Hello,
I can’t believe Christmas is coming so soon. I will be calling around 1 I think but I can’t be on the phone forever so everyone’s got to be there. I want to talk to everyone and don’t want to wait for a long time. Lots of missionaries will talk for hours but we're supposed to keep it reasonable so if you can try to get everyone there at one time at least by 1:30 .Well this week has been fast, It flew right by. I honestly don’t even know what I did. Our baptismal commit Gomez didn’t go through. He was doing so well and then got all sketchy. We just had a weird feeling about him. We went over to check up on him and he had been smoking. He told us how he stopped smoking after the word of wisdom lesson but started up again due to many problems he is facing. His autistic kid in Puerto Rico is in the hospital and he has no job and no money. He can’t go back or the gangs will kill him. He’s thinking about suicide and is really depressed so he turned to smoking again; It’s terrible. We tried to help him, gave him a blessing, and did all we could. He wants to get baptized so badly but is struggling right now. It’s frustrating but its life I guess. We had the ward Christmas party on Friday, it was so cool. We had a few investigators there and they loved it. We had a huge dinner like always with Hispanics, and then the primary kids acted out the nativity scene. After that Santa came. Yeah no joke he came to our wards activity crazy huh? He had 2 snowman helpers instead of elves and they gave wrapped gifts to all the children there. Even the ones that never come to church, only the activities. I hate that by the way. There are always so many people at the activities that are never seen at church. Its only cause there's free food. So I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard about the snow here in the east. Oh boy it’s been fun to do missionary work in. Saturday it snowed all day. We got about 2 feet by Sunday morning. I got a call at 1130 Friday night from a counselor in the bishopric saying church was cancelled. Isn’t that weird? First time in my life I didn’t go to church and I wasn’t sick. It was so weird though, just another day doing missionary work. We were able to visit lots of people so it was really nice. It has been so cold and my feet have been wet for the past couple days but I’m too lazy to carry boots around and I don’t think snow storms are too frequent. It’s not bad after a couple days; most of it starts to melt. I got your package this week. The office elders drove it over to me thankfully. But thanks so much for all the gifts. I loved them; I couldn’t wait to open them. Just kidding, I haven’t opened any yet; I’m waiting till Christmas so I have something to open. We have a mission conference this Thursday which will be fun. Friday I have no idea what to do. It’ll definitely be a weird day but its ok life goes on. It’s the only holiday that I haven’t been gone for, besides new years.I’m kinda bummed out I don’t get to go snowmobiling though. I hate being in the snow now all day and not snowboarding or snowmobiling. It’s hard, but this is the last winter. I got everyone’s Christmas cards this week. Thanks so much everyone. Its nice getting mail again ha-ha. Everything is going well with the work. We're still working hard and trying to get a few of our good investigators to make the leap towards baptism. There are a couple really close ones. It stinks we didn’t have church cuz a couple investigators that needed to come were going to but its ok there’s always this week. Even though Christmas will be different not being home and all but I know I’m doing what needs to be done.I’m celebrating the real meaning of Christmas sharing the story of Christ's birth.
I love you all and hope you have a great Christmas.
Elder Breinholt
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
December 14, 2009
Hey everyone,
This week has flown right by, we had transfers Tuesday morning and I received my Nuevo companero, Elder Lee. He’s Chinese but is actually from Washington State and speaks only a little Chinese. The Spanish people marvel at how he’s Chinese and speaks Spanish. They can’t believe it but its funny how they react. He has 3 months left, so it’s nice having a companion for once who is older than me that can help do the work. It’s nice to have, especially after training.He has had an interesting mission. Is very open to tell me all the stupid things he’s done on the mish but we agreed on working hard this transfer. It’s been great so far.We might have a baptism this Sunday; Gomez. He’s the guy from Puerto Rico that wants to change his life. We just have to get him an interview with president so I don’t know if he'll be going down this Sunday or the next. We helped him this week get some food. We got the bishop to fill out a food order from the bishop’s storehouse so he’s got food for a couple weeks. He came from Puerto Rico a month ago. He can’t go back or he'll get killed. He came here trying to get away from his old life and old ways. He looked for the church but couldn’t find it so he went to another church and was confessing his sins to the pastor. Ends up the pastor falls asleep on him so he gets mad and walks out. When he walks outside he sees the missionaries pass by. It also happens to be the only other Puerto Rican missionary we have that walked by. He stopped them and told them everything. They called me and he started to be taught. He has told us everything of his past and it is crazy. He’s got 18 tattoos, and all of which are satanic. He has 666 engraven on his back and lots of other bad things. He’s been shot a couple times and also stabbed. Rough life I’d say. He reads the book of Mormon everyday and wants to go to the temple to get sealed with his family. He’s looking for a steady job so that his family can come here soon. He keeps telling us he’s going first class to the celestial kingdom. He knows the only way is to get baptized and go to the temple; he’s a funny guy.We have a few other really good investigators. One of them is Dominican and the coolest guy ever. He’s in his 20's and his wife is a member but she works on Sundays so he comes by himself now. We just started teaching him but hopefully we can set a date with him this week or something. He’s so good and needs to be a member. The elder’s quorum president brought a guy to church yesterday. He just moved from Chicago and is Mexican. He loved church and I can see him getting baptized. Only problem is he starts working this week at a restaurant and doesn’t know if he has to work on Sundays yet. Most cases at a restaurant he will have to, but I’m praying that he doesn’t. We can have a lot of success this transfer but, most of it is out of our hands. I guess it lies on faith and prayers. This week we had a great district meeting. Almost everyone is new in the district; it’s nice to have a changeup. We are focusing on the fourfold endeavor that Gordon B. Hinckley spoke about. We need to find, teach by the spirit, baptize worthy converts, and strengthen converts and less actives. I split each category in the 6 weeks of the transfer and we read lots of scriptures and stuff to support each point. It went really well. I then taught some things about the book of Mormon and did a Preach my Gospel practice.We read the talk from Elder Holland that he gave in conference about the book of Mormon, and it strengthened my testimony once again of the power of the book. If only I can get people to read they will get baptized. If people only get the desire to read the book of Mormon then that will lead them to pray and they will receive an answer.I’m going to focus on the B.O.M more this transfer and push people to read it. It’s so important and since I’ve been out here the words of Joseph have become truer. He states that in the introduction that the book of Mormon is more correct than any other book on the earth. I try to explain to people that the bible is the word of God. However, it’s not sufficient. We can see that almost every church reads the bible but every church teaches something different. It’s frustrating when people object it when they haven’t even attempted to read it. My comp and I were walking Friday night and an acidic Jew stops us. (The ones with the curls and the big fur hats and gowns). He told us it was the Sabbath and asked us for some help. We went into his building and Jews were everywhere. It was a Jew only building and you could tell everyone was wondering why there were a couple gentiles walking around. We went into the guy’s house and he had us turn heaters on in every room and move them around. They can’t use electronics on the Sabbath. I don’t really understand why they think they have to keep the Sabbath but other people can do things for them? It doesn’t make sense.It was the first day of Hanukah and they had all the candles lit and like 15 Jew kids looking up at us like they’ve never seen normal people ha-ha. It was so cool though. Jews are never nice to us non-Jew people, but this guy was really nice.It has been really cold lately. I busted out the thermals under my pros. It’s in the 20's usually with lots of wind. There’s never a day without wind and It’s hard to find Spanish people when it’s freezing, but we're doing great right now. I was a little stressed and down at the start of the transfer but I read proverbs 3:5. Trust in the lord with all thy heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. It’s helped me out a lot and I’m actually excited about the transfer and my comp is a good guy.I can’t believe Christmas is coming up. It’s so weird, you would never know it if you lived here. Ha-ha nobody decorates or puts up lights but then again everyone hates their lives here ha-ha jk but seriously. Well I hope you all have a great week.
I love you.
Elder Breinholt
This week has flown right by, we had transfers Tuesday morning and I received my Nuevo companero, Elder Lee. He’s Chinese but is actually from Washington State and speaks only a little Chinese. The Spanish people marvel at how he’s Chinese and speaks Spanish. They can’t believe it but its funny how they react. He has 3 months left, so it’s nice having a companion for once who is older than me that can help do the work. It’s nice to have, especially after training.He has had an interesting mission. Is very open to tell me all the stupid things he’s done on the mish but we agreed on working hard this transfer. It’s been great so far.We might have a baptism this Sunday; Gomez. He’s the guy from Puerto Rico that wants to change his life. We just have to get him an interview with president so I don’t know if he'll be going down this Sunday or the next. We helped him this week get some food. We got the bishop to fill out a food order from the bishop’s storehouse so he’s got food for a couple weeks. He came from Puerto Rico a month ago. He can’t go back or he'll get killed. He came here trying to get away from his old life and old ways. He looked for the church but couldn’t find it so he went to another church and was confessing his sins to the pastor. Ends up the pastor falls asleep on him so he gets mad and walks out. When he walks outside he sees the missionaries pass by. It also happens to be the only other Puerto Rican missionary we have that walked by. He stopped them and told them everything. They called me and he started to be taught. He has told us everything of his past and it is crazy. He’s got 18 tattoos, and all of which are satanic. He has 666 engraven on his back and lots of other bad things. He’s been shot a couple times and also stabbed. Rough life I’d say. He reads the book of Mormon everyday and wants to go to the temple to get sealed with his family. He’s looking for a steady job so that his family can come here soon. He keeps telling us he’s going first class to the celestial kingdom. He knows the only way is to get baptized and go to the temple; he’s a funny guy.We have a few other really good investigators. One of them is Dominican and the coolest guy ever. He’s in his 20's and his wife is a member but she works on Sundays so he comes by himself now. We just started teaching him but hopefully we can set a date with him this week or something. He’s so good and needs to be a member. The elder’s quorum president brought a guy to church yesterday. He just moved from Chicago and is Mexican. He loved church and I can see him getting baptized. Only problem is he starts working this week at a restaurant and doesn’t know if he has to work on Sundays yet. Most cases at a restaurant he will have to, but I’m praying that he doesn’t. We can have a lot of success this transfer but, most of it is out of our hands. I guess it lies on faith and prayers. This week we had a great district meeting. Almost everyone is new in the district; it’s nice to have a changeup. We are focusing on the fourfold endeavor that Gordon B. Hinckley spoke about. We need to find, teach by the spirit, baptize worthy converts, and strengthen converts and less actives. I split each category in the 6 weeks of the transfer and we read lots of scriptures and stuff to support each point. It went really well. I then taught some things about the book of Mormon and did a Preach my Gospel practice.We read the talk from Elder Holland that he gave in conference about the book of Mormon, and it strengthened my testimony once again of the power of the book. If only I can get people to read they will get baptized. If people only get the desire to read the book of Mormon then that will lead them to pray and they will receive an answer.I’m going to focus on the B.O.M more this transfer and push people to read it. It’s so important and since I’ve been out here the words of Joseph have become truer. He states that in the introduction that the book of Mormon is more correct than any other book on the earth. I try to explain to people that the bible is the word of God. However, it’s not sufficient. We can see that almost every church reads the bible but every church teaches something different. It’s frustrating when people object it when they haven’t even attempted to read it. My comp and I were walking Friday night and an acidic Jew stops us. (The ones with the curls and the big fur hats and gowns). He told us it was the Sabbath and asked us for some help. We went into his building and Jews were everywhere. It was a Jew only building and you could tell everyone was wondering why there were a couple gentiles walking around. We went into the guy’s house and he had us turn heaters on in every room and move them around. They can’t use electronics on the Sabbath. I don’t really understand why they think they have to keep the Sabbath but other people can do things for them? It doesn’t make sense.It was the first day of Hanukah and they had all the candles lit and like 15 Jew kids looking up at us like they’ve never seen normal people ha-ha. It was so cool though. Jews are never nice to us non-Jew people, but this guy was really nice.It has been really cold lately. I busted out the thermals under my pros. It’s in the 20's usually with lots of wind. There’s never a day without wind and It’s hard to find Spanish people when it’s freezing, but we're doing great right now. I was a little stressed and down at the start of the transfer but I read proverbs 3:5. Trust in the lord with all thy heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. It’s helped me out a lot and I’m actually excited about the transfer and my comp is a good guy.I can’t believe Christmas is coming up. It’s so weird, you would never know it if you lived here. Ha-ha nobody decorates or puts up lights but then again everyone hates their lives here ha-ha jk but seriously. Well I hope you all have a great week.
I love you.
Elder Breinholt
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
December 7, 2009
Well hello,
The winter has really come. It’s freezing now! It started snowing on us Friday night and has been raining too, but the wind is pretty rough. The week has been awesome but stressful.I heard before transfer calls who will be my next companion starting Tuesday and it has been weighing on me. He’s an Asian and he doesn’t speak Chinese and is coming from that program. He doesn’t speak Spanish too well from what I hear but will be finishing the last 2 transfers of his mission here in Midwood. From all the stories I’ve heard from everyone in the mission that’s called me, he’s probably the most disobedient missionary in the mission and will be junior companion ending his mission. It will not be easy but I guess I’ll take it as a learning experience. There are 4 missionaries that just got here last transfer that are leaving already. One of the zone leaders and I are the only ones staying. Another sign language companionship are coming in to our house with the other ASL Elders so I’m getting kicked out of my room and going in the hall of the workout room. The ASL Elders are there to stay for their whole missions so it makes sense. It will be a very interesting transfer though. We had interviews with president last week and he said he trusts me so he’s putting me with this companion to push him along. Even though I'm not in the mood to do that for another transfer as I just did that last transfer, life goes on.We have been teaching some great people lately and I think will have a baptism in 2 weeks. Not totally sure yet, but he’s the most amazing guy. Has a terrible past in Puerto Rico. He was in gangs, did every terrible thing you can imagine and watched his friends kill many people. He's the most repentant person that there is and wants to be baptized as soon as possible. His wife and daughter are members in Puerto Rico so he knows the church a little. We have a couple other people that are progressing but it’s difficult to get them to church. Most of the Spanish people struggle with the economy and it’s hard to get work being illegal. They work 7 days a week or work for the Jews which mean they work Sundays. Its rough, but the Lord does prepare people. We had the confirmation of Ashley Garcia yesterday which was awesome. I don’t have much time do to the internet conditions today. Everything is going great. I got the package mom, thanks so much, can’t wait to decorate....ha-ha it’ll be fun right? We're still working hard, or at least I'm trying and my companion follows ha-ha but I’m just gonna go into next transfer with a good attitude cuz I know at the end I’ll learn something from it. I love you all and thank you for your support. I hope everyone was able to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday. It was really good. Don’t stress out, just enjoy the spirit of Christmas.
Love, Elder Breinholt
The winter has really come. It’s freezing now! It started snowing on us Friday night and has been raining too, but the wind is pretty rough. The week has been awesome but stressful.I heard before transfer calls who will be my next companion starting Tuesday and it has been weighing on me. He’s an Asian and he doesn’t speak Chinese and is coming from that program. He doesn’t speak Spanish too well from what I hear but will be finishing the last 2 transfers of his mission here in Midwood. From all the stories I’ve heard from everyone in the mission that’s called me, he’s probably the most disobedient missionary in the mission and will be junior companion ending his mission. It will not be easy but I guess I’ll take it as a learning experience. There are 4 missionaries that just got here last transfer that are leaving already. One of the zone leaders and I are the only ones staying. Another sign language companionship are coming in to our house with the other ASL Elders so I’m getting kicked out of my room and going in the hall of the workout room. The ASL Elders are there to stay for their whole missions so it makes sense. It will be a very interesting transfer though. We had interviews with president last week and he said he trusts me so he’s putting me with this companion to push him along. Even though I'm not in the mood to do that for another transfer as I just did that last transfer, life goes on.We have been teaching some great people lately and I think will have a baptism in 2 weeks. Not totally sure yet, but he’s the most amazing guy. Has a terrible past in Puerto Rico. He was in gangs, did every terrible thing you can imagine and watched his friends kill many people. He's the most repentant person that there is and wants to be baptized as soon as possible. His wife and daughter are members in Puerto Rico so he knows the church a little. We have a couple other people that are progressing but it’s difficult to get them to church. Most of the Spanish people struggle with the economy and it’s hard to get work being illegal. They work 7 days a week or work for the Jews which mean they work Sundays. Its rough, but the Lord does prepare people. We had the confirmation of Ashley Garcia yesterday which was awesome. I don’t have much time do to the internet conditions today. Everything is going great. I got the package mom, thanks so much, can’t wait to decorate....ha-ha it’ll be fun right? We're still working hard, or at least I'm trying and my companion follows ha-ha but I’m just gonna go into next transfer with a good attitude cuz I know at the end I’ll learn something from it. I love you all and thank you for your support. I hope everyone was able to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday. It was really good. Don’t stress out, just enjoy the spirit of Christmas.
Love, Elder Breinholt
Monday, November 30, 2009
November 30, 2009
Hey,
This week has been stressful but awesome. It was thanksgiving but to tell you the truth, it was just like any other day ha-ha. We ate at a member’s home on Wednesday night and didn’t eat turkey because the majority of Hispanics don’t like it; they say it’s too dry, so we ate pork shoulder instead. It was good. We went over to a less actives house with the other elders on Thanksgiving Day and ate some spanish rice, beef, and turkey. Oh man it was awesome. We then worked the rest of the day and actually had a lot of lessons. It sounds like you all had fun at the cabin. I’m not gonna lie, it crossed my mind as I was walking around that at that moment everyone was probably riding motorcycles and razors. IT was a little depressing but no I know this is way better. We got to do a little turkey bowl Thursday morning. We played with the missionaries in our zone and a couple members from an English ward. It was all muddy and wet but way fun. The weather was really nice on thanksgiving but then became terrible the rest of the week. I have encountered the devil, the wind here. Sunday we had the baptism of Ashley Garcia. The little 10 year old girl. It went a lot better than I expected. She was really scared before the baptism cuz she’s terrified of water and didn’t want to go under. I told her shut your mouth and let’s do this ha-ha. I didn’t really say that but I wanted to. I had to dunk her twice cuz she resisted the first time and didn’t go all the way under. It was a really spiritual baptism which was great. I was also trying to help get the fireside ready that we had Sunday night. It was a musical of the restoration. The English ward did theirs right before we did ours in Spanish, so I got to see how it worked and make it a little better. It was honestly the most spiritual, short, and powerful fireside I’ve been to. Each missionary went up and read a principle from the restoration pamphlet and then the child prodigy, Elder Call who came from another area to play the piano and sing a song to each principle. I’ve never heard anyone play so well, he’s ridiculous.I was able to explain the apostasy and had to teach it not read it because it one of the most important parts to the restoration. We dimmed all the lights to begin with and turned all of them off in the chapel when I went up to the pulpit to teach tithe apostasy. The only light was on me and I taught the intro to Joseph Smith until the vision and sat down. Then the projector came down and the restoration movie came on and only showed the vision while Elder Call played the piano to it. After a Sister missionary got up and all the lights went on in the room and she taught the book of Mormon and testified of Joseph Smith as the piano was going on in the background. Then I jumped up and Elder Call and I sang praise to the man. We only practiced it once beforehand and it went really well. The fireside lasted about 40 minutes but it was so perfect. We'll probably do it again in a few months so now members know it is awesome and will tell their friends to come the second time. Transfers are next week and I think my companion is going to a car area cuz of his back problems and they will have only 4 Spanish missionaries in our area again because 6 is too much for the number of Spanish people we have in the areas. I will probably stay here for the next transfer and we have some people progressing towards baptism so it will be great. Everything is going awesome and I’m excited for the last week of the transfer. It’s gone by so fast and one more transfer and ill be at my year mark. Its so crazy how fast the time has gone by. The work is great and I love it.
I love you guys and thanks for your support,
Love,Elder Breinholt
This week has been stressful but awesome. It was thanksgiving but to tell you the truth, it was just like any other day ha-ha. We ate at a member’s home on Wednesday night and didn’t eat turkey because the majority of Hispanics don’t like it; they say it’s too dry, so we ate pork shoulder instead. It was good. We went over to a less actives house with the other elders on Thanksgiving Day and ate some spanish rice, beef, and turkey. Oh man it was awesome. We then worked the rest of the day and actually had a lot of lessons. It sounds like you all had fun at the cabin. I’m not gonna lie, it crossed my mind as I was walking around that at that moment everyone was probably riding motorcycles and razors. IT was a little depressing but no I know this is way better. We got to do a little turkey bowl Thursday morning. We played with the missionaries in our zone and a couple members from an English ward. It was all muddy and wet but way fun. The weather was really nice on thanksgiving but then became terrible the rest of the week. I have encountered the devil, the wind here. Sunday we had the baptism of Ashley Garcia. The little 10 year old girl. It went a lot better than I expected. She was really scared before the baptism cuz she’s terrified of water and didn’t want to go under. I told her shut your mouth and let’s do this ha-ha. I didn’t really say that but I wanted to. I had to dunk her twice cuz she resisted the first time and didn’t go all the way under. It was a really spiritual baptism which was great. I was also trying to help get the fireside ready that we had Sunday night. It was a musical of the restoration. The English ward did theirs right before we did ours in Spanish, so I got to see how it worked and make it a little better. It was honestly the most spiritual, short, and powerful fireside I’ve been to. Each missionary went up and read a principle from the restoration pamphlet and then the child prodigy, Elder Call who came from another area to play the piano and sing a song to each principle. I’ve never heard anyone play so well, he’s ridiculous.I was able to explain the apostasy and had to teach it not read it because it one of the most important parts to the restoration. We dimmed all the lights to begin with and turned all of them off in the chapel when I went up to the pulpit to teach tithe apostasy. The only light was on me and I taught the intro to Joseph Smith until the vision and sat down. Then the projector came down and the restoration movie came on and only showed the vision while Elder Call played the piano to it. After a Sister missionary got up and all the lights went on in the room and she taught the book of Mormon and testified of Joseph Smith as the piano was going on in the background. Then I jumped up and Elder Call and I sang praise to the man. We only practiced it once beforehand and it went really well. The fireside lasted about 40 minutes but it was so perfect. We'll probably do it again in a few months so now members know it is awesome and will tell their friends to come the second time. Transfers are next week and I think my companion is going to a car area cuz of his back problems and they will have only 4 Spanish missionaries in our area again because 6 is too much for the number of Spanish people we have in the areas. I will probably stay here for the next transfer and we have some people progressing towards baptism so it will be great. Everything is going awesome and I’m excited for the last week of the transfer. It’s gone by so fast and one more transfer and ill be at my year mark. Its so crazy how fast the time has gone by. The work is great and I love it.
I love you guys and thanks for your support,
Love,Elder Breinholt
Monday, November 16, 2009
November 16, 2009
Hey!
This past week wasn’t too special. We did have zone conference which was amazing. All 4 of the zones meet together, so basically that’s half the mission. I think zone conference pushes me through each transfer to work hard. Right when I start to get tired its zone conference again and it pumps me up. It went all day long, but I learned a lot. We have been working hard everyday just trying to talk to people. We literally talk to every single Spanish person we see. We have a big area but the Spanish are in one little area so when we do see them we definitely stop them. It makes for some pretty long days and nights but it’s still good. We are getting some more investigators. We don’t really have anyone too amazing yet. We have that one guy that read the whole book of Mormon still won’t make a baptismal date. He says he isn’t prepared but he is. Our Thursday night was one of the roughest nights ha-ha it was awesome though. It builds character. Everyone we tried to talk to rejected us so hard but it was fun. I saw this kid punch his pretty little girlfriend in the street so I told him what I thought about that. It was a rough night and that just added to it. New York has made me hate people that beat their spouse and children. We had an awesome experience with a less active family. The ones I talked about who came to church last week for the first time in 5 years. We went over there again and had another amazing lesson. We talked for a while and to be honest we went over there not knowing what to teach. I usually teach most of the lessons cuz my companion still doesn’t know what to share and doesn’t feel comfortable. I just said a prayer in my heart and asked for some insight of what to share with this inactive couple. We started talking and then I decided after a while to share some of the atonement of Christ. I had them open up to Mathew in the bible and read about Christ’s suffering in the garden of Gethsemane. I told them that often time’s people only look at the suffering on the cross but don’t realize the greatness of the suffering on the Mount of Olives. We then went and read where Christ got beaten, mocked, and crowned with thorns. Something interesting about that whole deal is he was beat with 39 stripes. Well why not 40? Because if it were 40 times he would have been forgiven for whatever he had done and let go. This was the law back then because no man could endure 40 lashings without dying, but Christ could. Thus, the atonement wouldn’t have been completed. However, he was beaten with 39. We then read about when Christ was nailed on the cross in mark. He cries out to god and says why hast thou forsaken me? We talked about that and bore testimony on the power of the atonement. It was awesome. They then afterwards promised me they would be active in the church from now on. They had started reading the b.o.m again last week and are ready to come back to church. I taught a big lesson in district meeting on the atonement, so I was prepared for that lesson.We had stake conference yesterday and it was nice. It was in another part of town so no investigators were at church. This week is crucial to getting investigators at church or they can’t get baptized this transfer. I’m hoping we have some more success. My companion is having back problems so he can’t walk fast, it stinks but it’s all good. Everything sounds like its great at home. It’s getting a little cold here. I love you all and thank you for all your support.
Have a great week.
Love,Elder Breinholt
This past week wasn’t too special. We did have zone conference which was amazing. All 4 of the zones meet together, so basically that’s half the mission. I think zone conference pushes me through each transfer to work hard. Right when I start to get tired its zone conference again and it pumps me up. It went all day long, but I learned a lot. We have been working hard everyday just trying to talk to people. We literally talk to every single Spanish person we see. We have a big area but the Spanish are in one little area so when we do see them we definitely stop them. It makes for some pretty long days and nights but it’s still good. We are getting some more investigators. We don’t really have anyone too amazing yet. We have that one guy that read the whole book of Mormon still won’t make a baptismal date. He says he isn’t prepared but he is. Our Thursday night was one of the roughest nights ha-ha it was awesome though. It builds character. Everyone we tried to talk to rejected us so hard but it was fun. I saw this kid punch his pretty little girlfriend in the street so I told him what I thought about that. It was a rough night and that just added to it. New York has made me hate people that beat their spouse and children. We had an awesome experience with a less active family. The ones I talked about who came to church last week for the first time in 5 years. We went over there again and had another amazing lesson. We talked for a while and to be honest we went over there not knowing what to teach. I usually teach most of the lessons cuz my companion still doesn’t know what to share and doesn’t feel comfortable. I just said a prayer in my heart and asked for some insight of what to share with this inactive couple. We started talking and then I decided after a while to share some of the atonement of Christ. I had them open up to Mathew in the bible and read about Christ’s suffering in the garden of Gethsemane. I told them that often time’s people only look at the suffering on the cross but don’t realize the greatness of the suffering on the Mount of Olives. We then went and read where Christ got beaten, mocked, and crowned with thorns. Something interesting about that whole deal is he was beat with 39 stripes. Well why not 40? Because if it were 40 times he would have been forgiven for whatever he had done and let go. This was the law back then because no man could endure 40 lashings without dying, but Christ could. Thus, the atonement wouldn’t have been completed. However, he was beaten with 39. We then read about when Christ was nailed on the cross in mark. He cries out to god and says why hast thou forsaken me? We talked about that and bore testimony on the power of the atonement. It was awesome. They then afterwards promised me they would be active in the church from now on. They had started reading the b.o.m again last week and are ready to come back to church. I taught a big lesson in district meeting on the atonement, so I was prepared for that lesson.We had stake conference yesterday and it was nice. It was in another part of town so no investigators were at church. This week is crucial to getting investigators at church or they can’t get baptized this transfer. I’m hoping we have some more success. My companion is having back problems so he can’t walk fast, it stinks but it’s all good. Everything sounds like its great at home. It’s getting a little cold here. I love you all and thank you for all your support.
Have a great week.
Love,Elder Breinholt
November 9, 2009
Hey,How’s everyone doing? Cory got 5th in state? Haha that’s what I got my junior year. That’s funny. Tell him good job, and I bet he's glad that’s over with. Soccer would be sweet, tell him to do it, I wish I would have. Not too much happened this week. It was kind of a blur to me to tell you the truth. We work in the same area all week long, because it’s the only area that has Spanish people, and then at night time there is nobody outside except Russians. All the Spanish hate the cold and are nowhere to be found. We now know our area pretty well and are walking a ton just searching for people. I was going through the ward list trying to look up less actives we could visit in our area and found an older couple. We called them, made and appointment, and visited them Saturday night. Turns out this couple hasn’t been to church in 5 yrs or more. The husband still has a strong testimony, and says there is no reason why they don’t go. They get ready to go to church some days and then at the last minute get a bad feeling and end up not going.I shared some good scriptures in mosiah when King Benjamin is talking to his people giving his farewell speech. They mentioned they want to get sealed in the temple and they always have. They just for some reasons can’t make it to church. We had a powerful lesson and at the end they said see you tomorrow. The sister missionaries had always visited them in the past and they always said they would go to church, but never did. I told the sisters we visited them and they said yeah right, they won’t come. Ends up the older couple actually came to church. The first time in over 5 years. It was really cool to see them there and say they plan on coming back. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I guess my bluntness comes in handy?We have a few investigators that are doing well. We were going through the area book with all former investigators a couple weeks ago and called all of them to get some appointments. We didn’t have any success, Last week a guy calls us and tells us sorry I couldn’t make it to church, I’ll come next week. I didn’t know who he was so I looked through the area book to see if his name was in there and it was, his name is Marcial.We scheduled an appt Saturday and went over with a member. We had a no show and left a message. He ended up calling us back and set another appt for last night. We went over there and he was there this time. We sat down, said a prayer, got to know him a bit, and then he pulls out the book of Mormon and the bible. He started teaching us about the book of Mormon and about all the prophets in it. He had read the entire thing and had all the verses marked and sticky notes throughout the book. He put in down and told us it goes hand in hand with the bible and supports everything it says. He had a baptismal date in July, as to what the records stated and he told us the sisters pushed him towards baptism and he didn’t even know what it was. He has been studying the book of Mormon for 5 months now and says; now I know why I need baptism. I need repentance and it’s through baptism. I will get baptized in your church. I committed him for the 29th of November but he said he doesn’t feel ready. We tried to tell him he is ready, he is more prepared than anyone I've ever seen but he said he needs a couple months. We read a lot of scriptures and our member we brought kinda ruined it for us. He’s a good member but handles things the wrong way. He would have accepted for the 29th but our member, or mission leader, killed the spirit. I tried to bring it back and then told him to pray and ask if he should be baptized the 29th. He wasn’t too excited about it but I'm praying he does it. I’m excited to see what happens with him. I guess he’s been to church in the past a few times so he can get baptized anytime, we just need him to feel more prepared which is why we're here and he will get to know that. Other than that there isn’t too much that’s new. My companion and I are getting along great. He’s a good guy and is starting to open up a little bit. He still gets home during lunch and at night and passes out when his head hits the pillow. I’m trying to work him hard, it’s pretty funny. He's already lost 10 pounds the past 2 week’s ha-ha. I love it. All is good and I’m excited for this week to see some more miracles. I’m learning allot more about the scriptures and trying to expand my knowledge of the gospel. I now have memorized over 50 scriptures in Spanish which helps a lot. The mission gave us 50 scriptures to memorize and nobody really does it but I’ve been making my district learn one a week and I’ve been trying my whole mission. Some are really long but I finally did it. My testimony is getting strengthened everyday. I never ever thought I would have such a strong testimony or even have such a close relationship with the lord. I guess that’s what happens when you go on a mission. I love you all and hope you have a great week.Elder Breinholt
November 2, 2009
Hey,This week I received my new companion, straight from the good old MTC. His name is elder Tyrrell and he’s from Utah. He is completely opposite from my past two companions that had so much energy and were like me in every way. He is not but I guess ill learn a lot and learn a whole lot of the importance of charity and love. He is a great guy and I’m trying to work him hard. He is having a little trouble keeping up. I’m used to walking pretty fast and he isn’t but too bad for him ha-ha. He’s gonna get used to it I guess.We have been searching our new area this week looking for Spanish people. To our surprise we have Spanish people only in Coney Island and nowhere else. It’s going to be difficult but I guess I will get to know the area REALLY well the next few months. I think we will be together for another transfer after this one. It was a hard week with not a whole ton of lessons because there aren’t a whole lot of Hispanics but the lord blessed us. We were walking one night in an area called Brighton beach looking for Spanish apartments and walked passed a sign that sign that said, "room for rent" in Spanish. I totally didn’t realize it was in Spanish and kept on walking. Thanks to my new greeny companion he said hey that sign is in Spanish. I turned around and said; yeah you’re right ha I didn’t notice. We went to the building and knocked on the door. A guy answered and immediately said come in. I was in shock, that doesn’t happen often. Actually that never happens. We went in and taught the restoration to him and his girlfriend he lives with. They were really good and we're going back this week to teach them again. We had a couple other cool experiences this week. We started our mission commitment of 800 baptisms for the year. It’s going to be so awesome. It might take a while before all the mission gets on board. There are still a few missionaries here that shouldn’t be on missions, they just don’t have a desire to do anything but we will hit the goal no matter what. The old culture of the mission is slowly dying and being replaced with awesome missionaries. We confirmed Angel a member of the church yesterday. He is such a good guy. He lives right on the boarder of my area and elder Einerson and his new companion’s area. We flipped a coin to see who gets to teach angel and his wife and kids. Elder Einerson won. It stinks but whatever, there’s tons of people prepared that we are going to find. We had our first district meeting of the transfer. It went really well. We set goals in our district for baptisms. Our zone needs to have 11 baptisms per transfer to hit the 800 goal in the mission. There are 16 missionaries in our zone and 12 in my district so basically all those need to come from my district. The theme I chose for the transfer is, “The word is Urgency, and the time is now." I chose that because our goal for baptisms in the mission started the 1st of November, yesterday, so we need to start working and changing right now. I shared a few stories from the bible such as David and goliath and how David didn’t merely walk towards goliath or jog, but he ran towards him with faith and conquered. The time was urgent and the time to act was right then. I’m excited for this next year. Its gonna be an awesome year with allot of miracles.We don’t have a whole lot of people to teach right now because we started out with nothing, but we will have some good investigators by the end of the week and keep working hard. This is a challenge for me right now but it’ll all work out for the good. I’ll learn a lot and hopefully become a better missionary.I love you all. Thanks for your support and love,Elder Breinholt
October 27, 2009
Familia,Well this week was pretty awesome and lots of things happened. We had a lot of lessons and had some good things happen. Angel got baptized yesterday! We got him down baby! We called him last Sunday to schedule an apt but he didn’t answer. We had some time before interviews with president and went over to where Angel works. He works at a huge apartment building and we walked up to the front, and knew we couldn’t get in so we wanted to try to go around back. We were walking away and heard someone yell at us. We turned around and our member was waiving us down with Angel. They work together and just happened to be by the door. They asked if we had time to teach Angel, so we did of course. Angel first asked, “I’m still getting baptized Sunday right?" It was pretty relieving. We had an awesome lesson and then went to interviews with president. They went really well, as always. I love interviews, they always pump me up. President called me Wednesday and asked me if I would train again! I do not want to train again to be honest, but I told him I’d do whatever he wants me to do. I just work here, I don’t make the calls. Training is cool and everything, but I would love a companion who can speak Spanish. It makes everything so much easier, but it'll be a good experience. We found out president added a companionship to our area. We spent Friday morning redesigning the areas for 3 Spanish companionships. I am now getting blinded in, meaning I don’t know the area and will start from scratch. It's going to be a stressful transfer. I also now have 12 people in my district. It'll be awesome. We gave the sisters the best of the 3 areas and then I got the 2nd best and we left the other area which isn’t the best to the new companionship coming in.I received transfer calls last night. Basically the whole zone is staying except for the zone leaders because one of the zone leaders goes back home to Hong Kong. He’s the coolest guy ever by the way. My companion Elder Einerson, who helped with the areas has been here for 4 transfers. This is his first area and was looking forward to leaving. He is staying and going to the crap area! Ha-ha I couldn’t believe it, but its cool cuz we get along great and we'll keep each other from going insane. We workout together pretty hard every night, he was a body builder, so at least I wont get fat. We had to put some beds together this morning and add some new desks and dressers to the house to fit in 2 new Elders. It'll be fun for Halloween though.The baptism was awesome yesterday. Angel is the man. We had our member Julio Vasquez baptize him. It was the coolest experience. He’s kinda a big Puerto Rican guy and so when Julio baptized him he couldn’t lift him back up; Angel fell backwards and nailed his head against the wall so hard. It was so sad but hilarious. He was fine and just laughed but it was interesting.I get my new kid tomorrow and am excited and hoping he is a native. That would be nice. We'll see though. Everything is going well. It'll be a hard week starting with nothing but we'll just talk to everyone we can and I'll be on my knees a whole lot I think ha. I love you all, take care,Elder Breinholt
October 19, 2009
10-19-09 Hola familia,This past week was awesome. IT is FREEZING Here! Winter has come my friends. The temp is cold but the wind in the city is what kills me. It gets so cold and is getting colder. I’m gonna die this winter! I need you to send me some money so I can buy some winter clothes please. Send small 50/50 garments not medium, but if you already did oh well.I forgot to tell you last week, well I did but it was on the email the got erased but I spoke to Daniel 2 weeks ago. I talked to president at zone conference 2 weeks ago because Daniel got midnight to another area, so he wasn’t in our zone anymore. I called him 2 nights later just to see how he was doing. He told me whats been going on and how he doesn’t want to be on a mission. He got accepted to a school and wants to leave and go there. He got pressured into the Mormon thinking that everyone needed to go on a mission. I just bore him my testimony of how important the mission is and how I don’t know where I would be later in life if I didn’t serve a mission. It will change my life forever. It’s not easy, but we learn by the challenges that face us in life. I told him I know he knows this work is what he needs to do and kept talking for 15 or so minutes. I told him to pray and ask god if he wants him on the mission and if he gets an answer then stay, if not, go home. He then said, "Derek, why did you just call?" I told him I felt the need to call him and see how he was doing. He said he had just got done praying and asking that exact thing. Does god want me here? He then fell asleep and I woke him up by calling. He said he doesn’t think it was any coincidence that I called. It was pretty cool, and I hope he turns his attitude around and stays. I wanted to go home when everything happened with Tay, but I’m sure glad I didn’t. I would have regretted it forever. It still is hard at times but I definitely will be blessed.It is a little more difficult to do missionary work when it’s so cold outside, especially with Hispanics. They do not like the cold, that's for sure. Anyways, earlier in the week, Elder Einerson and I prepared the plan of salvation for our investigator Angel, and practiced the commit for baptism. We went to teach him Tuesday and then member that was supposed to let us into the building to teach and he ditched us so we wasted 1 1/2 hrs. We went back on Thursday and had an awesome lesson. The spirit was so strong and told me commit him, so I did. I testified, promised blessings, and invited him to be baptized the 25th. Right away he says, why not. I feel really good right now and that this is good. I want to go to church so why not? It was an awesome answer. He couldn’t come to church yesterday cuz his family was all sick but we're gonna meet with him this week a couple times and praying he goes down on Sunday. Its last week of the transfer, I think my companion is leaving. He’s been here for 4 transfers but I don’t want him to go. I'm staying in this area for a while I think. President is changing some things around and has put a big load on the district leaders. We have longer district meetings and more to do, but its ok, it’ll be good. He did make a rule that we can do baptisms for the dead with our recent converts.This past Saturday morning we went with a couple members and a recent convert to the Manhattan temple! It was sooo sick! Manhattan is so much cooler than Brooklyn and queens ha-ha. I always wondered why people would want to live in New York, but after going there I know why. I would live in Manhattan. We only walked from the subway and few blocks to the temple, but it was awesome. We were witnesses in the temple for a while. My companion got baptized a few times. I went and did confirmations and then I baptized the recent convert 10 times and then a couple other people. It was all in Spanish which was pretty cool. It was such a good experience. We are allowed to go with recent converts once a transfer so its gonna help people gain that desire to baptize more. Last week before sacrament one of the counselors of the bishopric came up to me and asked if I could give a talk. It was 30 min. before sacrament started. I told him sure I can, on what subject? He told me on the pre-mortal life. Ha-ha kinda a weak subject right? It’s hard to give a talk on the pre earth life, but I got up there and did it. I don’t know how long it was, ten minutes or a little more but it was good Spanish practice.We also got a new bishop yesterday which was good. The ward here is good but needs a lot of help, just as all Spanish wards or branches. Always just a bunch of drama and crap, it will be nice to go back to Gilbert someday. Everything is going great. All the days are just starting to blend together. I’m just hoping and praying angel gets baptized this week and maybe after that his family will follow. He's awesome and prepared, so I’m not too worried. We still don’t have too many investigators but we are literally talking to every Hispanic person that walks by on the streets. The work is always good. It’s a little more difficult to get lessons here than in Ridgewood but we're doing the best we can. I love you all and thanks for your support, love Elder Breinholt
October 12, 2009
Well I'm mad, I just wrote an entire email and sent it and the computer shut off so it didn’t send. This email is gonna stink cuz I’m too lazy to write a whole other one like I just did, Mom, Sorry it’s so short I just wrote all this. This past week was really interesting. We have been working so hard and having practically no success. I have recently been praying for a miracle for our hard work. My prayers were answered this week. A member brought a friend who is Puerto Rican to conference last week. He loved it and said he will come to church every week. The member lives in our area but the investigator lives in the sister’s area. They were supposed to go teach the guy, his name is Angel, and the member called and said he wants us to teach him, it would be more convenient. So, we went over there and taught a good lesson on the restoration. The guy loved it. We talked about baptism and I’m pretty sure he's going down real soon. He’s so prepared. He came to church and even brought his 9yr old daughter who also loved it. We are meeting again with him tomorrow, hopefully to set a baptismal date. We also have some good investigators that we're gonna visit this week so I’m excited. We had a cool activity Saturday night at the church. Dia de hispanidad. They had dances from each Hispanic country and tons of food from each. It was so amazing. Zone conference was this last week also. We all committed to reach our goal of 800 baptisms, almost double of what were doing now and we are going to hit it or surpass it, no doubt. I’m so excited. The president pumped us all up and read one of my president’s letters to everyone there but didn’t say my name. It was pretty cool, he thanked me after. We also had an awesome district meeting. I gave a talk on love. Every commandment hangs on the principle of love. If missionaries are disobedient, they need more love for God and for the people. I’ve been trying to have more love for everyone and it’s made a big difference. When we pray for love it makes the weaknesses of others insignificant and we aren’t bothered by stupid things. This past week we went to Coney Island, the beach. We played beach volleyball as a zone and my companion and I relearned back flips on the ground ha-ha, mom don’t say anything its ok. This past week something happened. Its just one of those things you can’t write home about, so you'll have to wait a year. It was pretty terrible though, It killed me for a couple days, but I’m good now. We also had a black guy chase us out of a neighborhood. He started yelling in our faces and cussing at us. It was a bad neighborhood and he said we are racist and wanted to kill us. We just ran ha-ha, it was very interesting. I just love New York. An Indian went crazy on us too. It was the craziest week of my mission. Everything is going great. I’m excited for this next week and our investigators. I love you all thanks for everything, Elder Breinholt
October 5, 2009
Hey everyone,How’s it going? The companion I had in the baptismal picture is Elder Oaks and the other red hair guy is not a companion just in my zone. I need to start taking more pictures. I haven’t been taking much. So how was the birthday? What’d you get? I cant believe Josh Brimhall is coming here? Are you kidding me? This last week was a good week. Our numbers weren't too great but we talked to people like crazy. We have been talking to every Hispanic person we find, it’s just difficult to get a lot of lessons because we have to travel so far to get to the Spanish people. They’re in little pockets in the city so we're trying to find the pockets of Spanish people. We found a few new investigators that I hope will be really good and a good part member family so we'll see how that goes this week. It's starting to get pretty cold here. The fall definitely started a couple weeks ago but it’s not too bad. Usually in the 60's during the day, but the wind stinks. I don’t need snow boots at all or anything really. Please send me my grey jeans in a bit if you can because the jeans I have are getting tight ha-ha. Not too much is going on new.Conference was freaking amazing. I don’t know why but I was so pumped for conference this year. Probably has something to do with me being on a mission but, I don’t know? Saturday morning session was awesome. They spoke about love and the spirit. We need to always ask for the spirit and listen to its promptings. Elder Bednar spoke about expressing more love to others and letting them know it. So, I love you all. It's amazing how much love the apostles and leaders of the church have and they are definitely guided solely by the spirit. The priesthood session was sooo good. Ballard started off by talking about the relationship between father and son. I’m so appreciative of having the best father who is a perfect example to me. I learned a lot of how I can be a better son and a future father. The one that I think was directed towards me was the prophet’s talk in priesthood. Guess what he spoke about, Anger ha-ha, it was sooo beautiful. Anger doesn’t solve anything but it destroys everything, It’s so true. Anger is a lack of self control and is not of God. Contention is of the devil. I like the Joseph Smith translation that Peter said, in the book of Acts that says, can we be angry and not sin? man I felt like piece of crap. I need to do a lot of repenting then. The prophet spoke with such power but in such a loving way. He made you want to change by using the power of the spirit and testifying of the truth of what he spoke. My favorite talk of all conference has to be the one by Holland. It was So Powerful. He never seizes to amaze me when he speaks. He destroyed people that say anything false about the Book of Mormon. I like how He asked if Joseph Smith and his brethren blasphemed God before their death in cartage? Would they give up their lives for a fictitious book? Would they leave their wives widowed and have their children’s bloody feet walk across frozen rivers? Would they do all this if it wasn’t true? THEY WOULD NOT! That talk was so powerful and strengthened my testimony of the book of Mormon even more. I Enjoyed conference this time more than I ever have for some reason. If you don’t take notes than you don’t get as much out of it. It helped me to learn a lot more by taking notes. I am so pumped up now to go and share the gospel even more. I know that this church is the only true church on the earth and really is directed by living prophet’s seers and revelators. I hope that everyone had the chance to watch all the sessions of conference and am grateful for the blessing of having these leaders on the earth. I always took advantage of it but I guess its time to change who I am. I love the gospel and grateful for it in my life and the great example of my parents and family. Have an awesome week and thanks for everything, love Elder Breinholt
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
September 28, 2009
Hey everyone,This past week I honestly don’t even remember. It went too fast. We played soccer p-day on a full field with goals and tons of people. It was probably the best soccer game on the mission. Tuesday I went on exchanges with an english companionship in my district. It was a long day because the elder I was with is a weird kid and we had a crazy experience. We visited a less active they had from Haiti. Right away he tells us he wants us to take his name off the records of the church. We started to remind him why our church is important and true. I was going through the bible and trying to answer some of his dumb comments for example: he said you can’t add to the bible, therefore the book of Mormon can’t be true. (He has been going to 7th day Adventist church and they told him all this.) I showed I’m in revelations where it says that and also in Deuteronomy. I tried to explain that it is talking about the literal book. Bible means many books. The book of revelations was written by john the revelator and the book of john was written after revelations. SO if what he’s saying is true, then the book of john is added on. People without knowledge, who say things without studying them bothers me a little. We simply tried to help the guy and he couldn’t grasp it. His heart was too cold. He started putting words in our mouths and saying a lot of offensive words. I told him to shut up in a nice way so that I could talk and then bore my testimony. After the other elder did the same. Immediately after the man breaks down and apologizes. He's really confused still but it was upsetting that someone would want to take their name off the records of the church. I had a leaders meeting with all the leaders and president for a few hours. We talked about a lot of changes that need to happen. Ideas were thrown out for 2 1/2 hours but no solutions and no plans to carry them out. It was good but kinda frustrating. I gave a workshop out our combined district meeting on our purpose as missionaries. It went really well. I gave a 30 minute lesson and activity for 2 groups of the missionaries in the zone. It helped me out a lot. We had to let one of our really good investigators go this week. We met with him twice and talked about baptism. He has already received an answer and knows it’s true but just was being weird about baptism and we couldn’t figure it out. We met with him again Saturday morning and told him our purpose. We love him and we have a very important work to do. We are here to baptize him and help him persevere but if he doesn’t want that then we can’t meet with him. He finally told us why he doesn’t want to get baptized. He’s gonna go back to Mexico in a year and doesn’t want to be the only member and fall. We told him to fast and pray about it and get back to us. He is such a good guy and I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to get baptized if he knows its true 100 percent. IT was hard but I’m praying he comes around and this makes him realize he needs to be baptized. Saturday was an interesting day. We had an activity with the missionaries and the english and spanish wards. They changed the location 30 minutes before the activity started so basically nobody showed up. We went around and fearlessed in the park. It’s called Prospect Park, best park in New York, way better than central park. We got stopped by an orthodox Jew and he tried to make us feel stupid. In a few minutes we helped him realize he was wrong and just bore testimony and destroyed him with it ha-ha it was awesome. We decided to not take a break since we had a bbq at the park and walked for the next 6 hours straight and had no success. It was a very long night but I need those days to make the good days even better so it’s ok. Sunday we had some awesome investigators come to church. One of which is named Edgar and said he will get baptized before October ends. He is dating a girl in the ward and is 18. He has met with the missionaries before and didn’t like it. His girlfriend’s mom called us 2 weeks ago to go teach him. We did and had a great lesson. He has been reading and praying. She told the sister missionaries that he loves us and didn’t get baptized the last time cuz he didn’t like the missionaries. One of which is AP but is a serious elder so that’s why. We'll have that baptism here within the next couple of weeks and hopefully some others. My companion is awesome. He likes to be obedient and work hard so it makes everything better. Everything is going great. We actually fearlessed some acidic Jews going to their synagogue last night. It was hilarious. We figured they need to hear the gospel too. everyone is so afraid of them. We got destroyed by a Jewish lady and just started laughing. It’s all good though, maybe we'll have better luck next time. Well thanks for everything and for all your support. Have a great week.
MOTHER, HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU.
Elder Breinholt
MOTHER, HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU.
Elder Breinholt
Monday, September 28, 2009
"The Lord prepares people according to our faith" September 21, 2009
Hola!I am now in Brooklyn and our area is basically all of Brooklyn. It’s huge and we get to walk it all. I think the first whole day we walked for 7 straight hours to see the area. It was nuts. We have some awesome parks and one of the best parks in New York that people say is better than Central Park. It’s called Prospect Park. My companions name is Elder Einerson and he’s from Utah. He's an awesome guy. He is a transfer younger than I and we get along really well. I live with only 8 Elders and they’re all English. There are 10 missionaries in the district, 4 sisters and 6 elders. Our ward starts at 1 on Sundays and it’s only us and a sister missionary couple who are awesome. The ward is sooo much more of a help than my last area but I loved the people in Ridgewood more. We'll see how it goes; there are some really good people here. My whole area is basically Jews! Not just Adam Sandler Jews but Orthodox who looks like they would drive a horse and buggy. They all have huge families and think they’re better than anyone who isn’t a Jew so they’re jerks ha but they really are funny looking people. There aren’t a whole lot of Hispanics, so we have to travel pretty far to find them, when we do they’re from every part of the world. The house we live in his really old but its awesome. We live directly next to the church. We share a whole floor with 2 sign language elders (no they aren't deaf) and the ZL's live up stairs. On the other side of the house are English speaking missionaries. It’s a pretty sweet place, I’ll send some pics. So I was pretty nervous about giving a good district meeting Friday but I think it went well. The focus I came up with is being a living witness of the living Christ. We made a lot of awesome goals and it went really well. We don’t have a whole lot of investigators right now so we have to fearless on the streets and knock a lot of buildings. We have one investigator that has the strongest testimony and is more faithful than most of the members but he works occasionally on Sundays and doesn’t want to get baptized and not be able to come every week. He is looking for a new job and we're praying he finds one. We have another 18 yr old who said he wanted to get baptized last week when we met with him but he didn’t show for church so well see how that goes. Everything’s going good and I think this week is going to go really well. We are working hard and are excited to baptize. The president set a new goal for baptisms for the next year. Right now we are set to hit 470 baptisms for the year. President has fasted prayed and spent a lot of time on a new goal. He has come up with 800 baptisms for the next 12 months. There are 8 million people that live in our mission. It’s pretty sad to see the number of baptisms happening. We are trying to change ourselves and the mission. 30 percent of the missionaries are doing all the work while the other 70 percent are going through the motions. We are trying to get the 70 to do their part and pump them up for this goal.I have fasted and prayed about the goals as president asked us too and I think it will be achievable if we increase our faith and have a desire to baptize. The lord prepares people according to our faith. We need to sanctify ourselves and then we are endowed with power as the scriptures say. That’s why I’m having the district focus on Christ. Through improving our Christ like attributes and becoming more like him we can accomplish anything. It’s gonna be awesome to see what happens.I love you all and appreciate your support. Have a good week!Sounds like you guys struggle with unloading jet skis? I’m sorry about dad but I’m not gonna lie it sounds pretty funny. I just pictured it happening and had to laugh. That’s good that someone came and helped though. What else is new? I hear Robby is changing a little?
Love,Elder Breinholt
Love,Elder Breinholt
"he asked me to be DISTRICT LEADER" September 14, 2009
Well familia,
This week was freaking awesome. That’s awesome Cameron is home. Blake, Jeff and Kale are all leaving. Kaitlyn is getting married? That’s so weird I can’t believe it. This past Monday I met with our investigator Andy. I have known him since I came to the mission 6 months ago. He is the boyfriend of a recent convert girl Karla, he is 17 from the Dominican Republic. I have met with him every Monday for the past few months and he has always had so many doubts and it was very frustrating at times, but I learned a lot trying to research answers to his questions. Anyways, this Monday we met up at the church like always with a youth member Josue. We started the lesson by watching a couple of the special witnesses of Christ which brought the spirit. Afterwards we started talking about the atonement. I started pulling out all kinds of scriptures about the atonement of Christ and told him the importance of repentance. I asked him how we fully take on the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. What do we need to do to receive complete forgiveness of our sins? He said we need to be baptized. That was the exact answer I was looking for. Then I opened up all my favorite scriptures on repentance unto baptism. We read all those and I testified that we can only receive the remission of our sins through baptism and making a covenant with God. We have to do our part in order for the atonement to take place in our lives. I then asked, "Andy, what is stopping you from being baptized?" He said after a long pause, "an answer." He told me he really wanted to know if this was the true church. We all testified that the lord would give him an answer. Something hit me hard and said “set a date for baptism”. I explained and testified that the only way to receive an answer is if we ask with real intent which means showing the Lord what you're gonna do if he gives you an answer. Every time a date is set for baptism, the answer comes right away. Our member Josue shared his testimony and shared why Andy needs to be baptized. I then said Andy, will you be baptized this Sunday if you get an answer? I know you will get an answer tomorrow if we set this day. Will you do it? He sat there and during all of this was more serious than he had ever been. The spirit was so strong. He sat for about 5 minutes in complete silence as we waited. Then he said almost in tears, "I'll do it." We met with him a few more times during the week and prepared him for baptism. He did get his answer the very next day like I had promised. All he said was I prayed and I feel really good about it. He had asked me to baptize him because I’m a good friend of his now and yesterday he was baptized. It was the most amazing experience. The difference in Andy was miraculous after he had received a witness of the truth. He had to stop drinking and all of the other things that come along with being a youth in New York, but he has made a promise with the Lord. He shared his testimony after the baptism with all of us there and told us the real answer he got. He said that he used to go to church because of his girlfriend. He said, but recently I have been meeting with the missionaries without her because I really was interested and wanted to know if it was true. He said that when he prayed and asked if it were true his heart started to race and he felt this excitement, happiness that filled his entire body and knew it was true. He didn’t tell his girlfriend he was getting baptized till Saturday night, a night before, it was pretty funny. But, I know that miracles happen. We have worked hard; I have fasted and prayed lately for a miracle. The Lord always pulls through. We have 2 more baptismal commits for the upcoming weeks but I WONT BE IN RIDGEWOOD. Zone leaders told me Wednesday night that I had an interview with president Friday morning. I went to the interview and he asked me to be DISTRICT LEADER! I’m freaking going to MIDWOOD, which is South/Downtown Brooklyn to be district leader. I’m going to live in a 3 story rundown house with 10 elders. It’s a ward not a branch and it’s a huge District. I’m only starting my 5th transfer which will make me the youngest district leader. I was so humbled and am humbled because I’m still so young and now I have so much responsibility and have no idea what to do ha-ha. It'll be a good experience. President Nelson gave me a few compliments that were extremely nice and has a lot of trust and confidence in me. I have to pack all my bags today and leave tomorrow morning. Church was kinda sad yesterday because I had to tell all the members I was leaving. I have grown to love all them. An awesome family threw a BBQ at their house for me Saturday night, it was amazing. I have come close to all the youth here and they all wrote me letters and are we're having another get together tonight. I have made a lot of friends here and it has been great. I hope you have a great week.
I love you all, Elder Breinholt
This week was freaking awesome. That’s awesome Cameron is home. Blake, Jeff and Kale are all leaving. Kaitlyn is getting married? That’s so weird I can’t believe it. This past Monday I met with our investigator Andy. I have known him since I came to the mission 6 months ago. He is the boyfriend of a recent convert girl Karla, he is 17 from the Dominican Republic. I have met with him every Monday for the past few months and he has always had so many doubts and it was very frustrating at times, but I learned a lot trying to research answers to his questions. Anyways, this Monday we met up at the church like always with a youth member Josue. We started the lesson by watching a couple of the special witnesses of Christ which brought the spirit. Afterwards we started talking about the atonement. I started pulling out all kinds of scriptures about the atonement of Christ and told him the importance of repentance. I asked him how we fully take on the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. What do we need to do to receive complete forgiveness of our sins? He said we need to be baptized. That was the exact answer I was looking for. Then I opened up all my favorite scriptures on repentance unto baptism. We read all those and I testified that we can only receive the remission of our sins through baptism and making a covenant with God. We have to do our part in order for the atonement to take place in our lives. I then asked, "Andy, what is stopping you from being baptized?" He said after a long pause, "an answer." He told me he really wanted to know if this was the true church. We all testified that the lord would give him an answer. Something hit me hard and said “set a date for baptism”. I explained and testified that the only way to receive an answer is if we ask with real intent which means showing the Lord what you're gonna do if he gives you an answer. Every time a date is set for baptism, the answer comes right away. Our member Josue shared his testimony and shared why Andy needs to be baptized. I then said Andy, will you be baptized this Sunday if you get an answer? I know you will get an answer tomorrow if we set this day. Will you do it? He sat there and during all of this was more serious than he had ever been. The spirit was so strong. He sat for about 5 minutes in complete silence as we waited. Then he said almost in tears, "I'll do it." We met with him a few more times during the week and prepared him for baptism. He did get his answer the very next day like I had promised. All he said was I prayed and I feel really good about it. He had asked me to baptize him because I’m a good friend of his now and yesterday he was baptized. It was the most amazing experience. The difference in Andy was miraculous after he had received a witness of the truth. He had to stop drinking and all of the other things that come along with being a youth in New York, but he has made a promise with the Lord. He shared his testimony after the baptism with all of us there and told us the real answer he got. He said that he used to go to church because of his girlfriend. He said, but recently I have been meeting with the missionaries without her because I really was interested and wanted to know if it was true. He said that when he prayed and asked if it were true his heart started to race and he felt this excitement, happiness that filled his entire body and knew it was true. He didn’t tell his girlfriend he was getting baptized till Saturday night, a night before, it was pretty funny. But, I know that miracles happen. We have worked hard; I have fasted and prayed lately for a miracle. The Lord always pulls through. We have 2 more baptismal commits for the upcoming weeks but I WONT BE IN RIDGEWOOD. Zone leaders told me Wednesday night that I had an interview with president Friday morning. I went to the interview and he asked me to be DISTRICT LEADER! I’m freaking going to MIDWOOD, which is South/Downtown Brooklyn to be district leader. I’m going to live in a 3 story rundown house with 10 elders. It’s a ward not a branch and it’s a huge District. I’m only starting my 5th transfer which will make me the youngest district leader. I was so humbled and am humbled because I’m still so young and now I have so much responsibility and have no idea what to do ha-ha. It'll be a good experience. President Nelson gave me a few compliments that were extremely nice and has a lot of trust and confidence in me. I have to pack all my bags today and leave tomorrow morning. Church was kinda sad yesterday because I had to tell all the members I was leaving. I have grown to love all them. An awesome family threw a BBQ at their house for me Saturday night, it was amazing. I have come close to all the youth here and they all wrote me letters and are we're having another get together tonight. I have made a lot of friends here and it has been great. I hope you have a great week.
I love you all, Elder Breinholt
September 7, 2009
Hola familia,
Well I hope you're all having fun up at the cabin. This past week wasn't the best week. We were all sick in our pad for the first part of the week. We rested Tuesday morning and then fought through the sickness and worked while the Zone Leaders basically slept all week and bummed it. It’s all good though. We're all better now, it was just some sickness everyone’s been getting around here.Well the week went pretty well besides that. We had an activity Wednesday night at the church with the branch and some investigators and watched the Testaments on the projector. Mauricio came and loved it. We visited him on Saturday again with a recent convert who is awesome and about the same age. He helped us teach the Word of Wisdom and it was rough at first and didn’t think it was bad to once in a while have a beer but it’s just bad to drink excessively. We talked for a while and I bore my testimony as well as I could so that he could feel the spirit testifying of the truthfulness of keeping the word of wisdom. It was cool cuz after that he went silent and said that makes sense. He told us he would come to church Sunday, as he had to in order to get baptized next week. He had work at midnight and we waited in church for him. He never came, and called later and said he got out late. I’m so bummed cuz now I can’t baptize him cuz I think I’m getting transferred next week. Its ok he'll get baptized the week after. We had 4 investigators at church though and some really good people progressing. We are trying to find more people and talk to everyone. We had a lady stop us on the street and ask us to come over which was something new, so we're going over there today, hopefully that goes well. My companion and I are getting along great. I’m gonna miss him and scared to get someone I’m gonna dislike. Missionary work is depressing sometimes, not gonna lie. We work so hard, follow all the rules and sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to but it’s ok because the Lord knows what he's doing. 3 years ago this mission was something you couldn’t believe. Missionaries weren't missionaries. My last president came in and did all the dirty work and turned the mission around. All the useless missionaries are basically cleared out a couple transfers ago. The new mission president is gonna take the mission to a new level. He's excited and turning things around, changing a lot of things. Its gonna be cool to see what happens over the next year and a half. Even though we have hard weeks sometimes its ok, we just have to keep going forward. I got up and bore my testimony at church. The branch is a good branch and has the potential to grow; it’s just that everyone blames each other for not doing stuff instead of just buckling up and doing it themselves. It’s frustrating because the missionaries do everything here and coming from home it’s different, because everyone in the ward would offer to help with everything. I’ve grown pretty close with everyone in the branch.I’m the choir director after church on Sundays. It’s so funny because nobody can stay on tune. They split up into different parts and don’t even know how to sing different parts. We are singing for a district conference in a couple weeks, it'll be interesting. Not too much is new though. Just working as hard as I can and trying to stay positive. I hope you all have a great week and a good labor day. Love Elder Breinholt
Well I hope you're all having fun up at the cabin. This past week wasn't the best week. We were all sick in our pad for the first part of the week. We rested Tuesday morning and then fought through the sickness and worked while the Zone Leaders basically slept all week and bummed it. It’s all good though. We're all better now, it was just some sickness everyone’s been getting around here.Well the week went pretty well besides that. We had an activity Wednesday night at the church with the branch and some investigators and watched the Testaments on the projector. Mauricio came and loved it. We visited him on Saturday again with a recent convert who is awesome and about the same age. He helped us teach the Word of Wisdom and it was rough at first and didn’t think it was bad to once in a while have a beer but it’s just bad to drink excessively. We talked for a while and I bore my testimony as well as I could so that he could feel the spirit testifying of the truthfulness of keeping the word of wisdom. It was cool cuz after that he went silent and said that makes sense. He told us he would come to church Sunday, as he had to in order to get baptized next week. He had work at midnight and we waited in church for him. He never came, and called later and said he got out late. I’m so bummed cuz now I can’t baptize him cuz I think I’m getting transferred next week. Its ok he'll get baptized the week after. We had 4 investigators at church though and some really good people progressing. We are trying to find more people and talk to everyone. We had a lady stop us on the street and ask us to come over which was something new, so we're going over there today, hopefully that goes well. My companion and I are getting along great. I’m gonna miss him and scared to get someone I’m gonna dislike. Missionary work is depressing sometimes, not gonna lie. We work so hard, follow all the rules and sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to but it’s ok because the Lord knows what he's doing. 3 years ago this mission was something you couldn’t believe. Missionaries weren't missionaries. My last president came in and did all the dirty work and turned the mission around. All the useless missionaries are basically cleared out a couple transfers ago. The new mission president is gonna take the mission to a new level. He's excited and turning things around, changing a lot of things. Its gonna be cool to see what happens over the next year and a half. Even though we have hard weeks sometimes its ok, we just have to keep going forward. I got up and bore my testimony at church. The branch is a good branch and has the potential to grow; it’s just that everyone blames each other for not doing stuff instead of just buckling up and doing it themselves. It’s frustrating because the missionaries do everything here and coming from home it’s different, because everyone in the ward would offer to help with everything. I’ve grown pretty close with everyone in the branch.I’m the choir director after church on Sundays. It’s so funny because nobody can stay on tune. They split up into different parts and don’t even know how to sing different parts. We are singing for a district conference in a couple weeks, it'll be interesting. Not too much is new though. Just working as hard as I can and trying to stay positive. I hope you all have a great week and a good labor day. Love Elder Breinholt
Thursday, September 3, 2009
August 31, 2009
Hey family,
It was a good week this last week. I didn’t sleep a whole lot so I’m sick now. My companion sleeps on the top bunk and moves a lot when he sleeps and the bed creaks like crazy. It has been rough in that area but other than that it’s been awesome. We meet our goals for the week and taught a lot of good lessons. Our investigator Mauricio is going down (getting wet baby). We taught him an awesome lesson about the atonement and baptism. Our mission president told us all to focus on the atonement in our personal study and with our investigators, so I've been trying to do that more. It has been awesome because it has strengthened my testimony and brought more power to the lessons. When you think of Christ the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is, he died for our sins. Yeah, that's correct he did, he died for everyone’s sins. The thing people forget is that our salvation isn't free. Christ’s atonement isn't free. We have to do our part first for his atonement to take place in our lives. Well what is our part? We need to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ which is done through baptism. In the scriptures it always talks about the repentance and then baptism. We need to teach faith unto repentance which leads us to be baptized. If I could only help people feel the need to repent they would ask to be baptized. That's how it was done in the scriptures and that's how it should be done today. Anyways, we taught the atonement linked to baptism to Mauricio and committed him for the 6th of September. He kinda gave us an answer of yeah he wants to but has fear. We just told him pray and ask the lord if he wants you baptized this date and I promise you he'll give you an answer. We went back 2 days later to see how he was doing. He had just bought a little DVD player so I pulled out my DVDs’ and asked which one he wanted to watch. He pulled out the restoration, we watched it. He then pulled out finding faith in Christ and we watched that. We talked after shared our testimonies and asked if he had prayed. He told us he had, and he told his wife who is in Ecuador the night before he was going to get baptized and she gave him the ok. He had received an answer to his prayers. He had to come to Church yesterday in order to be baptized the 6th because you have to come 3 times before baptism. He worked from midnight Saturday to 11am Sunday and couldn’t make it to our 10 o'clock church. We went over last night and rescheduled the date to the 13th. The last Sunday of the transfer. He said he will come to church this week for sure and I’m praying it all works out. One thing that I have noticed is that when an investigator has a date for baptism before receiving an answer that it’s true, they pray and always receive an instant answer. We receive no witness till after the trial of our faith. We also taught a less actives boyfriend Rommel again last night and taught a very powerful lesson on the plan of Salvation. It was amazing. We need him to receive and answer and hopefully can get him baptized the 13th with the less actives 9 year old daughter. We'll see how the week goes with them. He came to church a couple weeks ago and didn’t like sacrament meeting. Said it wasn’t very reverent which at times it’s not because most Spanish people here don’t discipline their kids. We're trying to get him to give it another shot. Everything has been going great. The weather is good because of some hurricane so no complaints there. We're all going to play football right now as a zone. I love missionary work right now. It’s always hard at times but there's nowhere else I’d rather be. You learn so many things on a mission that you can't learn anywhere else. I know that this is the Lords work. It's not easy because it was never easy for him so why should it be easy for me. I can't complain I have no reason to. I love you all and thanks for everything.
Love, Elder Breinholt
It was a good week this last week. I didn’t sleep a whole lot so I’m sick now. My companion sleeps on the top bunk and moves a lot when he sleeps and the bed creaks like crazy. It has been rough in that area but other than that it’s been awesome. We meet our goals for the week and taught a lot of good lessons. Our investigator Mauricio is going down (getting wet baby). We taught him an awesome lesson about the atonement and baptism. Our mission president told us all to focus on the atonement in our personal study and with our investigators, so I've been trying to do that more. It has been awesome because it has strengthened my testimony and brought more power to the lessons. When you think of Christ the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is, he died for our sins. Yeah, that's correct he did, he died for everyone’s sins. The thing people forget is that our salvation isn't free. Christ’s atonement isn't free. We have to do our part first for his atonement to take place in our lives. Well what is our part? We need to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ which is done through baptism. In the scriptures it always talks about the repentance and then baptism. We need to teach faith unto repentance which leads us to be baptized. If I could only help people feel the need to repent they would ask to be baptized. That's how it was done in the scriptures and that's how it should be done today. Anyways, we taught the atonement linked to baptism to Mauricio and committed him for the 6th of September. He kinda gave us an answer of yeah he wants to but has fear. We just told him pray and ask the lord if he wants you baptized this date and I promise you he'll give you an answer. We went back 2 days later to see how he was doing. He had just bought a little DVD player so I pulled out my DVDs’ and asked which one he wanted to watch. He pulled out the restoration, we watched it. He then pulled out finding faith in Christ and we watched that. We talked after shared our testimonies and asked if he had prayed. He told us he had, and he told his wife who is in Ecuador the night before he was going to get baptized and she gave him the ok. He had received an answer to his prayers. He had to come to Church yesterday in order to be baptized the 6th because you have to come 3 times before baptism. He worked from midnight Saturday to 11am Sunday and couldn’t make it to our 10 o'clock church. We went over last night and rescheduled the date to the 13th. The last Sunday of the transfer. He said he will come to church this week for sure and I’m praying it all works out. One thing that I have noticed is that when an investigator has a date for baptism before receiving an answer that it’s true, they pray and always receive an instant answer. We receive no witness till after the trial of our faith. We also taught a less actives boyfriend Rommel again last night and taught a very powerful lesson on the plan of Salvation. It was amazing. We need him to receive and answer and hopefully can get him baptized the 13th with the less actives 9 year old daughter. We'll see how the week goes with them. He came to church a couple weeks ago and didn’t like sacrament meeting. Said it wasn’t very reverent which at times it’s not because most Spanish people here don’t discipline their kids. We're trying to get him to give it another shot. Everything has been going great. The weather is good because of some hurricane so no complaints there. We're all going to play football right now as a zone. I love missionary work right now. It’s always hard at times but there's nowhere else I’d rather be. You learn so many things on a mission that you can't learn anywhere else. I know that this is the Lords work. It's not easy because it was never easy for him so why should it be easy for me. I can't complain I have no reason to. I love you all and thanks for everything.
Love, Elder Breinholt
August 24, 2009
Hola familia,
Como estan? Sounds like you all had a good week. The weather is freakening killing me. I’m used to heat but the humidity is pretty rough. It’s all right though I’ll live I hope. I got the letter from all the missionaries in the ward. Sounds like everyone’s doing good ya? I can’t believe Max and Ali are getting married already that’s nuts! Courtney Casper’s is probably gonna get married soon also. This last week was pretty good. We had someone from the quorum of the seventy come and we had a fireside. Elder Pace from the Seventy. We brought one of our investigators Thursday night, Carolina and stuck a translator on her head and she was good to go. It was a good night. She's gonna stop working on Sundays we think so we can get her wet in the font. Mauricio, quit his job so that he can come to church and we're gonna commit him either today or tomorrow and I think he's good to go. We have a lot of investigators right now that are so ready to be baptized and are being held back by little things. I’m praying that this week we can get rid of those little things and get some people ready for baptism. It was a very interesting week for me. I had one investigator Rosa, the sister of Carolina from Guatemala tell me she wants to marry me. She asked me if I would marry her and take her 4 month old baby in as my own. I just did a few of those awkward laughs and tried to ignore her a few times. I never responded ha-ha. Then after that we started teaching and she starts feeding her baby, yes right in front of us. It was just a wild visit. There’s also this little 8 year old girl in the branch who is the cutest little girl who made me a bracelet with my name on it and wrote me a love letter and gave it to me at church. It was so cute. I’m gonna miss this branch here a lot. I'm so close to everyone here, its gonna be hard. On Friday we had zone conference and Elder Pace talked to us for 3 hours straight. He's a funny guy. He's been a general authority for 26 years or something. He talked about humility. He said we suffer more from an unhealthy self image than a lack of humility. We are denying ourselves the blessings we have already earned because we wallow in our weakness. He talked a lot about the faith to find new people and the power of testimony. We have the ability to have a lot more baptisms in the mission and lots of missionaries wait around for members to help with missionary work instead of going out and finding ourselves and then bringing members in to teach. That’s the way it needs to be done here in New York. His talk was very powerful and pumped us all up.I think our new mission president is gonna change this mission and help make it a lot more successful. He's awesome and he's all about baptizing. I know Elder Oakes and I can get a few baptisms this transfer. We have so many that can do it maybe we just need a little more faith. We fasted last week and saw the blessing from that. Mauricio quit his job and a few of our other investigators are doing great. We just need to do all we can do and the Lord with come through and help us with our goals. The Lord is bound when we do what he says. He is literally tied up to bless us as we do what he says. I'm just trying to be obedient and work hard so I can have success which brings happiness. I love this work and I’m learning a ton about lots of different things. Thanks for everything. By the way I bought a new suit last week ha-ha cuz one of my suits is for handicap people. The crotch goes to my knees and it’s just messed up. It was only 100 for the new one so when you get the chance send me a Benjamin ha-ha thanks a lot I love you guys.
Love Elder Breinholt
Como estan? Sounds like you all had a good week. The weather is freakening killing me. I’m used to heat but the humidity is pretty rough. It’s all right though I’ll live I hope. I got the letter from all the missionaries in the ward. Sounds like everyone’s doing good ya? I can’t believe Max and Ali are getting married already that’s nuts! Courtney Casper’s is probably gonna get married soon also. This last week was pretty good. We had someone from the quorum of the seventy come and we had a fireside. Elder Pace from the Seventy. We brought one of our investigators Thursday night, Carolina and stuck a translator on her head and she was good to go. It was a good night. She's gonna stop working on Sundays we think so we can get her wet in the font. Mauricio, quit his job so that he can come to church and we're gonna commit him either today or tomorrow and I think he's good to go. We have a lot of investigators right now that are so ready to be baptized and are being held back by little things. I’m praying that this week we can get rid of those little things and get some people ready for baptism. It was a very interesting week for me. I had one investigator Rosa, the sister of Carolina from Guatemala tell me she wants to marry me. She asked me if I would marry her and take her 4 month old baby in as my own. I just did a few of those awkward laughs and tried to ignore her a few times. I never responded ha-ha. Then after that we started teaching and she starts feeding her baby, yes right in front of us. It was just a wild visit. There’s also this little 8 year old girl in the branch who is the cutest little girl who made me a bracelet with my name on it and wrote me a love letter and gave it to me at church. It was so cute. I’m gonna miss this branch here a lot. I'm so close to everyone here, its gonna be hard. On Friday we had zone conference and Elder Pace talked to us for 3 hours straight. He's a funny guy. He's been a general authority for 26 years or something. He talked about humility. He said we suffer more from an unhealthy self image than a lack of humility. We are denying ourselves the blessings we have already earned because we wallow in our weakness. He talked a lot about the faith to find new people and the power of testimony. We have the ability to have a lot more baptisms in the mission and lots of missionaries wait around for members to help with missionary work instead of going out and finding ourselves and then bringing members in to teach. That’s the way it needs to be done here in New York. His talk was very powerful and pumped us all up.I think our new mission president is gonna change this mission and help make it a lot more successful. He's awesome and he's all about baptizing. I know Elder Oakes and I can get a few baptisms this transfer. We have so many that can do it maybe we just need a little more faith. We fasted last week and saw the blessing from that. Mauricio quit his job and a few of our other investigators are doing great. We just need to do all we can do and the Lord with come through and help us with our goals. The Lord is bound when we do what he says. He is literally tied up to bless us as we do what he says. I'm just trying to be obedient and work hard so I can have success which brings happiness. I love this work and I’m learning a ton about lots of different things. Thanks for everything. By the way I bought a new suit last week ha-ha cuz one of my suits is for handicap people. The crotch goes to my knees and it’s just messed up. It was only 100 for the new one so when you get the chance send me a Benjamin ha-ha thanks a lot I love you guys.
Love Elder Breinholt
Monday, August 17, 2009
August 17, 2009
Hello everyone,
I can’t even believe school started. I thought about that this week. Elder Oakes and I were talking about how bad that stinks for everyone that has to go back to school. I’ve been here since school ended and it feels like that just happened. This last week was awesome but a little harder than the week before. It seems like every time I have a great week the next week is completely opposite. It helps having a companion that I get a long with. I’ve been trying to serve him more than anything, like make him breakfast every morning and it’s helped our companionship a lot, he's a cool kid. So all of us missionaries sang called to serve in church yesterday, and I lead the music for the branch ha-ha man I don’t know what’s going on. I also sang for a baptism we had yesterday for a girl in the branch. About 50 people were there and Elder Oakes and I sang accapella Oh My Father in Spanish with the tune of Come Thou Fount. It turned out pretty well for not having music, only the words and we had good harmony. It was fun. So our baptismal commit dropped last week Adrian, we don’t know what’s going on. It was a hard week but its ok it just makes you appreciate the good weeks. We had a good experience this week. I have been teaching and helping out a guy named Mauricio from Ecuador for a couple months now. He's the coolest guy and he's working so that he can earn 36 grand to bring his wife and 2 kids here in a couple years. I’ve helped him with a lot of things as he has struggled and the last few visits with him we told him to look for a new job so that he can come to church. As you know the economy is terrible and especially hard for Hispanics without papers to get a job. This past week we stopped by and we talk for a while instead of go in to teach and leave to show him we care about him. Before going over Elder Oakes said we should tell him to quit working but I said he knows what he needs to do and just felt like we shouldn’t bring it up. We shared our testimonies and the importance of the gospel. The spirit was so strong it was crazy. Mauricio then shared a couple experiences he had in his life. We closed with a prayer and as we stood up Mauricio tells us out of nowhere that he’s going to quit his job so he can come to church. He said he knows how hard it is to find a new job but he has enough faith that he'll get one if he does this. We couldn’t even believe it. All I’ve done for this guy is helping him out with a few things, done some service and showed we care. It made all the difference and he'll definitely get baptized, hopefully while I’m still here. This week will be really good. We fasted yesterday so that we can meet some goals we’ve set. My testimony strengthens so much every week no matter if it’s hard or if it’s an awesome week. There are always little miracles that happen in this work. I’m trying to focus on teaching with only the spirit and not myself. We have someone from the 70 coming this week to talk to us and of course I have to lead the music, ha somehow I became the musician director. It’s lame.
Anyways thanks for the emails I love you all,
Elder Breinholt
I can’t even believe school started. I thought about that this week. Elder Oakes and I were talking about how bad that stinks for everyone that has to go back to school. I’ve been here since school ended and it feels like that just happened. This last week was awesome but a little harder than the week before. It seems like every time I have a great week the next week is completely opposite. It helps having a companion that I get a long with. I’ve been trying to serve him more than anything, like make him breakfast every morning and it’s helped our companionship a lot, he's a cool kid. So all of us missionaries sang called to serve in church yesterday, and I lead the music for the branch ha-ha man I don’t know what’s going on. I also sang for a baptism we had yesterday for a girl in the branch. About 50 people were there and Elder Oakes and I sang accapella Oh My Father in Spanish with the tune of Come Thou Fount. It turned out pretty well for not having music, only the words and we had good harmony. It was fun. So our baptismal commit dropped last week Adrian, we don’t know what’s going on. It was a hard week but its ok it just makes you appreciate the good weeks. We had a good experience this week. I have been teaching and helping out a guy named Mauricio from Ecuador for a couple months now. He's the coolest guy and he's working so that he can earn 36 grand to bring his wife and 2 kids here in a couple years. I’ve helped him with a lot of things as he has struggled and the last few visits with him we told him to look for a new job so that he can come to church. As you know the economy is terrible and especially hard for Hispanics without papers to get a job. This past week we stopped by and we talk for a while instead of go in to teach and leave to show him we care about him. Before going over Elder Oakes said we should tell him to quit working but I said he knows what he needs to do and just felt like we shouldn’t bring it up. We shared our testimonies and the importance of the gospel. The spirit was so strong it was crazy. Mauricio then shared a couple experiences he had in his life. We closed with a prayer and as we stood up Mauricio tells us out of nowhere that he’s going to quit his job so he can come to church. He said he knows how hard it is to find a new job but he has enough faith that he'll get one if he does this. We couldn’t even believe it. All I’ve done for this guy is helping him out with a few things, done some service and showed we care. It made all the difference and he'll definitely get baptized, hopefully while I’m still here. This week will be really good. We fasted yesterday so that we can meet some goals we’ve set. My testimony strengthens so much every week no matter if it’s hard or if it’s an awesome week. There are always little miracles that happen in this work. I’m trying to focus on teaching with only the spirit and not myself. We have someone from the 70 coming this week to talk to us and of course I have to lead the music, ha somehow I became the musician director. It’s lame.
Anyways thanks for the emails I love you all,
Elder Breinholt
Monday, August 10, 2009
August 1, 2009
Hey!I can't believe school starts for you guy this week ha-ha bummer. Everyone here still has a month or more but the summer FLEW by its crazy. We haven’t even had too many terrible heat days. It’s humid and stuff but we had more rain than New York has ever had. I couldn’t imagine 115, I think I would die, but the camelback you sent me has saved my life. I started drinking a lot of water and have so much more energy and sleep perfectly. Hook Robby up with some good clothes so he gets some friends in Jr. High ha that kid cracks me up. So who the heck is Sean Toolson marrying? That was fast. I'll talk to my mission president to see, but he won’t know cuz he's new to the mission. His name is President Nelson, he's so awesome. He was CEO of inter mountain health care which is a huge health care company, so he's loaded and knows how to run things. He's changing a lot of things in the future I heard, some of them being awesome. My Spanish is pretty good, I've been working hard so I can understand everything just about and I can say almost everything I want to but I still need to improve a lot of course. One of the New Zone leaders that I live with is awesome. He's the strongest person I’ve ever seen. He played football at Utah State and will go to the NFL. He has the second best world record for bench press next to Matt Liner for quarterbacks. This guy is 230 pure muscle, his workouts in the mornings are insane. So I’m training Corwin (Corey) Oakes! A lot of my friends know him he used to hangout with Taylors sister and Taylor. I met him at EFY 4 years ago and have been friends with him since. He went to Mountain View. I heard he was coming into the mission from a couple people and then president called me to train. He asked the assistants if he knew me when he got to New York and they looked at him like what the heck! You know elder Breinholt?! I asked them the morning of transfers if they knew Elder Oakes and they just started laughing. So he is my kid (Greenie). He's an awesome guy, we get along so good and we're killing it with the work. We had an awesome week, and have a lot of good investigators right now. I moved up the baptismal date for ADRIAN for the 23rd so imp praying he goes down that date. We also have a couple other people that should be getting baptized but one of them Carolina, just got a new job and might be working Sundays. It stinks so bad because she received an answer to her prayers and everything. I had also been teaching this guy Byron who had smoked. He’s in his 20's and his dad told him helps him to stop smoking. We taught him the word of wisdom and he hasn’t smoked in over 15 days. He was doing so good, but then had some friends that have been saying stuff about our church so we're trying to work with him. We were supposed to pick up a few investigators to go to church yesterday but then had to go an hour early for a meeting. We called all our investigators that usually come and they couldn’t come this Sunday. My companion and I went into a room and decided to pray. I said a prayer and just asked that someone would show up to church. We were sitting in sacrament meeting and I looked back and saw some guy that comes to our English class. He stayed for all church. I asked him why he came to church randomly, he said he didn’t have to work and it just popped in his head that he should come to our church so he did. We gave him a book of Mormon and we're gonna teach him this week. It was an awesome experience. My companion and I are alike in everyway which makes it a lot more fun.I’m excited for this transfer. I feel like we're gonna have a lot of success. His Spanish isn't very good but that’s because he's only got 2 months out. I struggled too my first transfer but idk it just depends on how hard you work to learn the language and I worked really hard in the MTC but idk its all good. Tell Cory he doesn’t need to have a girlfriend, just be a player ha-ha jk but that’s cool he broke up with his girlfriend. Everything’s good here, we got a lot of freaking cockroaches, every night I go crazy with the raid but we're gonna get stuff from the office so don’t send anything. I hate cockroaches, they don’t even have purpose in this life, but have a great week, thanks for the email, hope everything goes well this week. By the way, I want the same face wash please. Thanks send lots of pics of everything.I love you, Elder Breinholt
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Photos from Derek's Mission!!
ladies who feed him in the mission
Hanging off the bridge. 
Derek and Elder Childs on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Derek's first baptism Geraldo
Derek's distric
Derek's distric Queens, New York
shipping out of the MTC
Derek's 2nd baptism Efron
Geraldo and Derek
shipping out of the MTC
Derek's 2nd baptism Efron
Geraldo and DerekAugust 3, 2009
Well freak!Sounds like Mexico were fun and leave it up to Craig to sink the car ha-ha oh man that’s funny.Well this week went well. It wasn't as great as last week but no complaints, except I have a huge wound on my hand. We had district meeting Friday and we made baleadas afterwards which are basically thick tortillas from Honduras. We were opening cans of beans and they wouldn’t come out. One of the elders had the idea of hitting the top of a can with a knife, puncturing it and then blow and the beans come out. He did and it worked. So I had a 12 inch knife and tried it. You hold the handle and with the other hand bang the top of the handle. It didn’t work the first try so my companion Elder Vargas said hold the handle and I’ll hit it. I held the handle of the knife super tight and he hit the top with both his hands. Problem was, as he came down from hitting he bought my hands along which ran down the entire blade. My hand started gushing blood, it was pretty cool. Luckily we were in the church kitchen and they had first aid so we sprayed it with blood clot spray and wrapped it. It was freaking wide and definitely needed stitches so we later went back to the pad and super glued it shut ha. It worked for a while until the blood underneath pulled off the super glue. I’ve been using butterfly bandages though so it’s all good. Anyways last week was the last week in the transfer. We had two investigators at church. A lady named Carolina from Guatemala who has been twice and she brought her husband this time. I’m praying I can baptize her this transfer cuz I’m STAYING!Thursday night the zone leaders came in and said Elder Haggard, my companion and I had interviews with President Nelson Saturday morning. We had no idea what was going on, but the zone leaders said he has made some decisions about some things and wants to personally interview us. Well we went to the interviews and President told me I’m going to be training this transfer. I’m having a Kid! I’m freaking training a new missionary in the area I was trained in and it’s only the start of my 4th transfer. It’s the youngest anyone has ever heard of for this mission for Spanish Elder. I’m way excited and so nervous. I just want to have success this transfer cuz it makes all the difference if a young missionary has success or not, cuz he can’t think that the mission doesn’t baptize. President told me the importance of training and wants us to baptize. I’ve been fasting and praying that this will be an awesome transfer. I find out who my kid is tomorrow morning. Other than that not much is new. I’m not really ready for this but it will be a good experience. Sounds like you're all having fun. Have a good week.Thanks for everything I love you,Elder Breinholt
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