Meeting an Old Companion and Tying Up Loose Ends

Dear Family, 

 

Beautiful fall weather has arrived in Fukuoka and the leaves are beginning to turn. We are winding down into the final month of our mission. Last week they had us speak in sacrament meeting.   It wasn’t pretty but at least that part is over, and we welcomed the opportunity to tell our new Japanese friends how much we love and appreciate them.  From the moment we arrived, they have made us feel like family. Their love and kindness are a cup that overflows. We are going to greatly miss the members of the wonderful Fukuoka Ward. Monday evening we had our final end-of-the-money dinner with the missionaries and their investigators. 12 of us enjoyed chicken tetrazzini cooked to perfection.  (See picture of the kitchen help.)  We are going to miss that monthly experience.

Kitchen help: Sisters Flake, Lane, Bush and Higashi

 

            This week two senior missionary couples serving as medical and psychology advisors to the Asia North Area out of Tokyo came to Fukuoka to participate in a series of zone conferences.  Elder Eliason, the medical advisor, was my missionary companion 52 years ago in Düsseldorf, Germany. What a delightful occasion it was to renew acquaintance with the Eliasons, whom I last met in Santiago, Chile when I went there six years ago to join my brother and his wife at the end of their mission.  This is the Eliasons’ third tour of duty in a medical capacity.  In addition to Chile, they served in Mongolia.           

Zwei Alte Mitarbeiter

            Financially speaking, we had a major break-through last Friday when we made a visit to the city hall (they call it the shiok shou here, which somehow sounds appropriate).  There amidst the inscrutable Japanese bureaucracy we finally found a way to pay in aggregate the insurance premiums of all the foreign missionaries, thus avoiding the necessity of paying 150 premiums individually each month at the local convenience store. Whew – we dodged a bullet there, and I don’t have to hand over a mess to our successors, who will arrive here for training and turnover next Monday. 

 

            Skipping through the final days with a measure of sadness and joy, we remain your faithful far-eastern correspondents, 

            Mom and Dad