Notes of explanation from Mom - In his letter he refers to the mascot of Sakado and extravagant parades.  This was in response to one of our letters where we told him about Sakado.  The little creature, Sakacchi, is the mascot for Sakado.  He was created in 2006 to mark the 30th anniversary of Sakado gaining city status.  Most of the information we found was from Wikipedia and I recommend a quick look at that website. I sent a picture of the mascot and of some of the dance groups from their annual Yosakoi festival held every August. Yosakoi is a style of dance.  The Sakado Yosakoi official website has some great pictures and you can get too it from Wikipedia!  These are some of the pictures from their site that I sent to Elder Wyman - so you have some idea of what he was referring to....

  We also sent him information on the Japanese mafia or Yakuza.  I'll let you look that one up on Wikipedia - it's a fun read!!