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