January 28, 2013

Como esta mis gorditos, Jan 28, 13

This week was full of teaching and crying people unto repentance. I gave a talk in church yesterday and actually didn't mess up once with my Spanish so I felt pretty good with that. I talked about the atonement because I have been trying to get this ward more involved with doing missionary work. In Preach My Gospel, it says that as you come to understand the atonement your desire to share this message will grow and you will want to share this knowledge with others more. So that was my main focus on what I talked about. I closed with a scripture in Alma 38:9, that I have really come to love. As I have reflected on the life of Jesus Christ and thought about all the amazing things he did for us; and this is crazy to think, that if you just took the atonement out of his life, his whole life would have been meaningless for us. But the suffering that he went through the day before he died in the Garden was the most important thing. I don't know why, but that just really hit me this week as I was reading through Alma.

Things are looking a lot better with our investigators, but we still have a lot of improvement to make. We have one lady that wants to get baptized, but she needs to get a new job so that she can come to church. I think we found her one this week though, we just have to make sure she wants to do it. I have been so a lot happier lately, and have had a lot more confidence with teaching as I don't worry about the language and just talk as the Spirit directs. I have really grown to love teaching and I find it kind of fun talking with others and telling them new things that they have never heard before from a scripture or just being in a lesson when the Spirit is strong. It does get frustrating sometimes when people have doubts and they just can't get over them, but at the same time that's what makes it fun, and it makes you think a lot more and want to go out and read the scriptures more so that you can expand your knowledge.

Anyway I'm great, warm and enjoying everything. Sorry I totally forgot to tell you about seeing Elder Jacksons dad! He is a really nice guy and it was fun to be able to go out to lunch with him. We shared a lot of good stories and I hope he didn't say I was looking to fat. I'm trying to work out in our house in the mornings, but it's not the same as going to the gym. It stinks that I'm stuck at home, because if I want to go to the gym I have to pay 20 bucks a month and my companion doesn't want to pay that either.

DAD! I can't believe I'm missing your big 50! Man I have to make sure I do a lot of activities with you when I get home before you have a walker or something! ha-ha I'm kidding sorry that was rude. I just ran into Parker Schwartz here at BYU today, he went to Gilbert high and I use to run with him at Greenfield Jr. back in the day. He just got home from his mission from Texas and is up here going to school.

Well, you all be strong this week and stop praying for the snow if you could. I'm sick of it. ha-ha I love you all!

Elder Breinholt

P.S tell Brittany congratulations on the call. One of my favorite Elders out here is from Atlanta, Georgia and he is awesome. They only have the accents more in the South, but they still do love fried chicken so watch out! Also tell Stephen and Cole to write me!

January 14, 2012–6 Months

Six Months! Jan 14, 13

I finally it the quarter mark in the mission and I got to burn one of my ties! It was a fun experience and I did it with an Elder I was in the MTC with. Mom I thought I told you that I enjoyed everything from Christmas. I don't really know what to do with the bowls and cups so I bet the people we live with will like them! ha-ha Also tell Susan Haviland thank you for the cereal and letter. I am definitely going to write Hayden too! I also got those ear muffs the other day and man they help a lot!

Things are changing up here in the mission with transfers this Wednesday and I have been thinking of ways I can improve some of my weaknesses and pick our area up some more. I am staying in my area again for another transfer and my new companion is Elder Ruiz, who I have met before and I am excited to work with him! I know that if we work really hard these next couple of weeks we can definitely have baptisms by the end of the transfer. This transfer is only going to be 5 weeks long though so we are going to need to work our butts off. I think this transfer is going to help me a lot though since I am the only one that knows the area and it will give me a good opportunity to step up and take the lead on some things. Elder Cerberus my companion is going to be a zone leader though so I am happy for him since he has been trying hard to be obedient and achieve that.

This week with the work we not too much has changed. We brought the bishop over to one of our investigators homes that we have been trying for forever to baptize and they go to church all the time, but just can't commit. I think that visit was good for them though and this Sunday especially because a lot of members in the ward really made them feel welcomed. We have a guy named Mario who we are hoping will get baptized within the next month but he still won't come to church so we will have to work with him more but we have a good relationship with him now. The only thing that was a little sketchy was that our investigator that gets off parole in February and wants to take his own time with the discussions, his wife told him that if he doesn't get baptized that she will divorce him...soo that wasn't good. The one thing he didn't want was to feel pressured into getting baptized so that almost killed it for him, but we had a good talk with the family and I think everything will be ok.

Last night I got the chance to hear from Dieter F. Uchtdorf at a fireside and I learned a lot from his talk. It was all about finding the truth of things out for yourself. He talked about how too many people in the church rely on the church leaders and have so much trust in them that whatever they say must be right. In the world especially on the Internet now, we can get our hands on a lot of information and some of it is true, some false, and some false with a little truth. The best way to learn for yourself is to be cautious and let the Holy Ghost dictate what is right and true. That is just another wonderful tool of the Holy Ghost, that we can feel it if worthy what is right or wrong when we don't have the evidence right there when we need it to prove it.

I learned something this week about gifts. Not real gifts but gifts from our Heavenly Father. There are so many gifts that we can have in our lives that are available to us. We already have them but we just need to seek for them and pray for them in our lives. Like the gift of patience. some people say that they just weren't born with patience, ha well you have it you just need to seek and pray for it and be worthy to receive it. I love the opportunity that I have right now in my life to learn so much and to practice and work at a lot of things. I feel like there is always one thing big that I learn every week and it usually comes from just reading the scriptures and discussing it with others.

Dad I hope that your voice gets better and I didn't know that it was so bad. I have been meaning to get letters to all you that have birthdays this month. Craig's happy late birthday and I hope it went well. Kristin, Derek and Dad happy birthday to you all and I can't believe that my dad is going to be 50 this month! man that's old! ha-ha I'm just kidding but I love you all and if you have time go online and watch the broadcast of that fireside.

Take care!

Elder Breinholt

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!!

November 26 2012

 

The feast is over! Nov 26, 12

It sounds like you guys had a wonderful thanksgiving and it was full of adventures. Mom thank you for the sugar cookies, I forgot how much I love those cookies. I shared them with my district because I don't think it would have been good for my weight to eat all of them. I am watching my weight well though and I only weigh 150 after the great Thanksgiving feast. Of course that is a 150 pounds of pure muscle though. My companion and I had 4 dinners for Thanksgiving and by the last meal I was soo sick of eating and of the taste of ham. It was a really neat experience to see the traditions that people have for Thanksgiving. It made me look back on all the cool things we do and how we usually go up to the cabin and play soccer in the morning with all the Breinholt. I must say that you guys better watch out because I play a lot of soccer here and my touches have been getting a lot better. ha-ha

Also grandma I loved the scarf you made me and I used it a lot this week. It was cold every single day this week with lots of wind! Our turkey bowl Thursday morning was awesome and our whole district made shirts for it. I'll put pictures up of them, but I was really surprised to see how good president McCune was! He was a animal out there and has a really good throwing arm. He played all time QB for us and he loved our shirts and said that we have to get one for him.

I can't believe that this is the last week of the transfer and after this week I will be done getting trained. I found out this Saturday if I am staying in this area or staying and getting a new companion. I am crossing my fingers that I stay in this area because it is the best and we have a lot of baptisms coming up in the next couple of weeks. We got a call from some Elders in a different area this week that told us a family they had been teaching was moving into our area Monday (which is today) and the mom just got baptized yesterday and the four kids are planning on getting baptized too. The two daughters want to get baptized this Saturday so we are going to have to put on the baptism now since there in our area and there are two sons that we are going to try and get baptized either this Saturday too if they feel ready or the following week. We have an FHE with them tonight and so were going to talk to them about it tonight and see how it goes. Also on top of that, the De La Rosa family who was the family I had my first baptism for out here in the mission, we talked with the mom this week and she said that she will let her daughter get baptized now too. So we put her on date right there for the second week of December. I want to stay in this area just to teach here and see her get baptized because we have been working so hard to make this happen.

To end it, we had a baptism for Natalie Yvette Gomez this last Saturday and it was awesome. I was able to perform my first baptism in the field and also in spanish and I won't lie being back in the baptismal font took me back to the times with Cole and Cheyenne. There is a spirit it that font that you cannot describe and I felt very honored to be a part of Natalie's baptism. She is the sweetest little girl ever and I love going over to her house to teach her because she is always so excited to see us. I am going to always check up on her throughout my whole mission to make sure that her and her siblings are still going to church. The baptism as a whole though was a great spiritual experience and just that extra boost that I needed to get more excited about this week. I just want to say that I am soo grateful for everything I have and I am so grateful for all of you! Yeah I missed you guys a ton this Thanksgiving and it was weird not being with you all but it made me that much more grateful for my family. I am so grateful for this gospel and for the opportunity that I have to just serve people for two years. I have a lot more time to go and I am happy because I'm not even close for this to be over. I am just warming up!! I love you all sooo much and hope you are all getting along.

You should all be because compared to a lot of other families that I have seen. We are soo blessed and have it a lot easier. Don't ever forgot of how blessed we are and that we only have what we have because of our heavenly father and we have amazing parents that serve the Lord and are faithful!

Thank you mom and dad, and I love you guys,

Elder Breinholt

Send A Photo Message to CORY!!!

 

Hello all!! This is Cory’s sister-in-law. I am writing because for Christmas this year Kelly had a great idea to send him a photo book with pictures of family and friends holding up a special message for him.

If you would not mind sending us a picture of yourself holding up a message we would really appreciate it and we know Cory would love it. You can get as creative as you want by having multiple photos for a long message or just one photo with a simple ‘I love you.’ Below are some examples of what we are looking for (obviously the messages are not but just so you can get the idea). Please let Kelly or I know if you have any questions.

Thanks so much!

Send your photos to me at ckbreinholt@gmail.com by December 1 so that we can get the book put together.