District Meeting

Elder Naganuma is the new District Leader of the Kichijoji District. He speaks little English -- what he's picked up on his mission is mostly from having American companions. He works very hard in the office as commissarian -- ordering supplies, closing apartments as the mission downsizes, filling missionaries' orders for peanut butter, Nutella, etc., handling correspondence for Japanese missionaries, working closely with Bruce on financial stuff, all that and more are among his many responsibilities. He's now District Leader on top of all that, and he's working hard at that too. The other office elders tease him quite relentlessly about his English, and he takes it cheerfully, laughing at himself as well. Below is the agenda from his first District Meeting as DL. It was quite entertaining to see each missionary in turn open his/her iPad, accept the air dropped agenda, read it, and then burst out laughing!

Because there were missionaries new to the district and this was their first meeting, Elder Naganuma wanted everyone to introduce him/herself. "Nasty things" really meant "when you feel sad" or "things you don't like". But instead we heard about food that had spoiled in refrigerators, bugs in apartments, etc., etc., ad nauseum (literally).  "This transfer the gool" was goal-setting for the transfer (6 weeks), and "Lassen!: Elder me" meant Elder Naganuma was giving the lesson or training for this meeting. All this plus some more awkward usage and misspellings made the whole meeting quite entertaining! We love Elder Naganuma, I wish you could all see his smile and shake his hand. He's a great missionary and an awesome young man!

Here's the Kichijoji District -- they gave us this card as we left the office on our last day. It's a large district because it includes all the office elders. How we love these missionaries, we will miss them so much!! I have to remind myself that we were sad to leave the Fussa/Yokota missionaries when we were asked to serve in the office, just as we're sad to leave the Kichijoji missionaries now, and that we'll be serving with missionaries we'll come to know and love for the next year -- wherever we are!

Seated: Sister Fuggle, Sister Hart, Elder Dunn
Standing: Elders Bates, Leach, Murakami, Moua, Livingston, Pratt, Ford, Driscoll, Naganuma, Mukai.