December 21st, 2015

Hey family,

Thank you so so so much for the gifts and packages. Mom and Dad I got your package and have not opened the gifts yet but I ate all the gingerbread in two days...  Brittany Jessica Kristin Danielle Lisa, thank you so much for the twelve days of Christmas package! Even though I only have four left... It's still great. 

First off I will be calling on the twentyfourth of December IN Japan. So that will be the twentythird for all you gaijins. I will call in the morning my time which will be evening time there. Dad if you can let me know what time is good for YOU at that time frame. I really don't want to have to worry about losing a signal so maybe it would be good just to have people at home who can Skype directly to talk. I would rather have a good conversation that way, than trying to connect fifteen different devices to the session. Sorry for those who may not be able to talk with me. I still love you all. I have about fourty-five minutes of time okay? I can email a little bit about this so let me know what time works for you. Also give me the email address for the skype account you want me to use!  Dad thank you for the awesome sports update. What a game, I'll try to be nice to you when we speak haha.

So...Koshigaya.

This area is awesome. I miss Kamagaya terribly and feel like I left home behind, but Koshigaya is so different and new, it is a great opportunity for me to learn and grow. My companions are Elder Hughes from Branson, Missouri. His family does a huge theatre production professionally there and he is a prodigy when it comes to music. Not to mention he as our last assistant so he is a mission legend. I am very lucky to be working with him. Elder Burch is one hilarious elder from MERIDIAN, IDAHO. We found a few mutual friends and have bonded really well. Going from a place where I spent four out of five transfers with one Japanese elder sharing my apartment, to an apartment with four Americans has been so crazy. It was like coming home though. Loud, rude Americans are the best.  Anyway, this transfer Hughes Choro is dying so most likely I will stay here another transfer at least, but nobody really knows for sure.

The actual transfer was a little bit of a nightmare. The zone leaders sent me the wrong travel plan and I got a little mixed up on trains. I managed to find my way, but the Koshigaya elders had to wait an extra two hours. At which time I was solo and did not have a phone so no one knew what happened to me, hahaha.  All good though, I made it safe and sound.  Getting set up in the Koshigaya apartment was great.  IT'S A PALACE.  I was living in a complete dump craphole compared to them, haha.  It's a really nice place and the view catches the mountains, sometimes Fuji San, and Sky Tree, which is really cool.

This week was really great adjusting to the life here in Koshigaya. The Eikaiwa class is so big and fun and the investigators they have all have really high potential. There is one named Mae who is about sixty and LOVES the elders. He has two punk sons who don't care about him and a wife with cancer, so we are like his children. I feel we may be a little too friendly for a missionary investigator relationship, but he has really been progressing lately which is cool. He is a hilarious man and so rude for a Japanese person. That's why he loves the elders, we all can be rude back to him and laugh really loud. He is always buying missionaries food and loves coming to all of our activities. We had a few lessons with him this week which was good. 

On Wednesday we had a lesson with some recent converts, the Minami family. They are both very old and she was baptized three years ago while he waited untill this past year to be baptized. Anyway I have never seen faith so strong compared to these two.  Minami Kyodai was an Olympic runner at one time but had a stroke and developed a bad drinking problem. He was drunk most of his life, but sobered up after seeing his wife come into the church, then he followed after her. They were so cute while we taught them, which was another impromptu lesson, and followed along in their scriptures marking and noting all kinds of things. I took some pictures.

Thursday we had a Christmas concert in Koiwa put on by the Tokyo missionaries. The music was pretty rough, but the spirit was so strong. We attended with Mae and getting there turned into quite an experience. We were supposed to meet him near his office in Akihabara which is notoriously evil.  Not a good place to go.  Anyway, there is one exit from the Eki which is G-rated, and another exit which is horrible.  We accidentally got off at the wrong station and, unbeknownst to us, decided to enter the most expensive line in all of Japan, hahaha.  When Mae found out he gave Burch Choro so much grief for being here three transfers and still not knowing how to get around "safely."  Anyway, Hughes Choro had gone early to practice his violin in preparation and I came a few days ago so had no idea what to do and we got a little lost. Eventually we met up with Mae and made it to the concert.

I was able to meet Yuuta San there which was so good. We never got to speak before I transferred and he simply told me how grateful he was for all we had shown him. He is continuing to meet with the sisters as well as the members there, my friend Inoue Kyodai, and seemed really good. I talked to him after the concert and he said he was able to feel the spirit very strongly. We took a picture and parted ways after that. I have come to love that man so much. When you find someone on the street, and slowly see them change and come closer to Christ you grow to love them as your own brother or sister. Their wants and needs and worries become yours as you work to resolve them. He is proof to me that this gospel is true. I always had faith that it was, but now I have seen how it truly changes a person.  After the concert we returned to Koshigaya with Mae and ran into an incredible drunk woman.  It was awful.  In Japan the Christmas season is when people officially pair off and start to date, so all those divorced or single get really depressed.  This woman had drunk so much she was fainting in and out on the Eki platform. She wandered over and started blabbering to Mae and grabbing his arm, but every fifteen seconds would faint and collapse, catching herself at the last second before hitting the ground.  We just got her on the train and waited for the next one. Two stations down the line this woman stumbles into the train again and does the same thing to Mae, but has no memory of the first time!  She then collapsed on the floor and peed herself. It was ridiculous. We had no idea what to do so we just sat her up in the train and got off. Hopefully she got him safely.  So glad we heed the word of wisdom.

After the concert Hughes Choro went out to Niigata for their Christmas concert up north so it was just Burch Choro and I. It was like being with Horne Choro all over again since they are doki (came out at the same time) and I have not laughed so much over the course of my entire mission than I have with elder Burch.  He is so spacey and clueless it kills me, but I love him to death and he works super hard. We managed not to ruin anything, and find a few people over the next few days until Hughes Choro returned Sunday night. 

Sunday was really special. The Koshigaya ward is small, but it is so special. All the members do is centered around helping he missionaries. In Kamagaya the members seemed to think that school, work, social life, and church were all separate and could not intermingle. Here it is all connected and they just want to help us work. You can feel the love in this ward and sacrament meeting this week was the closest thing I have ever felt to being in our home ward.  I loved it.  After sacrament we were surprised and told that the gospel doctrine teacher did not show up, so Burch Choro and I had to teach about the gathering of Israel, impromptu, in Japanese.  Burch Choro is still young and doesn't speak Japanese so well, so it was mostly me. I don't think I taught any false doctrine?  We did our best, but it was a classic missionary experience I think. Pretty funny.

I'm making it a shorter email this week, I think. But I love you all and can't wait to talk to you soon. Thank you for all the support and love. I know the gospel is true and I love being a missionary!

Elder Viehweg

Minami Family

Sunset from Apartment

View from Koshigaya Apartment

With Yuta San