Hello Everyone!

We don’t have a ton of time because we gotta get out and get working, but I just wanted to update you all on what has happened:

Elder Hudson is now in Portland and I am here with Elder McGuire! He’s a super chill guy, and a great missionary who is ready to work hard, so I’m very excited for this transfer.

Last week was a little rough. We cleaned our entire house on Monday and Tuesday including shampooing all the carpets. There was a lot of moving furniture around, and on Wednesday we helped a member move a bunch more furniture and move some huge 200lb logs. Elder Hudson totally threw out his back but didn’t realize it and he could hardly walk. We called in and the leaders sent us to Bay City to find a walk in clinic. (62 miles away for the closest walk-in clinic.) Really not a lot was done last week but we are preparing for what looks like a great week here in this new transfer.

We already have started off right because we just found a lady named Angie who is searching for truth and have a return appointment with her on Thursday.

I’m very excited to rely wholly on the Savior and on the Spirit as we do our best to be the missionaries God needs us to be to help the people who live within the Oscoda area.

My friends who sent me emails this week: sorry I am not going to be able to respond to all of you until next week!

Hope you all have a wonderful week and remember how much God loves you and how much I love you as well!

Elder Breinholt

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