Elder Bryson Viehweg's Mission: 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