as fast as the young missionaries.  They are hard to keep up with.

We now have basically one transfer left,  in some ways we feel that it is coming much too fast!  In other ways we are very excited to come home and are even more excited to see what the Lord has in store for us!  

There is no rest until we go home,  there is a Relief Society lesson to teach, testimonies to be prepared and shared in Nohongo, the Temple sealing of the Maui family who were baptized last year, a baptism of an Eikaiwa student, an official transfer, one last time to officiate the English session at the Temple, people to be loved and helped and still seven apartments to check. And this is just what we know about now.

The words of Elder Jeffrey R Holland's April 2012 Conference talk "The Laborers in the Vinyard" are so pertinent to each of  our lives.  The Lord treats no one unfairly,  other's successes and special recognition do not in any way diminish another.  

"Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving!"....  Quit "downing a quart of pickle juice every time someone else has a happy moment."

" We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them.  Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you.  And what a reward there will be for that contribution when the Lord of the vineyard looks you in the eye and accounts are settled at the end of our earthly day."

Remember, " There is nothing that you have done that cannot be undone.  There is no problem which you cannot overcome.  There is no dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized......Come and feast "without money and without price" at the table of the Lord."

We love each of you and are grateful for your love and prayers in our behalf!

Grandpa and Grandma

Dad and Mom 

Tom and Bess