District Leader September 7th, 2015

Hey everyone,

This has been a week of adjustment for sure. I think I spoke more English in the first two hours of my new companionship, than in the last twelve weeks with Tsuchida Choro. It feels so weird. We talk about our study in English, practice in English, and speak English

around the apartment. Now my brain is all confused and starts going in

and out of English and Japanese at random times. I found that I really

can't teach that well in English. Sometimes when I am praying I will

start in one language and be talking, then suddenly realize I switched

somewhere along the way. It's really confusing haha because all the

grammar and pronunciations switch up.

I am in a threesome now. It is me, Nukaya Choro from Idaho Falls, he

is full blood Japanese but more American than me, and Horne Choro from

Orem Utah. They are both really good guys. I am so thankful to have

elder Nukaya here to help train while I train and try to be the

district leader. He is on his last transfer so we are killing him (sending him home) in

five weeks, but that means he is ped (fluent) and knows how to do

missionary work, which I still don't. Horne Choro is sooo funny. He is the

typical Utah boy who has never seen anything but home and never tried

anything to crazy haha. He talks SOOOO LOUD hahaha. He will say hi to

people and basically shout at them, from their point of view. It's so

hilarious, and he is fearless so it makes for some really funny street

contacts. He's a good guy and is out here for all the right reasons.

Has a great attitude as well. I'm excited to work on being more

unified with them from here on out and working together for these

people.

Having these new responsibilities has been pretty stressful. Doing

call in reports each night, and thinking about the district vision,

meetings, trainings, and also planning each day since I "know the

area" has been a little bit of an adjustment. I definitely have no

time to do or think about anything but what is needed by our people, and

missionaries. It's nuts. I didn't think I could focus so strongly on

one thing for such along time, but I woke up today and honestly I forgot

I needed to email all of you. Sorry. We received some training from

the zone leaders, but it wasn't really training. They talked about

their vision for the Matsudou zone and they pretty much left

everything else up to us. I really have no idea what I am doing, but

I'm doing my best so if it's not good enough, then somewhere along the

line of revelation someone goofed! Just kidding, I know hat being asked

to do this means I have something to offer, but more importantly I have

something to learn. One thing is for sure I have never before been this

tired for along time haha. You slowly adjust to what you are asked to

do, and then the Lord decides it's time for you to hit the gym again and break

down your foundation to build something new. It's a beautiful, painful

process, but understanding that concept has really made me grateful

for these times and it makes it much easier and more fun to go through

trials, challenges or changes. Anyway, for the missionaries sake,

please pray that I can figure out how to be a missionary, and district

leader, and how to be a trainer too, haha.

This past weekend we had stake conference. It was soooo great.

Yamashita Choro from the Seventy came and THREW DOWN.  His talks were

the exact opposite of how a Japanese person "should act.”  He was loud,

animated, and so funny. The talks he gave were pretty much all geared

toward lighting a fire underneath the members seats. In Japan sharing

the gospel is so hard for the members because of their culture, and he

took that delicate culture and smashed it with a piano. It was

perfect. BEFORE he came Nagano Kaicho taught us his mission culture

which is geared toward serving the members and in particular the

bishop. So we ask all the members what we can do to help them,

sometimes four or five times in a row, and they refuse, because they

are Japanese. Yamashita Choro told about how important they are for us

missionaries and how we need them to do this work. It fed perfectly

into what Nagano Kaicho has been asking us to do. Basically missions

are lead by God and we should all do what mission presidents say. An

easy concept some would think, but you would be surprised how timid

people are to really commit to and follow, truly follow the council of

church leadership. I know I definitely didn't in the past. Anyway that

was really great and I understood a lot of it. Church has gotten to

the point where I understand probably seventy five percent of the

words, but putting all the words into sentences is still tough. I get

all the main points now though so that's nice. At the meetings they

had an English translation room, but Horne Choro was pumped to test

out his Japanese so we went to the chapel. Within ten minutes he was

out hahahah, we let him sleep. Poor guy has taken jet lag pretty

hard. Each night at ten forty exactly he rolls over, shouts,"Jesus!"

mumbles a few things and then proceeds to snore for ten minutes.

Exactly. Then it's quiet again. It's soooo funny haha. Love the guy.

Anyway, after the conference when I called the zone leaders for my

nightly report in the district, I was told that that very night, in

every area, ours included, the members fed the missionaries and had

really cool lessons with them. Hopefully their attitude continues to

become strengthened.

Already Horne Choro has talked to more people than I did my first two

weeks here, he's a great example and I feel like he is training me in

a lot of ways.

This week we had a few really cool experiences. So Tsuchida Choro and I

had called through the area book for hours over the last twelve weeks

and never found a single person who wanted to meet again. The first

time Nukaya Choro tried to call someone he agreed to come to church

and meet with us. I was blown away. Something like that has not

happened the whole time I have been here. Since I cam to Kamagaya we

have slowly lost all of our investigators and dropped even more due to

disinterest, insanity, or inability to contact. Hopefully this is the

start to a new trend, we have cleaned the area book enough in my

opinion, but then again I'm not the one in charge. Still it was a

great tender mercy to at least talk to someone who wants to see us

again.

Training a missionary is pretty stressful, but it's so funny with

Horne Choro. He always forgets to take off his helmet so we will get

off our bikes and start trying to contact people, look at him and

just start laughing hahaha, he is tall and fairly well built but hasn't

really grown into his body yet, so he is a little clumsy. In a country

where everything is super close, he is always bumping into people and

hitting random things when he bends over hahaha. I feel bad we laugh

so much, but I can't help it! We assure him that he is doing great (and he really is!) and he is always really good natured about it. I often feel just as out of place and helpless as him, so I sympathize with him for sure.

Not sure what else to say. Have fun camping family! Danielle I'm sorry

to hear about Weston and his schools, I'll pray for you all. The story

about Mazer was awesome hahaha. Lisa that's is so crazy!! Such a small

world. Tell me his name one more time so I can tell bishop about it.

Thanks for all the birthday (insert English word I can t really

remember, not wishes).  I love you all so much.

Viehweg 長老

August 30th, 2015

Hey guys,

This new transfer is bringing some big and terrifying changes. We got the call from assistant Chugg this morning and found out Tsuchida Choro is transferring to a place called Abiko to be the district leader and follow up train a greenie, and I will be taking over Kamagaya in a threesome as well as training a new missionary. I almost threw up when I heard that, but then I heard that the third missionary will be a transfer sixteen and he is half Japanese, so between the two of us the new missionary shouldn't have any lasting, permanent effects...

To be honest I don't know why the president felt this way about this transfer. I can't even talk on the phone with a native and understand them hahaha.  It's going to be a really tough experience, but I know I will learn and grow a lot as well.  So we have today and tomorrow we go to the mission home to pick up our new missionaries.  So weird.  Tsuchida Choro and I have gotten really close through this last transfer.  We spent our companion study time on Sunday just talking about the transfer.  We Both agreed that it has been one of the hardest experiences yet, and that we learned A LOT.  I sure am going to miss him, he has been the perfect trainer for what I needed to start off here in Nihon.  Definitely an inspired companionship.  So needless to say I need to start thinking about the district vision and spend A LOT more time on my knees. 

This week had some really good experiences. Earlier in the week, Sunday and Monday actually, we had exchanges, which I told you all about already.  From there we had an old investigator from the other elder's area book call and say he had time to meet.  He is about sixty and is a baseball fanatic. He plays every Sunday and travels to follow his favorite team.  Anyway he has a background in Christianity and was really glad to meet with us.  We taught about the plan of salvation and the atonement.  I'm not sure if he really has interest in what we teach, but he said we could come teach him again, which has not happened yet in the past six weeks with any other investigator haha.  So that was a good experience. 

On Wednesday night we had our weekly English class.  The week before I mentioned to this tiny older lady named Noboko San that I thought it was awesome she did kendo.  Kendo is basically sword fighting with bamboo swords and armor.  It's fencing without all the tights and fancy talk. Anyway this next class she decided to bring her entire kendo outfit, sword, and also some of her umis, super huge longbows native to Japan.  After eikaiwa we were eating candy with the students, and she waved me over and before I could say anything started throwing on all these clothing items.  Before I knew it I was fully dressed in a kendo uniform and every single student was crowded around me snapping photo after photo while Tsuchida Choro and the sisters just watched and laughed at me haha.  It was really cool, she kept wanting me to make all these poses and things.  I was a little embarrassed, but it really was so sweet haha.  After that she gave me a bunch of super complicated origami and two picture frames with these tiny, beautiful hand sewn kimonos in them. So Shannon and Natalie looks like you have some cool souvenirs coming your way.  I'll send a few pics if they are any good.  Most are blurry.  It was fun though haha.

Weekly planning was a little tough this week.  I really do hate sitting in the apartment for five hours calling people and talking, but I know how important it is for our week.  This last week we dropped a bunch more people who were not interested and unavailable.  Doing that is always rough. I t's like ripping off bandaid after bandaid for several hours.  We both were a little frustrated, but we have come to accept that our job this last transfer was to clean up the area book.  So many people who were labeled as 'investigator' really had no idea away what we did or who we were.  So while it didn't exactly boost our self confidence, we recognized it was important to set the tone for future missionaries.

Friday was a really good day.  We biked super far away, forty five minutes, to a town to visit a man from Nepal who owns an Indian curry restaurant there.  He has met with a lot of other missionaries, probably because they always eat his food, but we just had a lesson with him that day.  We talked about prayer.  He seemed to understand, but the language barrier is sooooo thick.  His nihongo is really bad haha.  There currently is not a Nepalese Book of Mormon, so he reads from the Hindu one, but really doesn't understand it.  He was super nice and prayed very roughly to close the lesson.  We don't know what to do, because he can hardly understand us and the gospel vocabulary, but he can't read about what we teach either...tough.  After that we got a really great phone call.  We had been calling this previous investigator who's teaching record had every indication that he should have been baptized.  He is a really young guy who is going to school.  Anyway we had called him several times in previous weeks and never got an answer, but he messaged us and said he could meet us at the church all the way back in Kamagaya.  So we booked it back while also trying to make our goal for Morumon shos, which we just barely did, and made it to the church.  We chatted with him for a long time and set up some really good expectations.  Apparently the reason he met with us is because from our voicemails he had found out that the missionaries had changed.  The other elders had really pressured him in the past.  So we just tried to reassure him, but also promise him that everything we taught was true.  His schedule was insane, so who knows if we will meet again, but it was an answer to prayer. That day as we were biking out to Shiroi, I prayed the whole time that we could REALLY help someone that day, not just give them a book, or a pamphlet, but really help them come closer to Christ.  This young man, Kikuchi San, was the answer.  The spirit was very strong as we talked, and he asked such deep questions for a college student.  He has a desire, but needs patience.  I have come to learn that here, missionary work is not lessons, or having people at church.  It's small, almost unnoticeable things.  So small the people who we help come closer to Christ often don't even realize it is happening. 

The next several days were really rough.  Pretty much ignored the whole time by a lot of people haha. We were yelled at by a few old grandpas for ping ponging their houses after seven at night...whatever, man.  Hahaha, we tried to just laugh it off.

So today was awesome.  Three weeks ago a Filipino girl called Tsuchida Choro and I, she spoke English so I talked to her.  She mentioned having a pamphlet and wanting to know where the church was in Kamagaya and saying she really wanted to come.  She lived in Chiba, which is over an hour away, but insisted on coming here since she received a Kamagaya flyer.  We explained the place and all the times and then referred her to the sisters.  When she came to church the next week, Tsuchida Choro recognized her.  She had approached him three months ago and asked for a pamphlet. Apparently in the Philippines she had gone to church with her friends, and has been looking for a Mormon church in Tokyo for along time.  Anyway she met with the sisters here twice, accepted baptism, and then THEY referred her to the Chiba sisters again haha.  Yesterday the sisters went to her baptism and said it was wonderful.  Her journey to the gospel was so crazy, random, and long, but God used all of us according our faith collectively to help her get to where she needed to be. Really cool.  Tsuchida has a gift for referring women.  This is the third or fourth woman who has approached him, heard him talk about the gospel, be referred to sisters, then accepted baptism.  I sure hope he realizes that he is just as crucial to their conversion as the sisters who teach them. Really great story.

I ate nasshi.  (Large Japanese pears)  It was soooooo gooood I think it may have been one of the fruits in the garden of Eden.  Anyway, I've learned that no matter what I eat, or how much, I'm always hungry.  Life of a senkyoshi I'm sure.  Sorry super random, but I don't have anything else really to talk about.  I sure do love you all.  I am absolutely terrified of being a trainer and a district leader.  I keep thinking about he New Testament scripture...not sure how it goes, but it's something like,"God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I'll try to go back to that and not let the spirit of fear get to me.

I love you all very much. I can't tell you how thankful I am to each and every one of you.

Viehweg 長老

Gifts from Elkiawa

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Full Kendo uniform

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Kendo Uniform

Pumpkin Rice 

August 24th, 2015

Hey Mina San(Everyone),

Another week gone, and almost another transfer. It's insane really. It's going by way too fast already and I don't like it, haha. It makes me feel a sense of urgency and sometimes a little stress. All good though, if you're not stressed you're dead, or so I've been told, ha. 

I was very sorry to hear about the Gooch family. I will definitely pray for them each day. What a hard thing to go through.  Make sure they know I am thinking about and praying for them please.

Let's see where to begin for this week...? I never know how to do this, so sorry but here I go again. So obviously it is Tuesday here, we had temple P-day today which is always fun. It's like a big reunion each time and the temple workers always have to patiently tell us to leave and congregate somewhere else, hahaha. I saw elder Frazier, my MTC companion, and we ate lunch with him and one of our kohai (younger missionaries), which was really fun. He's such a great guy. The temple was wonderful of course, even if we had to wake up at four to get there and don't really get a P day because we contact on the trains, it's so wonderful to go. Not a lot of missionaries get to enjoy the same thing.

So we visited several more members this week. I swear it is getting harder and harder to do that. Everyone is always sooooo busy and it is nigh impossible to get them at home for longer than fifteen minutes. The first man we visited was Suzuki Kyodai. He is a nice thirty year old single man who lives in a tiny single apartment. We taught him the first lesson. It was pretty shaky, because we never teach really so I'm not so good at teaching the actual lessons. All I do is super condensed messages and get to know people, so teaching is a weak point for me. Anyway, I stumbled through, and forgot how to say some of the first vision. Pretty embarrassing considering you want to gain the members' trust so they refer people to you, but nothing can be done. What I said came from my heart, even if it was incomplete, ha. Tai hen (terrible!).  Later this week we visited the Yamamoto family. That was so nice. We essentially taught the same thing and it went much better this time. They were very supportive and friendly and gave us ice cream and donuts which is always great, ha. Their daughter is a piano genius. She is going to some big school as a music performance major, and her father had to basically scrape her off the piano bench to listen to us for fifteen minutes, haha.  Really talented though--she could do it for a living easily RIGHT NOW.  We have been visiting all these members because we simply are not finding people to teach.  As a mission we are trying to get the members more excited about missionary work because we definitely can't do it alone.  Elder Tsuchida and I made a small paper with family missionary work goals and bring it out at every visit for the members. We made a bunch of copies and are slowly handing them out, so hopefully that helps a little. Other than that we visited two people in Shiroi, about a fortyfive minute bike ride away, and found out they really have no interest. They both sat there and admitted to how wonderful it felt to be with missionaries and learn, but they have decided to use their agency to reject those feelings.  Absolutely heartbreaking for us.  Nothing can be done though, as sad as that sounds it becomes more true for me each day. 

Apart from those visits we have been finding on our bikes, housing, streeting, and going to ekis (train stations).  Busy busy busy which is always good.  Sometimes it gets pretty monotonous without lessons or people to teach, but that's just part of the work here.  Gotta stay focused despite what is happening around you.  We had one pretty cool experience the ore night. We have been struggling to accomplish any of our goals lately which has been a bit of a downer, but we never let it get to us.  The other night we had twenty minutes to find before we had to get back to the apartment for planning and decided to street contact at an Eki. We met one really nice high school student who wasn't too interested but took a Book of Mormon, and right after that we were walking by a convenience store when another high school kid zipped by on his bike.  I looked at him and decided to keep walking.  Then, for whatever reason I turned and threw my hand up calling out to him.  He slammed on his brakes and walked his bike back over to us.  As we introduced ourselves he looked at us and just asked, "So are you catholic or Protestant?"  Those who served in Japan know this is a very rare question for a high schooler.  We talked about how we were neither.  His next question was, "So how is your church different from the others?"  Golden question.  That's when we brought out the Book of Mormon and told him about it.  He then began talking about all this Bible doctrine and church related stuff I didn't even know.  At that point he said something like, "I get that there are different sacred texts..but what REALLY makes your church different, what is so special about this church?"  That's when we basically gave him the first lesson in the parking lot in five minutes.  All in Japanese of course.  It turned out that he had attended a church school and was forced to be baptized, so he was a little wary, but still very open and inviting.  At the end of our chat I had him read the last two paragraphs of the Book of Mormon intro which he thought was awesome.  You could tell it really provoked thought.  He asked where we meet and what time and we tried to get his number, but that's when he got a little nervous, so we backed off and told him to call anytime.  He was an example of those 'prepared people' you always hear about.  A really great experience totally led and guided by the spirit.  Unfortunately we never heard from him since, but he may call in the future I suppose.  I was grateful for the experience though, just to know those people really do exist, haha. 

Sunday night we exchanged with the zone leaders.  I worked here in Kamagaya with Prince Choro from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Tsuchida Choro went to their area in Tsukuba to work with Maki Choro. I was jealous because Tsukuba is really inaka(out in the country), rural, and has some mountains, but working with elder Prince was awesome.  He is a transfer fifteen and I don't know if any of you will remember, but he is from the same hometown as the first zone leader I worked with my second week here, Higby Choro, who went home last transfer.  Both are actually good friends and went to high school together.  Anyway he was great.  I planned the day for us, and the day essentially went backwards, hahaha.  We went to a park to contact about twenty minutes away, and normally we stop and talk to people on the way, but that day NO ONE WAS AROUND, except for obachans and ogichans (Grandmas and grandpas).  So that was tai hen, haha.  At the park, again it was old people only, hahaha.  Some were nice and willing to talk, but not many.  From there we biked another twenty minutes away from our area to surprise visit some members.  They weren't home.  On the way back we met one old man who was quite interesting.  He asked us why we stopped to talk to him, because he had no relationship to us.  We just told him we wanted to talk.  He said as a Japanese man he didn't talk to people.  We told him we were just being friendly, to which he said that Japanese people aren't friendly.  We then asked him how he made friends if that were the case, and he just said he didn't make friends, and that we should learn Japanese culture before we go around being rude. Unfortunately, that is the attitude with a lot of the older people.  We patiently continue to talk to them and eventually find out something like their kids all ditched them and they were divorced and simply lonely.  Normally they open up and start being more friendly, but this man didn't.  It was really sad.  If anyone needs to feel Christ's love it is him.  After that we stopped another grandpa who was wandering and stumbling around.  When I stopped him to say hi he looked up at me and fell over onto me and my bike.  Almost tipped me over.  We asked him several times if he was okay, and he assured us he was, but he wasn't making any sense, didn't know where he was, and couldn't speak because his throat was too dry.  We sat him down on the street and told him we would go to the store and buy him some water, so he sat down and we took off for a store around the corner.  We were waiting at the crosswalk on our bikes, when I glanced over and saw him wandering down the road toward us.  He stumbled in a step and fell, got up and kept walking.  I was shaking my head at this point.  This man couldn't even function.  He stopped and looked at us, jumped a little, and said, "Have we met before???"  That's when we decided to just walk with him to the convenience store.  I kept having to hold him and catch him because he kept walking into my bike pedal.  The whole time he was saying he was Buddhist, he didn't reallize that at this point we were just trying to save his life, haha.  He knew he needed help though, so he walked with us to the store.  We bought a half gallon of water, sat him down, and he drank all of it...he was suffering from severe heatstroke.  As an eighty year old man that's pretty serious I would think.  He seemed a tiny bit more steady after that, but we bought him more water and gave it to him to carry.  He wouldn't tell us where he lived, so we just left him to his own devices and prayed for him a little.  Hahahaha, it was so weird.  That whole day, Monday, I think we met every crazy in Kamagaya.  That night we tried visiting a member I had planned to, but couldn't find their house.  It was hard not to feel responsible for the poor day.  After all I planned the whole day, and led off on everything.  Some days just go bad though.  Luckily we managed to laugh most of it off, and elder Prince had some really great things to say during our splits review. It was a good day.  Tough mentally, but good. 

That pretty much sums up our week. There is always so much more, but it's just tiny details and things while trying to find investigators normally.

Danielle I'm sorry Mazer pooped in the bathtub again, haha. 

Nattles thanks for your letter sweetie! Love you.

I love everyone back in American and miss you very much.  Oh I almost forgot!  Don't send anything to me, just send it to the mission home, they send it out and handle things during transfers, so if I move they will get it to me.

President Nagano

4-25-12 Nishi-ochiai

Shinjiku-Ku Tokyo-to 161-0031

Japan

Thank you for all the support!!

Viehweg Choro

Elder's lunch after a temple trip

Elder Prince

August 16th, 2015

Hey everyone,

I sympathize with you dad. I have no idea where the time goes. We only have two weeks left in this transfer--it's nuts. First off a little business, so my birthday is like two days after transfer calls, and I may leave...or I may stay. You know how it is, they make it a surprise. So please send anything you want early or wait for me to get back to you on whether or not I am still in Kamagaya. Kinda tai hen (terrible) so sorry about that. Dad, the nihongo word is jisho. I won't name names, but messaging me via Facebook to ask what I want for my birthday prooobably isn't in line with the rules haha. I had to un-follow everyone in the family for my mission. So please keep that in mind.

I have come to learn that in a country as humid as Japan "wrinkle free" means diddly squat. Needless to say my ironing skills have drastically improved as a result. Basically have to do it every night to stay ahead of things.

Also, I think that convenience store bathrooms in Japan could be considered for the eighth wonder of the world. They have music, air fresheners, heated seats, background noise, are immaculately clean, and very private. If every convenience store in the world had a bathroom like the ones in Japan, world peace would be attainable.

So this week...dad I do keep a detailed journal, but we write at the church and it doesn't fit in my bag so I can't use it to refer to as I write. I'll try to remember everything that has happened so far.

Early this week we tried several different methods for finding, but unfortunately they haven't really panned out. The whole mission is struggling right now to find people willing to be taught, so every district, area, and zone is focusing on creative finding. Also this past week was Obone season. It's when everyone goes to the temple the one time out of the year to throw money to monks who sit all day and chant Buddha's name. It's a pretty big family holiday, and people return to their hometowns for it. Because we live next to so many universities, there is now only old people left here in Kamagaya. So finding was difficult. Old people never want to talk with us hahaha. Anyway, we did manage to find a few people by calling about a hundred names from the area book. One lives in another area so we referred him to the elders there, and the other we set up to meet him on Tuesday so that was cool. We had district meeting on Thursday, and the leaders all focused on a topic that was perfect for what we are going through right now. A huge chunk of it was centered on companionship unity and love. Everyone knows that when life gets crazy, it becomes more difficult to have a smooth relationship, and if anything is going to help us get through this slump, it is unity with our companions. They talked about showing love, and patience, and all the other Christlike attributes associated with being a disciple of him, and tied them to the companionship. I thought it was really cool. I was surprised at one point when our companionship got singled out. Every night while Tsuchida does his call in report I iron a shirt for him and for me. Didn't really think much of it at the time but he told the zone leaders about it the other day, and they brought it up in zone meeting as an example. It was pretty humbling and a little embarrassing.  I'm just happy to be able to help in some small way. He helps me so much in so many ways, ironing a shirt is just a tiny way to show my thanks.

The next day we returned to Matsudou again for mission president interviews. President and sister Nagano are so kind and loving. The Budges were more powerful and commanding, still nice, but different. The Naganos are so different but they are exactly what we need right now. Unfortunately president Nagano was running late for our interviews, so they were only about fifteen minutes long. There was so much more we wanted to talk about, but it's all good. There are plenty of other missionaries who need his help and council more I think. Talking with Nagano Shimai was wonderful. She is such a gentle, nurturing woman. You really feel the love she has as you talk to her. And of course the chocolate brownies with cream cheese frosting were deleicious. I think elder Tsuchida really was able to hear things he needed to. He puts so much pressure on himself and they both helped him to relax and be confident in what we are doing. They both had things to say about us that put a lot of fears to rest. Feelings of inadequacy, feeling like we aren't working hard enough, wondering why we aren't seeing 'success' like past elders. All that stuff was pretty much put to rest. So that was good.

One really cool thing that happened was the sisters got a baptismal date this past week. Tsuchida choro and I were sitting in priesthood one day when we got a phone call from some young Filipino woman who said she wanted to come to church and asked all kinds of questions about when and where. She lives in Chiba, which is an hour away, but insists that she needs to come to Kamagaya. Somehow at a far away Eki (train station) she was handed a Kamagaya area pamphlet. How, we do not know. But we referred her to the sisters. She came to church that next week, and met with them and agreed to be baptized in the next two weeks. She is basically a kinjin, golden investigator, and went to church with friends in the Philippines. She lives out of our area, but the sisters have permission to teach her because she requested it. Kind of funky, but apparently she is way solid. So that was really cool to see.

We met with our skype man again. He really is the only investigator who is regular. We taught him the plan of salvation, which he learned already, which he had forgotten, which he loved. He loved it because it is exactly like Buddhism....only it is absolutely NOTHING like Buddhism. These people love the gospel. They love the idea of a LOVING God, and a plan for happiness, but they are so darn rigid and traditional, they trick themselves into believing that the religions are the same and they don't need to change. So far this man has accepted everything he has been taught over the last seven months except prayer and baptism. He knows if he prays he will feel the spirit so he refuses to and says he is not worthy. He refuses to meet with us in person because he knows he will feel the spirit. He refuses to agree to baptism because he knows he will have to act and to feel the spirit. Soooooo we have no idea what to do with him. Nice guy though. Talks in circles and shows off his English a lot, but a nice man. 

Other than thaaaaat I don't remember much of this week.sorry about that. Had another earthquake, that was fun. It's cooled off some this past week which has been nice. Still very hot and humid though. 

Sounds like everyone is having a blast back at home. Keep doin the things you love!

I love you all,

Kiwotsukete ne (be careful)

Viehweg Choro

August 10th, 2015

So this week, the song that kept popping in my head while dodging traffic and small Asians on my jitensha, was the theme music for Indianna Jones. I sure love those movies. He's always been a hero of mine hahaha.

First off I am so thankful for Shannon's experience. What a wonderful thing. To be honest dad I don't remember a whole lot about that time. (Around Mom's funeral)  I think my mind has kind of repressed and blacked out a lot of what happened at that time.   Sometimes I wish I could remember it, but I can't.  So hearing about that was really good for me. What a wonderful thing for her.  Love you Shannon.

So we were able to meet with a few more investigators from the other elder's area book this week. Of course, as soon as they heard what our purpose was, they insisted they were not interested.  Unfortunately this has become the pattern for all of those investigators. I think that the other elders were a little vague on their purpose, and people don't really understand what we are doing, so when Tsuchida Choro and I meet with them, they don't want anything to do with what we are doing. Needless to say we have continued to clean up the area book.  We are both thinking that cleaning up Kamagaya may be our purpose this transfer.  We haven't been able to connect with our own investigators, except one, and none of the people we find want to continue to meet.  So, we are just doing what we can when we can. It's hard to feel like you are doing anything to help the area, but there is a reason I'm here in Kamagaya, and who am I to say what that purpose should be? 

On Tuesday, we had been invited to come to a festival with some of our eikaiwa students.  We are allowed to do such things if we make sure they understand that we will take the time to discuss the gospel some, and we have men for us elders, and women for the sisters to accompany.  The festival was Tuesday night, and by that time, we still hadn't found someone who wanted to go with us. It was only women so far. The women students had told us of all the foods they were going to make for us and things they were going to buy us, so we felt really bad.  We were going to call them to say we couldn't go, when the other elder's recent convert, Yoshida Kyodai, asked if we could help him get to the Eki. So we had to go to the Eki, see the women, and then tell them we couldn't go. It was so awkward.  As we were walking up, they were jumping up and down and waving and before we could get a word out, they gave us packages with traditional clothing for the festival to wear AND keep. After that we told them "Uh, so actually we can't go...sorry.."  They were devastated for an instant, and then they got over it and set down their bags and cases in the middle of the crowded Eki, and proceeded to unpack food they had made for us, and give it to us to take with us back to our apartment.  Elder Tsuchida and I felt sooooo guilty just watching them all on their knees unpacking onagiri, yakisoba, bread, fruit...it was awful....but soooo funny hahaha. They are sweet old ladies, so they still love us.  I honestly don't know what Japan would do without women. The men are so gruff, closed off, and proud, but the women are so kind and gentle and patient. It's crazy how different the genders are here. I don't know how they get along, or get married.  Anyway..dinner that night was good.

We have been teaching a convert who was baptized last November, but has only come to church three times since. He works all day on Sunday and his boss won't let him change his schedule. It's really sad, when we meet with him, we can feel his spirit and testimony, and his desire to obey is strong, but his boss won't let him. He still comes to eikaiwa every week, so we just feed him spiritually. I think we might try to have him start looking for a new job.  People here in Japan work so hard for not very much.  It is such an expensive country, and there are so many people, it is hard for them to be able to be flexible with their work and schedules.  I always tell Tsuchida one thing I am grateful for in being an American, is that we know how to work hard, but we also know how to play hard.  I don't think people really enjoy thier lives, they just work and then go to other obligations. It's pretty sad, but the church members give you hope. They manage to find time for what really matters. How, I don't know, but they do it and it shows.

I gave my first talk this past Sunday. It was on the sacred calling of parents. Luckily I have such great examples to draw from. I talked about the scripture in 1 Corinthians about man and women being created together, and about the sons of Hellman and thier mothers. I breifly referenced how you took such good care of us dad during a very difficult time, and everyone was blown away by your example. They thought it was nuts that we would wake up at five thirty to read scriptures together, and do FHE, and family dinner. They loved it though. Needless to say dad, you are now a hero in the Kamagaya ward.  I think talking about your example actually made a lot of them desire to review thier priorities and such.  So thank you for always being such a great example, and taking your calling as a parent so seriously.  Of course all the members were very complementary of my Japanese. I still think it is just out of politeness. Oh well, I don't think I spoke any false doctrine, so that's a plus.

Dad I keep forgetting to talk about the Skype appointments. Our skype man lives in Shiroi which is like forty minutes away by bike, but he insists on meeting over Skype. It started six months ago as an English class, and since then he has really gained an appreciation for missionaries and the Book of Mormon.  But he refuses to meet in person because he knows our message is true, and feels the spirit, and knows that if we meet in person he will only feel it that much stronger. Guess how old he is?  75. The ogichans (older folks) always have such horrible outlandish excuses for not doing things, it would be funny if we didn't know how close he is.  Anyway we skype for an hour and teach a lesson from the church. I don't like it, but at least we got to do something with an investigator.  Such a drought right now we are grateful any opportunity to teach. Maybe he is one of those people who after six years will finally get over his fear of change, like the stories you always hear about.

I can never remember what happens throughout the week.  Pday arrives and my mind is so ful of gospel, and Japanese, and random things that I can't think straight. So sorry if I forget things.

Kristin I hope you and John can make a decision soon on what you want to do. That's a tough one for sure. It kinda makes me sad hearing about how bad the army is...it's all I have ever really wanted to do... Oh well. You could have a kid?  I hear that solves all your problems...

Macsen thanks for the pro tip!  With all the humidity the collar stains are hard to get rid of.  The Japanese have some special formula cleaner made especially for it, but it's expensive so I'll try the shampoo. Miss you and love you so much!

I sure love you all. I hope all is well there in murica.

Viehweg choro

The breakfast Elder Viehweg made for his companion's birthday

Celebration cupcake

Close up on the American breakfast

Tokyo entertainment

August 3rd, Toyko

Another crazy week full of blood sweat and tears here in Kamagaya.  Lately more sweat I would say.
It's good to have pday.  I am still cleaning up my Facebook and I have to un-follow a lot of people and end friendships, and in doing so, seeing my friend's engagement photos has been really weird hahaha. That seems so far away and I do NOT want to think about it. I sure am happy for Brig and Phillip though. They are two of the best for sure.
So this week started off incredibly well. We had a threesome exchange where our new zone leader, Maki choro, came to Kamagaya to work with us for twenty four hours. Let me tell you he is the best missionary I have met since the start of this crazy thing. I have never worked with someone who has more zeal, passion, love, and commitment to the work. As a nihonjin you expect them to be quiet reserved and polite, but not Maki choro. The guy is running down the streets after people who rejected us four times to give them a pamphlet before they lose us, he is telling jokes, and relating the people's lives and interests to the gospel with such excitement that you see the fire catch in their eyes. It was almost to the point where they were taking the Book of Mormon from us. We talked to so many people that day, and gave out eight books of Mormon all together I think. As a sannin (threesome) it is sometimes hard to work together, but me, Tsuchida choro, and Maki choro really hit our stride that day. We all contributed and I had never spoken Japanese that well before. It was an awesome day. We finished off with splits review and Maki choro really had some humbling things to say. He really had no advice for us. He said everything we are doing is what we should be doing, that we should simply be more confident out there when we proselyte was his only advice. I personally pretty much always think I am not doing enough in anything I do, so hearing that was really great. He also said that I had the best japanese of any second transfer missionary he had met. After that, he talked about how president Nagano had been hearing so much about us specifically and that he wanted us to take on this area ourselves because of it. Coming from such an incredible missionary, this stuff was more valuable than gold to me. All I can think about now is how I can do more, how I can better improve and serve. All these complements really took me off guard, almost like we didn't deserve them. So as a result Tsuchida choro and I are really committing to getting to the next level of work and commitment in any way that we can. Really such a humbling thing to hear.
The next day and days following we found out why we had been paid so many compliments. From Tuesday to Friday it was basically a desert for proselyting. All week we were rejected like we never have been before. Our schedule kept having wrenches thrown in it, and we simply could not connect with people. I don't think we gave any Books of Mormon out and maybe one or two pamphlets. So on Monday, God was prepping us to be humbled yet again, and to remember that HE is behind this work. It was very difficult for me not to let myself get down, but my trainer is the best. Tsuchida choro's faith was always sky high and he never let anything get him down. I simply tried to follow his example as best I could. Midway through the week we discovered where we were needed at this time. The transfer before I arrived, the other elders baptized one Yoshida Kyodai. He is a simple minded, really sweet man. He is committed and bikes very far to church every week and to eikaiwa (English class) as well. Since our area was consolidated, he is now our responsibility. So we visited him. We found out that his neighbors are insane, and have harassed and even stolen from him recently. He cannot move because he is very poor, so we talked about dedicating his home. Later we contacted the bishop and he gave us the go ahead. So we returned on Friday and dedicated his home. Tsuchida used some pretty solemn and respectful Japanese, so I didn't understand the honorifics, but I felt the peace settle on his home. I am so grateful I could experience that. From there, we went down to the apartment complex common for a small festival and ate dinner with Yoshida Kyodai. During the festival they had this awesom taikou group perform on stage. Let me tell you taikou is THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. These tiny but jacked Japanese men go nuts on these huge drums with bamboo drumsticks in such intricate rhythms. There is so much power and reverberation in those drums. They mixed in chants and yells too. Really the only thing I can think of is power. But you should all go look it up, the choreography they mix in while playing the drums is soooo cool. They stretch their arms out and move with the rhythm at certain times that really enhances the experience. I definitely hope to see that again.
The next day we pretty much got rejected everywhere we went. A couple people even had the police come talk to us because apparently we were forcing people to accept our message. Whatever, it was frustrating, but also funny haha. We were about to do some service for a member, and got all changed, but right as we were getting on our bikes I had the most powerful and intense uneasy feeling come over me. I just sat there saying over rand over something is wrong. Tsuchida choro was really understanding and patient and just said okay let's go do some streeting at the train station. So we changed again and headed in the complete opposite direction. I was feeling a little down because the day had not gone well and I felt bad for making us switch gears and throw off the groove again. While on our bikes we were contacted by the sister in the ward who teaches seminary. Apparently one of the students named Takun had told her he didn't want to go home after class, so she left him at the church. She said that she was actually worried about all the children from that home, and that she knew proselyting was our first priority, but if we had time she asked that we think about swinging by the church to check on Takun. Of course we immediately went there. It turns out that there has been some fighting in the home. We didn't press, but we just talked with him about life and joked with him, let him know we loved him and gave a sort of impromptu lesson on family, love and forgiveness. I knew then that was why I had felt so uneasy. It was great to know that God trusted us to lead us to someone in need. Takun comes to eikaiwa all the time, and he is always willing to do member present lessons, so it was great to be able to help him.
Other than that we taught a few member families some lessons and things like that before the week ended. Fast Sundaywas a real treat. Takun got up and expressed how thankful he was for us and our service, and several of the other members did the same. They all felt that we loved them and wanted to help strengthen their testimony, which is our purpose. So that was really good to hear. Again very humbling, being blessed with these experiences only reinforces the fact that I need to work harder and try to do more.
All in all this week was about the members I think. Sunday night at the Eki while I was being ignored by nihonjins hahaha, a Mongolian who moved here to work just walked up and asked where church was, what I did here, what the book was that I was holding, and questions about the gospel. We communicated through my very broken Japanese for a while, then with Tsuchida's help got his phone number. He was in a hurry to catch a train, but he took the book and a flyer. So we hope we can meet him again soon. The week was such a roller coaster--holy cow. I can remember so often feeling like my faith was a little weak, or that I was beginning to doubt, but I think that as long as we work to maintain the faith we have, and keep ourselves obedient and dilligent, God will make up for the rest of our weakness. The keys are obedience and diligence I suppose. At least they were this week.
Today we had zone pday because of the new zone being formed which was very fun. We did a picture scavenger hunt, and suikardi. Suikardi is like Japanese piñata. Except it's a watermelon on the ground and you smash it with a pole. Then everyone eats the watermelon haha. Very funny because when people miss, the ground jars them pretty good.
Man...not sure what else has happened. I don't even know anymore. Things are just blurry and run together. It makes me nervous because if I am ever called to be a trainer or something, I feel like I won't even know what's going on half the time. Seriously, I never want to be in a leadership position here hahah.
Thanks for the letters everyone! Brit the camper looks awesome! Use it well. Macsen thanks for the collar stain advice! Shannon I am sorry I haven't had time to write you!
I love you all and I love this work,
Viehweg Choro

When I don't get email

P-day antics

Act like a duck

Shake hands with a stranger

Doing Service

July 27th, 2015

Stop emailing about camping!!!!!! Hahaha there is NO open space here and your letters are killing me..Really though I'm fine haha. Jokes. But seriously hearing about Redfish and then about Kristin's Smoky Mountain trip really made me miss camping, and I think we are living in the same climate so I feel your pain hahaha! Anyway, I'm glad you all are having a blast in America. Japan is pretty fun too:)
So,
This week while riding our bikes to and from places I keep getting the opening theme music from MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER stuck in my head Hahahaha. Sometimes it's so bad I almost run into the back of Tsuchida Choro. Whoops. Since then I have been working on staying focused on the purpose even while riding my jitensha (bicycle). Still, pretty funny that something so random popped into my head this week. Sure did love those movies.
Danielle congratulations on the beautiful little Avery. Love the small tribute to mom in her name too:) Warms my heart.
This week was of course, as you can imagine, nuts. We have taken in the whole area between us two and the north and south Matsudou zones combined so now everyone's area is bigger. We got soooo many people from the other elder's area book and have been trying to contact them all while taking care of our own mikomi kyudoshas (investigators). On Thursday, we had a SIX HOUR WEEKLY PLANNING SESSION. We sat down and went through all of the names in the other elder's area book, and talked about each one, dropped some, called some, and made plans to contact and get to know them. By the end of it poor Tsuchida Choro was pooped out. He works so hard, and he is taking his responsibility as trainer/district leader seriously, which is great. He is always genki (cheerful) though and ready to take on the days.
Our apartment seems so enormous now with only two elders living in it, no more studying in the genkan hahaha. It's so quiet too. Tsuchida Choro is the classical, incredibly polite, show no emotion kind of Japanese person. Since his mission started, he has really come out of his shell so it's good now, but we both aren't super loud people haha. It's been nice to breathe a little in the apartment and not have six lines of laundry hanging all across the kitchen and tatami room as well.
Last Friday we had a lesson with one person, who talked for an hour straight, about what, I have nooooo idea. It was super windy from the OTHER typhoon coming through and I was sitting on the other side of Tsuchida Choro on a bench, so I basically looked at nature and prayed for an hour straight. A little frustrating, but nothing could be done about it.
On Saturday we taught eikaiwa (English class) which is always fun. I love hearing nihonjin try to pronounce English r l and v sounds hahaha. So awesome. It is exactly how you would expect it to be. They are great and work hard and participate which is nice. A lot of the time I can't really explain things in Japanese so I just say it in English and hope for the best, luckily for me they are so patient and appreciative that it is free.  That night we had a dinner appointment with the Matsumoto family who took us out my first night here in Kamagaya. They ALWAYS are finding referrals and most of the time they don't pan out, but they understand how it is and just keep feeding us people. It's great. So we biked forty minutes to their house and ate with an older man. While talking we found out that he chain smokes and loves osake so he may be a tough one. He was friendly though and loved our message about service. He said next time he gets out to work in his garden he will invite us. So it was a success, his Japanese is so hard though, even Tsuchida Choro had a tough time understanding him. We will see how that one pans out.
Sunday was great. My brain exploded as usual, but I am more used to it now and just try to soak it all in hoping that I am really learning. At church we met this kid from New Mexico who is studying here for a year through Dartmouth, he is a genius. He has a full ride and they pay for his travel and housing and food while out here. Anyway his schedule is not so bad so he may start coming to help us with eikaiwa which will be good because we are short handed now. Nice kid, and active in the church as far as I can tell.
This past week we had a Skype lesson with the same man, Tomita San, we always do. We talked about prayer and helped him understand the people and civilizations in the Book of Mormon. He was gracious as ever and tried to praise us the whole time. I am so nervous about him loving us and not the gospel that we ALWAYS are so careful to just give all credit for who we are to the gospel and what we have learned. At the end we invited him to pray and of course because he is Buddhist he refused kindly. I then felt impressed to tell him that he is too good a person for God to let go, and God will not give up on him, so we won't either. I said it may take a long time, but that I truly believed he will come to know these things are true. To that he said if I keep that attitude we may just help him change, whatever that means. Anyway he knows it's true, and feels the spirit, he just doesn't want to change. We will keep working on him for sure. After the lesson he said today was the best lesson he has ever had, which was awesome because he has been meeting with missionaries since Christmas. Pray for him.
Tsuchida Choro and I seem to be getting better at working together. There are times where I can't understand or speak much, but those times seem to be much less frequent. Still a long way to go yet of course, patience is the bane of my existence hahaha.
Sorry these are so random, but Sunday night we had another dinner appointment with the Saito family. They had a super adorable super hyperactive five year old girl and the ward mission leader came as well. It was really great. Dad I don't know if this was your experience but dinner appointments in Japan take way too long. In the white handbook it says no more an an hour, and we are often there for two and a half. Simply put THEY DONT LET YOU LEAVE. There are times I want to lean over to Tsuchida Choro and say we should be out working, but it's just different here. Instead I try to wait patiently and pick out words I know in the conversation. Mostly unsuccessfully Hahahaha. Anyway when we finally were allowed to share our lesson, we talked about the restoration, the Book of Mormon, and how it has blessed our families. As soon as I introduced the lesson the room became so peaceful. Their tiny apartment was filled with the presence of the spirit. Even the little girl sat there staring at us with her huge brown eyes. We had each person explain their conversion story and how they knew the Book of Mormon was true. It was so awesome. Tsuchida Choro does such a good job of channelling the spirit and love of Christ into what he says.
I can't say enough how wonderful it is to have this be my purpose all day every day. What a wonderful calling to study share and teach about the word of God. When I see and hear people talk from their soul, honestly, about things that too often go unsaid it fills me with so much hope and joy for their future and mine. In this country in particular, no one speaks with very much honesty, out of politeness or to hide any "weaknesses" they feel they may show. It truly is heartbreaking, but there are special times when those cultural barriers are broken down, and you get glimpse of their spirit and soul. It is such a precious and sacred thing to me.
This past week I talked to one man at an eki who listened well to what I said. When I offered him a Book of Mormon, he refused. Looking at him I knew there was something wrong, something he wanted to talk about but was refusing to. I prodded and tried to find out what was wrong asking him if he was okay, and he seemed to be having a mental battle as to whether or not to talk to me about what was in his heart. I saw and felt his struggle, not sure how, but I did. And I felt so much empathy for him. All I wanted was to hear what he was thinking about, and help him with whatever that was. Unfortunately he only buried it all deeper. I continued to think about him all night. I'm not sure what I am trying to say, I suppose it is that I am grateful to be doing what I do with the help of the spirit.
What else..I'm not quite sure.
Tell Rachel I am so happy for her an Shaun. And tell Todd congratulations for his mission call, that's such great news. Jessica your story about the Dutch oven was awesome Hahahaha. Natalie sounds like you had quite an adventure for girls camp, those things turn into really great memories I promise haha.
Things are difficult of course, but I do love it. Sunday it was one hundred degrees with ninety eight percent humidity, so I was soaked through with sweat hahah, but I could care less. We had a great day finding yesterday with the little time we had and that's all that matters. I'm excited to continue to learn and grow and change, I only hope I CAN change, and not remain so stubborn and weak all the time.
Dad I hope you find a home for the trailer and thank you for the words of encouragement! You better be brushing up on nihongo, I'm gonna run tracks around you come Christmas time.
Love everyone so much.
Viehweg Choro

At Matsumoto

Ramen

Garden plot form apartment 

Sunset scene

Sunset from church