December 14th, 2015

Hey everyone,

This brought tears to my eyes when I read it, I hope you all enjoy it as well.

Christmas is not a day or a season,

But a condition of the heart and Mind.

If we love our neighbor as Ourselves;

If in riches we are poor in spirit

And in our poverty we are rich In grace

If our charity vaunteth not itself,

But suffereth long and is kind;

If when our brother asks for a loaf,

We give him ourselves instead, if each

Day dawns in opportunity and 

Sets in achievement, however small-

Then every day is Christ's day and 

Christmas is always near.

So, we were called last night and told that they were closing our area. I was completely in shock, and the first thing I thought about was Yuuta San. This past week he finally had the spirit confirm to him what he has been seeking, and brought up baptism, quitting the tobacco, and living other commandments all on his own. It's going to take a lot of work, but he has the beginnings of a testimony and believes in the Book of Mormon and in Jesus Christ. Needless to say we were absolutely pumped from that point on. He came to all three hours of church again yesterday as well as a priesthood year end party earlier and loved all of it. I'm not gonna lie, I am a little crushed. Six months in the same area and only one investigator makes you pretty keen to stay and finish the job. Of course I know it is not up to me, but if it were, I'd stay just for Yuuta San. I've grown to love him and I have seen how the gospel has changed him in just two months. I know the church is true, and I know that it can and will change anyone willing to experiment on the word.

There are many reasons for the closing. The ward is having some issues with the work, and my companion needs people who can better communicate with him while he continues to work and push through his own challenges. Looking at things now, I can see why Nagano Kaicho wants to do this, but I am still heartbroken. There has been a lot of sweat, many more tears, and a considerable amount of work in these past four and a half transfers, so I feel like a giant bandage is being ripped off. I'll miss Yuuta San dearly and I hope that the Ward cares for him. Please, I have said this before, but GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO HELP THE MISSIONARIES. Dad, I was happy to hear you tell the sisters you are always willing to help them, that really means so much.  So make sure no one sends anything to the Kamagaya apartment because no one will be there!

Okay so here is this week:

Tuesday we had a zone meeting in Matsudou. It was a really great one. Our mission has good standards for work and obedience, but we are lacking in consecration so that was the focus for this meeting. As a mission we are fortunate enough to be able to read emails throughout the week, but the zone leaders felt impressed to have us all turn off our emails during the week to better focus on the work. After just one week I have noticed a much bigger difference in my own attitude so I am thankful for inspired leaders. At the end of the meeting we did something I have never done before.  We all knelt down as a zone in the huge Matsudo church, and prayed to the Lord promising we would further consecrate ourselves. It was a very powerful moment for me and strengthened my testimony. I had the privilege of praying and I could feel the spirit from every missionary there confirming that they were now promising to become further consecrated to this work.

Wednesday we had our regular English class which was really fun. I mostly played with the little kid, Sooichiro, the whole time and managed to help teach some English as well. He's just so dang cute. That day we also found two new potential investigators and received contact info from each. We used the video "Because of Him" for the first time while street contacting and it worked perfectly. If any of you are wondering how you can do missionary work, just show that video to a few friends and simply ask them what they think. That's all we did and it worked! And you all have much more faith and strength than I do.

Thursday was zone conference. It was so great to see the Naganos again. They are simply the best people and always so great to us. They started off by announcing our Christmas presents. Each companionship will now have a futon dryer to keep them from molding in the summer, and they also gave us all ties with the mission motto embroidered on it with a bag of cookies. Such a sweet gesture. The zone conference was awesome. It was very much focused on companionships and communication. They even dived into some psychology to help us all better understand how we can better work together despite differences. It was a really great training and I learned A LOT. Basically I am still horribly impatient and have a lot of work to do but hey, now I have a direction. After zone conference the assistant surprised us and said he was coming to Kamagaya to work with us for the day while his companion split with the Matsudo zone leaders. It was soooo fun.

Miller Choro is a six foot four kid from Provo Utah. He lives right next to the MTC so he's pretty Utah Mormon. Anyway he is absolutely hilarious and has a heart of pure gold. I swear the Tokyo mission is full of the happiest, most loving people--it's crazy to me. The only other missionary as loving as Miller Choro is probably Lee Choro, our district leader from Hong Kong. Anyway, I learned so much from him. We had a good day working together on Friday. Friday night we had the lesson with Yuuta San. We planned to follow up on the spirit, but before we could he came out and told us he had felt a very strong peace and calm from the scripture we sent to him the other day through text. I had forgotten I sent it to him, bit it is the scripture in third nephi eleven where the people hear the voice three times before recognizing it. We then introduced a Bible video we wanted to help teach him with, only to find out he has watched almost all of them on his own since downloading gospel library! From there the lesson was easy to teach. When we followed up we found out there is still a lot of work to do for the commandments, but he is so close to baptism I can feel it. Anyway, it was a really good lesson and unfortunately I won't be able to see where he ends up. But I have hope and faith, and I know we did all we could for him. I sure will miss Yuuta. He's the gem of my stay here in Kamagaya.

Saturday was very busy. We had eikaiwa, then visited a less active and her sons, went back to the church to see a high school student we met on the train and invited to come to the church, talked with him and got his number, went to get a gift for Yuuta, then we headed to the priesthood year end party I mentioned earlier. It was a busy day, but so much fun. The party was hilarious. I have NEVER seen Japanese people act that way before. I guess the male specimen is the same in every culture, once the women are gone. I was laughing so hard the whole time at all the rowdy, immature, loud, sometimes a little inappropriate actions and words of all the men, hahaha. It was like they all just let their hair down and kicked off those shoes. A nice change of pace of you ask me. Yuuta San had a great time too.

Sunday we had Yuuta at church and he was able to learn about many different things. Some of it was spiritual, which was great, some doctrinal, and then he also learned about the structure of the church and how it helps all the members in priesthood meeting. I felt that it was a perfect balance of all three.

It's been a good week but also a very difficult one. These past few transfers have been pretty hard on Koyama Choro and unfortunately I wasn't really able to help him all that much. Still, I am grateful for all that I am learning and all the weaknesses I am discovering. I feel that I rely more and more on the Lord each day. Which is probably how it should be. I love you all so very much and miss you dearly. Keep the faith.

Viehweg Choro