March 28th, 2016

Another week gone by...too fast-- Hello everyone,

We had a much better week here in Koshigaya. I think getting rid of and dropping more people who aren't ready to progress made room for  some very sweet blessings from the Lord. It sucks dropping people, and I honestly feel like my mission has consisted of finding people, and then dropping them. I don't like it one bit, but we always seem to end up hitting walls with people. The hardest was Fujieda. He's a super nice college kid my age, and is so polite he keeps some commitments, but has no desire to change. He has a testimony, but is too scared to act so he comes up with excuses not to act.  Anyway we dropped him and several others.

We were blessed for our actions on Tuesday last week. We found one young man job-searching who met missionaries before studying in America for a year who agreed to meet with us again. His name is Ryouta. We then found an old man named Saito who wanted to learn more, and then that afternoon we ran into one very special young man. Most teenagers here are wampaku (rebellious--wild) just like all teenagers everywhere, but this kid was very different. His name is Ikeda San and one of the first things we got out of him was that he believed in Christ. He went to a Christian kindergarten and elementary school and would attend church on days he didn't need to because he liked it so much. We asked if we could talk more and teach him and he pointed to McDonald's and said, "How about now?"  We were so pumped!  We went there and went through a new pamphlet on our iPads that explains all we do as missionaries, and he accepted all of it.  There is a section that talks about how missionaries are regular people with weaknesses, which he liked, and he shared some weaknesses from his own life.  We were able to teach from the Book of Mormon, give it to him, commit him to reading it, and set a next appointment. Such a special kid.  Only sixteen years old.

The next time we met him we went to a nearby park and taught the restoration.  We didn't teach very well, but he seemed to understand really well what we were saying.  He said he didn't need to pray about it because he didn't think we would lie to him hahaha, but we had him pray right then and there after explaining the purpose and doctrine behind it.  He said he felt like he was being moved by something he couldn't see or feel while praying.  We then committed him to being baptizing as he came to know the truth and he accepted.  We set the next appointment and said goodbye till Tuesday.  He needs prayers from all of you.

Thursday we had a lesson with Shouda and actually had Nagano Shimai, the mission mom, attend the lesson with us. Let me tell you THAT was humbling.  She came in and within five minutes exposed several issues that we hadn't seen or been aware of with Shouda's desire and testimony.  She took over almost the whole lesson and we were just fine to let her.  What an incredibly powerful woman.  I feel so blessed to have the mission presidency I do.  Shouda was pushed very hard by her, but he needs it. He got accepted to go do volunteer work for ten months in Thailand teaching Japanese so he will be leaving the country soon anyway.  We aren't afraid of pushing him and he needs it to grow.  Too many eternal investigators are kept in the same spot because missionaries are afraid of pushing them a little.

Unfortunately we are back in the hospital today.  Banks Choro has had a really bad ingrown hair or something for three days and it is enormous. Disgusting really...  I'd send a picture, but I don't want you to have nightmares.  We think it is actually staff because there are some other small bumps rising up on his skin.  I'm sick of hospitals... and Japanese hospitals a sketchy.  The equipment is so outdated and I guess Monday is a day off for hospitals here..so we couldn't find one that would take him.  And it wasn't even an emergency!  Pray for him!  Luckily we still have a great time together and I am so blessed to have him as a companion!

Love you all and hope you have a great week. Please please pray for the district.  We meet with people and find new people, but we can't seem to find people ready and willing to be baptized.  We need your prayers more than ever.  The youth both inside and outside of the church here are really struggling and it is sad to see.  But, having a blast!  Also! Good news!  I saw one of my kohai from the MTC the other day and he said I grew!!  That was the third person to tell me that, so it's confirmed--I'm getting bigger....

Elder Viehweg

Purifying Room

Local Temple

District Meeting

Crazy Elders

Local Temple

March 21st, 2016

Another week gone by...too fast-- Hello everyone,

We had a much better week here in Koshigaya. I think getting rid of and dropping more people who aren't ready to progress made room for  some very sweet blessings from the Lord. It sucks dropping people, and I honestly feel like my mission has consisted of finding people, and then dropping them. I don't like it one bit, but we always seem to end up hitting walls with people. The hardest was Fujieda. He's a super nice college kid my age, and is so polite he keeps some commitments, but has no desire to change. He has a testimony, but is too scared to act so he comes up with excuses not to act.  Anyway we dropped him and several others.

We were blessed for our actions on Tuesday last week. We found one young man job-searching who met missionaries before studying in America for a year who agreed to meet with us again. His name is Ryouta. We then found an old man named Saito who wanted to learn more, and then that afternoon we ran into one very special young man. Most teenagers here are wampaku (rebellious--wild) just like all teenagers everywhere, but this kid was very different. His name is Ikeda San and one of the first things we got out of him was that he believed in Christ. He went to a Christian kindergarten and elementary school and would attend church on days he didn't need to because he liked it so much. We asked if we could talk more and teach him and he pointed to McDonald's and said, "How about now?"  We were so pumped!  We went there and went through a new pamphlet on our iPads that explains all we do as missionaries, and he accepted all of it.  There is a section that talks about how missionaries are regular people with weaknesses, which he liked, and he shared some weaknesses from his own life.  We were able to teach from the Book of Mormon, give it to him, commit him to reading it, and set a next appointment. Such a special kid.  Only sixteen years old.

The next time we met him we went to a nearby park and taught the restoration.  We didn't teach very well, but he seemed to understand really well what we were saying.  He said he didn't need to pray about it because he didn't think we would lie to him hahaha, but we had him pray right then and there after explaining the purpose and doctrine behind it.  He said he felt like he was being moved by something he couldn't see or feel while praying.  We then committed him to being baptizing as he came to know the truth and he accepted.  We set the next appointment and said goodbye till Tuesday.  He needs prayers from all of you.

Thursday we had a lesson with Shouda and actually had Nagano Shimai, the mission mom, attend the lesson with us. Let me tell you THAT was humbling.  She came in and within five minutes exposed several issues that we hadn't seen or been aware of with Shouda's desire and testimony.  She took over almost the whole lesson and we were just fine to let her.  What an incredibly powerful woman.  I feel so blessed to have the mission presidency I do.  Shouda was pushed very hard by her, but he needs it. He got accepted to go do volunteer work for ten months in Thailand teaching Japanese so he will be leaving the country soon anyway.  We aren't afraid of pushing him and he needs it to grow.  Too many eternal investigators are kept in the same spot because missionaries are afraid of pushing them a little.

Unfortunately we are back in the hospital today.  Banks Choro has had a really bad ingrown hair or something for three days and it is enormous. Disgusting really...  I'd send a picture, but I don't want you to have nightmares.  We think it is actually staff because there are some other small bumps rising up on his skin.  I'm sick of hospitals... and Japanese hospitals a sketchy.  The equipment is so outdated and I guess Monday is a day off for hospitals here..so we couldn't find one that would take him.  And it wasn't even an emergency!  Pray for him!  Luckily we still have a great time together and I am so blessed to have him as a companion!

Love you all and hope you have a great week. Please please pray for the district.  We meet with people and find new people, but we can't seem to find people ready and willing to be baptized.  We need your prayers more than ever.  The youth both inside and outside of the church here are really struggling and it is sad to see.  But, having a blast!  Also! Good news!  I saw one of my kohai from the MTC the other day and he said I grew!!  That was the third person to tell me that, so it's confirmed--I'm getting bigger....

Elder Viehweg

March 14th, 2016

What's up minna!?

Dad I cannot believe Jordan is getting married either. He is one person that I could never see growing up, but alas it has happened. If he can, I suppose there is hope for me as well...  Hopefully, I'll learn something while out here. I'm kidding of course, I know that I have changed and grown in so many ways...  I wonder if any of you will even recognize me when you see me again, if that happens.

It's nice to know the inconsistent weather in Boise has not become inconsistent.  That always made for an interesting start to spring activities and sports. Things here are getting SO WET. My sheets are wet, my clothes that I hang out to dry for two days are wet, everything is wet, and it's not even the humid season yet. I'm not ready for the summer I experienced last year! That was soooo hot!  Anyway, it's been raining for about four or five days straight here.

Luckily I didn't have to make any phone calls to the mission office about elders in my district acting up this week, hahaha.  That was nice.  We actually had a little bit of a slow week this week. A lot of our investigators have decided that they do not want to act on what we say in order to get blessings, so we dropped all but one of them.  It was not fun and it was all too familiar from what happened in my last area, but we decided there was nothing else we could do for them.  You can't force someone to have desire or to have sincerity, all you can do is invite them to act.

We did have one good lesson with Shouda and Mei.  Shouda's was before ping pong and we taught along with a sweet old woman named Kawahara Shimai.  We taught about the restoration and it was really good.  Shouda understands very well and is open to learning.  He said he went to other Buddhist people to learn and was scared by them, but with us there is no fear.  He won't read on his own..but he will read if we send him something.  He does pray but cannot come to church because he teaches refugees on Sunday how to speak Japanese.  Hard to tell someone they have to quit that to obey God.  We are working on him though. 

Bible study with Mae and another person was hilarious. We taught about Job.  He did NOT like Job.  He said he was stupid and ignorant for not getting angry at God.  He was almost on the verge of tears when we said Job lost his family.  He was so angry at God, but we are not here to pat everyone on the back and say life will always be fine.  That's a lie.  Anyway, Mae knows the gospel is true, he is just proud and has built up his life from extreme poverty so he does not want to rely on anyone for anything, including God.  His kids are all wampaku (rebellious) and don't talk to him, and his wife is dying of breast cancer so this lesson hit him hard.  It's good for him though, he has gotten too comfortable in his setting.  We finally stopped torturing him and told the end of the story and he seemed to brighten up a little, hahaha.  It was interesting...  I've never seen a reaction quite like that before to a Bible story.

We also ran into an old lady who is less active.  She was sooo happy to see us.  Her kids are inactive, and her husband is in the hospital so she cannot come to church.  She was baptized about sixty years ago and has all these photos of momentous church history moments in Japan which she attended.  It was a great visit and a member was able to pick her up and bring her to church this past week.  So wonderful.  She is absolutely adorable and was running all over her house grabbing articles and journals to tell us her story.  Sweet member. 

That's all.  Shorter but there's other things that need to be done!  Love you all!

Elder Viehweg

Soccer Team

Silly Elders

Bowling with the zone

March 7th- Sickness!

Hey family! I'm gonna try and share some great things while also not taking too much time!

So the first thing was I got sick, which sucked!  Sister Nagano made me stay home and recover and it was absolutely awful. Luckily I was able to get fairly well recovered, at least enough to work outside the rest of the week by resting that day.

We had a really cool contact with a college kid who is moving to Osaka soon.  We simply told him who we were and what we do and he ended up having interest.  He just graduated from college and is moving to Osaka to find a job, but will be here for another week.  We gave him a Book of Mormon, got his info, and then set up another appointment for the next day. Unfortunately, when we met he said he wanted to learn more and was cool with prayer and coming to church, but that he had to get a lot of things ready for the move.  Anyway it was nice to be able to have a good contact and first lesson in less than twenty four hours. 

This past Saturday I did a split with the elders in the district. I took the day to work with Harrison Choro.  He is my sempai (senior) and I knew him in the MTC so it's funny working for him as a district leader now.  Anyway, he is the best.  We gave him the nickname "Momma Bear" way back because of how much he loves and cares for us.  We had a good day working together. We met with a referral for his area and he turned into a new investigator.  He's a really good college kid who believes in God, wants to know about Christ, and is willing to act.  Hopefully he helps get their area going.  After that we booked it to the opposite side of the area to meet the Minami family.  They are simply the best people and Minami Shimai has become one of my best friends.  She teaches me Kansai Ben--a dialect from Osaka.  We had good food and taught them a recent convert lesson.

Sunday was wonderful. I'm sorry to say this but I hadn't borne my testimony in a long time of my own free will. The bishops here always ask us to introduce ourselves and bear testimony our first Sunday in a new area.  Anyway I just felt very prompted to share my feelings.  It's difficult to feel as though you are channeling the spirit in another language sometimes.  It doesn't seem to work the same way as your native tongue, but I have noticed a very big change in that lately.  I am sensing the power behind the language of the gospel in Japanese and this Sunday as I bore my testimony I felt stronger than I ever had before.  It seemed like the words just poured out of my mouth with the help of the Holy Ghost.  It was a very special experience for me and I was grateful to share my love for the Lord and the members, as well as bear testimony of Christ and the Atonement.  That night we had a lesson and meal with a member named Kawaguchi Shimai.  A few other members came and our investigator Fujieda came.  It was a great meal and good lesson.

Sunday night turned into a nightmare.  My companion started getting stomach pain that had him huddled on his side almost shouting in pain.  It was about ten thirty when we called the mission mom, and also a member to take us to the hospital.  It was pretty ugly.  Banks Choro was in so much pain I felt horrible for him.  We went to the hospital with a member named Kim Kyodai who is from Korea, but lives here with his family now.  We waited for the emergency room to get to us until about eleven thirty when president and sister Nagano came so the member could go home.  THAT was a surprise, hahaha.  I felt so bad.  After the pepper incident with Elder Harrison I hated calling her again to say that my companion had stomach problems right after I called her about being sick myself at the beginning of the week.  She just laughed and talked about how funny it all was so I relaxed some.  They tested Elder Banks and said it may be appendicitis so I waited with president and sister Nagano and chatted until he came out.  They soon came back with the X-rays and basically said that his body was just full of food.  Saturday we ate a king size meal from a restaurant with Mae.  It was a giant bowl of rice, meat, and veggies.  Banks Choro ate it in nine minutes...size of a water melon.  Then he fasted, then he ate a ton at Kawaguchi Shimai's house, so his body freaked out at the amount of food and different eating habits, hahaha.  They gave him some medicine and we got home at two in the morning.  We slept in today.

We need to find new investigators who are ready to act!  Please keep praying that we can!  Also pray for Shouda San that he can make time to meet us and find out if the gospel is true!

Love you all,

Elder Viehweg

Yakima Truck

At Minami's

March 1st, 2016

My dearest Family and Friends,

Another week has flown by as quickly if not quicker than the other ones. We had a full week and several funny things happened to make it a pretty fun one.

My new companion is Elder Banks and he is an eighteen year old kid from American Fork, Utah and is as solid as they come. He studied Japanese for four years in high school and is already way good at speaking, he works hard, and he likes to have a good time. Best of all he knows how to be clean!

This past week a bunch of things happened. One of the coolest was last Sunday when we were biking to the church to send off the stats and reports for the district. As we passed by an older man he looked up at us and said, "Hey missionaries!" We rode past and stopped and said "That kind of thing never happens in Japan," so we turned around and caught up to him. He knew we were Mormons and was happy to talk. He ended up asking about why we are different from Protestant churches and accepted a Book of Mormon. We got his contact info as well, but were bummed to find out we couldn't call because the phone would not accept calls from people it didn't have entered into the memory. It turned out okay because we got a call from him last night saying he had been reading from the Book of Mormon and it was very difficult to understand, but he wanted to meet again and learn more! Way cool. We will see him on Saturday.

We also had a great lesson with the man named Shouda. He was very open to talking, and the second counselor in the mission presidency who happens to live in our ward, attended for us. It was so powerful. He admitted to wanting to find truth and become happy and said that if he found our message true he would be baptized, but he still needs some work on expectations for reading and praying and meeting with us. Good lesson though.

Another day we took a huge long bike ride out to the end of our area to visit some members who never see the missionaries and ran into a very young college kid on the way. He was about an hour from where his college, or anything else for that matter, was located. He said he simply felt like he needed to come out to that area for some reason. Definitely not a coincidence. We met with him one more time after that, but unfortunately he simply likes learning about religion. No real interest in becoming a member I don't think. Either way he will come to church next week so that was cool. Maybe his heart will change soon.

Another really fun thing that happened was Thursday night we decided to have a sleep over. Elder Banks and I took our futons into the study room and laid them out in there for the night. It's something pretty simple and lame, but we were SO stoked to be doing something different from the normal daily routine. We took some pretty stupid pictures which I'll send along. It was a pretty fun night though and we had a great day on Friday at zone conference.

It is always so good to see president and sister Nagano. They emanate love and light and are so dedicated to the work going on here in Tokyo. We had a great day learning from them and he assistants about how we can better work from here on out.

Yesterday was a bummer. I woke up not feeling well and we had to stay in for the day. Sister Nagano didn't want me to go out and get more sick so we were told that dendo (proselyting) was off for the day. We decided to cook some fish for lunch in the small shoebox sized oven/fryer in our kitchen. Unfortunately NONE of the previous missionaries had ever cleaned the oil out of the fryer and it made for a very hilarious turn of events. I was cleaning some fish off and heard a small 'poof' come from the oven and looked down to see the thing full of flames!! I just straitened up and said, "Well, we have ourselves a grease fire."  Everyone thought I was just kidding until they came and looked to see our tiny shoebox oven full of flames, hahahaha. Luckily we have a huge industrial sized fan in our kitchen that handled most of the smoke, but it got pretty thick for a minute. At one point there were flames coming up out of the vent towards the rear of the stove that leads down into the fryer/oven near the wall, hahaha. We looked and there was no fire extinguisher, and we thought it would be better to let it burn rather than open it and throw a wet blanket on it. If the smoke hit the detector, the whole building would evacuate, and everyone would hate the four gaijin (foreigner) Christians on the eleventh floor. SO, we prayed, opened all the windows and doors and watched the flames to make sure they didn't spread, haha. Eventually they slowly died out and all turned out okay. It was pretty funny. Elder Banks was in the middle of chopping veggies when it all happened and we found out afterward that he had been running around trying to help with the half-cut onion still in his hand. He forgot to put it down.  Anyway, the old grease all burned out and we had a nice clean oven after that!

Sunday a really great less active from Sri Lanka came to church. It's always nice getting people to church and showing the members that we ARE working.

Today was temple p-day. That's all I have! My letters may get shorter. I'm coming up on a year and there are other things I feel I could do with my time...  I feel a very strong sense of urgency about this work, so forgive me if I begin to shorten some.

I love you all. Mom congrats on the grandchild, he is precious.

Elder Viehweg

Sleep over in the study

In front of the Temple

February 21st, 2016

Konichiwa!

Rachel congratulations on the birth of your little angel! I'm happy to hear it was another water birth just like mine. I hope you both are resting and recovering well together and all continues as it should for your family.

This week has been interesting with the transfers. We had a few days to work before I said goodbye to Elder Burch on Wednesday. I'll sure miss him, he's a good elder and Abiko area is lucky to be getting him. 

We had a really cool day on Tuesday. We started off the day with a visit to our friend with mental health issues. It was an opportunity for elder Burch to say goodbye to him. We had a good lesson and were able to feel the spirit fairly well together.  He has been coming to Chirac regularly for the last month so hopefully that continues. We are pretty sure he has a pretty good shot into the kingdom of the Lord due to his schizophrenia, but we love loving him anyway so we keep inviting him. After that we went and bought flowers and oranges, made origami, and wrote letters in kanji to our investigator Mae's wife.  She has taken a turn for the worse with her cancer and Tuesday was her birthday so we dropped by with gifts.  We couldn't go inside so we just left them on the porch where Mae found them and promptly called us.  She was able to talk on the phone with us just a little and expressed her gratitude.  We were sure to include scriptures to read as well, so hopefully they get the chance to read those. After that we went to the church where we had a lesson with a young college student named Fujieda. His family is super hantai (anti) so he won't be baptized yet, but we still work with him anyway.  Luckily the first counselor in the mission presidency lives in our ward, president Kodama, so he attended the lesson with us. It was awesome. After that we went to visit a less active member from Sri Lanka who we work with now, also with president Kodama. It was such a good afternoon. I love working with church leaders like Pres. Kodama and Nagano Kaicho. They bring so much power with them.

Wednesday was nuts. The zone leaders all make plans for everyone, but often the plans contradict with other missionaries in the area and make for a nightmare for district leaders (me) trying to ensure everyone has companions during the transfer. We had three people transfer out so it got pretty dicey for us.  My companion transferred at eleven am, the sister's companion transferred out at eight thirty am, and elder Harrison's companion transferred at ten am, elder Harrison's new companion came here at eleven, Sister Crandall's new companion came here at eleven thirty, and my new companion came here at four.  Sister Crandall had to split with me and elder Burch in order to wait for her companion, Elder Harrison and Elder Lloyd had to go to the bike shop to fix a bike for the transfer and ended up having to blow their transfer time to accomplish that, which also meant they would not be there to meet Elder Harrison's NEW companion who would have to be met by me and sister Crandall right before she went to meet her new companion.  Got all that??  Nightmare!!  We ended up calling a member named Mikatsura Kyodai to split with us and help.  Me, Elder Burch, and sister Crandall all met with Mikatsura Kyodai at eight thirty at an Eki and waited together until my companion left.  Then it was Mikatsura Kyodai and Sister Crandall and I for two hours until Elder Harrison's new companion came.  Then Mikatsura Kyodai left, and soon after that Sister Crandall left.  We then went to the apartment and waited until Harrison Choro and Lloyd Choro came back.  Then we walked together to the Eki and saw off elder Lloyd. Then we worked together until four when we went back to the Eki and met my new companion.  THEN we were finished.  It was a crazy day!!  It all worked out in the end and everyone made it to their new areas safe and sound.  Right after we all met up at the station I was walking with my new companion when a huge six foot four inch white man with a Santa beard called out to us, "why it's the Mormons!! Come here, lets talk!"  We talked for about fifteen minutes and found out this guy was pretty crazy.  He was wearing a safety helmet with all kinds of funny things painted on it, orange safety glasses, and toted around a camp chair to sit on because he was in very bad health.  He simply wanted to know if the church was still growing or shrinking because all other religions were shrinking in the world.  I guess he was baptized a long time ago and runs a homeless shelter now, but he was clearly not mentally sound, haha.  Nice guy though, Anthony.  We tried to get him to come to church, but he said he couldn't because he didn't pay tithing. Interesting guy.  Missionaries just attract crazy people.

My companion is great. He is a transfer three now so I am not training, but we call it "follow up training."  The trainer is the dad, the follow up the mom.  So I'm a mom now.  Anyway he studied four years of Japanese in high school so he is way advanced. His desires and faith are super strong and we get along very well.  Elder Harrison's new companion is from Meridian!  He lives about five minutes up Linder road from our house. Nice guy.

I think that's about all for now. We had one really cool lesson with an older guy named Shouda San.  He is retired and has no family, but is the sweetest man I have ever met.  He came to church one day just to see what it was like after hearing about it at eikaiwa (English class) and liked it a lot, so now we teach him.  We talked about how life is like everyone climbing up Mount Fuji and many people climb from different directions, but we all have the same goal.  He liked that and when we said that while it all is the same goal, there is one path to the top that avoids pits, cliffs, dangers, and stuff like that, he was very interested and said he thought so too, but was searching for it.  Bingo.  Golden.  We left him with the vision of tree tree of life to study for next time. We will probably invite him to be baptized soon.

All is well here! I'm super jealous of the snow you all are spoiled with!

Viehweg Choro

February 15th, 2016- Transfers!

Hey minna San!

We had a pretty good week here in Koshigaya to finish out the transfer. Our calls came in and elder Burch and elder Lloyd are both transferring. I am getting a very young missionary to follow up train, and will still be the district leader in Koshigaya for at least one more transfer. I'm pretty excited considering this last week, but I'll miss my Boise brother for sure.

I have discovered an amazing new food that I have fallen in love with. We have started making a soup like food called nabe. It's basically stew with all kinds of Japanese veggies, some fish paste tubes, and a really good spicy kimchi broth. You eat the food and slurp up the broth through the fish paste tube, eat the tube, then eat all the leftover broth and veggies with some rice set aside for after the soup. You mix a raw egg in with it all and eat it with a spoon to finish off. It makes a ton of food and is perfect for cold winter days. Love it.

So this past week we decided as a companionship to show God our faith and make a goal to hit all the standards of excellence in our mission. There is a lot of talk about not becoming stats bandits, but what people don't understand is how the good stats feed your whole area. As you find, retrieve referrals, invite, and work harder, the area begins to filter out those ready to act, AND it shows the Lord you have the faith and diligence to accomplish what he has said is possible in your specific mission. So we decided to do so. 

We had several lessons on Monday and Tuesday with some less actives and investigators, and on Tuesday I planned a split with the other elders. It turned out being really great. I was impressed with the elder I worked with and we had a good day together. Elder Burch's trainer called saying he was going home for some health reasons which was a bummer, but that he had a referral to introduce us to before leaving that day!  So he and elder Harrison went out and met him. He turned into a new investigator. He went to a church in America over his home stay and really liked it, so he wants to know more. We found three investigators and taught a bunch of lessons that day. It was a really good one.

We had an amazing day at ping pong this past week. The other Sunday we were on the train with an investigator on our way to a member's apartment to make takoyaki and teach a lesson when a man walks in the doors and says "Choro!"  He was an old investigator of past elders and just happened to run into us. We invited him to come to an activity and got his phone number. We totally forgot about him...  BUT he came to ping pong and brought a referral for us. We sat there while he explained the church, how he was able to quit alcohol and cut down on smoking, and how much he liked the Book of Mormon, and THEN gave his friend one to take home with him.  Elder Burch and I were kind of blown away.   All we did was watch.  They are both investigators now.  Before that I had a great talk with an older man named Shoda San. He was taught a few times before Christmas, but then went out to Cambodia to do volunteer work for two months!  He does volunteer work like that each year, and teaches refugees Japanese during the week. He's pretty golden and I guess he came to church one day after hearing about it at eikaiwa (English class).  Anyway, we became buddies and he basically told me he wants to meet with us and learn more. He's pretty busy, but has the desire so we will work with him too. That was a really good day.

On Saturday we had our Bible study class we do weekly in Japanese. The bible is SO hard in Japanese, but we use that time to teach from the Book of Mormon as well and help explain doctrine. It works out pretty well.  Mae was the only one who came, but we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and he was of course very interested. He always is, but has turned into an eternal investigator. Anyway, this time he seemed really touched and impressed so maybe there will be some progress soon.

Sunday was good. The stake president visited and he is American so he spoke in English with an interpreter. Unfortunately only Kunio came to church, but that makes four weeks in a row, so he is doing good on his own I suppose. We have a lot of work to do to get these other people baptized, but there is fruit all around us. I am so thankful for all the lord does for me each and every day. Everyone go refer a friend to the missionaries!

Deborah I am sorry you have been sick lately. I will pray for you and hope you get back up soon. Rachel I am excited for your baby and hope all is well with you! 

Love you all so very much.

Elder Viehweg

The whole Zone!

February 7th, 2016

February 8, 2016

Hello all you Americans,

This week was actually a little tough for us. All of our stats and numbers took a huge plunge which was not good. The Lord blessed us for several weeks but I believe now we are being tested! Either way all we can do is keep doing all we can do. 

On Monday this week I had my first bike accident! I decided to take a ride through this small artificial stream bed made of some kind of smooth volcanic rock and a tree branch was blocking my view of the two puddles of water in front of me around a bend. Anyway, I came around and hit the small puddle causing my tire to slip out, and me to go belly down just in time to slide through the next ten foot long puddle of muddy water! All I could do was remind myself of my own silly use of agency, and the decision to ride through that small stream bed next to the sidewalk. It was pretty funny though and both me and my bike are okay.

We had a very slow week until Friday, at which point it really started to pick up. On Friday we had an appointment with a guy named Daisuke who had a baptismal date a while ago, but had to go to Canada to study. The other elders transferred out and he came back and messaged us on our phone. Anyway he asked us if he could bring his wife to meet us at our ping pong activity, which of course was fine by us! That was last week. This week we met before ping pong and ate some tsukemen. Dad knows what it is, but it was soooooo good. We really built a good relationship and then at ping pong basically taught and reviewed what he had learned in the past. He is pretty kin (golden). He loves missionaries because of how much love and happiness we show. He also thinks the church is a great place for his soon to be born child to make friends and grow up! His wife has no interest right now, but he said she will come around soon. It was a way cool experience and we have plans to meet regularly and review everything from here on out.

Before going to meet him, I'm sure you all saw the picture, we found a random Vietnamese kid who loves Americans! I just said hi to him as he walked by and we tried to communicate through Japanese for a while. He and his friend are trade school students and don't speak well still, but it was way cool and we are now friends. We offered to help them with Japanese so maybe that will lead somewhere. Super nice kid, can't for the life of me pronounce his name. So far on my mission I have met Vietnamese, Chinese, Mongolian, Uzbekistanian, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, British, French, Ghanan, and Polynesian people.  It's nuts!  Way cool experience though.

Saturday was a really busy and fun day. We had Bible study right after our study with two people who always come, and then had to change and book it over to the opposite end of the area. There is a futsol center there about an hour away if you burn it out on your bike, so it's a ways out, but a member from the neighboring Ward who's wife we visited and helped while she was hospitalized in our area set up an activity for us to meet people, so we had to go. By the time we got there our legs were hammered so the next two hours were interesting. Also, there was an uneven number of players so I took the whole two hours switching from team to team to keep things going!  It was soooo much fun. The Japanese guys we played with were all super nice and patient with us and we managed to both do fairly well, and make fools of ourselves periodically, so I think they enjoyed us being there, hahaha.  By the end of it I was poooped.  We never have chances to excercise like that and from there we had an even farther bike ride to a recent convert's house on the opposite end of the area, about an hour and a half away.  We stopped by the church and then biked as hard as we could to make it in time.  By now we were beyond tired and our legs were cramping pretty well.  The dinner and lesson with the recent converts was so great.  They are the Minami's.  Both are about seventy and the wife was baptized three years ago after her son died.  Until that point she had visited Salt Lake and filled out the referral card, so missionaries kept coming by her house trying to teach her. Eventually she softened up to the elders and that was the end.  Her husband, who was an Olympic track star, soon followed suit.  He had a stroke which left him unable to do much and got into heavy drinking, but soon changed when he saw how happy his wife was.  He followed suit a year and a half later.  They both are incredible.  Each Sunday Minami Shimai carries his wheelchair down three flights of stairs to the sidewalk, then basically carries him down afterwrds and pushes him fifteen minutes to the Eki in order to come to church.  After church she does the opposite on the way home!  Unbelievable.  Now the Ward has someone there at their apartment on most Sunday's to get it done.  Bottom line, we all have NO excuse not to make it to church on time.  No excuse.  Incredible faith.  We had a great lesson with them and they fed us really well.  After that they taught us some Kansai Ben (a dialect from Osaka, their hometown) and then we left. They love the elders so much and treat us like their grandchildren.  Both strengthen each other so much and they study daily from the scriptures despite not understanding a whole lot.

Sunday we had two investigators at church which was good. One is the guy with schizophrenia. He had a good time but no one can tell.  He isn't exactly friendly, but people love him anyway which is what he needs.  He is going to start coming weekly which is great!  The other  guy named Fujieda is my age and has been an investigator for a while.  He has had several baltismal dates, but his family hantai (anti) and he still needs more understanding.  Previous elders just pushed for baptism but never really helped him understand the why behind it.  Not good.  After church a sweet old lady named Nengaki Shimai had us al, over to eat and teach a lesson with him.  We read from the Book of Mormon and testified about families being strengthened by the gospel. One member who converted despite his parents being hantai talked about the blessings his family got despite not being members.  Good lesson.  The tako yaki (barbecued squid) after was AMAZING.  We ate so much and it was so delicious.  I learned how to make it so maybe in the future we can eat some.  That was a really fun appointment and our investigator had a great time.

After that it was reports, stats, investigator updates, and call in reports with all my missionaries.

That's about it for the week. It was slow but we have a goal to hit all the standards this next week which should happen! Love you all and miss you...sort of ;-)  iI's just so fun here and God literally carries me all day long.  I'm so tired at the end of each day, especially today.  But I wouldn't trade the world for it.

Jaa ne!!  (Later...)

Viehweg Choro

Spagetti Sandwich

This does not look tempting!

February 1st, 2016

February 1, 2016
 We had a fairly good week here. Unfortunately our baptismal date couldn't quit tobacco in time, but he still wants to be baptized and is continuing to study on his own. We decided it would be better to focus our efforts on a few other people instead of him for the time being. He is ready to be baptized but simply needs to make the decision.   We met with Ozawa San each day but he didn't progress so much which is why we called off the baptism.

I am having a really hard time remembering what happened this week. We are all at Urawa church for zone pday and bowling so I don't have my planner with me...  i'll try to make this letter good regardless. On Tuesday we had a lesson with our recently found investigator Vincent from Ghana. We teach in English which is very interesting and has made me realize I can't teach so well in my native tongue...or my Japanese tongue either for that matter, hahaha.  Anyway he is doing pretty good. He works every day from eight to seven except Sunday so he is pretty tired and doesn't read the Book of Mormon. He does pray all the time and loves meeting with us, and he has a strong desire to find truth so we will push him from here on out. The good thing is that in the neighboring area they are starting an international group in English so we can take him to that.

The cool thing that happened this week is that we had three investigators at church.  Unfortunately the temple missionaries visited this week so neither the English nor the Japanese investigators understood any of it. Sunday school got WAY to deep, and third hour just so happened to be the time that they introduced the north Asia area plan. All in all, none of the people who came to church this week really saw the relevance to them. We are hoping they keep putting in the time that the spirit needs to work on their hearts.

 Today we met in Urawa and went bowling which was fun. After that we went to the church and played free for all ultimate dodgeball, my new favorite game, and ping pong. It was a pretty good day here.

 Sorry this week's letter is so lame!! If I am being honest I don't feel like writing all that much, hahaha. Please understand, I just have so much fun in doing what I'm doing I want to do it all the time! I'll write better next week.

 Elder Viehweg

Bowling with the sisters on P-Day (Sister Riggs on the left)

Ito Choro impersonating Zero form Holes

January 25th, 2016

Mina San. Ohayooo,  (Good morning Everyone)

First off I am going to tell a very funny story about a man named Watanabe. He goes back a few transfers, but essentially he is a very insane man. He learned about the gospel and started off as a very golden investigator, but things soon turned sour, haha. He began worshipping Joseph Smith and began his own cult, but calls us to baptize people since he does not have authority. Anyway, he calls us and tells us that Christ is a bad guy and that we need to believe in Joseph Smith, but he doesn't listen when we say that Joseph Smith said we need to believe in Christ. Insane. Anyway, he called us while we were reading emails at the church and asked me to baptize him. He kept saying he was on his way to the church now but we assured him there was no baptismal meeting today. He hung up and then called the other companionship...right next to us and proceeded to inform them there is a baptismal meeting today in the middle of Saitama Eki (train station) with his members and that he needed us to come use our priesthood authority to baptize everyone. Insane, hahaha. Funny guy. 

This week was good. I already told you all about our split in Urawa and temple pday. From that point our week slowed down a little bit. We had some good lessons though and managed to make good numbers for our indicators. God is simply giving us blessings and gifts right and left. 

Watanabe San just called again. Joseph smith is God, and watanabe just became a prophet, but he is soon leaving for the Philippines so before he leaves he needs us to come and baptize him at Shimisato Eki.

Anyway this week we meet with Kunio (our baptismal date) few times, but he seemed to be getting discouraged and down so we gave him some breathing room. That turned out to be great. We talked on Sunday and he simply said I want to get baptized soon. I want to change and I am tired of waiting around. We explained that he could definitely be baptized and we would have to work for it, but that he could do it. It was a great talk on the phone and he has a lot of motivation right now. Please pray for him to finish out the week strong so he can be baptized as soon as possible. The gospel sure does change people.

We were also able to meet with Vincent again on Saturday night and have a really good chance to set up expectations with him. He met with missionaries a while ago and really loved what they taught him. He is an avid studier of the Bible and said that the teachings from the Book of Mormon and Bible all compliment one another. We ended up not having much time, but plan to hit him with the restoration and commit him to be baptized next lesson. He is such an awesome guy and kept saying amen as we taught him and prayed together. So hilarious. We are really excited that the Lord led us to him because next month an international church group will start in Urawa where all meetings will be held in English. Urawa is about an hour away by train!

At Eikaiwa and our game night we had opportunities to teach many of our other investigators, unfortunately a lot of them are not progressing anymore. Before elder Hughes left he gave Mae San a letter and the Gospel Principles book. We don't know what he said, but we know that now Mae is reading the Gospel Principles from cover to cover, which is awesome. We hope to get questions and desire from him soon. He should be baptized in the near future. One other really cool person came to ping pong who we got to teach. His name is Daisuke and he was an investigator who had a baptismal date before leaving for Canada to study. He asked us if he could bring his wife to the church to meet us! We got to know him really well and set up expectations to meet him again soon, so a family could be baptized in the near future!

This week I also did splits with the other elders. Elder Lloyd who is transfer three went with me, and elder Harrison who is transfer seven went with elder Burch, transfer four. We had a really good day. The other elders found a new investigator who seems to have huge potential, and we got to teach recent converts who we have so much fun with and they fed us an incredible meal. It seems weird that I am leading off on splits and things. It never had that responsibility before, haha. I can still remember my first split with the legendary Higby Choro in Matsudou. Feels like an eternity ago.

On Saturday we had a very cool experience. We had a pretty crappy day of work. Tons of lessons canceled on us and no one would talk to us, but we said a quick prayer right before dinner and asked what we should do to find another person. We decided to walk once more around the bulding and found a guy who lived in Canada and were able to teach him as well as get contact info!  Just like that, not five minutes later. God is pretty good.

No more time! Love you all.

Elder Viehweg

Christmas Presents

Snow in Tokyo 

Cleaning a squid

January 17th, 2016- Koshigaya

Hey family!

This week has been insane. We have been beyond blessed in Koshigaya. Unfortunately, all the companionships are not seeing the numbers right now, which makes it rough being the district leader, but we still have so many wonderful things happening. 

Again we had a temple Pday this week and have two lessons tonight so I don't have time to write at the church. This letter is probably going to be a shorter or less detailed one. I'm sorry if you all are confused by the end of this, haha.

So last week we saw a drop in the numbers after Hughes Choro went home, but we decided to set our goals higher and show our faith regardless. I suppose the Lord saw that and decided to give us small miracles right and left. This week every plan we made was scrapped due to some kind of event or last minute needed thing, so we were not super effective or organized, but we did what we could. 

Wednesday we had zone meeting which was really great. I discovered that my previous district leader from Matsudou and Kamagaya is now in our  zone. I wrote about him earlier and his name is elder Lee from Hong Kong. The most loving missionary ever. Anyway, it was good to see him and hear what the zone leaders are planning for this transfer. The first presidency has decided to change our splits to where the junior missionaries will all go to the senior missionaries' area. We won't be exchanging areas anymore which complicates things because we now need bikes and futons at all these random places. 

Thursday we had interviews with president and sister Nagano. They were both absolutely wonderful. I can't describe how much I love those two people. They truly feel like a mother and father to me and I value their trust and relationship so much. Nagano Kaicho had some really good things for me that gave me much more confidence and trust that I am doing what he and the Lord expect of me, which was nice. Nagano Shimai told me I need to train the missionaries around me to be cleaner, hahaha.  She gave us a daily chart with jobs written on it to break the bad cycle of filthiness. It's funny that we actually need those, but there are not many clean missionaries.

The next days were filled with lessons with our baptismal date and other investigators. Kunio San is more and more happy each time we see him, and it is so inspiring. We literally have no idea how to handle someone with schizophrenia, but we feel that the spirit is blessing his mind with clarity and peace and he is progressing. He came to church this week and loved every minute of it. Dad we too studied finding peace and it was perfect for our investigator. He has trouble finding peace and hearing all the members talk about it as well gave him hope and comfort.  We found one man named Vincent on Saturday night. As we were walking past Burger King we looked in the window looking for students who may be studying, when two giant black guys walk out and shout,"Hello!" at us. They both are from Ghana and had met with missionaries a few years ago and learned a bunch. One gave us contact info and came to church the next day!  I translated for him....it was awful, hahaha.  I don't think I spoke any false doctrine.  We have a member lined up for him who is fluent in English for next time.  He is super awesome and about as golden as they get.

We also found four other investigators this week. Today we found one more on the way to the temple. So far only two have been able to be contacted since, but that's just a matter of weeding out those who are ready. 

We had one inspiring visit to a lady in the hospital. We took her the sacrament on Sunday and she has been doing missionary work all over the hospital. I think all the missionaries in Japan could come here and be trained by her. She also told me tons of cool stuff about how a lot of the culture surrounding the emperor has roots in Judaism and Hebrew language.  All of katakana (Japanese phonetic alphabet for foreign words) was derived from Hebrew characters. She is incredible and had us give the woman next to her a Book of Mormon on our way out, hahaha. I think we will go next week too.

Yesterday morning Burch Choro and I went to Urawa for our split with the zone leaders. It was fun working with my kohai from the MTC elder Broberg. He's an absolute animal and I learned a ton from him. We had a crazy day working together. We found three new investigators and met up with an investigator from long ago. During the lesson we taught one hundred percent by the spirit.  We didn't even have a plan going in, but we had an awesome member present and trusted in the Lord to show us what we needed to do.  I think it was one of the best lessons I have ever had.  We taught from scripture and answered specific questions he had. The scriptures would just come to mind as we talked and fed perfectly into what he needed. He is a super young guy who is simply as kin (golden) as they get. We set a baptismal date with him for February seventh and have no doubt he can make it. It was a day full of blessings from the Lord. I had soooo much fun.  At the end of the day Broberg Choro and I just looked at each other and said this is why we came on a mission, for the joy we feel right now.  So wonderful.

We had a lesson with Mae San as well. We played him in ping pong because he said that if we win he will come to church. We never win. He is SO GOOD.  Anyway, his business is failing so he needs prayers to help him turn to God. Pray for Kunio as well.

We did so many more things but I have to plan district meeting and take care of some other things so I do not have time to write. I am doing great and learning so much being a district leader again, it's humbling and so dang fun I love it.  This week we had twenty or so lessons, I can't remember, but the Lord is blessing us so much we don't have time to get to it all. It's simply all so humbling I don't know how to put it into an email. 

Elder Burch is my favorite and we have so much fun together even though we can hardly communicate with people. Sorry for the bad letter. I love you all!

Investigator Riki

Train station at the end of splits

Photos:  Investigator we found this morning, Riki

End of our splits. We had to pack our bikes and take them on the train. It was so crowded and the trains were so late from snow and rain we had to ram them into the train and people hahaha.  Video of cleaning a nice, fresh squid.