Hi everyone!

Say hello to 70 degree weather in Oscoda, Michigan and lovely clear blue skies and a bright sun, with a cool breeze to top it off — about time! 😉 Goodness I hope it stays this way.

Last week started off with a district P-Day for which we went to the West Branch apartment and played some games and watched a church movie on their homemade projector. (Elder Fiame wired up an overhead projector to their dvd player and it actually projects movies onto their wall).

Tuesday we had the opportunity to visit with and teach the pastor of the Assembly of God church in Tawas. It was a great visit and by the end he had a major respect for what we do as missionaries and what this church stands for, although he’s not necessarily interested in getting baptized x) We also learned a lot about modern sectarian Christianity in the process. Additionally, we had a lesson with Mary Bean who is continuing to learn and progress, and we are hoping to be able to put her back on a baptismal date tomorrow. We just need to somehow get her to church! In the evening we went back over to West Branch, actually, for a sleepover! Haha, this is because Wednesday morning we needed to head down to Midland for zone conference. Good thing everyone just talked and laughed till 1 in the morning so we didn’t get any sleep anyway.

Zone conference Wednesday was wonderful and it answered some of the exact questions I have been pondering and been asking for help from God to know or understand, especially how to search for God’s prepared children using the Spirit. That was literally all that the final training in the conference was about: Finding by the Spirit. I am so grateful for the organization that Christ’s church has with leaders who teach by the Spirit to the needs of us missionaries, or similarly from the Prophet to the saints. Had a lesson that evening with Rob who has been reading, or rather listening to the Book of Mormon on his Kindle, and loves its message and is leaning towards being baptized!

Thursday: Had some super nasty chile at a member’s house but told them how much we loved it. “Do you want more?”
“Oh no thanks, but it was great.”
“It’s okay there’s more than enough! Here have some more.”
“Ohhh thank you thank you….”

Friday ended up back at the trailer park. Knocked into a house full of drunk guys sitting down listening to some classic rock music– ie. Led Zeppelin, Def Leopard, Bon Jovi
A couple of the guys there actually knew who we were and have talked with missionaries in the past. They wanted to hear what we had to say and turned the music down. One of them was seriously super drunk and asked for something to read, and all Elder Hudson had at the moment to give was a Word of Wisdom pamphlet…. Ironic? Perhaps. But the man, Al, started to read, and began to cry. He is aware that God doesn’t want him to be doing the things that he’s been doing and that Alcohol is what is causing him to remain in darkness and depression and have suicidal thoughts. He opened up to me for a couple of minutes, his spirit came forth through his drunkenness and spoke to me while the rest of the men in the room laughed and made themselves merry while speaking with Elder Hudson. Al put his hand on my arm and cried and begged me over and over to help him, to save him. I promised him I would do my best to help him but in the end it would be up to him to go to Christ and to keep the commitments we leave. He wanted us to get him to church, but come Saturday we could not get a hold of him. Sunday either. We will stop back by soon. Al’s friend Gerry is willing to help Al and wants to change his life and loves the missionaries and wants to come to church as well. I pray that we will truly be able to help these men make differences in their lives and rid themselves of certain destructive behaviors.

That’s pretty much everything exciting for this week. Soon we will be off to the apartment to continue cleaning and shampooing the carpet. Yay. 🙂

This became a very long email. You’re welcome.

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful and fantastic week!

Elder Breinholt

Hello friends and family!

The work here is being delayed as it is difficult to have conversations with people with heavy, freezing winds blowing as we try to speak with them on their doorstep. We are literally praying for spring to come and wednesday we were specifically praying for the snow to stop falling. It worked for a little while 🙂

The snow hit once again early Sunday morning, and all the members of the branch who live out in Hale, about 45 minutes west of Oscoda, decided to turn around and head home because of the danger driving on River Road. So together the rest of the branch almost decided to cancel church, but in the end still decided to have sacrament meeting. I have been sick for the last 5 days so they didn’t want me preparing, blessing, or passing the sacrament, but in the end they had me be the conductor! We had one speaker, one member of the bishopric was there, and church literally went from 10:00 to 10:30! 🙂 After church I was nearly coughing up my lungs so Elder Boyd our district leader commanded that I get some rest, so I did. Feeling a lot better now, and I think that the Lord allowed me to get sick in order to get that rest in the end. I feel prepared to work even harder than before I was sick.

We had the chance to find some people who are interested in having us back and hope to be able to teach them next week. Sometimes we meet people for the first time and after that they drop off the face of the planet and become impossible to contact or find. We are still working with our current investigators and doing our best to help them progress and become what Heavenly Father knows they can become, and make and keep sacred promises with him.

The other day will knocking in a trailer park, we came to a trailer and knocked and from inside heard someone yell in a demonic scream, “Satan lives here!! Get off my porch!!” We did not delay leaving that house and later on that day we came to another trailer and there was a large pool of blood on the porch and Elder Hudson and I got a really weird, off feeling, and decided to leave the trailer park after that. God will lead us, guide us, and protect us so long as we will listen to the subtle promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Today we are headed to West Branch to go have some fun with the other Elders. Pictures to come next week! Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Breinholt

Hello Everyone!

Didn’t email yesterday because our zone had a big zone P-Day in Mountpleasant yesterday! By the time we got home the library had already been closed for hours.

But we had a ton of fun and bonded together as a zone! (Pictures attached) At the end of it The zone leaders and sister training leaders gave us some training geared specifically toward serving others and charity, which I felt was very appropriate as we were relating most of it specifically to serving and caring for future spouses, and that was a very prominent topic during General Conference.

Speaking of which, General Conference was amazing! As always. When I was younger I never would have that I could love sitting down and listening to the words of these men and women as much as I do now. I felt the Spirit so strongly on so many occasions throughout the time talks were given and songs were sung. I am grateful for prophets and apostles given to us here in the latter-days, and I testify that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, just as Moses was in times of old. He is the only man on the Earth at this time who holds all the keys of the Priesthood to act in the name of Jesus Christ. Those of you who didn’t have a chance to watch general conference, I exhort and encourage you to go and at least listen to one talk. They can be found at www.lds.org

We are doing our best to continue to find and teach and baptize. The work is going quite slow right now, and the snow hit is pretty hard again. The cold and the snow pushes people even more so than normal to reject us or not want to talk to us on their doorstep. So hopefully it will all be over soon!

I love you all and continually pray for your happiness and peace in a world where those things are harder to achieve than ever. Have a great week, I will be back next Monday.

Elder Breinholt

Happy Easter Everyone!

This week was great! It wasn’t terribly warm but it wasn’t terribly cold either. I went on a tradeoff in West Branch with Elder Fiame, and they do not have a car at the moment so he and I did a lot of walking. Apparently he did not even know we were going on tradeoffs that day, so he didn’t have any specific plans… so we went wherever he felt impressed to go at the time, and I’ll tell you what happened: knocking on what would seem like random streets, we happened to knock into a woman who is a member of the church but hasn’t come for years and years, and we had the chance to talk with her and get her phone number. Continuing to knock, we happened to knock into that woman’s daughter who is also a member and hasn’t come in a few months. Is this all coincidence?? Pish posh, there is no such thing. 😉

And this wasn’t even the last of it! We decided to do some personal contacting downtown, and as we were going there was a big church building, but the sign in front said something about a thrift shop, and we had a feeling we should go inside. When you get those small feelings or ideas pressing on your mind, just do it. We went in and as we were looking around, a lady happened to recognize that we were Elders and came up and talked to us. She told us that the past Elders used to come in this building to do service for an hour or two each week, and she directed us to the woman in charge who was very grateful to see us and says they could use the help again. It is a non-profit organization to help kids within the community. Our last district meeting was literally all about service and encouraged us to look for service opportunities in the community. Coincidence? I think not!

I am indeed grateful for Elder Fiame’s cooking. He cooked fish in coconut oil and made me breakfast in the morning, too.
We had the chance to teach three lessons to investigators with members present. That hasn’t happened in a week in this area for probably at least a year. Things usually move pretty slow here.

This is quickly turning into a long email, so I’m just going to go all out: Have you ever experienced tree rain?? On thursday our area was subject to freezing rain which blanketed everything in sight in a sheet of ice. Friday, our walking day, the weather was just warm enough to cause the ice to melt, little by little, causing a constant rain of ice to fall from every tree in the city. Seriously at some points it was actually pretty dangerous, but hey, I love a good dangerous adventure! >:D

One last detail of my week: Have you ever woken up unable to turn your head to the left or right without experiencing excruciating pain? That’s what happened to me yesterday morning (Easter morning.) I still can’t really turn my head to the left, and I can’t keep my head straight, it stays at about a 30 degree angle to the right. Haha, any suggestions anyone…?

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week. I’m grateful for this Easter season to remember Christ’s triumph over sin and death. Through him, everything that is unfair in life can be made right, thanks to His Atonement:

Alma 7: 11-12
11. And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people
12. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt

Good morning friends and family,

Although for some of you it is not morning. I had a lack of picture-taking this week but please don’t be mad. Things are actually going really well and Elder Hudson are excited. This area may be seeing a couple of baptisms in the near future yet. A couple of dates have to be moved back because it’s been so difficult getting people to church, but we did pick up another three investigators this week. That’s 7 in the last 14 days. That is unheard of in the Oscoda area! 😀 So we are doing our best to keep busy and teach these people as much as possible and extend commitments to them that they may strengthen their testimony of the Savior and His restored gospel.

I had the chance to go on a tradeoff with Elder Boyd, our new district leader, on Wednesday. We were in Hale Michigan which is mostly just country. We knocked for a few hours and only talked to a total of about 5 people, but one of the homes we knocked into was the home of Ed and Sue, a lovely couple of probably 80 or 90 years of age. Have you ever seen the movie 50 First Dates? There’s a guy in the movie they call “10 second Steve” or something like that. That’s what it was like talking to Ed:
“Where did you say you’re from Boyd?”
“Arizona.”
“Payton Manning boy, eh? Ya see that table over there? I made that.”
“Okay cool… so as we were saying about Joseph Smith–”
“YOU KNOW! I made that cabinet over there, and you see that crate down there?? I made that. Now, um, where did you say you’re from?”
“Arizona.”
“Payton Manning boy, eh?…”

And so on and so forth.

Collin Schroeder is off and in the MTC in Provo preparing and learning, and Elder Boyd and I started teaching the parents of a girl he used to like in Hale, so the plan is to baptize her family and he will come back and marry her.

Other investigators are doing well. We pray for them and do our best to meet with them and get them to church but sometimes it’s difficult. People are SO intimidated to come to church but once they come they realize there was nothing to be afraid of and that being there brings so much peace and helps you feel the Spirit and remember Christ.

i’m doing my best to continue to learn more of the doctrines of the kingdom, and apply principles that Christ taught into my life that I may become a better disciple and a more prepared husband and father in the future. I am a different person than I was seven months ago, and I’m so glad. I didn’t know I had the capacity to do the things I am doing, and endure things I have endured, and I accredit that to a loving Father in Heaven, the Atonement of Christ, and a wonderful family that has taught me good morals and values.

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week! Stay awesome, and I promise I will try to take more pictures this week. 🙂

Elder Breinholt

(Elder Boyd and I)

PS He loves Dubstep

HELLO EVERYONE!!

The amazingtastic trip to Lansing finally happened! We got a call on Friday asking us to come Monday, and that is indeed why we did not email yesterday. So, sorry.. We didn’t know very “in advance” and the drive down there alone was 3 hours long. Plus they could not and still cannot find the key for our new car, so ended up giving us the spare. We waited for the tech guy to switch the tiwi devices and VOILA! Brand new 2016 Ford Fusion. With only 15 miles on it. It drives like a dream.

Additionally, last week was actually a very good week for us here in Oscoda. We picked up FOUR new investigators, which literally doubles our number of investigators. Two of those four were given through one of our current investigators, Nikki, who has loved our message so much she is already doing her best to spread it to other people. That is the joy that comes from the Gospel: It is so great that it simply cannot be contained.

One of the members of the branch took a very bad fall and cracked four of his ribs and has an enormous bruise on his side, but Elder Hudson and I had the opportunity to give him a blessing last week and he is already up and about again and says that words in the blessing could not have been known by us because it said things he’s never told anyone in the branch.

I also forgot to mention the other elders of our district got whitewashed out last week so we have some new elders including a new district leader. I’ll be trading off with him tomorrow.

Keep pressing forward, friends and family. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful and amazing week.

Please enjoy these pictures from our trip and embrace our nerdiness as we have embraced it.

Elder Breinholt

Hello everyone!

Some crazy things happened this week and I don’t have a ton of time left to talk about them!

Sunday, the church recieved a call during the last hour and it was a man asking for help to pay for his wife’s medication. A member went and helped him out and then called us and had us come meet them there, too to set up an appointment to talk with this guy because he is looking for a church. We set up an appointment for thursday, but he called us that day and asked us to come, So we did! Taught the restoration, he liked it and said he was read the Book of Mormon and come to church. Explained his situation and asked if another member would be able to get him 6 more dollars, so we worked something out. Supposedly, he later ended up being rushed to the hospital and that’s why he didn’t show up to our thursday appointment or church! A couple members are worried we might have gotten swindled but we are not sure. Stay tuned to find out!

We have someone on date for baptism! Her name is Mary and she is a wonderful lady! She has very strong faith and believes the Book of Mormon to be true and reads it often. This area hasn’t had a baptism in three years, so I hope we can change that. The baptism is planned for April, and we will have to work hard with her to accomplish that.

I want to let you all know once again how much I love you and pray for you. I have become someone new through Christ and I desire the same for others, because there is so much joy and beauty in life when you serve God by serving others.

Transfer calls came and Elder Hudson and I are staying here together for at least another 7 weeks. 7 because the MTC changed to 3 weeks instead of 2 again so it throws things off.

Have a wonderful week! Goodbye!

Elder Breinholt

Hello Everyone!

I was so very excited to let you all know how we were planning on the best P-Day ever today, but we just BARELY received the call that everything got cancelled. I will explain:

Near the end of last week, our vehicle coordinator called asking how many miles were on our car, and we told him, and he told us he has a brand new 2016 Dark Blue Ford Fusion waiting for us in Lansing and to come pick it up on Monday! So we had all of these awesome plans for things we were going to stop and take pictures at on 3 hour trip down there. We were even going to have lunch with some other Elders, and dinner with a family in Saginaw on the way back. But something happened, and we got called and told that the car switch is cancelled for right now and they’ll get back to us. :/

I guess things don’t always go as you plan! *eye twitches*

Anyway! There were some great things that happened this week. On Wednesday, we were out knocking on doors with Collin (who’s heading to the St. George Mission) and the snow and wind were getting progressively worse until we received a call from Elder Johnson with a message from President Jacobsen saying all missionaries are to return to their apartments. Indeed it was a dangerous trip back because it had become a blizzard, but we made it safely.

SO, Thursday we decided to get out and find by shoveling people’s driveways! Some people were very grateful and even offered us money which we did not accept. No one was particularly interested in learning from us but strong seeds were planted through service.

Had dinner with former investigators from a year ago on Saturday. They LOVE missionaries, and gave us a bunch of food to take home. They want us to come back for dinner again soon and teach a lesson. 🙂

Last thing – this was miraculous. During church yesterday, a man named called the church asking if it would be able to help him pay for his wife’s medication for seizures. The member who talked to him on the phone willingly met him at Rite-Aid and paid for the medication, but then began to speak to the man about his spiritual needs, too, and talked about the missionaries. Then, the member called us and asked us to meet them there, so we did, and Brother Byard invited him to learn from us and gave him a Book of Mormon. So we scheduled with Ryan for Thursday; however, after we got home and had lunch, Ryan called us and asked us to come immediately, and so we did, and we prayed, he talked to us, he cried, he asked why God would allow their financial problems to come and to affect his children, and we taught him why and about the Restoration of the Gospel. He says he will read the Book of Mormon and be at church with his daughter on Sunday! I truly hope and pray things will continue to go well for these people.

This turned into a pretty long email, but just know that God does work miracles, whether we notice them or not, and whether we choose to believe it is merely coincidence. Know that I no longer believe in coincidence. I see the blessings he gives me too many times every single day to believe otherwise.

Love you all, and hope you have a great week. 🙂

Elder Breinholt

Hello Everyone! 😀

Let’s see if we can keep this somewhat short and simple.
Last Wednesday we had interviews with our mission president, which went very well. President Jacobsen offers so much inspired wisdom and counsel particular to our individual areas and circumstances. He gave me a lot of hope and motivation to strive to work even harder.

Collin Schroeder, an awesome young member of the Oscoda Branch, is heading out to the Utah, St. George mission in March! He joins us often in the work, whether it be knocking on doors or teaching lessons, so that he can prepare, and so that we have an extra mind and spirit with us.

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to teach a wonderful, brand new family in East Tawas. It’s a mother and her two kids, who are about 15 and 12 or so. The Spirit was strong in the lesson and we hope and pray that they will continue to learn more about the restored Gospel and the Book of Mormon and find out for themselves whether it is all true. We will be meeting with them again today with a couple of members. Is this the family we have been looking for?

Lastly, we were blessed with the chance to do a church tour with another investigator, Nikki, along with two other amazing members of the branch with their kids. Nikki very much enjoyed it and it was quite spiritual, especially with Sister Scherbel having the opportunity to talk to Nikki about the chapel and the sacrament and what it means to her. Unfortunately, Nikki wasn’t there at church yesterday, but we will get her there soon.

As for right now I believe that is all! We don’t have much planned for P-day today or anything, as we are quickly running out of miles to use for this month. I love you all, I hope you have an amazing week, and remember the love that God has for you as an individual. I mean it, as an individual, He is aware of you and knows you and wants what’s best for you. So just let Him in, you can trust Him. 🙂

Elder Breinholt

1. the district
2. we made pizza x)
3. what I do with spare time

Elder Breinholt

Friends and Family Happy Valentine’s Day!

Presidents Day got in the way so here I am at the library emailing on a Tuesday.

Last week was pretty awesome. Went on a tradeoff with the district leader, Elder Johnson, who is super awesome. I’m grateful for this district. There’s only four of us, but this group definitely knows how to have fun in the right way. So last P-Day we played a lot of basketball in the Oscoda Branch building, and then chilled for a while at the house. Then Elders Hudson and Blazzard left and I was with Elder Johnson until Wednesday. But oh no, Fat Tuesday had to go and ruin all of our stomachs. Elder Johnson and I had dinner twice, and apparently the other Elders each ate 8 pazckis! (Don’t know how to type that with an english keyboard.) Then it really ended up becoming Fat Week instead of just Fat Tuesday. We are now facing repercussions.

We’re doing the best we can and people keep cancelling on us and lessons keep falling through. We had the chance to teach a new family last week, and taught the whole restoration, and they thought it was awesome, but don’t want to investigate. They say they are fine where they’re at. This area is pretty difficult, but we are surviving the 0 degree weather and putting in our 15 hours of doorknocking. We need a miracle to keep this branch alive. Either that or for spring to bring floods of people back to this place.

Pictures:

1 After Basketball
2 tradeoff w/ Elder Johnson, visited a member who is 6’10
3 etc

Love you all, have a great week.

Elder Breinholt