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

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

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