Hey Everyone!

An inactive member came up to us and told us that he wants to be baptized so that was awesome. We need to re-teach him some of the lessons but hopefully that baptism will be coming up soon!

I think there is a lizard living inside of our house somewhere. We’ve seen him twice but somehow he always runs away from us and disapears, but honestly it’s good he is there because he’ll eat all of the nasty bugs that get in our house. We named him George.

I feel like I didn’t explain enough about Mexico in general in my first few emails so I’ll elaborate more on that. First, ground rules. If you are taking money out of a machine, keep it hidden and put in a pocket that would be difficult to pick-pocket. Second, don’t drink the water. This one kind of confuses me, because we use the water we can’t drink to wash dishes and do bathroom stuff, but I’m alive so all is well. Third, be extremely careful with the cars. I mentioned this earlier, but the drivers here are Crazy! They don’t stop for people in the road, they honk, don’t slow down, and expect you to get out the w ay. Good times.

We get around by walking and by taxis. More than half of the cars on the road are taxis so it is pretty efficient, and it only costs 10 pesos every ride (about $0.53 in US money).

Besides the casual ant invasion or cockroach we find in our house, it is pretty nice. We have a good amount of space and a spot for the kitchen and fridge and our workplace. Thankfully everything in the bathroom works. It is all setup nice. Our walls are just the most vibrant of pink also so that’s pretty great.

Hope you are all doing well where ever you are!

1-Minecraft in real life is not nearly as fun.

2-Totally got to wear a Gucci hat as we did service. It’s probably fake but it’s the thought that counts

-Elder Breinholt

Hey Everyone!

This week was an eventful week. It started off with intercambios (I honestly have no idea what it is called in English) and Elder Torres left with Elder Condori and Elder Wallace stayed with me for the day. After some contacting we managed to find family to teach later that night. The lesson we gave was my favorite lesson I have been a part of so far. The spirit was incredibly strong, and they said they would already think about baptism. They are two of our new investigators, and we managed to find 4 for that day.

The next day we switched back with our normal companions and went on with our day as normal. We went and visited the hospital because they wanted to do a check-up and while we were down there I may or may not have bought a ukulele, but that’s not important. We then visited a family in the ward because the father was thinking about baptism, and while we were there one of the daughters and her boyfriend came in, and we got to talk with them. Now the boyfriend is another new investigator.

The next day was interesting. Our Mission Presidents were in town, and had personal interviews with all of us, in our own houses. It was quite frightening, especially since we didn’t know when they were coming and they showed up around 11 in the morning. It was a good experience though and it’s always nice to see and talk with the Mission Presidents.

The day after we had my first zone conference. It was awesome. Being around a ton of missionaries and learning great lessons and tips for teaching was amazing, and then I also ate 20 tacos after we were done which were also amazing.

The following day was pretty normal, but we found 2 new investigators. We started teaching them, and the father’s wife came in and starting talking too, and didn’t stop. She didn’t stop talking for 50 minutes! I’m not trying to say it was bad or anything, because it isn’t, it was cool to listen to her beliefs and views of things, but it was insane! And every time we would come in a start talking, or even in the middle of the sentence she would just start going again. It didn’t end until we were walking out the door about 20 feet away from the house. They’re great people though, and I’m sure if we are able to get a message across next time, the lesson will go great.

-Elder Breinholt

Hey Everyone! This week has been an interesting week.

I’m saying this next thing in this email because I feel like no matter what I do, most or all of you will find out about it eventually. The first week in the field I was getting weird stomache aches. I just pushed them aside because I though it was just my body adjusting to the new food, but this last Tuesday it was so bad I had to be rushed to the hospital. We then did some tests and found out that I have Salmonella! Wow. That was crazy news, especially on my second week. We had to stay at the hospital until Thursday in the afternoon (which honestly was kind of luxury. We had warm running water, free food, and tv, which I don’t know if we should have watched or not but I watched tons), then we got to go back to the casa and now I’m on all sorts of medication and stuff. Don’t worry about it though, all of it has been dealt with and we’re already laughing about this. Just thought I’d get that out there though.

Besides that, we didn’t get to do too much because we lost some days of the week, but the day we got out of the hospital we had the best dinner of all time. 6 of us Elderes went to a members house, they put on the movie Coco (which we are actually allowed to watch, so we all good), and then had as many pancakes as wanted. It was incredible.

And then yesterday I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting, my first talk in Spanish. I was actually told last week that I would have to give a talk then but they never announced my name, and since I was already prepared I just used the talk I wrote for then. It was a cool experience. I don’t think I did too bad on my Spanish, but honestly I have no idea.

Other than that it has all been normal. We visited and taught families, we have 2 new investigators, a date for baptism, and my Spanish is improving. Hope everything is going well for you all!

-Elder Breinholt

Hey everyone! I am now out of the MTC and serving in Mexico teaching the people. Its crazy! It came up super fast but it is super fun and Mexico is awesome.

Before I start, sorry if my English struggles. Everything is in Spanish.

I’ll start with the end of the CCM. I woke up at 3:40 in the morning with the 2 other people in my district who were going to Xalapa. We went to reception and then from there got on a bus, then 30 minutes later got on another bus to go to the Mission Home. The trip was about 6 hours to get there. We got to meet the Mission President and a bunch of other missionaries who had been serving for a while now.

That night we got to find out who our companions were. My companion is Elder Torres. He awesome, he’s been serving here for just about 5 months now, and he is from Mexico. He knows a decent bit of English because his brother served in California English speaking and he said the rest he learned from video games.

We then stayed the night at the secretary’s house, and then the next morning got on another bus to go to our zones. That was another 6 hours (ugh).

We then reached the area and me and my companion walked to our home. It’s a decently nice place. We’ve got ropes hanging everywhere to dry our clothes and we’ve got a place to cook and wash dishes as well. Our shower doesn’t have warm water to we shower with a bucket. That’s an experience. We fill the bucket full and then put a water heater in it, and when it is warm, we shower. It’s weird but I’m already pretty used to it.

It is really starting to hit me how much I don’t know Spanish. It honestly is really weird that they would let us out without that good Spanish. For the first few days I literally understood nothing. I would just sit silent and I felt bad because my companion would do all of the teaching. But now I do help and even if the message doesn’t come out right, I still try to talk and teach. It’s the only way I’m going to learn.

I didn’t think the food could get any better, but it did. I won’t talk much about it because it isn’t important, but dang it’s going to be hard when I come back home, because this is the best.

This last Saturday also we had a baptism for an investigator. Elder Torres and Elder Wilson (who was his last companion) had a 14 year old investigator scheduled for baptism so I got to participate in that which was awesome. I didn’t do the baptizing but it was still a cool experience being behind one of those.

I could talk for ever already on all the stuff here but sadly I’m on a time limit. However, I love this place. I love Mexico, the people here, and I love teaching the gospel. I have already had so many spiritual experiences here and I can always feel the spirit so strong. Hope you all are having a great tiem wherever you are at!

-Elder Breinholt

I only have a second to send a short message but we made it to Xalapa and I am currently at the Mission President’s house. Everything is going great and we’re all having a super fun time. It’s awesome here.

I’ll be able to send my actual email next Monday, and then it should be every Monday from there.

-Elder Breinholt

Hey Everyone! Time has been flying here at the CCM. It is already our final week here. We have 3 more days until we leave to go into the field and we are flipping out. We’ve been working crazy hard to be as prepared as we possibly can, and we are already all packed up and ready to go. Us three that are going to Xalapa leave on a bus all the way at 5 in the morning on Monday. Everyone else is flying at 2 a.m.

I´m going to miss this place but honestly I am so excited to leave and start helping actual people in need.-

We get the opportunity to go to the temple once more today and I am super excited. It is an amazing experience experience doing a Spanish session here in Mexico.

They gave us some advice to write home in at least a little bit of Spanish so I decided I’ll use it in my testimony.

Yo creo la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Días es verdadera. Yo he aprendido por mí mismo mientras estudiando y orando. El Libro de Mormón contiene las palabras de Dios y Jesucristo, y todos que los profetas enseñan es revelacion de Dios. Sí nosotros tenemos fe en Jesucristo, todo es posible. Yo sé esta es verdadera.

-Élder Breinholt

Guys. The CCM is great. I’m going to miss this place. Next week is already going to be our final week here, and right after we’re going to be in the field. It’s crazy how fast time is going by!

Spanish is coming along much better than I honestly thought it would be, just I’m positive we’re going to talk to our first investigator and I’m not going to understand a thing, but it’s fine, we’ll learn eventually.

The driver´s here are crazy. México has very similar driving laws to the United States, but theb est way it was explained to me was that everyone thinks that the driving laws apply to everyone except themselves. It is the funniest and scariest thing being on the roads here. Honking is super casual too, so from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. that’s all you can hear. México is weird.

Today we got the opportunity to go to the México City Temple and it was an amazing experience. We got to do a full temple session in Spanish, which although it was difficult to understand, was still very spiritual and I had learned a ton. That temple is the largest one out of the United States and it is beautiful. The culture and structure of buildings here is awesome.

I love it here so far and what we have learned so far is incredible. I have found so much joy as I devote my time to the Lord. Remember that there is always time for the gospel in your lives, and it will always benefit you.

-Élder Breinholt

Oh and I was wrong, we leave the CCM on the 5th of February.

This week has been awesome. Except that I never know when I´m going to be emailing. The last about 5 hours we spent somewhere getting work done on our visas, but I think we are all set now.

We play, so much fútbol (that´s soccer) here. We had made some awesome friends with some latinos that lived in our building with us, and they are amazing at fútbol. We get absolutely destroyed every time, but it´s fine because I´m getting better.

Sadly all of those latinos only had to stay 3 weeks, so we had to say goodbye to them all. They were an awesome group of people and all have very strong testimonies, and taught us a ton of spanish. That´s what all of the pictures are today.

We also got to have this oppurtunity to go to something called TRC. People come and visit the CCM and can take lessons from the missionaries there, and me and my companion taught two lessons. I definitely know that the gift of tongues has been blessing us, and the spirit was definitely with us as we taught. We had a lesson on this, and I can´t remember who said it, but he said, “I know when I am teaching with the spirit when I learn something from what I teach.”

It is extremely important to always leave room for the spirit to bring revelation into our lives. Having the spirit brings constant guidance and revelation into your every day life. I know this is true.

I love being here, it´s awesome, and I´ve been meeting tons of great people. We already have the date we leave the CCM to, which is 2 February, so only about 2 more weeks!

-Élder Breinholt

Hey everyone!

Sorry this email is probably going to be pretty long. We did’t get a P-Day last week so this email includes that week too.

The mission is amazing! Everyone has gone according to plan so far. I landed in Mexico with a group of six other missionaries. From there a bus to the CCM (MTC). We all met up and met our districts. My district is awesome, we´re all already great friends. There’s only eight of us and we have no hermanas so I believe that we are the smallest district in the CCM, but that’s fine.

They just throw us into the language. By the second day they were asking people who have never had a spanish lesson in their lives to pray in the meetings. It is pretty difficult but already it has basically only been a week and, for the most part, I can already understand what fluent spanish speakers are saying. We all speak spanish to each other at least 70% of the time, and that has been helping too.

So Mexico is a bit different than expected upon arriving. In the mornings, it gets cold enough to see your breath, but during the day, oh its incredible. Its somewhere from 70-80 and it is so nice. However it is winter and in the summer we are probably going to suffer. Also the food here, everything is incredible. I don’t even know what half of the things are but it still tastes great.

For the first week of the CCM, I was in a trio. One of the members of our district never showed up, so it was Elder Kendall, Elder Leon, and me. I find it funny because I’m the one who gets up early, and my companions, I don’t think they like to be woken up. Its nothing wrong with them, I just found it hilarious because that was me every day before here. The MTC can change people… But anyways, sadly someone in our district had to leave to home this morning. He was an awesome part of our group and we were sad to see him go. Because of that I am no longer in a trio. It is now just me and Elder Kendall.

I have been loving the experiences here. The amount of studying and learning of the gospel is incredible, and I am so glad I get to be a part of it. I have learned so much here, and it is making me very excited to go teach it to others, I just am not ready with my spanish yet. I’ve been missing you all tons, but I am so glad that I am here. I know that this church is true. I know that what I am learning and what I am going to teach is true. God loves us, and he wants the best for all, and I want to help him with that goal.

-Elder Breinholt

Pictures:
We weren’t able to get many pictures since we are only allowed to take them on P-Day (so today) but I’ll be able to have more next week.

1 – Flying in to Mexico. Like wow. This city holds 8.8 million people.
2 & 3 – Me and my companion Elder Kendall.
4 – View of part of the CCM and the hill behind.

Oh and my next P-Day is going to be Friday. Unsure as to why but that is when I’ll be sending my next email.

Hello! I made it to the MTC safely and everything went well along the way. It has been super fun and everything is going super well. We had a group of eight of us on the plane and we have all stayed together up to the MTC.

Mexico is awesome and I´ll hopefully be able to send you all pictures later.

I was able to see my friend here too, and another missionary here actually knows them too as a ward member.

Hope everything is going well back at home! My P-Days are on Thursdays, so that is when I will be able to send an actual weekly email. Love you guys!