Merry Christmas

Dear parents and families,

We truly had a white Christmas this year.  Thank you for your faith and prayers.

We will have more people come to Christ this month than in any other month of the year.  Last year we had 7 baptisms in December, but this December we have already had 31 baptisms and over 50 since we began praying and exercising our faith together.  31 of the 40 wards and branches in the mission have seen a baptism.  Truly a white Christmas miracle.  

We have several more baptisms scheduled for this coming weekend including the wife and two sons of a less active family.  Our hearts are full of gratitude and joy as we look back on the miracles we have seen.  Our faith has grown, and we have learned much that we look forward to applying as we begin a new year in the service of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Thank you for raising and supporting your missionary.  They are the greatest missionaries in the world.  We love them and feel so honored to serve with them.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love, President and Sister Budge

Sayonara to Six

December 12, 2013
Our farewell dinner for these fine missionaries. We will miss them immensely!

This one missed the dinner, but he had a good excuse because he was attending a baptism.  :)

32 New Missionaries!

This wonderful group arrived December 10, 2013

Yes, Sister Budge Fed Them All!

The New Missionaries and their Trainers

Biggest transfer yet

We had 36 wonderful new missionaries arrive from the MTC on Tuesday evening.  After spending two nights at the mission home for training and orientation they received their first assignments and companions and departed on Thursday for their new areas.  The adventure begins!

 The Miracle Christmas Tree

Week 2

Four more wards had baptisms this past week so the gifts under the tree continue to grow in number.  Several more baptismal services being planned for this weekend in new areas.

Thank you so much for your faith and prayers.  We feel the Lord's hand in this part of His vineyard.

The Christmas Miracle Tree 

4 areas had baptisms last week so we have four presents wrapped and under the tree.

The ornaments will be hung as soon as we get the pictures.

Several more areas with baptisms planned this weekend.

The miracles are already happening.

Thank you for your faith and prayers.

Dear Parents,

You will soon be receiving the following letter by email wishing you a Merry Christmas and inviting you to join us in exercising your faith and prayers for a Christmas Miracle this year.  If you have not seen the letter please click on the link below.  Thank you for your love and support.

Love,

President and Sister Budge

Christmas Letter to parents

We discovered this quaint little country train platform near Kisarazu in Chiba last summer.
This is the whole thing - no ticket gate or anything.

The train system in Japan is legendary. I love the contrast between this tiny station and Shinjuku station in Tokyo, which boasts of having 36 platforms, over 200 exits, and an average of 3.64 million people using it daily!

Everyone loves Sado Island!

The jet-foil ferry from Niigata to Sado Jima.  It was an amazingly smooth ride!

The members of the Sado Branch.

The Branch President - a wonderful, hard-working fisherman of both fish and men.

This is NOT Tokyo!

What a beautiful place to air out your futons!

In July, we acquired the beautiful island of Sado in our mission, which used to be part of the Sendai Mission.  Its been a few years since they have had missionaries on the island, but just this week, we sent three lucky elders there. These pictures were taken in August.

 August 27, 2013 We received one new sister off-transfer.  We had been anxiously waiting for her to arrive, and she finally made it, after waiting for her passport for several weeks.

She was trained quickly and well by these two wonderful sisters.

We only had one returning missionary this transfer. 

We were sad to see him go, but his mom was very happy to come and get him!

 29 New Missionaries arrived in September.
This group can really sing - wish you could hear them!

Our newest group with their fabulous trainers.

We now have 161 missionaries in the entire mission, 114 of whom have been here less than six months.
(Do the math - that's about 70%!)

July 2013.  During our zone conferences a recent convert volunteered to come and train us on how to exercise using just our body weight and a chair.  The missionaries loved him! Even though it was hard, he made it really fun, and he was very inspiring and motivating.

The field is green, all ready to harvest.  Well, maybe not yet, but you can't argue that this is a true green!  In August we travelled to Niigata, which is famous for its high quality rice.

The aisles of Costco, just like the streets of Tokyo, are very crowded!  You should see the looks I get when I buy 2-3 full cartloads of food at a time.  We are grateful to have Costco here.

August 2013.  Missionary Leadership Council.  These are all amazing missionaries!

August 2013. This was our farewell dinner for these fantastic returning missionaries.

We will miss them very much!

August 2013.  These are the newest missionaries, along with their trainers.  This group represents more than half of our missionaries!

August 2013. This is the largest group of new missionaries we have received to date.  There are 14 elders and 20 sisters!  We used every futon we have!

 Musashino Zone June 28, 2013

Machida Zone June 28, 2013

 Fujisawa Zone June 27, 2013

Yokohama Zone June 27, 2013

DIVIDED FOR SO GREAT A CAUSE 

These four zones were the ones that we had to bid painful farewells to when the mission divided. We dearly love and miss all of these missionaries, and wish them the very best as they continue their missions as part of the new Tokyo South Mission.  "Oh, shall we not go on?"  Yes!  But we will not forget these beloved missionaries!

Missionaries are some of the happiest people on earth!  Especially when they're eating.  :)

 May 2013

June 2013

Mission Leadership Councils have now replaced Zone Leader Councils.  Welcome to the new Sister Training Leaders!  This is an exciting change in the mission leadership, and it promises to be very effective.  Working in conjunction with the Zone Leaders, these sisters now have responsibility for all of the sisters in the mission.

 A candid with an Assistant. This couple arrived in May 2013.

This couple arrived in April 2013.

We were happy to have these two new couples in our mission for a few weeks before they were both assigned to the new Tokyo South Mission in July.  They will be wonderful additions to that mission!

 Returned in June 2013

 Returned in April 2013

 Returned in January 2013

Returned in January 2013

We love our Senior Couples!  We are so grateful for their examples and their service, and wish them the best as they continue to serve at home as member missionaries.  We miss them!

July 2013.  We were so pleased to be able to welcome these thirteen great missionaries from the Niigata Zone into our mission.  ( The extra two are the Assistants who came with us.) Niigata was formerly in the Sendai mission.  We have known the tallest one in the back since he was a little boy, so that was especially nice to say hello to him!

 Fujisawa, Machida and Yokohama Zones. June 5, 2013

 Tokyo, Musashino and Chiba Zones. June 6, 2013.

Kiryu, Saitama and Matsudo Zones.  June 7, 2013

The Asia North Area President, Elder Michael T. Ringwood and his wife Sister Rosalie Ringwood blessed us with their presence at our mission conferences June 5-7, 2013.  We are so grateful for their love and leadership.  They inspired us, and prepared us well for the upcoming mission split on July 1.