April 4th, 2016 Cherry Blossoms

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

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