September 6th, 2016

OH my gosh... Where do I even begin with this letter...

So two weeks ago I packed up everything I owned (gave more than half of it away) and said goodbye to K-Zoo and hello to East Lansing and Michigan State Uuniversity. That was quite the emotional goodbye. Everyone tells you it's the people you will love the most, but no one talks about how emotional it always is to leave the people you become so close with.  My first couple of days spent in East Lansing I stayed with the other set of STL's that I will be partnering with (if that's what you can call it). We three worked campus all day every day until the new missionaries came in Wednesday night.  I forgot how big MSU was.  That place is literally gigantic.  50,000+ students.  So many foreigners too.  My first day on campus was two days before school officially started, but all the students from out of the country come early to get situated. I felt like I was serving in Hong Kong for a bit.  Wednesday night rolled around and it was super fun going to the airport, I haven't been inside one since I came out, and welcoming all the new missionaries.  We thought it best that I didn't tell any of them that I was also a trainer, so I was able to get to know them all pretty well.  There's only one way to explain them all, "wide eyed and bushy tailed."  They have no idea what they are getting themselves into :)

   Thursday morning I had to head to the Stake center early with Sister Jacobsen (my temporary companion) because I was asked by President Jacobsen to train all the trainers on training.  Did all that make sense?  I trained for about 40 minutes until it was time to go meet the greenies!  President J lined us all up and gave the big count down.  My new comps are Sister Hymas, from Pleasant Grove Utah, and Sister Dehl, from Burlington Wyoming.  Both of them are super different and had super different upbringings, but I am excited to be with both.  They were shocked when they found out we were in charge of an area on campus and very scared. As soon as we got all their luggage together I took them straight to campus and gave them the real experience.  Hahaha, the poor things, they had no idea what to do or what was going on.  In fact I have been talking so much that my voice is practically gone this morning.

    I knew double training (two greenies) was going to be tough, along with being an STL, but I had no idea what to expect and I definitely didn't expect what it's like.  All my time, focus, and attention is completely on other people right now.  If I am not talking to the greenies, I am on the phone with the assistants, if not the assistants, the ZL's, if not the ZL's other missionaries in the Lansing Zone. The Lansing Zone had to open a bunch of new areas because of all the new missionaries that came in, so we are now the biggest zone in the mission. Yikes! Life is sooo busy!

    MSU had it's first home game on Friday, and that was a real treat. People were going crazy. The frat houses were OUT OF CONTROL.  I thought movies exaggerated those things, but they definitely do not.  Sooo many people were all over campus and we for sure took advantage of it all.  Sister Dehl and Sister Hymas both come from pretty sheltered backgrounds and I don't think they are used to this type of crazy campus lifestyle.  Sister Hymas came from Happy Valley, Utah and Sister Dehl grew up in a town with a population of 250.  Haha!!  PRAY FOR ALL OF US PLEASE. 

One last thing, please pray for our area, we need investigators.

I love you all and have no time to think about you, but I STILL pray for you every night :)

Sister Viehweg

August 26th, 2016

August 26, 2016

Family!!!  It seems like it has been FOREVER since I have emailed any of you!  So much has happened in the past two-ish weeks and I HOPE I can remember everything!

Last week was much, much better! God always blesses you after the trial of your faith, haha! Sometimes that can be so frustrating, but it definitely is rewarding. Within the last couple of weeks Sister Robertson and I were able to put two of our top investigators on baptismal date for October 8th!  Lydia and Josh!!  They are both making HUGE progress and I am so excited for both of them. Especially Lydia though.. She will always have a special place in my heart. Her and Taylor ( the less active boyfriend) have been making big steps for the better. They both have a desire to come to church. He really is wanting to baptize her and we are doing our best to prepare both of them for the 8th. I can't believe we are already planning for October, where is the year going??

Tyler, our third top investigator is also making a lot of progress. He is consistently praying every single day, watching conference talks "from the old guy with no emotions" (he is talking about President Monson :)) and reading from the Book of Mormon. Every single meeting he still tries to talk me into going to Saginaw with him to Skydive.  Soooo tempting, but I am strong and say maybe in a couple of months....

Since it's nearing the end of the transfer we have been trying to squeeze all the fun we can in! Two Mondays ago we went ice skating, and this past Monday we planned a Zone P-Day and rented out a rollerskating place and had the entire zone on roller skates for a couple of hours!  It was SO MUCH FUN!

This week was slower, WMU is on a two week break, so once again, campus is a ghost town and we aimlessly walk around and talk to whoever we can find walking through campus. It's been pretty rainy here and it's way too hot and humid to wear rain coats or hold umbrellas, so we basically get soaked every single day. My clothes, hair, mascara are constantly dripping everywhere.

Transfer calls were last night and I received a pretty shocking phone call from President Jacobsen. This is how the conversation went:

      President,  "We will start with Sister Viehweg. Sister Viehweg, we need you to come to Lansing, we need you to open up a new area at MSU (Michigan State University), we need you to train not one new sister missionary, but two new sister missionaries, we also need you to remain an STL, but serve as a SOLO STL and be over half of the sisters in the Lansing Zone.  Did you get all of that Sister Viehweg?  Do you understand what you need to do?"  Me...."Ya Sure Prez...."

The mission has never done something like this before, so wish me luck! I pack up and head to Lansing on Monday. I am really sad to leave the area, and to leave all the awesome investigators, but excited to get a new start on a new campus with two NEW missionaries!!!

I love you all, I pray for you daily, Thank you for the support!  If you are going to send me anything in the next couple of days send it to 4910 S. Hagadorn Rd. East Lansing MI 48823

Peace out K-zoo, it's been fun!

Sister Viehweg

August 15th, 2016

August 15 3016

Wassssuppppp Family!?

Not going to lie, this was a really rough week for my companion and I. Everything seemed to be going against us, so I don't have too many things to tell you. However, it was a learning week, and I feel more confident and excited for the work this week! Funny how things like that just make you more and more willing, dedicated, diligent, need I go on? :)

The highlight of the week was probably Half Mission P-Day. All the missionaries on the West side of the mission gathered to together in Grand Rapids at a huge park and played games all day long. The weather was hot and humid, but President Jacobson set up water games, so it wasn't too uncomfortable. My favorite game we played was probably the water kickball. We had kiddie pools as the bases and slip and slides as the base paths. A bunch of us sisters just ended up sitting in the kiddie pools. Thats the closest I have been to swimming in 14 months. Felt soooooo nice. It really is neat to see so many missionaries gathered together for one purpose. I got to know a lot of the newer missionaries, which there seem to be more and more of. Looking at the missionaries in the mission now I see less and less familiar faces. 

Another highlight of the week was meeting with Lydia. She is making so much progress! We met with her on Wednesday and she was so excited to see us. During our lesson she told us that she has been thinking a lot about baptism and is wanting to be baptized when she is ready. Our goal this week is to put her on a solid date. Pray for us! It's going to be such a big step for her and Taylor. If you asked me though, I would just prefer it if she dropped Taylor...He is having the hardest time getting back into the swing of the gospel and she is always telling us how he is holding her back. She doesn't feel like she can fully progress until he is progressing. Any ideas on how to help a less active 24 yr old young men come back to church?.... Me neither, but if you come up with any PLEASE let me know!

I had overwhelming feelings of frustration this week, because I felt like my faith was lacking. The ZL's knew that something was up so they sat Sister Robertson and I down and started talking about things. For some reason our investigators keep dropping us, and nobody seems to be interested in meeting with us. It's the end of the summer semester here on campus. Students are either busy moving out or moving in and getting jobs, taking exams, etc. The Elder I was talking to told me that I should try focusing on gratitude more. When you focus on the small and simple things that the Lord has blessed you with, it helps you realize the blessings of having faith in him. I took his advice and right after we talked with them we went into a private area and said a companionship prayer completely full of gratitude. The comforting feeling I felt afterwards was indescribable. Even in the lowest of lows, all that the Savior has done for each and every single one of us is incredible. On Sunday, one of the students in the Branch spoke on Faith, and his main point was to have faith in Christ, not in the outcomes. I reflected back on how my faith was the last couple of days and realized that that was exactly what I had been doing. This is what I learned.  My faith is not founded in the people I find. My faith is founded in Christ. As long as I know that he is my Savior, that he set the perfect example for me, and that he carried out the infinite atonement, my faith will never falter. It doesn't matter what people say to me, or what students ignore me or how they make me feel stupid. Jesus is the Christ and I fully believe in him, and that is where my faith is based. The outcomes come AFTER and only AFTER you have faith in Him. 

Thank you all for the prayers and support. Enjoy watching the Olympics, it is KILLING ME not being able to know what is happening in Rio. The adventures seem fun, save some for when I get home. LOVE YOU, and go America!!!

Sister Viehweg

August 8th, 2016 Ombre'

August 8, 2016

 

It's been a good crazy week in K-Zoo, but the weeks are always crazy and fast in Kalamazoo. Life keeps picking up the pace and I don't know how to keep up with it!

This week we had MLC, which was really cool! We decided to do a mission wide fast to hit our goal of 280 baptisms by Dec. 31 2016. We are cutting it pretty close, but starting tomorrow there will be a set of missionaries fasting in every single zone every single day (except for p-day) until the end of the year! Cool right??? I am super pumped!  After the meeting we all went to the mission home for a BBQ. Pres. Jacobsen has the NICEST ping pong table I have ever seen so of course the APs had to challenge me to some games. Don't worry dad, I put them in their place. :)

Later in the week we had another big break through with Lydia!  Her less active boyfriend, Taylor, came to our lesson the on the Word of Wisdom. Lydia has been such a good influence on Taylor.  She has been making them read and pray together and when we taught them the WOW he totally testified and they both committed to live it!  Then they both made it to church yesterday! #blessed!!!

Saturday we had another baptism in our area, by the Zone Leaders.  Her name was Aly and it's actually a pretty funny story how we all met. I first contacted Aly a couple of transfers ago on campus. She was SO rude to me and my companion at the time. She told us how she grew up mormon and how she would NEVER EVER be going back to that religion.  A couple weeks later the ZL's contacted her and for some reason she decided to meet with them. During that lesson she stopped the ZL's and asked them, "Did you know that you have some FLDS sister missionaries on this campus too?" The zone leaders just started dying laughing because they knew she was talking about us! Aly thought I was FLDS!  I must have been wearing something really homely that day... ooops.   Sometimes I get desperate okay? Anyways, Aly grew up with a mom who was FLDS and it was not a very good experience for her.  However she is now baptized and loving life has a latter day Saint. 

What else happened this week... I went on trade offs with a greenie and got bored of how I look, so I dyed my hair! yayyy for ombres! I will attach a picture!

Have a great week and know that someone in the K-ZOO loves you!

Sister Viehweg

August 1st, 2016 Dehydration

August 1, 2016

 

Hey Hey FAMILY!!! I am super short on time this week, but  I will try and  catch you up on everything!

So last Monday I talked to you about my heat exhaustion, the stupid sickness carried with me throughout the entire week! I am finally starting to feel back to my normal strength. I feel like I have been drowning myself in water too. But it definitely took it's toll and this week wasn't the best, but sister Robertson and I tried to make the most of it. Midterms and Summer term finals have begun at WMU, so again, campus was a total ghost town. Add Pokemon-Go to that and you literally talk to zero people. I tried to stop one student and he said, "I am too busy catching Pokemon to talk about Jesus right now."  If I didn't have a name tag on I would have decked the kid....  I guess that just shows how much I love Christ now, so it gave me some weird type of motivation to interrupt everyone playing Pokemon Go whether they got mad or not.  Can't say that we found too many students who were interested, but we did our best.

Wednesday we had a zone training and it went really well! I was super nervous to train in front of all the missionaries at first, but once I got up and allowed the spirit to take over it became easy. The missionaries seemed to have enjoyed it and our numbers all looked good last week. WAY TO GO K-ZOO ZONE! 

Right after the training I left my area to go on a trade off with Sister Merriman. She has only been out 2 months, pretty green, but we had a good time together.  I always pray super hard for trade off miracles to  happen so that the other missionaries can get re-motivated, and the Lord never leaves me hanging.  I prayed to be invited into a house, by a young mom.  Sure enough, while door knocking, we got invited in by a young mom who had just had her third baby. She is originally from Italy and had a super thick accent, but loved what we taught her, and the Sisters have since put her on date for baptism!  Thank you Heavenly Father!

My favorite investigator we are working with right now is Lydia. She is 20 years old and is dating a less active member named Taylor.  We have been teaching Lydia a lot lately and really the only thing holding her back is her less active boyfriend!  So dumb.  However, she has been doing her part and reading the Book of Mormon in front of him, trying to get him back into the swing of things. Yesterday she came to church without him and loved the 2 hours she stayed.  She also talked with the ZL's to plan a way they can get in touch with Taylor and start inviting him to Monday morning basketball.  Lydia and I have so much in common, I feel like I have been sent to this area for her.  Pray for her and Taylor!  Once he's on board they are both on board. :)

Our apartment is so ghetto...  We finally get over the scare of the bed bugs and guess what shows up next? MICE!!!! These mice are crazy!  They aren't scared or timid, they LITERALLY run around in the open!!!!  It's so scary!!  We have set traps everywhere and still haven't caught anything.. help!!

Love you all!

Sister Viehweg

July 25th, 2016

July 25, 2016

Hello Everyone! I love being updated about everyone's life, thank you thank you thank you for all the emails! You all really motivate me and keep me going out here. I feel so blessed to have all the support coming from back west.

This week was a doozy, it was long and hot! Transfer calls were last week and I was called to stay in the same area, but to train a new STL, YIKES. So far so good though! I picked Sister Robertson up Monday evening, and life has been peachy. She is from Holiday Utah and has been out about 10 months. My youngest companion since sister Sheppard!  She looks at me like I am ancient, but I still feel like I have been out about 4 months...

We taught a lot of lessons and saw a lot of miracles with people wanting to meet right on the spot. Those lessons were so inspired because we were literally dying of heat! The temps were high and the humidity was ridiculous. It's been storming pretty badly at night here causing the days to be extremely humid. The forest we usually walk through to get to campus is completely flooded right now. Water up past our ankles. I never thought I would get this type of weather here in Michigan. Everyone just told me it was going to be cold. No one ever said, extremely high temps and monsoons. Yesterday was so bad that when we finally got back to our apartment I started feeling really sick and ended up throwing up because of heat exhaustion/dehydration. So fun. This morning I felt like a train hit me, but luckily the worst has passed.

We have been teaching this homeless guy named Kevin lately, and the first time we taught him it was pretty rough. This is how it went, " Kevin, How have you seen God reveal himself to you in the past?" Kevin: "Through drugs..mainly shrooms."  The lessons started out pretty rough, but lately he has been showing up to lessons drug free and ready to learn. He always does all his homework (reading) and comes with questions. It's amazing what the Gospel can do to people. It can change ANYONE. He is planning is second bike trip to the west coast, so don't be surprised if Kevin stops by our house dad :)

This coming Wednesday we are training the Zone on member missionary work, wish us luck! Our zone needs this as I am sure everyone does. Every member a missionary. That's my commitment to you all this week! Go share the Gospel, because it's just too great to keep to ourselves.

LOVE YOU

Sister Viehweg

Photos: 

1.we felt a lot closer than we actually were....

2. bugs this big only in Michigan...

3.I have never been so enticed by a fountain before.

July 17th- 13 Months

July 17, 2016

 

Transfer number 10 here we go!  Today I turned 13 months. Can you believe that????

Sister Smith and I had a really good week.  Week 6 of the transfer always flies by, but we tried to make the most of it.....and honestly I have been staring at the screen for about 5 minutes and can't think of much to tell you all.. haha

Bed Bud scare is officially over. Sister Smith and I slept on the couch every single night until Friday evening. The only thing that could make us change from the couch back to our beds was watching a giant, black spider crawl under the couch. Haha!  We are so ridiculous. We even flipped the couch completely over to try and find it and kill it, but couldn't find a single trace of the sucker, so being the paranoid sisters we are, we set up our beds that night and have been sleeping in them ever since. NO BITES either. It's a miracle.

Thursday evening was pretty neat. Sister Smith and I were invited to attend the Kalamazoo Stake PEC meeting with all the bishops and branch presidents. They asked us to conduct a short training on getting members more involved in the missionary work.  I was so nervous.  There were a lot of old men in fancy suits, but the meeting was enjoyable and really spiritual. I am so grateful for the priesthood leadership we have in our church.

Friday we took Bryan to the family history center and found him some names to take on our temple trip we had planned the following day. I really wish I had more knowledge about how to do family history...it's embarrassing.

Saturday we woke up bright and early and headed to the church were we met about 20 other branch members and Bryan to carpool down the the Detroit Temple. It took us a little over 2 hours to get there and the whole experience was amazing. It has been a long time since I have done baptisms for the dead, and seeing Bryan's face said it all. We were also able to take one of our less active members, Xoabin Zhao (We call him bin (bean) ) :).  It's been a really long time since I was fully submerged under water, almost felt like I was swimming...jokes, but I totally miss swimming..

After the temple we went to Texas Roadhouse for Elder Dunn's birthday, Sister Smith got so full she had to unbutton on her skirt.  Then she forgot it was unbuttoned in the car and leaned forward and the button and zipper had fallen wayyyy down. She flashed us all. It was pretty funny.

One more miracle this week, today at church Bryan was able to pass the sacrament!

LOVE YOU

Sister Viehweg