November 23rd, 2015

This morning sister Chatman and I got up and ran in 14 degree weather.  Ohhhhhhh---it was sooo cold. And I know it's just going to keep getting colder and colder here. The weather really took a turn, last week we were enjoying the mid 60s and this week we are lucky to have 25 degree weather with a wind-chill that makes it feel like 10 degrees. Sister Chatman and I lost our car last Wednesday so when the blizzard hit Saturday morning you better believe we were out door knocking in it! I love the snow, so I wasn't too angry about it, but sister Chatman grew up in Washington state so snow is not enjoyable for her, haha!  It wasn't cold enough for most of the snow to stick, but we got a good solid 8 inches. The roads are realllly slick now and we have both fallen a couple times already, can't I wait for more snow...:)

We had a pretty solid week for having no car. It's always tough getting to all your appointments when you have to walk everywhere, and there is nothing worse than walking 2 hours to an appointment only to have them ditch you (Happened twice during the blizzard). Wednesday we had a zone training that President Jacobsen showed up to. It's kind of funny when President J decides to make a random appearance, everyone immediately starts to look around and wonder who got in trouble this time, Haha. Training was good, it was all about how to make the Sabbath day our best day. Sundays are  supposed to be a day of rest, but out on a mission THEY. ARE. CRAZY!!!  Sooo busy and stressful. So the training was good.

Sister Chatman and I went door knocking in the boonies this past week. It's definitely hunting season for these Michiganders. Dead deer were everywhere!  We passed this one garage with piles and piles of dead deer. There must have been over 40 deer in that garage!!  Smelled horrible!!  I guess another thing to do here in Michigan during hunting season is to kill all the squirrels. The squirrels in Michigan look more like large cats, they're HUGE!  And after the rednecks kill the squirrels they cut off their tails and hang them on their car antennas?!!  I don't know, it's the weirdest thing...

The work has been good, a little slower than we would like, but that just leaves time for more door knocking, which I have grown to love. Too many funny experiences happen door knocking, how could someone not like it?  We are still teaching Alajuwan and Kathy.  Alajuwan is now moving into Kathy's dad's house and his dad will be taking care of him because Kathy's daughter, Brandy (that we were teaching) ran away.  I'm still feeling nervous for that little boy.  Jessica is doing well, still needs to get married though.  Donny and Pita are awesome. They both work on Sundays so it's been hard to get them to church. I don't remember anyone working on Sundays when I was growing up, I guess not being in a Mormon community changes things, because everyone here works on Sundays.

I woke up the other night around 3:30am to sister Chatman pulling me out of my bed by my toes!  She was totally sleep-walking, but of course I thought someone was trying to kidnap me!!!  I yelled at her and she woke up and was so confused about what she was doing. I guess in her dream I was handing her a piece of music?  I don't know, but this year I sure am grateful for a companion that I love and get along with.

Can't believe this Thursday is Thanksgiving!!  We have a couple of parties to crash so it will be fun.

I am Thankful for each and every single one of you and hope you have a great holiday!!!  Alma 34:38

Love,

Sister Viehweg

November 16th, 2015

Hello Friends and Family!!   Another good week out on the mission, tomorrow it's my 5 month mark...holy cow it's almost been half a year! Time is flying by, but also standing still. The weather here is really messing me up. I keep bracing myself for the cold, but it never comes. This past week was in the mid 60s and 50s. Seems like everywhere else is getting snow except for Michigan. One member told me yesterday at church that one year it was 72 degrees in Bay City on Christmas! I'm a little bummed. I WANT to see some SNOW! (Famous last words right?)

Sister Chatman and I have been busy busy busy. This week we met with Jessica Cantu and finally put her on baptism date! Jessica has been through so much. Every day we meet with her I am reminded of how lucky and blessed I am to have grown up in the gospel. Jessica is 30, has two kids and has been with her boyfriend, Mike, for 15 years. The only thing holding her back from being baptized in December is Mike--he won't marry her! Everyone here in Bay City does things backwards. No one is married. So that will be our biggest challenge with her, but we have some tricks up our sleeves to pull on Mike, so pray for us in that area!

We picked up another investigator named Tammy, who is in love with us. We had a really good first lesson with her and when we came back a couple days later she was already half way through Moroni 10!  We walked through her front door and immediately hit a wall of burning incense and cigarette smoke. My lungs are going to be so damaged after I get off this mission. I constantly smell like smoke. A couple of the young women yesterday asked me why my bag smelled like cigarettes. ITS NOT MY FAULT!   Anyways, Tammy's entire house had burning incense holders on every shelf. I kid you not the house was hazy looking. Most people here are pretty unsanitary when it comes to their homes, fleas, bed bugs, dust, garbage, cat litter everywhere, dirty dishes, etc., etc. Tammy's problem was fleas....one of my favorites.... We sat down at her table and her cat jumped up on my lap.  My first thought was to chuck the cat across the room, but I refrained and started petting it. Sister Chatman then kicked my leg under the table to get my attention. I looked down at the cat and I could literally see FLEAS CRAWLING ALL OVER THE CAT!  It took all my self control to not freak out.  I calmly pushed the cat off my lap and ended the lesson within the next 10 minutes. We walked out the door and I bolted down the street shaking off my skirt and hair and bag and throwing my coat off. I was SOOOOOO grossed out!  Why do people even have animals!??!

The Guistiniani's fed us again this week, Good Italian food as usual, one day they will stop talking long enough for us to get a spiritual lesson in...  A New Yorker/Italian is never a good mix if you want to get a word in edgewise... The relief society had a good crafts activity on Saturday, I am terrible at crafts so I did my best to enjoy it!  It was fun to hang around all the ladies in the ward, plus a couple of investigators showed up!  We got on the topic of whether or not Mormons can date more than one guy and, Uncle Kelly, I told everyone about how you used to tell me Neapolitan was the way to go with dating and everyone thought it was the funniest thing.  Don't worry I gave you full credit :)

I LOVE EVERYONE!  Have a fantastic week!

Love,
Sister Viehweg

November 9th, 2015

Good Morning!!

To answer your question pops it actually hasn't been getting too cold over here. At the beginning of this week it hit the 70s!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. Everyone in the ward feels a little sheepish because they all have been telling me about how horrible the winters are here after I tell them how much I love winter. We were in short sleeves and short skits Monday & Tuesday, but by the end of the week we had our first frost soooo Winter is coming!

This past week was a lot of work. We have been having problems with a couple of our investigators. I think last week I told you a bit about Mario and how he wasn't interested in learning? Well for some reason we now see him everywhere and our last encounter was horribly awkward.  He came right up to be and said, "Sister V, I will join the church if you marry me."  You can imagine my surprised reaction!  I had no idea what to say so I just started laughing.  I think I hurt his feelings a little bit, because he turned really red and walked away.  What do you do in those situations though!?

Another one of our investigators, Kathy, who was excommunicated a while back, announced to us that she has to go to jail for 30 days starting December 1st.  Kathy is my THIRD investigator to be put in jail while I've been teaching them.  Broke my heart.  We are also working with her 8 year old son, Alajuwan, and he was supposed to be baptized Dec 5th, but it looks like we will be changing that date because the mother definitely needs to be there.  Kathy is handling the news pretty well considering the fact that she will be missing Alajuwan's birthday, potential baptism, and Christmas. Kathy is really all Alajuwan has so we are pretty concerned with how he will be taken care of. All the family they have around are pretty sketchy and irresponsible so hopefully we can get the church to help them out.  Prayers are needed their way ASAP!

On Tuesday we tag teamed a bunch of less actives with the relief society president. Sometimes I get soooo overwhelmed when I look at the ward and see all the members that need our help. How can I possibly help all these people? I kept asking myself this question all throughout the week, but the answer I kept receiving was the same each time, "One person at a time."

My challenge for you all this week is to go and help the  missionaries! If it's feeding them, going to lessons, giving referrals, giving a ride, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING helps!

Other news this week? Not much, a new really cute missionary moved into our area from Idaho and he's a skier who grew up on Bogus so its been fun to talk about home with him.

Sister Chatman and I also found a pet squirrel! ( see pictures) 

Funny story this week

 

We were out door knocking and sister Chatman looked over at a field and said, "Are those boys??? they look kinda short."  I looked at her and said, "You are sooooo desperate sister, They're like 8 years old! Look at the school!"  We were passing an elementary school and the "boys," little 3rd graders, were running around at lunch break. Hahaha needless to say she was a bit embarrassed and I am refusing to let her live it down.

I have so much love for all of you and really do think about you all the time! Enjoy this season and remember what you are grateful for! 

Sister Viehweg

November 1st, 2015

Happy belated Halloween!!!! It's been a good week out here in Michigan!

Transfer calls were last Friday and it looks like I will be spending another transfer here in Bay City with Sister Chatman as my companion! We are more than excited! She goes home in December so it's looking like I will kill her off, which we are both grateful for because we love each other! Another  transfer together was needed. At the end of October things seemed to be falling apart and we needed an opportunity to set some new goals and standards for ourselves. So hopefully this next transfer will end a little better. It was weird writing December down in our calendars! Where has the year gone!?

At the beginning of the week Mario, the really golden Hispanic investigator, dropped us. We were both pretty bummed about that, but it just wasn't the right time for him. At least we were able to plant some good seeds. A lot of the time people will say to us on door steps, "You are wasting your time" but time is never wasted when you are doing the Lord's work. And when one door closes the Lord always opens another one. That night we got a call from Kalle Martinez. She is 16 years old and has been in and out of lessons with missionaries. She called us to ask if we wanted to play basketball with her and her family on Halloween. Of course we said yes, sister Chatman was beyond excited. Kalle's father was excommunicated and his working on being re-baptized and his girlfriend and their kids are all wanting to take discussions and be baptized as well. All last transfer we were trying to build a relationship with this family and had zero luck. The basketball invite was a total breakthrough!

So Halloween rolls around and we are getting pretty pumped to play. I haven't played basketball since freshman year, so you could say I was feeling a bit rusty. Well a bit rusty was an UNDERSTATEMENT!  We show up to play at Kalle's high school and her and her family are all warming up and look like pros...Here I am with my leggings and Nike Frees looking like a complete idiot while Sister Chatman whips our her BYU gear she was sent and new basketball high tops. I couldn't help but think that this was about to get realllll embarrassing. So they split up the teams and there's a missionary rule where comps have to guard each other so I was guarding Sis Chatman who is 5'11". She was stomping ALLLL over me! And my team was full of Martinez's who were pulling out all these plays and sneaky passes. I literally was running around in circles trying not to get in their way. The game was wayyyyy too fast paced for me and soooo hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing and ran away from the passes thrown at me because the dad was CHUCKING THEM at me! Good times though and we built some pretty good relationships. I swear the things missionaries do for people...We will bend over backwards and humiliate ourselves for people.

Last night I held a tarantula!  For those of you who don't know I am soooo scared of spiders so this was very uncharacteristic of me. The spider belonged to a 22 year old in our ward and he practically forced me into it. The tarantula was huge, soft, fuzzy, named cuddles, I was sweating and crying and screaming, and will never do I again.

Love you all, God is Good, and have a good week!

Sister Viehweg

Investigator Sherry

Tarantual

October 26th, 2015

Hey hey normal civilization, how is everything going??? Sometimes... no all the time, I forget that there is a normal life going on outside of Bay City, Michigan, and then I read everyone's emails and I'm thinking "why aren't they out knocking on doors?" So thanks for bringing me back! Once again it's been a crazy week. Why haven't I gotten it through my head yet that every single day on a mission is crazy? 

This week was great, we lost our car last Wednesday so Sister Chatman and I have been on foot. We clocked out our mileage this time and have been averaging 10 miles per day. Two days ago we decided to do a leg work out, because we are dumb, and I still can't walk normally! Yesterday at church everyone kept coming up and asking us why we were limping..so embarrassing.

Paul is doing really well, he loves being a mormon, it's so cute. And he's now helping all the missionaries out. He takes the sacrament to people with the elders and teaches lessons with us. Dad, I don't think you need to worry about getting him anything, he loves online shopping and I'm sure has already ordered everything a mormon could possibly need, including food storage :)

President interviews were this week and that was a little stressful. President Jacobsen holds so much power and still makes me a little nervous. He used to be a coach so he loves all the athletes out here, lucky me, haha. In case any of you are worried, I passed my first president interview with FLYING colors.

Jessica, our new investigator is doing really well. She loves learning about the gospel and asks all the right questions. Makes me feel like im an awesome missionary...HA-HA...  She has been praying a bit, but still feels nervous about coming to church.  Mario, our new Hispanic investigator, came to church yesterday and was a little overly greeted by our Hispanic members. Holy cow, they really know how to welcome a person. Everyone was speaking Spanish and Sister Chatman and I were just standing there awkwardly looking sooo dumb. I took one semester of Spanish in 7th grade, so the only thing I can remember how to say is "where are my pants?" in Spanish. NOT helpful. After church Mario was like, "I haven't felt that at home since I left Mexico." So it's looking promising for him!

Funny stories this week:

Sister Chatman and I offered to help this less active member out at her animal shelter event on Thursday. First off, I hate animals. I think most people know this about me, but if you don't, I really just dislike them. Also Sister Chatman is terrified of dogs because she got bit by one pretty badly in middle school. So as soon as we walked into the shelter we were overpowered with the stench of animals...shocker.  The member, Sister Grimmer, wanted to give us a tour so we started walking around the shelter (this was my first time at a shelter).  The shelter looked like a prison for dogs. Sooooo mannnnny barking dooooogs! It was so loud we could hardly hear sister Grimmer talking. Once I looked over at Chatman and she looked like she was about to cry!  Hahaha-- too funny!  We ended up having to tie bandannas around the dogs which consisted of me getting locked in the cages with a dog, basically wrestling it, while sister chatman watched from the outside. IT WAS TERRIBLE!! We were there for about 2 hours and were completely covered with hair. The cats were even worse, but I don't have time to tell you about them. Stay tuned for next week!  But know that I will NEVER go in another animal shelter again!

More door knocking bloopers:

We knocked on this door and next thing I know a dog is chasing me down the street. FOR ABOUT 10 MINTUES.....I hate animals...

Okay, love you all!  Sorry this is a bit scatter brained, our time was cut again!! 

Sister Viehweg

October 20th- Baptism!

It is definitely fall/winter here in Michigan. The temperature DROPPED to the 40s and 30s this past week and our heater broke! So we have been doing anything and everything we can to stay warm at  night. Hopefully the maintenance men will be able to fix our heater today.

Alright, this week was awesome! Saturday Paul Juarez Jr. was baptized!!! I still can't believe it all happened. It was such a cool experience. Sister Chatman and I had to go to the church 3 hours early to start filling up the font. Due to the pipes being so old we had to turn the water on for 15 minutes and then off for 20 minutes until it was completely full. I don't know why, I don't ask questions, but it took FOREVER. While we were filling up the font we watched all the new addiction recovery videos that the church just released. Those videos are AMAZING! Everyone needs to watch them. And I'm not just saying that as an overexcited sister missionary. A couple of the videos had sister Chatman and I in tears!

Anyways, the font was filled, everyone showed up who needed to be there, and Paul was just too excited. He kept saying he was about to be "bean dipped" because he's Mexican hahaha. Afterwards I asked him how he felt and his response was "extra white, sister." He's too cute and was completely glowing! The next day he came to church to be confirmed and his smile said it all. THIS CHURCH IS TRUE. Not only have I witnessed the spiritual change in Paul since I met him in July, but also the physical Change. Its amazing what the gospel does to people. I have never seen a more happy 52 year old Mexican. Paul has my heart!

We had another lesson with Sarah Goretski and she pulled out this destroyed quad. It was the first book of Mormon/Bible she had ever received and told us that her husky had torn it apart while her and her husband were on vacation 5 years ago. She told us she just couldn't bring herself to throw it away, so of course sister Chatman and I told her we would repair it. I don't know what we were thinking. The dog had literally torn the quad to shreds and slobbered all over it (this is why you should never have animals). So this week we have been taping a quad back together, with scotch tape #soclassy. I will have to send a picture next week. It looks pretty good, but the amount of tape we have used is ridiculous. 

The rest of the week was sooo busy. Sister Chatman and I set another record of lessons this week. I still don't know how it happened. We would go from lesson to lesson and each time I didn't think it could get any harder to get off a couch, but it did.  I have never felt so tired in all my life. Sometimes I walk out of lessons and think to myself, "what did I even say in there?"  There's no way I am carrying out each day without God's help.

I love this work. Its the hardest thing I have ever done, but also the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

Have a great week!

Door Knocking bloopers:

man: " I got back from overseas in 2008."

Sister V: "welcome back!"

man: no response..shut the door

Sister C: "welcome back? its been 7 years sister..."

Sister Viehweg

Lilly Pond

Paul's baptism

Fall leaves

Sister selfie