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