August was likely the busiest month of our mission so far. It was packed full of interviews, Mission Tours, a large transfer, a good sized mid-cycle transfer, a Stake Conference and more. It seemed so overwhelming lookiing at the calendar but we learned to take it one day at a time and it all worked out beautifully.

Enjoying dinner while looking out at this image is one of the blessings of living where we do in Japan. The weather has been sweltering with high humidity. It is difficult to be outside too long and sometimes just walking the four minutes from our apartment to the Office/Annex has us dripping wet. We are anxiously looking forward to fall.

The cicadas come out in droves in the summer here. Arisugawa Park is across from the temple but we can hear the chirping all the way to our place. It was comical because we noticed on a group text a new missionary couple reached out to ask “what kind of birds are we hearing?” They are that loud! After about six weeks they start to die and fall out of the trees. It’s hard to gauge the size with a picture – but they are about the size of an adult thumb.

We had our Mission Tour the last week of August. A Mission Tour is when a Visiting General Authority comes and tours your mission for a week. They want to meet all the missionaries and they plan a lot of meetings. They start off meeting with us, the next meeting includes the Assistants to the President, then another meeting with the Mission Leader Council (adding the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders), then another meeting on Zoom with the entire mission. Our Visiting Authority was Elder Michael John U Teh a General Authority Seventy who was recently assigned to the Asia North Area. He is from the Philippines, and because we have so many Filipino missionaries they were very excited about it.

We travel With Elder and Sister Teh from Zone to Zone and have Zone Conferences. We then end as we started – another zoom meeting with the entire mission, another meeting with the Mission Leader Council, another meeting with Assistants and then a final interview with us. Throw several meals into the mix and it is a pretty busy week. It was enjoyable getting to know Elder and Sister Teh. The picture below is only two of our six Zones. The missionaries always beg to have a ‘funny’ picture after we take a serious one. It’s when their personalities really come out. Over the last few months we have gotten some pretty funny pictures. This one is fairly calm. We think we look funny enough so we look pretty normal. One time our missionaries talked us in to getting close to a kiss, but that is about as daring as we have ever been.

In the middle of all the craziness in August, Steve was invited by some people working in the Area Office to hike Mt. Fuji. He first turned them down but the more he thought about it, he realized this might be his only chance so he called them back to see if it was too late. We finished Zone Conferences on Friday and returned home. Steve went to bed around 8:00 pm with the plan to leave Tokyo at 1:00 a.m. Wouldn’t you know, that night he was awakened by several calls from missionaries so his plan to be rested was foiled. They drove to Mt. Fuji, arriving around 3:00 a.m., caught a bus to a starting point and started hiking around 4:30 a.m. Laurie kept track of him on her phone. It took about ten hours for the climb up and down. There is a saying in Japan “If you didn’t hike Fuji once, you are a fool. If you hike Mt. Fuji more than once, you are a double fool.” He arrived home Saturday evening around 8:30. Steve said it is a mountain of lava cinders, very little vegetation, and most of the time, there is no view of the countryside below because of clouds. Sometimes you cannot even see the crater at the top when you are on the top because of clouds. He is still grateful he made the climb. About a week later on an article appeared on Google feed of an 101 year old man hiking Mt. Fuji. It quotes him saying something like “Mt. Fuji was nothing special!” We noticed a few days later the title had been changed – not great PR for Japan to have one of their own dismissing Mt. Fuji.

August was also a bit sad as we lost our office couple, Sister Susan and Elder Blaine Burnett. They have been so reliable, someone we could turn to for help with anything. The missionaries love them like they do their own grandparents. We are praying they go home to Canby, Oregon and rest for a year and then return to the same role. They will be greatly missed in the Tokyo South Mission.

We rarely get to do things outside of missionary needs but we had the opportunity to visit a District Council meeting in Odawara. It is one of the furthest points out in our mission – about 1 1/2 hour drive. The missionaries needed someone to help them teach a woman (Elder’s can’t teach a woman alone) so we volunteered to help with that. Since we had a couple of hours before their meeting, we ate lunch with the district and then walked to the Odawara Castle to pass the time. We got caught up in sightseeing and when we realized the time we raced back to the church, sweating like crazy, only to walk in and find that a member had shown up to help the Elders. We were still wet when we arrived home 90 minutes later. Summer is hot! We did see some really cool stuff though!

This last part is from Steve’s jounral:

“The highlight of the week was yesterday. Elder Neil L. Andersen, Elder Michael T. Ringwood, and our Asia North Area Presidency met with all of the keyholders in Japan and Mongolia. All of the temple, mission, and stake presidents gathered here in Tokyo for an Area Instruction Meeting. Area Seventies were also invited. I wish Laurie could have been there, but I also understand why she was not invited this time. We met with them from 9:00 – 1:00, had lunch, and then they met with just the Area 70s, mission and temple presidents from 2:00 – 3:00 PM. It was a wonderful experience to hear these brethren share of their wisdom and experience. It was also good to be with so many high quality people. One of the unexpected highlights was that there were two stake presidents and a translator in attendance from Mongolia who had all been in my stake at BYU–Hawaii. They were so excited to see me and asked if they could get a photo. I was humbled once again to realize the value BYU–Hawaii is adding to the Church leadership pool. The mission truly is working.”

“There were a lot of meaningful insights I had but I don’t have the time or energy to recreate them here when I have them in a notebook. I should type them as they are spoken rather than write, but I am so old school. To keep with the Mongolia theme, I will say that they showed us the rendering of the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Temple. The site and rendering is about to be announced publicly. Elder Andersen told how two years ago he was in Mongolia and tried to meet with government leaders. The temple had been announced but they had no permission. No leader was willing to meet with him. That was discouraging but then someone informed the Church that one of the leaders in Mongolia was traveling to Salt Lake City. They invited him to meet with Elder Andersen and some others but he was reluctant. Finally, he agreed to meet with him as long as it was not on Church property. He wanted a “neutral site” which gives some indication of how he was viewing this meeting. Elder Andersen showed him photos of some temples in other parts of Asia and explained why they are valuable to the people. The man was impressed enough that he sent the Mayor of Ulaanbaatar to Salt Lake City to meet with them. After seeing the same photos and hearing the explanation he promised to help. Elder Andersen said that they hear that often but it doesn’t always happen as promised. But this man has been very helpful. The temple site is at the base of a mountain. I cannot pronounce or spell the Mongolian name, but translated it means “The Mountain of the Lord.” The Mountain of the Lord’s House will be at the base of the Mountain of the Lord. As he was talking about this I looked over at the Mongolians who had been in my stake. I remembered how so many of them worked in the temple with the hope that if they did this, they would eventually get a temple in Mongolia. My heart filled with joy as I thought of how they must have been feeling.”

God is in the smallest details of this work. We are so grateful to be part of it! We have our good days and bad days but we have learned if we keep our focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ, and strive to be like Him, we will always feel joy. We appreciate all the prayers in our behalf!