Mission Conference

We had a mission conference in Kichijoji on December 31, 2015, with half of the mission -- the other half had met there the day before. We heard from Elder Hansen, the medical adviser for missionaries in the Asia North Area, and had some wonderful training from President and Sister Wada. Can I say again how much I love, admire, and respect this mission president and his wife? Every missionary should be blessed with this kind of leadership.

We also had a visit from Santa Claus, a fun white elephant gift exchange, and a yummy lunch prepared by members of the Kichijoji Ward.

This line-up is the lunch crew, who prepared and served our meal -- sorry it's such a poor picture, I couldn't get in a good position to take it without crowding in front of President Wada, whose back you see here -- and I didn't want to do that! Any time the missionaries are served a meal by members at conferences and even in the mission home, their thank-you is a rousing rendition of "Called to Serve" -- in Japanese, of course. This picture was taken during that song. I love it!

Here's Santa handing out candy canes to everyone -- the sister missionary in the center is Sister Bennett, who served here in Yokota a few transfers ago and is now, we just learned, coming back to serve her last transfer here before her release in March. We're so excited to see her and work with her again -- and to have sister missionaries back in the Yokota area!  We also remember Sister Norris, whose back is to the camera -- she served in Yokota a few months ago, too. It was so fun to see these missionaries again!

Our white elephant gift was this incredibly yummy peppermint bark popcorn that I made -- one of those rare Pinterest success stories! I made several batches, which sort of served as our neighbor gifts for missionaries and ward members, it got really good reviews!

A really special treat at this Mission Conference was renewing our acquaintance with this cute sister, Sister Hull, from Highland, Utah. She arrived while we were serving in the office, and so we had met her then. But we learned as we sat with her at lunch that her grandfather is Floyd Packard, who was Bruce's first bishop when he was baptized in Oceanside, California, over fifty years ago! Floyd was a ward missionary who taught Pearl and Twyla (Bruce's mother and sister) and may have been the person who baptized them, Bruce isn't sure. Floyd then became president of the Oceanside/Carlsbad Branch, and later the bishop of the Oceanside/Carlsbad Ward. He was a dentist and Phyllis worked for him as a dental assistant -- he taught Phyllis the gospel and baptized her about a year after Bruce joined the Church. Floyd served as stake president in the Oceanside/Carlsbad area, then as a Regional Representative, then as the first president of the San Diego Temple. Bruce's family, especially Phyllis, has had a long and close relationship with the Packard family, but had in recent years lost contact. We learned from Sister Hull that Floyd's first wife, Alice, had passed away and he has remarried and lives in Highland, in Sister Hull's stake, now serving as stake patriarch. So Bruce called Phyllis to share this with her, and she says she's going to look Bishop Packard up and renew the acquaintance.

Here's the group picture of the conference, the two days pictures photoshopped into one. If you look closely, you'll see President and Sister Wada, the office couple Elder and Sister Yamashita, and Elder and Sister Hansen are in both halves of the picture. Fun stuff! Dave saw this picture on facebook and asked if we had really had a mission conference on December 31th and I said "Yeth!"

And I had to include this picture in memory of cute Sister Bybee, who was notorious for breaking chairs in whatever meetinghouse she attended. She did break one in the Kichijoji Chapel, not sure if it was this one -- could have been -- but seeing it reminded me of her. We miss her and hope she gets to come back to Fussa and serve in this area again!