Jan 09 Wakayama Tour with Assistants

After the holidays and zone conferences, Sister McIntyre and I spent most of our time making the regular transfer interview visits. Our last zone was Wakayama. We travelled to Iwade with the assistants on the 28th and interviewed part of the zone there. After lunch, Sister McIntyre returned to Kobe by train and the assistants, Elders Bohman and Rasmussen, accompanied me by car to the farther locations of the zone. Periodically I like to visit these areas personally rather than have the missionaries come to me. We cannot do this all the time in all areas, but we try to balance our visits. We drove to Gobo from Iwade on Thursday afternoon and I interviewed Elders Harris and Neider there.Here are the elders in front of the Gobo church building. This is actually the back of the building. The church is on the second floor. Gobo is a smaller branch in the Sakai Stake.

Above is Elder Neider and I standing in front of the Gobo apartment. After interviews and an apartment inspection, we drove to Tanabe which is further down the coast of Wakayama. That evening I interviewed elders Christensen and Drake and the assistants helped teach their weekly English class at the church.

The next morning we took a picture in front of the Church. Tanabe has a nice little building chapel. It is also a smaller branch in the Sakai Stake. Thursday morning we had study and morning schedule with the elders and then departed to Shingu.

Here are the assistants and elders Drake and Christensen in front of the Tanabe apartment building. They live on the 7th floor with a great view of the ocean. The drive to Shingu is several hours from Tanabe. There are two routes, the coast or the mountains. We took the coastal route down and returned via the mountains. At one of the rest stops we found a governmental experimental breeding laboratory. They are breeding wild bore with domestic pigs. We took a picture or two and actually saw some inobuta (a cross between a Inoshii/bore and a Buta/pig). This was just something you do not see everyday!

Above is the mom and dad and here are the inobuta children. They do use them for meat. They were very friendly and cute though.

About half way down the coast is the Hashiguiiwa rocks in the ocean. The assistants took advantage of this famous photo spot.

Once in Shingu I had the chance to interview elders Fell and Schmidt and the assistants spent some time with their English class and on splits proselyting. Friday the 30th, in the morning we spent our study time together in the Shingu apartment then started our journey home. The drive back to Kobe can take anywhere from 5-6 hours.

Took a quick picture in front of the Shingu church before leaving.

On the way home on the mountain route, about lunch time we found and stopped at a little restaurant on the side of the road. It specialized in unique "local" cuisine. (picture above) The elders were brave and wanted to try some so we had a quick lunch consisting of wild bore meat (inoshishi donburi) over rice, wild bore meat curry, deer meat fried rice and to top it off some raw deer meat sashimi. A nice family owned and managed the place and we visited with them for a few minutes and were able to leave some information about the church. The food was good!

Sister McIntyre and I also attended the Sakai Stake Conference this month. Elder Stevenson of the seventy presided and Elder Bin Kikuchi, an area seventy, accompanied him. I spoke in the priesthood leadership session Saturday and the main session on Sunday and Sister McIntyre spoke in the Saturday evening session. It was a great conference. We also held a new member meeting with Elder and Sister Stevenson, Elder Kikuchi and President Sugimoto of the Sakai Stake after the meetings on Sunday. We saw several new converts we know that have joined the church since we arrived. It was great to see the work moving forward and the fruits of everyone's efforts. Time is moving so fast. January is gone and February begins. Some areas in the mission are quite cold. Toyooka has lots of snow. Spring will be here soon!

January is Mochitsuki Time

Pounding rice into mochi is a very popular Japanese tradition. We have found that most wards have a mochi party sometime in the month of January. Here is Sister McIntyre taking her turn at the Kobe Ward Mochitsuki Party.
Wet rice is pounded with the mallet, and everyone takes a turn, until it turns into a sticky stretchy ball. It is then divided up into several smaller balls or pieces. You can then eat it in many ways or it can be dried to extend its shelf life for future consumption.
Mochi balls are good in homemade Japanese soup, stuffed with strawberries or Japanese red bean paste, both sweet treats, or baked/microwaved or fried with soy sauce and/or cheese. The Kobe ward had a big turn out and the missionaries had several investigators and friends attend. Everyone enjoyed the food and it was a beautiful January day for the activity.

A New Year Begins - January 2009

This a picture of Sister Yamada who was taught and baptized by Elders Badger and Stufflebeam in the Kita Rokko ward in the Kobe Stake. We travelled to the ward on Monday, January 12th, which is a Japanese holiday, and enjoyed making mochi with the members and then attended the baptismal service. These two elders knew each other before their missions and were actually very good if not best friends. I am not sure if they ever thought they would be companions, but what a special experience it was for them to teach and baptize this sister together. They will have a great story to tell to the ward back home. There is much more to this story, but I will just say it is really one of the great little miracles we see everyday in the mission. Above, the assistants, Elders Bohman and Rasmussen doing one of those acts of service for the president. Washing the president's van is something the missionaries never complain about doing, even when it is pretty cold out!
The first of the month, right after zone conferences, we had the chance to travel to Tokyo for two days to attend several of Ricky's basketball games.

Here he is with us at St. Mary's Int'l School in Tokyo after a game. Ricky attended this school for 2 years when he was in grade school. He never converted to Catholicism though!We tried to get a shot of Mt. Fuji from the car. Here you can see the volcano cone peaking through the clouds on the left side. The summit of Mt. Fuji is nearly 14,000 feet. It is the highest point in Japan.

Holiday Pictures and Wrap Up

We had a wonderful few weeks over the holidays filled with family time as well as a lot of mission business.

The Sunday after Christmas we travelled to the Sakai stake center (below) for the baptism of Sister Kohigashi.

Below is Sister Kohigashi with us and Sisters Webb and Inoue.

Between Christmas and New Years we took a day to play in Osaka. This (below) is the Dotonbori area.Rika and Julie are doing their Glico Man impression (He is the big guy on the wall behind them)
Mom loves crab, but Julie was not smiling in this shot? Everyone loved the shabu shabu though. Here is a shot of the kids getting ready for the feast.
Mom and Dad enjoyed the meal too.
We had some fun on the street playing the drums. Ricky was the champ!
Julie found a new boy friend while we were shopping. He was quite buff.
She wanted to take him home, but he wouldn't fit in the car. He didn't talk much either.
On New Year's Day we had a sports day at the Ibaraki stake center in Osaka. Since the 2nd was Zone Conference for many of the missionaries from the outer areas, we had a big group in town for the activity.
It was a fun day for everyone. We had basketball, soccer, volleyball and a mean game of dodge ball. They don't quite look the same without their suits and name tags though.
On the 4th, we attended the baptism of Maria Kawakami in the Hanayashiki Ward. She was taught by many missionaries over several months. In this picture are Elders Reading, West and Ashdown, and Sisters Meyers and Kurashita.

We had Zone conferences on the 2nd and 5th of January. We are now through the holidays and back to normal. Julie returned to BYU in Provo on Sunday. We already miss her.

We are off to a great start in 2009 and look forward to a great year.

A Happy New Year Message to Our Missionaries

It is New Year's Eve here in Japan and we have a holiday sports activity and zone conferences starting tomorrow. Here is a copy of our message in this transfers newsletter.

Dear Kobe Missionaries,

How wonderful it is to start out this New Year with all of you here in Japan serving the Lord. We have just had a wonderful end of the year celebrating the birth of our Savior and seeing the most convert baptisms in a single month since the mission reopened over a year and a half ago. What a blessing it was to see so many people come unto Christ this wonderful time of year. And several were actually baptized on Christmas day. It truly was a white and wet Christmas in the Kobe Mission.
Many missionaries experienced the first baptisms of their mission this past month. How I desire each missionary in the mission to have the opportunity to be a part of that wonderful conversion process culminating with one of God’s beloved children entering the waters of baptism. Our purpose is to find, teach, baptize, confirm and establish the church in Japan. We have made great progress in fulfilling this purpose in the past several months. But we can and will gradually learn to do even better. We have emphasized the importance of baptism to all of you. This is how people repent and come unto Christ. Mormon taught the “first fruits of repentance is baptism.” (Moroni 8:25) Baptism is central to our purpose as missionaries. We must continue to emphasize its importance and help all those we teach understand that it is the gate that all must enter.
However, “your success as a missionary is measured primarily by your commitment to find, teach, baptize, and confirm people and to help them become faithful members of the church who enjoy the presence of the Holy Ghost.” (See PMG p. 10) I think all missionaries want to baptize. I certainly hope you all do! But you must remember that the number of baptisms you have does not make you a successful missionary. A successful missionary is fully committed to being a "Preach My Gospel Missionary." According to Preach My Gospel, a successful missionary will:

- Feel the Spirit testify to people through him
- Love people, including his companion and desire their salvation
- Obey with Exactness (all the commandments and mission rules)
- Live to have the Spirit and know how to follow the Spirit.
- Develop Christlike Attributes.
- Work effectively everyday.
- Help build the church wherever they are assigned to serve.
- Warn others of the consequences of sin.
- Teach and serve other missionaries.
- Go about doing good and serving others.

So as we begin a New Year here in the mission, I ask all of you: Are you a successful missionary? Do you obey with exactness? Does this list of characteristics above describe you? When we truly become Preach My Gospel Missionaries and are fully committed to our purpose, we will feel the Spirit, love our missions, love our companions and the Japanese people, and be successful missionaries. And in many cases, baptisms will follow as a natural result.

Let us continue to have faith and hope, two of the attributes of Christ, to see an increase in the harvest. But in doing so, we must remember that people have the agency to choose whether to accept our message.

“Your responsibility is to teach clearly and powerfully so they can make a correct choice. Some may not accept our message even when they have received a spiritual witness that it is true…You should not, however, become discouraged; discouragement will weaken your faith…and you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit…When you do your very best, you may still experience disappointments, but you will not be disappointed in yourself.” (PMG pp. 10-11)

As we begin a New Year, it is my prayer that each of you will recommit to be a Successful Missionary. Success is a choice. When we choose to be a Preach My Gospel Missionary we start to choose success.

I testify to each of you that the Lord has given us the tools and a plan to follow. When we use the tools and follow the plan, we will be successful. As a mission we will continue to focus on fulfilling our purpose and inviting people to repent through baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost. And I know that as we do this, the harvest will increase and each of you will be not only happier, but wonderfully successful!

Much Love,
President and Sister McIntyre

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Eve was spent with our family and 6 new missionaries. They arrived on Tuesday night and we spent all day Wednesday (Christmas Eve) in training and orientation. We had a nice sukiyaki dinner that evening and a chance to share testimonies and talk about the mission that lies before them and the true meaning of Christmas.It was especially nice to have Julie with us. Above going around the table from left to right, elders Budge, Murphy, Aquirre, Chamochumbi, Solomon, Ngawaka, Rika and I, James and Julie.We later had our traditional Christmas cake. We spent Christmas morning together as a family.

Ricky and Julie on Christmas morning.

Mom and daughter. Erika is doing well in Sapporo. We talked with her on Friday morning (the day after Christmas).

Christmas afternoon was spent playing at the church and watching movies. The missionaries had a nice relaxing preparation day and set up for our special Christmas program, dinner and baptismal service Christmas evening. On Christmas night in Kobe, we had a nice spiritual program with all the missionaries and some of our friends taking lessons from the missionaries. Then we had a Christmas feast at the church. We had a big turkey, ham, desserts, salads, etc. I think everyone was very full by the end. After dinner, we started our baptismal service. Above is a picture of the elders (Rassmusen, Bohman and Fa'aleilei) with Zhou-san who was baptized. Above is Sister Rasario Nishiura who was also baptized and the elders from Kakogawa, Remund and Payne. Rosario asked that I perform the baptism for her. We had taught her at our home several times and Sister McIntyre and I fellowshipped her and her family.

Above is Rosario with her family at the baptism. She has three children. Marian, her daughter, is also taking the lessons, but was a little nervous about being baptized so let mom set the example and go first.

Rosario is from Peru and has lived in Japan many years. Her father was Catholic and her mother was a member of the church. But she had been raised Catholic. Zhou is from China and is a fine young man who was so prepared to hear the gospel. We expect to see great things from him and in his life related to the gospel. We were blessed with 4 baptisms in the mission on Christmas Day. It really was a white Christmas in Kobe.

December has been an interesting month for the mission as we have seen many people come unto Christ through baptism. The interesting thing is that the baptisms this month include people from China, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines and of course a majority from Japan. The mission now has missionaries serving from or with original ties to the US, Japan, Hong Kong (China), Canada, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Samoa and the Philippines. (not to mention Hawaii and Alaska which to many are their own countries). We truly are called to preach the gospel to the world even in the Kansai region of Japan. It is beginning to remind me of the ward I served in for several years as bishop. We had members in the ward representing over 15 countries and many languages. Perhaps that experience helped prepare me to serve here in Kobe. We truly are all children of our Father in Heaven. There is one God for all and one baptism.

We have never before experienced a Christmas week like this last one. I am glad transfer week will not fall on Christmas the rest of our mission. To be honest, it was very busy and exhausting, but will certainly be a Christmas to remember and cherish.

Almost Christmas!

Elders Fukui and Nicerio, who work in the mission office, decorated the mission home with Christmas lights. They did a great job and the color coordination was quite good. We cannot compete with temple square, but it really looks nice right next to the church.

On the 21st we were able to attend the baptism of Taiki-kun. He is 9 years old. He was taught by the missionaries as his family has just recently began coming to church again. The missionaries worked with the family and he was baptized by his father. Taiki wants to be a missionary someday.
Sister McIntyre was in a baking mood and made Elder Bowman a cookie for his birthday that looks just like him! He wanted to save it, but I think he ate it after the pictures.

On the 23rd, we saw 4 great elders return home after two years of service. Elders Baldridge, Bowman, Moore and Akagi. We took the normal picture for our newsletter, but they wanted a silly picture too. That is the one we are posting here.
Christmas week is transfer week. This is a big challenge. We flew these four home so they could make it in time to be with their families. Normally they would have left on the 26th and missed Christmas at home. The evening of the 23rd, we picked up our six new missionaries and they will be assigned and transfer out on the day after Christmas. Christmas is preparation day. We have two baptisms schedule in Kobe on Christmas as well. We are expecting a white Christmas. We will update everyone in a couple of days!

Ricky Getting Some Air

#15 Ricky McIntyre gets some air over the defenders as he led his team to two big victories this past week. League play has ended and the Kobe based Canadian Academy Falcons finished tied for 1st place. They will now play in a league tournament, travel to Tokyo for few exhibition games right after New Years and finish the season with a trip to China to play in the Asia Pacific (APAC) tournament.

In the game above, Ricky scored 30 of the teams 66 points. This was a season high game for him. He had a sprained ankle at the beginning of the season and has not been 100% until recently.
Here he is doing a ballet move and fouling the other team! I wish I was flexible enough to kick myself in the head sometimes! Nice Job Ricky!

December Begins with Interviews and Praying for a White and Wet Christmas

We have been busy interviewing and meeting with the missionaries in their district meetings since the beginning of this month. We have interviewed all the missionaries except those in Wakayama, which we will do next week. We travelled to Kyoto, Osaka a couple of times (Ibaraki and Abeno), Fukuchiyama and Nara. I think we interviewed about 80 missionaries in the last 10 days.Here are the Nara district missionaries. Elders Fruean, Honda, Varjao, Burton, Openshaw and Capener. After interviews and district meeting, we all had lunch together nearby and then enjoyed a donut from my favorite Mister Donuts shop.Here is a better view of the Nara church building.

On Sunday the 7th, we visited the Nishinomiya Ward for the first time. Above is a picture of the building. It is a good size building in a very nice residential area and near a major university. We had the chance to meet the father of Sister Yamashita, one of our missionaries from Tokyo as he happened to be visiting the area. We also met with the Takagi family. Brother Takagi co-authored a book on the history of the church in Japan with me which was published about 12 years ago. I have not seen him in a several years as he had been living overseas. He is a university professor and we enjoyed attending his Sunday School class.

We have several baptisms scheduled in the mission this month. Some are set for Christmas day and several the Sunday before. We are all dreaming of a dressed in white and getting wet Christmas. While some of those we teach may need more time to make and keep their commitments, we are hoping this will be one of our best months for seeing people repent and come unto Christ this year. Here at the mission home we have been helping to teach and fellowship a wonderful lady and her daughter. Last Sunday evening we had the chance to invite her to be baptized on Christmas day and she was very excited to accept the invitation. She is working on giving up her coffee, but told us not to worry. So we are expecting a white and wet Christmas here in Kobe. We will keep praying that it will come to pass!

Last Week of November 2008 Summary - Zone Conferences, Toyooka Branch Conference, Thanksgiving

Everytime I go to Toyooka, these big carp just jump out of the river and scare me!Below- Sisters Wade, Ise and Painter at our Thanksgiving gathering at the mission home. They made the meal. We are all grateful, it was delicious!Thanksgiving Week was Zone Conference Week for the Kobe Mission. We held two combined Zone Conferences this week, one in Mikunigoaka and the other in Ibaraki. For both of the conferences, Sister McIntyre cooked turkeys and Sister Painter made some turkey a la king gravy with the meat. We had pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and of course rice. Feeding over 100 missionaries with our limited resources was not easy, but they all had plenty to eat and it tasted like an American Thanksgiving! Our conferences focused on Preach My Gospel chapters 10 and 11. Teaching skills and helping people make and keep commitments.

On Saturday evening Sister McIntyre and I travelled to Kawachinagano in the Sakai Stake to conduct a Fireside workshop on the importance of families.

Then early Sunday morning we were off to Toyooka for branch conference. See the detailed entry and pictures below. After returning from Toyooka on Sunday night we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner as a family and the missionaries in the Kobe district. The missionaries invited some of the their investigators, including a whole family of four, over our home for the dinner and we had a chance to fellowship and teach them. As always, a busy but wonderful week in the Japan Kobe Mission. Yes, the church is true and alive and well here.

Our meal Sunday night at the mission home after Branch Conference in Toyooka.