Cookies We Made:) YUM

We took pics after we made some cookies for our investigator and ward mission leader.

April 20, 2014 Good Week!

Oh hey my cool family! I would like to first congratulate dad on buying what look like the coolest shoes I've ever seen. Second, to congratulate him and Tyler on those shelves in the garage, they look good. And I feel like they are going to be a pretty nice addition. Next step, the basement! Cool:) Mom, I'm glad that you were able to feel the spirit so strong in church today. I love easter. :) That actually sounds like a super good idea for a sacrament meeting. Oh wow! Matt and Mikel! I miss them! How are they doing? The temple is all in korean, but the usual sessions we go into are in english. Because there are a decent amount of foriegners here between the army bases and just foreigners haha. so yeah!  So this week was awesome. We've seen a lot of miracles lately! Like We have been super blessed. I don't know what we are doing that's different but we have been seeing success. So whoever is tossin up the extra prayers our way, thank you. :) haha so our week!

Monday! We had our P-day stuff. Nothing too exciting. We basically sat at home all day. We've been so tired. Haha today all we are going to do is go to a 고기 (meat) buffet and then take a nap. haha we're beat. But I assume that's a good thing. ;) So we did that on monday, i mean nothing. Haha then we had weekly planning because we just didn't have time last week with general conference. So that was lame. But it was fine. Tuesday! Oh hey just so everyone knows i'm over 300 days on my mission. tomorrow will be 310 actually, fun fact, i've been keepin track. ;) haha so anyways, we went out and talked to people. We were able to talk to a pretrty cool guy who was way nice, we gave him a name card. We also talked to a crazy guy..haha he knew english pretty decent and could speak arabic as well. Pretty awesome! Haha I love how easily we attract crazy people. Actually while I'm talking about crazy people. Last night there was some homeless guy that looked like he was on some sort of drugs. He was walking out in the middle of the street with cars going by him so we knew something was wrong with him. We tried to sneak by him, but two white dudes with white shirts and ties on don't sneak around too easily in korea. So he spotted us waiting at a crosswalk came up to us and starts asking us for cigaretts (not sure on the spelling). But we are like no we don't have any sorry man! And he keeps askin us like 4 or 5 times haha we didn't know what was going on. But finally he walked away and started like spelling stuff with his hand on the window of some store behind us. Way psycho guy. haha love it. so anyways, later tuesday night we were able to meet with mr. 한용호. It went pretty good! 변창기 our ward mission leader who you guys have heard about a ton came and talked to him for a long time just about his life and his story and why he won't get baptized. So that was actually some really good information. Like we learned a lot about him. Also, we learned that he really doesn't have a testimony of our church so we are going to talk to him about it tomorrow. Cuz he's gotta get one soon! So yeah that was our tuesday!

Wednesday we went to 목동 and had some delicious chicken for lunch and then we had district meeting. That was really good! We talked alot about area books and how important they are. So then we went over to our investigator 류영호 (Ryu YoungHo)'s house. We were able to meet his wife who isn't too big a fan of ours. so that was good. He said that she is starting to warm up to us. So we were able to teach him about prayer and why it is important. So that was good. He prayed at the end and it was super cute. He loves english so he prayed in english. Just remind me about it when i call you guys here in a few weeks and i'll go through it for you. You'll get a good laugh. :) He just doesn't quite get why we are meeting with him so we are going to have to go over that again. Then we came home and made calls to former investigators and got one guy to meet us this sunday. Also we did work on our less active book. Thursday we went to service. We are starting to do service multiple days a week so that everyone in our district can go in one week! So that was good. We got our 설거지 on. Which means we washed dishes. :) haha it was way fun. There's this cute old lady who comes up to us and says in english, I love you! I love you! Super cute. Haha I love it. So that was service. Then we came home and finished our studies and then talked to people and had english class! I really like our class. We always get to sing 겨울왕국 or...Frozen which is such a good time! Haha I get pumped when i hear it on the street. It's way fun. :) But yeah we taught that then went out and talked to people for like a half hour then came home! Friday was really good day. We went to lunch in MokDong so that I could do pass off. It was good. I learned a lot haha. so that was a good time. Then we came home and had weekly planning and then we met the guy who waved us over to him last week! Mr. 유! He's so cool haha. I like him a lot. He's 60 years old and an interior designer i think is what he said. We set up the program with him and did How to Begin teaching if that means anything to anyone back home. :) And he said that he would come to church! So that was way cool! Miracle number one for the week. Well actually he didn't come...but he said he would come. I think he just ran out of time. He got mad at me for like trying to confirm our appointment haha. he's like Breinholt, I said Friday at 6 o'clock I'm gonna be there, don't stress about it. haha so anyway, we are excited for him. THen we had our weekly correlation meeting which was pretty good!

Saturday was decent! we were able to talk to people for a long time. actually, miracle number two. a guy started talking to us and was like hey i want you to teach me english so we are meeting him tonight hopefully. way cool. Love it. haha anyway, we actually found a super good waffle place that we are planning on going back to! For mom, i'll take a picture of it next time. :) haha I'm sorry that i suck. I'm gonna actually try to get that missionary picture list thing going. cuz that's kinda cool! Oh haha funny story. So we were talking to a guy and to keep the conversation going we asked him for a good restaraunt and we went the way he told us, we just didn't turn at the right place cuz it's not where we were going haha. so we walked a pretty long ways maybe like 5 minutes and the dude waves to us from across the bridge that we were on and says no you need to go back! There's no restaraunts over there! Like don't go that way! And we couldn't hear him that well so he jumps over the like guard things and runs across the street to talk to us. We thought he was gonna get hit. So he walks us all the way back and tells us to go that way. Oh koreans. So nice. haha it was awesome. then we came home and made dinner and cookies. We took some to our Ward mission leader and our investigator 류영호 so that his wife will start to like us. :) haha winning with cookies. Sunday was good too! We went to church which was pretty good! Then we went out and talked to people for a long time. then we had dinner which was a nice break. Then we went out and talked to more people. The third miracle of the week. We passed a kid on a bike and were like oh hi! And he said oh hi! And then we kept walking right cuz like that's a normal thing to do. And then he comes up behind us and is like hey! What are you guys doing here?! I see you guys literally every day after i finish school and i've been wondering for a long time. You're like the first foreigners that i've seen around here so just like...what are you doing? So we told him we are missionaries and ask him for his number to meet again and he's like oh not yet! So we are hoping to keep running into him. :) I have hopes. So that was super awesome. and that was our week! Pretty awesome right?! We have really started to pick up steam and it's nice. :) Haha so keep the prayers comin. :) Anyway, it sounds like you guys are doing good. Jace didn't reply to my email. Tell him to get on that. :) haha have a good week!

Love,
Elder Breinholt

Me & Elder Nemelka when we made our delicious cookies

Korean Temple:)

Me & Elder Warnick at the Temple

Me on top of a mountain

Alley by our Apt. City in background

A P R I L 13TH, 2014

Oh my family. :) Your pictures were too cute this week. Like that looked like so much fun. I can't believe that you guys can all fit in one selfie. There is not like anyone left! Ah. Stress. The story behind the grandma pants are that all of the 할모니s or grandmas wear them here. And so i wanted to fit in so i bought some. :) Haha they are actually like super awesome. I have some for the winter that are like lined with fur or something and then some super thin summer ones. They're awesome. :) Haha anyways. I didn't take a picture of the bookstore...it's underground so i would only be able to get a picture of the sign or inside. Which i guess would be cool. Also, i need to get a picture of the 70 story building right next to it. Unreal. Actually i have sent some. They're just from far away so you can't tell exactly how tall it is. Unreal. I want to do the pedicure thing we just haven't got around to it. Also, i don't know where i would....:( The cop investigator is doing good! It's just hard to meet with him because he is so busy with being a cop. We don't have a set time to meet with him each week so it's hard. But yeah. I'm sorry your cruise wasn't as good as your last one. :(  This week was pretty good!  

Monday after emailing all you cool cats we went to lunch with a guy named Christopher. He's Elder Warnick's investigator from 만수, his last area. He's way cool! He's a greek orthodox catholic. So that was new. haha first one I've ever met. He's 24 and pretty funny. we went and hiked a mountain called 관악산 or GwanAk San. It's in downtown seoul right by Seoul University. The Harvard of Korea. It's way cool. My camera died so once i get elder Warnick's camera i'll be sure to send those pics to ya. It was cool cuz you get to the top and all you see is city. Haha so different from America. but i can understand why koreans love hiking. I'm gettin sick of the city. Like i'm so stoked to get back into nature here in a year haha. So Christopher took us on the wrong path up to the middle of nowhere hahaha it was super funny. He was all upset like a Korean gets. then we saw the university. it was cool. it is tucked away in some mountains. way cool. then we came home and got our haircut by a man named Mr. Hem. He's a member in 목동 ward. I'm gonna look like a Korean here in a month! My hair needs to get longer he says. haha so we'll see what it looks like. anyway, that was Monday. Tuesday was fun too. We went to service which is awesome as always. Deliverin lunch to some old grandmas who can't come get it. It's sad, but rewarding. I like it a lot. Then we went to lunch with one of our potentials named 박민기. He is havin a hard time with school. He's a senior in high school so that means he's way busy. Ah i feel so bad for him. we got to meet him and asked if he was interested in 30/30 but he said he was too busy. So we just gotta keep buildin our relationship there. Then we went and talked to people until our dinner 식사 with the Park family. While we were out talking to people we were just standing at a crosswalk and we said hi to a guy and he waved us to come over, which literally never happens in korea. That was the first time that's happened to me. And he's like oh you guys are the mormon missionaries huh! And we were like yeah we are! And he asked us for our number and said he wanted to start learning more about our church and english from us so he wants 30/30. Also, he called us like an hour after that! His name is Mr. Yoon. Haha I'm pretty excited to meet him again. :) Anyway the Park family lived in hungary for 4 years and so they are way good at english and they are super cool! I like them a lot. They made us super good food and the sisters shared the message. It was on missionary work and how we can all do it. Way funny i was reminded of home a lot. Their dad was like oh hey will you pray for my daughters to find friends please? And the daughter was like dad i have friends! Too cute. Haha anyway, then we ran over to the church for our lesson with 한용호. He's the guy who is going to get baptized. We just have to get him over his preacher brother. Gonna be difficult haha. but hopefully we will get him soon. We asked him to read Enos and he read it like multiple times. He's a boss. he told us he started reading at 10 and looked up after reading it a bunch and it was 2. Unreal. He's gotta get baptized one day. So we talked a lot about prayer which he liked. Then we asked him to watch general conference this weekend. it'll be good. Can't wait to meet him tomorrow. So yeah!

Wednesday we went and got lunch with the  elders in our district. It's way fun. Then we had district meeting. I love district meeting. I learned that i need to stop worrying so much about myself and a lot more about my investigators. I need to not be so selfish haha. i really struggle with it. anyway, then i did midway passoff with elder Wedam. That was good. Then we had dinner and then we went out to talk to people! We asked one off the guys that we were talking to for a good restaurant just for a conversation starter right, and he walked us to the place and started to order! Haha we were like oh hang on we gotta get our friends! It was way funny. People here are so helpful if you need help. It's unbelievable. But yeah. That was about it for Wednesday. Thursday wasn't too eventful either. we went out and talked to people and we walked a way long ways. We walked honestly i don't even know how far. like 6 subway stop distances haha. it was way far. so that was fun. we talked to a guy who was deaf. Or we tried. ;) haha it was way funny. Then we talked to a guy who was mute! He was like just pointing to stuff to communicate with us. Super funny. Then we had dinner and english class! English class is so fun. Haha i love it. We are in charge of the like junior high class so they are all super rowdy. It's fun. We sung some more frozen with em. Too good. Friday was fun! We went to a member's house for lunch. she's wicked good at english and her son just got back from BYU Hawaii. Her name is 한정희. She served actually in our mission back when it was called Seoul West. Her mission president was president Snow. he was in the MTC branch presidency when i was there. he's so cool haha. i miss him. Anyway that was fun. We then shared a message about mosaiah 3:19 and how we all have things that we need to improve on. Christlike attributes. And the way to do that is through the atonement. I've been studyin those a lot lately. they'er way important. but then we went to our member's house who is going to london on his mission because he moved and so we helped him get his house in order. We didn't do too much, but we tried to make a difference. haha it was hard. but it was way good! Then we had some good chinese dinner with them. They're so cool. His mom is literally an angel. I got to put together a stool! Then we had 선교협의 모임 which translates to.....weekly coordination meeting i think haha. so yeah! We had that which was good. 

Saturday! Ah conference. I think I'll toss in my stuff from conference at the end of my email. Haha so that means the rest of this is gonna be pretty short. We had ramen for lunch which eh like i really don't like it. but ramen here is way better than in america for whatever reason haha. then we went and watched conference...all day haha in the breaks we went out and talked to people. so that was Saturday. Sunday we did pretty much the same thing. I thought that the Saturday session was way better for whatever reason. What did you guys think of it by the way? You never told me. We had lunch with our members which was way fun. then we went out and talked to people at night! That was our week! Now for what i got out of conference. 

Alright. So if you guys feel the spirit during Jeffrey R. Holland's talk like i don't know if you are able to feel it. It was unreal. Like or course it was because it was Jeffrey R. Holland. He's so good. haha anyway. From his i just learned that really, sometimes the path of discipleship is hard, but we just have to stick it through! Like especially as a missionary. There are going to be more people who don't want to hear our message than do. Super sad truth. But there are those that we can find that make our every effort worth it. Also, like his description of Christlike love, unreal. He's so good! Ah I love him. Um I don't want to talk about every talk cuz that would take forever and you guys can just watch the talks and learn what you need to learn anyway. I'll sum it up. A lot of it was about serving and being selfless. So that's one thing i learned. Is that i need to start just serving others. Which i should be doing since i am a missionary haha. Also i thought a lot about families. Honestly i really miss you guys! You guys are so cool. And I can't wait to see ya again in a year. They talked a lot about how important families are and marriage. Marriage is gonna be way cool. :) I'm pretty excited...although i don't know when that day'll be. Um they also talked about temples and how we need to do family history and go to the temple with our families names! So that was cool. I love the temple. It rocks so much. Also along with families comes the importance of teaching the gospel to kids super young so that they can get a testimony as young as possible. Ah the world is so evil. I really don't like it haha. Also, Dallin H. Oaks talk. Unreal good. Like i really liked it. the priesthood man. Dieter's two talks were also way good. Him in Airforce 1. haha so funny. Also, Thomas S. Monson's man. He's a prophet of god! that's for sure! Having courage in the face of satan was also really common. Like just standing up for what you believe and never backing down. So crazy how much we need to do that in the world now. I really hate how evil it is. Like the second i left the church saturday night i felt it. ah. gross. haha it's so sad to me. But yeah! That's about it for the summary of conference! I love conference talks. Ah so good. I hope you guys have a good week getting back at school. :) I'm prayin for ya! Can't wait to talk to you in a month! 

Love,
Elder Breinholt

A P R I L 6 T H, 2 0 1 4

Hey my family! I hope you all have an enjoyable cruise this week! I'm super jealous. And so is alynn. ;) haha anyways, since you didn't send me anything to reply to I'm just gonna jumy right into it! Monday after we emailed we talked to people of course haha. I feel like that's how we fill most of our time which is good. Then we went and headed over to a members house for a meal appointment. It was way fun. It was with the family of the guy who is going to london on his mission. His name is 오형석. I'm pretty sure that i've told you all about him. anyways, when we were on our way over there, they live on top of a hill so the mom 김영미 saw us and ran up to us. she's the nicest lady ever. Like seriously. She rocks. she told us we were walking like trolls. It was way funny. Then at their house we had a delicious meal of course. Haha koreans know what they are doing when it comes to food. Ah so good. Then the song that we sung...um Abide with me, Tis eventide, they asked us to sing it for them again haha. It was good. They had never heard it until we sung it last sunday! Then we shared a message which was really just what our favorite scriptures are and told them that their son is going to be an awesome missionary. I am pretty sure that i've shared mine before, heck it's on my plaque back home. Speaking of which, how is my plaque? Like is it the picture of me infront of bishop's door? haha so awkward. But anyway it is Ether 12:27. 역시 elder breinholt i know. But anyways, I just talked about how I am super imperfect. And everyone is. But it doesn't matter. Because as long as we are trying everyday to do our best, our heavenly father will help us out. Either today or tomorrow, or sometime in the future he'll help us out and he'll be there for us! So yeah! THen we came home. they live far away so we were able to talk to people along the way.

Tuesday we were able to go do service. so that was a way good time. I love service haha. We got to deliver lunches to sweet old korean grandma and grandpas. So good. :) then we went to McDonald's like always for lunch haha. It was way good. Gotta love america. then me and elder Helms, one of the mokdong elders started our split. It was a good time. WE had language study, then went out and talked to people for a while. Then we had a lesson with our investigator 한용호. He's so cool. We were talking about the restoration and then he asked us about prophets and he said he really wanted to meet Thomas S. Monson. Haha it was cute. I told him he could maybe! So hopefully if he gets baptized he will.^^ All I know is that the prophets and apostles, they rock. They really do have such a spirit with them. Which is why i am so jealous that you could watch conference this week. ah. i can't wait. But at night the bishop came over to look at our shower because we have a leak in our floor. well had a leak. And it was leaking into the apartment below us haha so we went to a 목욕탕 in the morning! It was aweosme. haha i love them. They're the best. Anyway, wednesday we were able to go to mokdong to end our split and get lunch. WE went to a toast place. Speaking of which do we have any toast places in america? Cuz they have a ton of potential. haha then we came home and tried to talk to lots of people. Oh oh for dinner we went to a super super korean place. I'll have to take you guys to a place like it when you come. It's a sit on the floor restaraunt first of all, then it was on like a back street, and there were just a ton of korean old guys in there. haha so we felt way korean eating there. it was aweosme. then we tried to visit some less active members none of which were home, but we took some sweet pictures! so you'll like those^^ and that was really our day!

Thursday was a good time! We got to go to the temple! It was way good! Ah man. I love it. The main thing that I learned this time was that Christ makes all the difference in our lives. Because of him we can do anything we need to! WE can overcome anything. He will always pull us through when we fall. Then we went and got taco bell and went to a huge book store. Then we just went home and chilled until pday ended. then we went and had english class! That was so good! We got to sing let it go! From frozen! Ah that song is so good! Haha let it go! Let it go! And those are really the only words i can remember. But its way good. anyway, then also at english class, i taught koreans about chopsticks! Who woulda thought that would ever happen! But i did learn a lot. Chinese and Japanese both use wooden and koreans use metal. Koreans are like medium length because yeah. Japanese ones are pointed because that is better for getting the bones away from the fish. so cool story there haha. Friday we did our normal thing then we went to 김밥나무 or kimbap tree haha. it was pretty good. Then we had zone training meeting. Which was good! I learned all about how good questions are super super important. Then we came home and had weekly planning! Which this week it was actually enjoyable. We were able to talk and get pumped about learning korean so me and elder Warnick are pretty stoked about it. then we had dinner and went to our weekly coorelation meeting. so yeah!

Saturday was had our normal thing then we went out and talked to people and also! We were able to visit 류영호 our cop investigator at work! That was way awesome! Haha he's doing good. It has been a while since we have seen him. so it was really good to talk to him again. Then he took us to the subway station in his cop car. Haha cops here man. Like they are not nearly as serious as they are in america. but its fine because there is no crime. then we went up to a place called 방화 (BangHwa) in our area. Our member who is going to london on his mission, 오형석, his grandpa had a fall recently and is now showing a little bit of signs of alzheimers so his mom wanted us to go and talk to him. So we talked to this 84 year old man for a while! He's actually pretty decent at english, but he didn't really ever speak it. It was cute. haha i love korean old people. haha so he told us some korean war stories, and about how beautiful the grand canyon is. It was funny. Then we commited him to read the 1st lesson pamphlet! So hopefully here real soon he'll become an actual investigator. That would be so awesome! Anyway, then we had a meal appointment with some members, 손태원 and 김지선. They are two super cool members in our ward who have 2 sons. It was way good! She made the best fried chicken that I've had since i've been in korea. So awesome. haha i love htem. they're way funny. so we shared a message about prayer and how important and powerful it can be. Especially when we are having a hard time and that's all it feel s like we can do! so pray everyone.^^ Sunday was kinda uneventful. For a sunday at least. it was still good though! so we got up and had personal study, then went to church then we went out and talked to people literally all night! Haha like we did it all day after lunch! Oh! I talked to a lady whose son is living in calgary for school! I thought that was really cool! Like dang, the world really is a small place! So yeah! That was our week. I'm jealous again that you guys were able to watch general conference, and i hope that you have the time of your lives on that cruise! I'll just be here in korea tryin to bring people closer to christ! 그리스도에게 나아오도록 권유한다!  Yeah. Haha I'm lovin it here. These last weeks have been really good. I can honestly say we are working and trying to do the best we can. I still have a ton of improvement to make, but i think that we are going to get a lot done here. I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Breinholt