January 31, 2012

Happy New years Eve! Dec 31, 12

Well I must say that it was really good talking to you guys. Sorry if I didn't say too much to some of you, I was just soo tired that morning and for some the room I was in was freezing and I was shivering the whole time. But you all sound great and I am soo glad that you guys are happy and enjoying life. The rest of Christmas was great and it was nice to be able to talk to big D before the night ended even though he was half asleep! ha no just playing. So to tell you the truth I am really jealous that you guys are snowmobiling right now. The snow is amazing this year and it just keeps coming down. How are the new sleds though? There can't be too much of a difference then the last year models. oh also I met a guy Sunday morning I am trying to remember his name but he has been snowmobiling with us up at Daniel summit before and he bought K hill in Showlow from dad and Tyson like 6 years ago. Anyways, he is awesome and was just called by the stake to start working with us missionaries more so we are going over to his house next week to think of some new ideas we can do for the missionary work in the stake.

Well I am going to get my mind off of snowmobiling before I go crazy! So the only thing new with our investigators is that we put someone on date for the end of January and he is pretty much golden. We just need him to start coming to church more and we should be ok. The problem is he just has a really bad back so sometimes he just lay's in bed all day because it's hard for him to get up. Our church is changing times to one o clock in the afternoon so hopefully now he will have enough time to get up and go. A really cool thing happened when we were knocking doors Friday night. We went to this one house that we have been trying to contact for a while now and this older man came out and recognized who we were. He started telling us that this past week he went and saw the Salt Lake temple and that it was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his life. He said after seeing it he walked away with the best feeling and told himself that he wants to be a member of whatever church that is. ha-ha pretty crazy right!? Well the upset to it is that he is only here until January 10 and lives in Mexico so we got his address and are going to turn it in to the mission office so that they can contact him down there. On top of that we had another later that isn't a member that came to church. She is just here for the holidays and lives in Chile. She told us after church Sunday that she really enjoyed in and wants to learn more the time she is here. The best part is that she is here until the end of February so hopefully we can get her baptized before she goes back to Chile!

I am crossing my fingers this month and am hoping that we can start preparing more people to be baptized since we just got done baptizing all of our other progressing investigators. With transfers coming up in just 2 weeks it is going to be interesting to see what happens and to see if I stay or my companion. I hope that all of you are being safe this week and enjoying the great snow without me. I can't lie and say I don't miss that stuff because I miss it a ton! After calling you guys I missed you a lot and really wanted to be with you guys but it was still a very neat experience to talk to you guys after six months and hear Avery and Logan talking! But I'm all good now and back to the work. I love you all and am glad that you guys have so many great opportunities to grow closer to each other. have a great week!

Elder Breinholt

December 17 - 2012

Its Christmas time!

This week has been a one of a kind and opened my eyes with a lot of things. I am excited to be able to call you guys next week! I am going to call next on Christmas at 9:30 and I am just going to call on the phone because if I Skype I will only have 30 minutes to talk to you all instead of a hour if I just talk to you on the phone. Maybe next time I will Skype! ha The snow here is looking pretty good for you all up in the mountains. It snowed all day Saturday but the ground was too hot so it just melted as it hit the ground. It is suppose to snow today tomorrow and Wednesday though. This week I received a lot of nice Christmas cards and I should be getting mine to send home today. I also got two big box's which I think I am suppose to save for Christmas so don't worry I haven't opened them yet.

I don't want to say too much today because I am just going to talk to you next week but I'll just tell you about my weekend since it was the most important. It all started Friday when we were teaching these 3 kids that got baptized Saturday, and we were helping them put away some things in their rooms when I noticed that they really didn't have anything in the rooms at all! I mean only a dresser and that's it. I found out that the two boys and the two girls in the family have been sleeping on the ground since they moved from California 4 months ago. Their mom works from 6 until 11 at night sometimes just so that they can have some presents for Christmas. I felt so bad when I found this out so Sunday at church I talk to someone and our amazing ward got two beds over to their house that same day, to help them out a little bit. Their ward is also going to get them some presents for Christmas. Man did I feel blessed after I found out that news about them and it really made me think about even those little, little things I have always had. I mean I have always been grateful for the things that I have in my life, but when you really see how bad that some people have it in person especially with people that you really care about, it makes you think differently. So please just think about those things as you are going through hard times this week.

Be happy that this Christmas you have a wife or a husband that still cares about you and would take a bullet for you if it came down to it, even though you just want to strangle them at times. Be happy that you can go home and lay down on a bed at night and have some food in the cupboards when you wake up in the morning, and be happy that you have a Savior Jesus Christ that literally gave up his whole life for us and our Heavenly Fathers plan. If you really, really want to be happy in life you just have to do one thing, Serve! Just serve others and I promise you, you will see that it brings happiness. It's like the scripture "If you serve the least of these my brethren, ye are only in the service of you God." It something like that I know it better in Spanish, but that is what we need to be doing right now at this time of the year and always.

We give gifts to each other to show our love for one another, but what kind of gift are you giving to your Heavenly Father? Well, you give many gifts to Heavenly Father if you serve his children. I have a lot more I would like to say, but I will save it for when I get to talk to you all. I love you guys soo much and I look up to you all of you. The decisions you make that are good, make me want to be a better person too. We are a family and will always be one for forever and we need to lift up each other and build each other up. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas...

Sincerely,

Elder Cory Breinholt

December 3, 2012

Dear family, Dec 3, 12

So this morning I woke up and went to the gym, (where I saw Talon again and he said he is coming down there this week) and then I went home, got dressed and waited for the call for transfers from the AP's. It was about 9 when we got the call and Elder Getts, one of the AP's told Elder Cebreros and I that we are both staying in our area. It was bitter sweet news because at times I feel like I could defiantly work with someone else but, I am so happy that I am staying in this area. Elder Cebreros is really awesome though and has taught me a lot! I am officially done being trained and I doubt it will feel any different since I still have the same companion that has trained me.

It is a blessing in my life though that I get to still keep teaching the same people though. Also over the past two transfers I have held in a lot of things that have bothered me about Elder Cebreros until this week when he said something that just pushed the limit and let's just say we had a fun little companionship inventory. The good news is that when we got done, I think we both felt way better about each other and ever since everything has been awesome and I feel like we have the spirit more as a companionship and work together more. So I know that this next transfer we are going to have even more fun together and work hard because right now we have 9 baptisms planned for the month of December.

We had a baptism for Maria Guzman this weekend which went very well and we are still planning on having 4 this Saturday. One of these twin boys that is getting baptized this Saturday asked me yesterday if I would baptize him so I am pretty excited to be able to baptized my second person in the field. I can really feel the Lord blessing me right now and now, I just want to make sure that I work hard so that I can repay him for the good things he is/has given me in my life right now.

I also have a wonderful story about an Elder who is in my district and who was one of my companions in the MTC. I am not sure if you remember Elder Ray who was put with me and Elder Jackson about half way through the MTC, but he is in the area right next to mine. Just the other day the mission President came out and said that even if the person speaks perfect English, if their fist language is Spanish then they must be taught by Spanish missionaries. So Elder Ray and Elder Contreros got the referral by the English missionaries that fell under this guide line. The first lesson they had with them, the parents kept talking about this one missionary that they love and when he was there he had baptized the dad. He was having success with the mom too when he got transferred. Well the mom said after he left things just didn't feel right so she didn't end up getting baptized. When they told us that the missionaries name was Elder Ray too we were surprised and it just so happens that Elder Ray's brother served in the same mission, but is an English speaking missionary. Well to make the story a little shorter, Elder Ray (my Companion) showed them a picture of his brother and it was him and the lady knew that this was a sign that she must get baptized and pretty much told them that she wanted to get baptized as soon as possible. She wanted Elder Rays (the one that taught her first), brother to baptize her. So Sunday night I went to this baptism and saw Elder Ray's brother baptize this lady after getting permission from the mission President to come and perform it and Elder Ray (my companion) will give her the Holy Ghost next Sunday. It is nothing more than a miracle and just shows that the Lord works in mysterious ways. I know this doesn't have anything to do with me, but I really thought you guys would enjoy it.

Everything is pretty much the same in my area this week and my investigators that are progressing are doing great.

We need to start finding more people to teach though because all are investigators are going to get baptized and we aren't going to have anyone to teach. I guess that is good though in a way.

I got the package from Grammy and Pampa this week and from all the cousins and man was that amazing!! Thank you soo much, I am happy that I have a present every day until Christmas and the cards that I got from all the cousins was the best!! It kind of sad, but I'm pretty sure Carter and some of the cousins have better hand writing then me! ha-ha. You guys are wonderful though, and I am going to try my best to get some letters out to people and try to make a Christmas card that I could send to mom and maybe she can just make copies and hand them out (so I don't have to pay 20 dollars or more on pictures and run out of all my stamps:) ha I love this time of the year and I hope it ends up snowing more here for your Christmas trip because right now there is only snow on the top of the mountains and that's it. Maybe Herber on up got more snow yesterday because it rained all day here yesterday, but it wasn't cold enough to snow down in the Provo valley. I am sad that I didn't get to see that Christmas devotional because we had a lot of lessons last night, but I hope everyone is getting into the Christmas Spirit and teaching others about Jesus Christ.

I love you all and I will have pictures of the baptisms next week for you all! Have a wonderful week and good luck trying to potty train that crazy animal Logan!!

With Love, Adios!!