Dear Elder Ovard,
We are so excited to serve with you in the Japan Sapporo Mission. You are going to be a great addition to our family and we look forward to working closely with you.
I thought you might be interested in reading the letter that I sent to your parents. Sister Daniels and my love and prayers will always be with you.
We wanted to send you a quick message to let you know how excited we are to work with your son in the Japan Sapporo Mission. All of the Sendai missionaries arrived safely in Sapporo within approximately 24 hours of hearing the decision of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to relocate the Sendai and Tokyo Missions’ missionaries. It was a major undertaking with miraculous results to gather all of the missionaries in the Sendai area, charter buses, secure train tickets, purchase airline tickets and deliver them safely to Sapporo. Many of them arrived with only the clothes on their backs and their backpacks. Others brought most of their belongings. The last group arrived late on Thursday evening with President and Sister Tateoka and Elder and Sister Choi.
On Friday morning, the missionaries were able to gather together as an entire mission and say goodbye to President and Sister Tateoka. President Tateoka has the priesthood keys for most of the members in Sendai who were most severely impacted by the recent events. Elder Choi informed the missionaries that the priesthood keys for the missionaries have now been transferred to President Daniels and the Sapporo Mission. This will allow President and Sister Tateoka the ability to dedicate their full time attention to the extensive needs of the members. We then had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with the Sendai Missionaries and quickly came to appreciate the strength of their testimonies, their dedication to the gospel and their musical talent. They will be great additions to the work in Sapporo.
On Saturday, we brought in all of the Sapporo Missionaries to Sapporo and had a Mission Conference. It was wonderful to have all of the missionaries together. We discussed the missionary work in Sapporo, introduced the new missionary structure and announced each individual transfer. Planning this transfer was another witness to us that the Lord is in charge of this work and continues to lead and guide our efforts – right down to the individual missionary. The two missions are now completely integrated with a Zone Leader from each mission leading the zones and actually more District Leaders from the Sendai Mission than the Sapporo Mission leading the individual Districts. We are excited to see the surge in the work as we prepare for the temple that has been announced for Sapporo.
We are sensitive to the intense love and feeling the missionaries have for the Sendai Mission, the members and their investigators. We do not intend to replace those feelings, but to built on top of them additional experiences that they will grow to love Sapporo and the people here. We hope that the missionaries will be able to return soon to Sendai but were instructed to integrate them fully into our mission. Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with all of the people in Japan that have been impacted by all of these disasters.
We wanted to let you know our contact information and invite you to communicate directly with us with any questions or concerns. (Sorry I took out the personal phone numbers and emails. They are so sweet to give us all of thier information although I don't plan to use it.) We also maintain a mission blog that we update weekly with lots of photos of the missionaries. It is japansapporomission@blogspot.com. President Daniels also posts monthly photo albums on his facebook account at Lee A. Daniels.
Please know that we will love and take care of your son just like one of our own children. We appreciate your love, prayers and sacrifice on behalf of your son and all of the missionaries.
With love,
President and Sister Daniels
President and Sister Daniels have been so kind. I am really grateful for the love they have shown all of the new missionaries. Elder Ovard already adores them.
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