Senior Missionaries Conference in April

Once a year we have a conference for just the senior couples in the mission.  This conference gives them a chance to know each other better and talk and share ideas.  We have 6 1/2 couples serving now in the mission.                      Yamanita Couple serve in Miyako

Tanaka Couple serve in Ichinoseki

Sakamoto Couple serve in Ishinomaki

Oyama Couple serve in Morioka

Noonchester Couple serve in the Office

Sister Kakuda and Sister Rollins serve in the Office

Elder Yamada serves in the office

 



(NOTE:  for some unknown reason, the pictures in this posting are not in the right order.  Could it possibly be the fault of the administrator/author??? )

 

L-R  Oyama, Tanaka, Yamanita

 



Yamanita couple singing with sign language.

 



Special music performed by Sister Tanaka, E & S Yamanita, Pres & Sis Sugawara.

(Sister and Elder Noonchester sitting in front)

 



Sakamoto couple training the group.

 



Gary training them.

 



Yamanita's training

 



Breakfast together.  Breakfast casserole and muffins & miso soup.

 



The wonderful Assistants helped with translation.

The Tanaka's training

Talent show--following instructions to sign a song.

Sisters Wright, Rollins, and Kakuda

Noonchester couple and Oyama couple and Elder Christensen

also following instructions to sign a song.

 



Gary was the MC for the talent show!

Elder Yamada plays the harmonica.  Who knew?

 

The Wrights gave everyone a large man handkerchief

and we were to all make something out of it.

Elder Tanaka plays the saxaphone very well.  He tried to join a band in Ichinoseki

but they always played their concerts on Sunday so he quit.

Pres & Sis. Sugawara sang a duet!

Elder Noonchester wore this mustache all evening.  He is so funny.  He keeps us laughing.

Elder Sakamoto can do a rubics cube really fast!!

Sister Sakamoto sewed dozens and dozens of baby doll clothes and gave each

of us several for our granddaughters age 5 and under.

Sister Rollins sang a solo.  She was Ms. Utah before coming on her mission.

 

Sister Oyama read a beautiful poem.

I described our (Gary's) talent of making videos of grandchildren.  (We only showed a short segment of the whole video so we didn't bore them with "home movies" that never end) 

 

Elder Oyama played an old Japanese instrament.

The Noonchesters played a duet on the piano.

(E. Noonchester played a note or two at the appropriate time. Awesome!!)

 

 

We had our group picture taken on the way to dinner.

 

This fellow next to Gary is the owner of the restaurant around the corner from our home.  He came into work on his day off just to serve dinner to the 22 of us.  We filled up his entire restaurant so he can't feel too badly about having to work! 

Service Again in Ishinomaki in April

 

The mission learned of another need for service in some of the fishing villages along the coast near Ishinomaki.  This is the season for harvesting wakame (seaweed) out of the ocean and preparing it for distribution.  We didn't have the entire mission come in for the service but we did ask the missionaries close by to come and help. (about 1/2 of the mission)  We rented a bus and spent two consecutive days working with the fishermen.  Some of the members of the Sendai Stake also joined us.

 

 

President & Sister Sugawara (Stake President) came with us.

 



Sisters in the back of the bus!

 



Sister Saito and Shuto

 



Gary posing with one of the fishermen we worked with.

 



The seaweed is put into this large vat of salt water as one of the processes.

This was the seaweed after it came out of the vat.  We spent hours "untangling" it and cutting off the end tip of a stran of seaweed.  (Honestly, I couldn't see nor understand "why" we did that)

 

We were provided with and Obento lunch of fish and rice.

 

Each of the blue and yellow baskets were filled with this seaweed.  After working many hours with several of the women, we hardly made a dent in the work to be done.  We did go through lots and lots of baskets, tho.

Group picture before we left for home.  Several of our missionaries here are new enough that they had never had the opportunity to do service with the mission.

 



A bus load of people  came up from Tokyo to help, too.

The first day of the service, the Zone Leader Council and the office missionaries went to the service. This picture was taken in front of the Honbu when we returned at the end of the day.

We were thrilled that 3 of our former missionaries came up with the Tokyo bus and we were able to see them.  (Sister Murase, Tanaka and Maki)

 



Gary and me with Sister Maki who was serving in Ishinomaki when the tsunami hit 2 years ago.

 



These three Shimai are doing very well and loved to return to see some of the

 missionaries they knew while on their mission.

 



Sister Maki and Tanaka came to stay at the Honbu on Sunday evening.

 



Sister Maki telling her Mission President more detail about what happened to her right after the tsunami hit Ishinomaki.  She and her companion were missing for several days when Pres. Tateoka was trying to contact every missionary and bring them into Sendai.  Sis Maki was at the evacuation center cleaning dirty, smelly bathrooms so the people would have clean facilities.  She saw a need and did her part!

 



 

What a sweetheart.  (She told us she was dating a wonderful young man she taught the gospel to in Hirosaki (Shirasaka Kyodai) while she served there.  He was baptized and is the Ward Mission Leader now.  We are hoping a marriage is in the future for them.

First MISSION LEADER COUNCIL Meeting in April

It has been a week since the announcement by the Missionary Department of new Sister Training Leaders being added to the Zone Leader Council.  Now the name of the council is the Mission Leadership Council.  It took Gary about 2 hours to impliment the new changes as soon as we read about them on LDS.org as we drove in the car.  No grass grows under his feet.  These pictures were taken at the very first MLC held in the Sendai Mission.

 



Elder Yoneda (Aomori Zone) teaching the council.

 



Elder Kano and Elder Yoneda

 



The two newly called Sister Training Leaders are Sister Stubbs and Saito.

 



Lunch is always a highlight of the day!

 



Elders Kano, Takase & Uchida

 

Gathering on the stairs near the Mission Home for a group picture.

 



Aren't they an amazing group of leaders.