Hello Everyone!

Don’t worry too much. It was just a warning… 🙂

Had a wonderful week. I made a Kool-Aid Pie for my district, and it was a little too sweet for some of them but hey, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? 😉

The Wilsons had us over for dinner, along with the Bishop’s family–The Petersons, and also the Lunds, the family of the ward clerk. There were so many pies. And an amazingly delicious sweet potato casserole. And Orange Rolls. And Turkey, and cheeseballs, and more pie, and stuffing, and gravy, and cake, and pie. The Sisters and Elder Liu and I were invited and we came and stuffed our faces. President Jacobsen sent out a text giving us the rules for Thanksgiving: Go out and find from 10:00 to 12:00, and then have a Happy Thanksgiving. So after the meal we hung out with the returned missionaries in the Wilson’s house and played a bunch of games and had a blast.

We totally ran out of miles in our car, and in fact, we had to take in for a recall on Tuesday morning. So we did a lot of walking this week through the cold, but we managed and survived. This week it’s ward again. My theory is that the only place where the weather is relatively constant must just be Puerto Rico.

I have loved learning about the Savior throughout my mission so far. I just hit the four month mark, and I feel my learning of God, the Gospel, and the Atonement, have grown exponentially and continue to do so with every new day and every new challenge. I did lose my copy of Jesus the Christ, but Sister Edwards gave me hers because she heads home in two months and doesnt want to pack it in her backs with her, and she just finished it a couple weeks ago. It’s a little backwards because the sisters are actually trying pretty hard to take care of us, especially because we are two noobies who have no clue what we are doing.

Things are well. We are teaching, we are learning, we are finding people who are prepared to learn more about Christ and about his teachings, and people who are not willing to accept new information. Be open to learning, my friends, and always lean unto God for the truth, not just a book. Not the Bible. Not the Book of Mormon. Lean unto God, and he will tell you whether anything you read or learn is true. I testify that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain the word of God. We become better people by reading them, understanding them, and then applying their teachings. Faith is not passive. We must act, and we must repent, and these are two of the first steps to finding true happiness. A saint is not someone who is perfect. A saint is someone who understands the need for repentance, and repents constantly. A saint is someone striving to one day be like Christ, but knows that they are not quite yet there. Lean on Christ, and His Atonement, and one day, we will know him, we will recognize him as our Savior, because we will be like Him, and I bear this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I love you all and I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Looking forward to Christmas? Some people here have had lights up since Halloween. Oh and I was pulled over because my taillights weren’t on, and I didn’t notice that Elder Liu had turned on a weird setting in the car. The problem is that the car is more of a spaceship than a car.

Hope I didn’t miss anything.

Love,
Elder Breinholt 🙂

From the Wilson family in Michigan…

Your Missionary is serving in our ward, here’s a picture of them and our family. Thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Everyone!

Winter actually just hit for real two days ago. We had to trudge through the storm for hours because we are basically out of miles on our car for this month so we are rationing what is left. It’s not like Utah snow. Here, it’s humid, and that creates a problem. We went to the car yesterday morning and the doors were frozen shut and the wheels locked in place. Windows frozen over. No ice scraper to be found. I shoved the door open for Elder Liu to get in and start the car and get the defrost going and I got to work on the windows. It was somewhat of a mini nightmare. 🙂 Supposedly, this is just the beginning. Yay for Michigan!

We are teaching some wonderful people right now. Josh, the pastor, took us to lunch again, AND gave us copies of “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis which he ordered online, because we had talked about it during our first lesson with him.

We are also teaching a man named Joe in Colon, and he is awesome. A brilliant man, with multiple PHD’s, and ready to learn more in depth about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He already knows that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and we hadn’t even mentioned it yet. He told us. If that’s not God preparing people and leading us to them, I don’t know what is.

There are others we are teaching as well, some who progress well as they keep committments, such as praying and reading, and others who take longer to learn and understand. I love being here, and I love serving the Lord, and there is nothing else I would rather be doing with my time.

Have a great week everyone! Stay strong! Keep holding on to what is important, and let go of things which are not. It sounds hard, but in the end, it is so much easier, and so much happier.

Until next week!

Elder Breinholt

(Elder Liu’s desk turned into a battleground. Not mine. Just wanted to say.)

Hello Everyone!

A few different awesome things happened this week:
Hung out with some fainting goats.
Found a bunch of super excited people who want to learn the gospel in Colon.
A man who hates talking to missionaries gave us $20 on the doorstep.
Another man who we were worried was a drug dealer called to us to stop and came over and asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon.
Bought a Guitar with two strings missing for $1.00.
Elder Liu fell out of a member’s house.

A lot of the previous investigators Elder Yadon and I had have fallen completely out of contact. They won’t pick up calls and they are never home when we come by. These past two weeks, many different lessons fell through, whether they called us in advance or we showed up with a member and they were not home. It’s frustrated when people get all flaky on us, after showing a desire to learn about the gospel and setting up a specific appointment with us. But it’s something that happens all around the world. Don’t be flaky, my friends. Don’t be flaky.

Jason the Brony has been doing well and has been able to come to church three times. It’s been difficult securing rides for him because he doesn’t drive and lives about 25 minutes south of the the church, along the south edge of the mission boundaries. He’s doing great though and we keep pushing his baptismal date because he wants to have a sure answer before he commits to baptism.

We were referred to a man named Isaiah, who basically looks like a mixture of Chris and Liam Hemsworth, but he’s 19 years old. The guy is built. Lives on a farm. I thought he was maybe 25 or 30. He is interested in hearing more, and he knows that his cousin Josh has been having the discussions from the Sister Missionaries in Three Rivers, and he says that his family will be interested in hearing the message as well! We’ll be seeing them on Tuesday.

A man named Josh who is a pastor took us to Lunch on Friday, and paid for us, and gave us a ride to the street we needed to go to afterwards. We had never talked to him before, we had only knocked into his wife one day and gave her our number to give to her husband, and we have an awesome lesson with him over a delicious meal. (Steak and Potatoes.) We’ll be seeing him again this week, and he wants to take us to lunch again. What a great guy!

There are a lot of other people we are teaching right now, but for the sake of time I cannot talk about them all! Thank you for your prayers and support, both friends and family, and I love you all.

Lastly, to explain the whole $20 situation, this guy opened the door and started asking where we were from and got into a little bit of an argument with Elder Liu. I tried to just ease the whole situation by just talking about where I am from and just general stuff about missionaries, and this man, Bryan, after refusing to allow us to rake his yard, pulled a 20 out of his wallet and extended it to me. I didn’t know what to do so I kept telling him we couldn’t take it! But Elder Liu took it and later explained that Bryan will get blessings for it, which is true. There are SO many crazy experiences that happen throughout mission-life. For example, the Sisters in Three Rivers after a miraculous experience, confiscated cigarettes and tobacco from one of their investigators, who gave it willingly and wants to change their life. I’m so glad to be a missionary, and to have an effect on people’s lives, or rather, to be a vessel to allow the Lord to come into the lives of the people who are prepared and willing to receive us.

Didn’t mean to but this email became long. Have a great week everyone. I love you all dearly! I promise, I really do. Because YOU are awesome.

Elder Breinholt

Hello everyone!

This week was pretty crazy, but also very good! Elder Liu and I both have no clue what we’re doing, but we just do our best to rely on the Lord and good things happen. Monday was insanity, because we were stuck in Kalamazoo (the HQ of the zone) with a bunch of other missionaries, waiting for supplies all day long. The Assistants finally showed up at about 7:30 pm, and they had forgotten the supplies we needed… So we have been going without planners and restoration pamphlets all week, and will finally get the supplies on Wednesday.

While we were waiting for the leaders to show up, we did end up going into a guitar center, and I learned that I have already forgotten how to play the guitar and dj. The missionary veil is real after all.

The man who chased Elder Yadon and I last week found Elder Liu and I in wal-mart, and came walking up to us. I was worried, thinking he was looking for more trouble, but as it turns out, he walked up to us to sincerely apologize for his behavior, and said that it wasn’t him, but demons inside him and he had lost control of himself. He ended up giving me a hug, asked me to apologize to Elder Yadon as well, and left. We had another experience with a man possessed by a devil while door knocking this week. Satan does not like us missionaries. He is trying to discourage us, or scare us off, or make us do things we will regret (such as bible bashing, arguing, fighting, yelling, or sinning in any other way.) But we will stand firm and steadfast in Christ, and continue to accomplish God’s work in bringing his sheep back to the fold.

Elder Liu is very weird. He has lived in a bunch of different states, and Australia, and has a lot of siblings. 12 of them. Moving so much, he was home-schooled. He has trouble getting up in the mornings so I have to shake his mattress and rip his sheets from him sometimes. haha. He is a very humble, down to earth, intelligent, and obedient missionary and I’m glad to be serving with him.

Have a good week all, and know that I love you and God loves you!

Elder Breinholt

Transfers happened! We got the call on Friday. Right now we are emailing from Kalamazoo, and Elder Yadon is gone to Greenville and I am staying in Sturgis Area. My new companion is Elder Liu, and as of today he and I are both done with our training. Typically, when just barely finishing your training, you get a companion who has been out for a while to help you get the hang of things, but instead President Jacobsen put two new guys together. We are going to work hard and have lots of fun! Elder Liu is a weirdo, but weird is good and I can tell things are going to go very well.

We played transfer ball, and as usual, I really suck at basketball. But I played the whole hour and a half or so and just continually embarrassed myself and had fun doing it. It was my goal to not play basketball my whole mission, but I’ve already failed… ;P

I have to admit, I’m a little nervous to already be taking over Sturgis area, but I know there are lots of people who believe in me as a missionary and as a servant of Jesus Christ, and Elder Liu and I already plan on being as obedient as possible, while following the Spirit as much as possible.

On Elder Yadon’s last day in Sturgis, Whitley was baptized. A little girl named Chloe who just turned eight was also baptized, and someone from their family gave the talk on baptism, and Whitley had asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. I gave both Chloe and Whitley blankets to remember that the Holy Ghost is also the Comforter, because my Grandma did that same thing for us, and Chloe’s mom said it was the perfect gift for her, and wanted to repay me, but of course I said no. ;D

Whitley (pictured below) has made some huge changes in her life, and her countenance is suddenly a lot brighter. She made the commitment to be baptized on November 1st only two weeks before that, and followed through. Last night, we had dinner at her house with her mother and kids, and for desert: Kool-Aid Pie. You ought to WISH you had Kool-Aid Pie (aka Ghetto Pie, as told to me by Whitley’s mom).

Oh yeah, last thing, we were walking down Chicago Street, said hi to a dude, he told us to go away, so we walked away, he started yelling at us, following us, and then chased us down, got in Elder Yadon’s face and was threatening us, threatened to call the cops accusing us of sexually harassing his wife, and we kept walking and he followed closely and we talked to a random guy who stopped his car and the guy left. GOTTA GO OUTTA TIME BYE!

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt

We’ve almost done it: Three months in the field, and finishing off The First Twelve Weeks training. Honestly, it’s a little scary, because I have no idea what’s going to be happening to me by next week. Chances are that I am staying here in Sturgis (as it would be crazy to throw a missionary who just got trained somewhere into a brand new area), but I don’t know for sure whether Elder Yadon is leaving, or who my new companion might be if he does, or if I will actually be a trainer, as is possible after the first three months. Heck I could even end up as the district leader for all I know! I believe we get the calls on Friday, so we’ll see.

I traded off with Elder Reynolds, another Elder in training in Coldwater, one transfer younger than me. So sure, just throw two trainees together in a town neither of them knows very well, right? It actually went very well, and through constant prayer and diligence, we found more people who were willing to hear the gospel then either of our companionship usually find in a day. It doesn’t matter how inexperienced you are at something, so long as you rely on the Lord. He goes before us, and he leads the way, and through listening and following, we are blessed, and everything falls into place. 🙂

Oh by the way, this sunday we are having another baptism, and her name is Whitley. She is part of a part-member-family, and has two kids. She has made major, major progress in a short amount of time, and made the commitment to be baptized on Nov. 1 only two weeks ago. That was her choice, not even us being pushy 😉

I send my love and prayers out to all of you. Take every opportunity you can to serve others, and the world will be better for it.

For anyone who wants to send anything, supposedly it is best to send it to the mission office this week as it is possible I could be in a different area next week.

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt

Hello Everyone!

So I don’t have much time, and I still need to finish laundry and shop for a bunch of stuff, so if and when I don’t respond to your emails this week, that is why! 🙂

Today my district all went to Shipshewanna and visited the Menno-Hoff and learned all about Amish and Mennonite background, so that was really cool. But let’s get on with the miraculous weekend already!

So essentially it consists entirely of just Saturday, when I was on trade-offs with one of my favorite zone leaders in the whole world, Elder Alley. He and I did a lot of doorknocking in Indiana, and found 7 potentials within a matter of about 4 hours. Each of them seemed as though it was simply meant to be and they are truly in need of more knowledge and light shed upon the idea of Jesus Christ and what He wants for us. One specific miracle would have to be at the end of Mountain Street, when Elder Alley was trying to talk to this lady who was really trying to get away from us, she was already twenty feet away and Elder Alley asked “is there anyone you know who might want to hear our message?” and this woman, without even a pause of a second, immediately responded “2nd floor above the Carney’s Apt. 2!” and walked away. Elder Alley stopped for a beat, said “We’ll take it,” and we were off to the Carney’s. The people who live in that apartment hate to speak about religion, and do not like missionaries, so it is obvious that the lady who gave the referral gave it entirely out of spite, hoping we’d get yelled at; however, the renters of the apartment were not the ones to answer, but a man who happened to be visiting at that exact time who is very interested in learning about the gospel and specifically asked for a pamphlet or something he can read to learn more until the time he can have a lesson with us. The only problem is that he lives out of our mission boundaries, so other missionaries further south into Indiana will have the privilege of teaching him. The Lord works in mysterious ways, even through people’s spite the gospel can and will go forth, as long as we remain diligent.

I love you all and I truly do have to go, but I will be talking with you again in a week and hopefully will be able to respond to a few of you!

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt

Oh and by the way, WE HAD A BAPTISM!!! 😀 Her name is Holly, and she’s basically been in progress towards being baptized for about a year, and she
finally got her wish to be baptized in a lake near their cottage 🙂 And a couple of these are pictures of Elder Alley, in one of which he was making me cake
in a cup as a gift for my birthday (late). Cake in a cup, who knew, right?

Elder Breinholt

Hello everyone!

How did you enjoy conference?? I LOVED it! As missionaries we still do get to watch all ten hours, and we do so using the satellite at the church, and how crazy is it that we have three brand new apostles?? We got to watch a sort of Q&A with the newly sustained apostles, Elder Rasband, Elder Stevenson, and Elder Renlund, after the second session of conference, and it is very apparent to me that these men are truly called of God, not of men. I’m so grateful for all of the uplifting and inspiring words that were said, and the loving words of warning and counsel as well. If you will follow their guidance, they will lead you to the Savior.

Ice cream social before Priesthood Session
Brother Walker — One of my favorite people here, known by us as “Scientist” Walker, because he’s seriously a genius, and it’s awesome

Birthday present from grandparents

I think I said otherwise in my last letter, but interviews with the mission president actually happened on Friday. They are not something to be worried about, but an opportunity to talk with the mission president about any concerns you have, and to receive some counsel from him and let him know how things are going. He indicated to me that he is aware that I am confident in the work and that he is confident in me, and he helped me realize that I know what kind of missionary I want to be and can be, and eventually will be if I keep working hard. It’s a process, and it takes using all of your might, mind, and strength, and it would be a lot harder and have less purpose if we did not first love the Lord with all of our might, mind, and strength.

Elder Erekson (right) (new zone leader), and Elder Reynolds (left) (Brand new trainee in the district)

Do you all remember Jason the Brony? Well he came to the second session of conference on Saturday! He has been seeking an answer from God as to whether or not the Book of Mormon is truly God’s word, and if Joseph Smith was truly a prophet. One of the talks given I was just hoping and praying he was taking it all in because it was basically perfect for him. He has been doing well and it’s a result of prayer and of the effort of people in this word to fellowship him. Our other investigators are doing well also, but we don’t get to see them as often because they are busy, especially with the changing seasons.

I love you all and I will talk to you again next week!

Elder Breinholt

Hello everyone!

Quick weekly update because we have to go soon. As usual.

Saturday was a huge event that had been months in planning: The Family History Affair put on by the Sturgis Ward, for people all around to come, take classes on family history, learn how they can find information on their ancestors, record their history online, index, and so much more! There were booths from all sorts of other organizations which revolve around family history work and exhibits and a big poster for people to take old-timey pictures in front of. It was awesome. The only thing that was a little bit disconcerting is the difference in the amount of people who showed up this year opposed to the numbers last year when this same event was put on. Last year: over 100. This year: 6. Yup. 6. 🙂 Better than zero, but less than 100. However, I did have the opportunity to personally serve a man by the name of Ralph to do much of his family history and he was ever so grateful, so if we had to do this whole thing just for him, I think it was worth it. I literally sat down with him for three hours, starting with showing him how to work a computer mouse, and ending with searching possible duplicates for his ancestors in familysearch. It was awesome.

So many miracles are happening here and I thank you all for your love, support, and prayers. Also, the sisters in my district tried to get me to swallow a live goldfish, but when I declined they had Elder Mafile’o do it, and it was a little bit sad. Inhumane? I don’t know.

We hopefully have a few more baptisms coming up so stay tuned!

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt