Goodness another week gone. Hey everyone!
Spring is officially here and that means the Sakura (cherry blossoms) are in full bloom. I have never seen such beautiful blossoms in all my life. The trees look like they are covered in snow at night as we bike home to the apartment. It is actually gorgeous and I tried to capture some of the views in pictures I will send.
In other news I saw the general priesthood meeting and both Saturday sessions of conference on Sunday. We were able to watch them live somehow? I'm not sure how the physics works but it happened. Aside from president Uchtdorf, since he is my favorite, we decided to watch them all in Japanese. I think i understood about seventy five percent of what was being translated. Since we will read all of the talks in a week or so anyway, we decided to challenge ourselves. It was pretty tough on the brain. We arrived at the church at seven in time to help set up and do our Chosei with the shunin (meet with the zone leaders), and didn't end up leaving the church until seven forty five that night. We had all three sessions, contacting, reporting, member talk, stats, and letters to the mission president to get through. I have come to not enjoy Sunday's as much, hahaha. All I do is collect numbers and reports and send them off to the zone leaders! Of course I still love Sunday's, but there are so many other things we could be doing with our time...can't be helped. I've got a sweet spot in my heart for the topic of charity and for president Uchtdorf, so of course the priesthood talk he gave was perfect. We will see the other sessions of conference next Saturday. By the end of the day I could no longer think in English. My companion kept asking me the meaning of kanji he was studying while I did reports, and all I could say was the Japanese words. Shannon said my spelling was atrocious so sorry if I don't make sense sometimes, haha.
This past week was okay. We had a few lessons with a young college student named Nobuyuki which went really well. He loves learning about religion and came prepared with questions about the law of chastity, tithing, family, Joseph Smith and his forty wives (took some work to correct that one) and other things. We were able to set up expectations to meet regularly with him and set a next appointment before running out of time. He still wanted to talk but we had taken an hour already so he asked if he could follow us while we dendoud (proselyted). We said sure! If anything he would be able to see we aren't just young college aged kids ready to party in Japan, which is what most people think of us, and the reason young people sometimes agree to meet with us. He was surprised but in a good way. The next lesson we taught the restoration. First we answered questions about the garment (no idea where he is getting this information). He understood well and accepted the challenge to read and pray daily as well as read the testimony of Joseph Smith pamphlet. He also said he would be baptized if he felt the spirit. Unfortunately we have not been able to contact him since. Hopefully someone else finds him in the future.
Last Friday was a very special experience. We had been working on a less-active list the ward gave us about three hundred names long and hadn't had any success. There were a lot of "don't come backs" and instances where people had moved. One day we rode from one end of the area to the other to look for a house that no longer existed (the address situation in Japan is a disaster) and then biked over to an Eki we hadn't worked at before right next to lake town mall (the biggest in the world). It took forever and once there we just had a bunch of college kids make fun of us and mock us. We decided to call it quits and were walking away with our bikes when we called out to one young man walking toward us. He had just graduated high school and when we said who we were and what we do he told us to wait a minute and then proceeded to put up his bike so he could talk with us more. We sat down on a bench and went through a pamphlet that talks about who we are and what we do on our iPads and discussed all the things we are trying to do as missionaries. After that we went through a "Who is God" pamphlet. He said he didn't believe in God, but that he prayed everyday for someone to help him. His family is not so great so the plan of salvation really gave him hope. We set up a next appointment and got his contact info before leaving him with a Book of Mormon to read until we meet again. We have not been able to contact him either, but at least someone will in the future and he will be that much more prepared.
I can't think of a whole lot else that really happened this week. Elder Banks had to spend a lot of money at hospitals that hasn't been reimbursed to him yet so I had to basically be his mom for a few days. That was funny. I also got the "transfer district leader" training for the third time. I guess that's it for news... We work hard and we do all kinds of things, but the ones of note are written already.
I saw Shayla on the screen singing with the choir during Saturday's session. I stood up in the middle of the sessions and pointed her out telling everyone she was my cousin, hahaha. The members giggled at that.
Thank you for all of the emails. The new baby is adorable and precious as ever. Pray for the district, one person is really struggling right now and needs lots of love. Pray for Japan. Find opportunities to go do some missionary work. All the stuff you already know much better than I.
Love you all!
Elder Viehweg
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