Stories: state of sapporo dendobu
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I have just returned from a 2 week trip to Hokkaido and I have a little bit of information about things there.
As for the rumor that the Sapporo and Sendai missions may be combining, I checked with the sister missionaries in the Atsubetsu ward and they told me that the direction from the 12 is to combine the two missions, most likely due to the fact that baptisms numbers are way down in Hokkaido, according to the sisters, they never reach 10 baptisms a month anymore (which was kind of shocking to me, I remember I thought we were pretty lame and struggling back in '87-89 when we averaged between 20 and 30 baptisms a month). However, Elder Kikuchi has asked for more time to turn things around, which he was granted. The branch president in Abashiri (Pres. Ujie) also confirmed this information and seemed fairly certain of the facts, and I believe him since he is good friends with District Pres. Shimada and probably has good information. I called the Honbu and the elder who picked up the phone kind of played down the whole thing, saying that this plan of combining missions is something pretty far off in the future and that it has just been a suggestion without any kind of a concrete campaign to put it into place. Apparently Sendai is seeing quite a bit more success than Sapporo right now.
The Sisters in Atsubetsu also told me that the missionaries in Japan have been directed to look for youthful investigators, those whom if baptized, may go on missions, and to get off of the old focus of looking for families or prospective priesthood holders. This is due to the shortage of nihonjin senkyoshi lately. She said that the JMTC is considering sending out a quarterly group instead of the monthly group they send out now (at least I think it is monthly).
The numbers of missionaries period are down in Hokkaido right now. While I was there, in the first week of April, the only pair of Elders in Atsubetsu were transferred out and not replaced, leaving only Sister missionaries there. I was told by the Honbu that there have been an unusual number of sick elders who had to return early lately and that Hokkaido would be replenished soon and that elders would be back in Atsubetsu within 2 months. |
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