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

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

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

Queens, New York shipping out of the MTC

Derek's 2nd baptism Efron

Geraldo and Derek

August 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

7-20-09

FAMILIA,Well sounds like everything’s awesome. I got a lot of good emails today so it’s all great to hear. Yeah dad’s nuts buying a new boat but he’s always got to be buying something, it wouldn’t be dad if he didn’t. So you’re all going to Mexico again? Find me a good wife and bring her back k? It’s all about the Spanish girl’s ha-ha. Anyways, how was the temple? Barney emailed me and it sounded like a good time. It’s so good they went through the temple. I don’t have any stash of t-shirts and I haven’t received Kristin’s package unless it was the 4th of July one that I told Craig I got? I’m excited for the package you sent ill probably gets it Wednesday. Tell karlyn thanks for the email.This week was really great. I got my new companion on Tuesday. His name is Elder Vargas and he’s from Texas. He spoke Spanish before his mission because his dad is from Peru and mom from Mexico but he’s white. He’s very prideful because he already speaks and his grammar stinks but whatever ha. He is a freaking sleazy salesman ha-ha. Mission president told me he’s a smooth talker but that was an under statement. He try’s to sell people on getting baptized instead of testifying with the spirit but he does teach pretty well other than that. We all get along so it’s all good. Just a little different because I like to do things fast and rush to appointments but the others like to take their time. It takes a little longer to do things with 3 of us but we're an army it’s awesome. WE had a great week though. We taught a lot of appointments and are trying to just commit everyone no matter what first lesson. We got a commit from a lady named Dulce, which means candy in english ha and she’s from Dominican Republic. Don’t know how serious she is. She said yes to our invitation of baptism because the spirit was so strong but often times when we leave the spirit can’t stay with the people and so they go back to normal. WE have a lot of progressing investigators right now and had 4 new investigators come to church yesterday. It was so awesome.This lady named Carolina and her sister Rosa from Guatemala are way good. WE knocked into their door a couple weeks ago and only some guy was home. We shared a short a short message and asked if we could come in and share more. People never let us in but this guy did. We shared a short message and came back to see how he was a couple days later. Some lady answered the door and we told her we taught some guy there and so she let us in and we taught her. Well, a couple days later we went by to see if either of them were home and another lady answered the door, and she let us in. While we were talking about the restoration of the gospel the mother walked in and listened. The next time we went this lady Carolina had written paragraphs to some questions in the restoration pamphlet we gave her. We went over and had lunch with the family Saturday. They fried up some huge fish, with head, tail, and everything and flopped it on my plate. As you know I hate sea food let alone a fish staring me in the eye with his eye but I ate it. I also ate cow hoof soup this week at another investigators house ha-ha rough week with eating. But Carolina and her sister came to church with us. They are prepared by the lord. They have a lot of questions but they’re so good. WE have a lot of awesome things going on right now. The work is hard sometimes but we’ve been blessed this last week. It’s all because we tried to have the best attitude for the new elder and honestly that makes ALL the difference. You have success when you have a good attitude. It’s hard at times but it’s all that matters. Another really cool younger couple came to church and I think they liked it a lot, I was surprised they came. I’m excited to see what happens with our investigators this week. Geraldo, who I baptized, baptized his friend Saturday and he called me after saying it was the coolest experience ever and thanking me for everything, it was nice to hear. His mom went to watch the baptism and she said she felt the spirit so strong. She thinks our church is the devils but she has a different outlook on the church now which is really good. That kid will baptize so many people in Ecuador. Thanks for everything, all your prayers and support, I love you and pray for you daily too. Love, Elder Breinholt