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| Cute little kids |
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| Hiked the steepest hill i've ever seen in my life |
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| Some really tall apartments |
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Pics of the Week
August 17, 2014
Hello! How are you! This email is gonna be different cuz I'm sick of writing the same thing each week and plus, i think it'll be a good one. I've thought about what i'm gonna write about but i'll start with the highlights of our week. First of all all of our appointments cancelled...so lame haha. But other than that, on monday we had a meal appointment with the oldest man in our ward. That was an adventure. Haha he's a boss. he's only like 67 but he looks like he's 85. He's way cool. his name is 윤세영. Or Yoon SayYoung. That was fun. We had the soup that has a whole chicken in it so it was super good. But yeah! Tuesday night haha we hiked the steepest hill i've ever seen in my life. It was super fun. Haha i was beyond tired. There are some pics of that that you'll see. But i did it from the top so it's kinda hard to tell how steep it is. Wednesday we had district meeting and that was good. It was on how to begin teaching and basically just doing it well. So yeah! And we also had english class which was fun cuz we went to the intermediate class so they actually sort of new english. On thursday we saw a guy go up to a random girl and give her yogurt and when she asked why he said cuz you're cute! and then he walked away. It was actually super funny. Cuz nothing like that ever happens here. haha he was pretty funny. Friday we had weekly planning. Saturday we went to a funeral for a guy in our ward. He's super cool. He used to be the stake president. That was fun. You bow twice and then a half bow at the deceased person and then once at the people who are related to them. Pretty cool. Sunday the stake president came to our ward and he's the coolest guy ever. He teachest at the harvard of korea and is professional at tennis and violin. So cool. haha and then we had a proselyting activity that night. But yeah!
So since i've been a missionary for a year and two months i thought I would talk about some of the things i've learned so far on my mission. The importance of somethings that i don't think i realized before. They're nothing ground breaking, in fact you guys already know probably everything i'm going to say, but it's good to review i think.
First and probably the most important is scripture study. At least a good hour each day. Whoever said even if it's just one verse, yeah that's not true. Haha the difference of the spirit in your heart when you have a good scripture study that day is pretty dang noticeable and lately i've been having that. A lot. It makes the book of mormon so much better and it has gone from oh here we go another personal study to more of seeing it as a privilege to get to read the scriptures. I have grown a huge understanding of how important the book of mormon is. If you don't have a testimony of it, get one. Cuz if it's not true, there's no reason to go to church, follow the prophet, or even keep the commandments. But because I know it is true, it changes everything. It makes the world a happier place and gives you a purpose to life.
Second is the importance of baptismal and temple covenants. They're what help us return to our heavenly father. Without them, we wouldn't be able to receive as many blessings in this life nor would we be able to even get back to God. So they're super important. We need to make them, and we need to keep them. We need to keep them in remembrance always, because that is where the strength to endure the fiery darts of the adversary comes.
Third is the importance of prayer. When you have a good prayer at the end of the day it helps you to feel refreshed. PMG says that while you pray you should feel the spirit and feel refreshed. So, when you pray with real intent and a sincere heart and have a legitimate conversation with your father in heaven you can feel the spirit and you can see god's guiding hand in your life. Especially as you thank him. That's when i can really feel the spirit and know that he actually is there. And that he loves us. Plus it's through prayer that we ask questions to god and wait to receive revelation. Obviously the scriptures as well. But you know what i mean. I've really gained a love for prayer and i love being able to do it at the beginning and end and as a missionary, many, many times throughout the day. It really helps to bring the spirit into your life as well.
The next is the importance of the restoration. This goes along with the importance of scripture study, but it's a little different. I was listening to the one dude's talk from conference. He talks about joseph smith and all the blessings that have come because of him. Elder Corbridge i think. IT's way good. The restoration has been prophecied of since isaiah and even all of the apostles and christ knew it was going to happen. Joseph smith is awesome. I love Joseph smith. If it wasn't for the restoration where would we be? We wouldn't have the priesthood to have a prophet on the earth or administer the saving ordinances that we need like baptism. We wouldn't have eternal marraige or a knowledge of the celestial kingdom, we'd still be in darkness. So, the restoration is super important.
The last thing that I want to talk about is the importance of family. It's central to God's plan. Family is where we learn about the gospel as kids, it's where we learn to pray and read the scriptures. In our families it's where we can feel love and receive the strength we need to make it through the trials of this life. As a teenager i used to think it was weird when people would say that were having a rough life. But now that i've been a misisonary and grown up a little. Still not very much, but just a little, i've seen how trials come and effect everyone differently. I also saw how blessed i was at the fact that i really didn't have anything hard happen to me as i was growing up. Grandma died and so did grandpa, but like that isn't hard once you have a testimony of the gospel. In fact you can see it as a blessing for them. But family. Ah. I love you guys. Haha i miss you a lot and i see how blessed i was to be able to be a part of your family. Also, people tend to think that missionaries are spiritual giants or that we are perfect. We are far from that. But i think that everyone can have the same spirit with them if they would first, have a good at least hour long scripture study each day. Next, pray sincerly multiple times a day. And the rest is just going to the temple, church, and keeping the commandments.
Well that's all i wanted to talk about this week. Was how you guys and the gospel have blessed my life. Over the last few weeks i've started to gain a knowledge of how awesome the gospel is. I love to study it. The scriptures holy cow. If you want to you can feel the spirit unbelievably strong through them. I hope you guys have a good week. Love you and miss you.
Love,
Elder Breinholt
화곡 (HwaGok) July 2014. Some Pics I found of Elder Breinholt's last area.
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| Elder Breinholt with the Bishop and his cute wife at their bread store |
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| Ward member |
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| Ward member |
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| Some of the girls in the Young Women's in HwaGok |
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| The Bishop and me at his bread store in HwaGok |
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| Ward member |
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| English class in HwaGok |
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| The Bread Store. Sorry I couldn't rotate the picture |
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| Ward member |
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| English class |
Pics of the week
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| Me and Elder Bryner during weekly planning |
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| Some sketchy apartments |
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| We found a bunny. Elder pruner named it jeffrey and we protected him from being eaten by a cat. it was cool. |
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| A sample of Korean's electrical work. Haha |
August 11, 2014
Oh yeah mom i'll be sure to look him up. ;) haha no i'm not district leader anymore elder pruner is. He's one transfer ahead of me so that's usually how it goes in our mission. Wow i can't believe school is starting again. That's super super weird. Jace is going to be a junior and kenah is going to be in 7th grade! What the! I swear i was a junior like yesterday. Ah. Dang. So crazy. Yuba looked like a ton of fun! And paddleboards, that sounds super cool! I don't even really know what those are but hey, that's cool. :) haha What the! I can't believe that Cody Young is going on a mission already. Hey where is he going? That's really crazy. Haha jace would get sunburned. :) You guys are too cute. Ah so our week!
Monday was cool. It wasn't p-day though so after email we had lunch and called people to try and get some appointments but no one was willing to meet us haha. Then we went out to talk to people which is the basic stuff ya know haha. Then we had dinner and stuff and then we went out to visit less actives and then we walked into a CU, a like convenience store place and started talking to the worker there. He was way cool and studying english so that was aweosme. He was reading harry potter so we had a connection there haha. I love Harry Potter. haha anyway, so we got his number and have been talkin to him. Hopefully we can turn him into an investigator. We'll see though. Then we went to the church to make calls since it was raining and we ran into a dude who came to english class 15 years ago. That was crazy. He still had that name card the missionaries gave him in 1999. haha so we invited him to enlglish class made more calls and then came home! Tuesday was pretty good! We had our studies and then went down to a place called 신림 (Shillim) to meet one of our members for lunch. His name is 정경수 (Jung KyungSoo). He's way cool. He's the elders quroum president. He fed us 냉면! They're cold noodles that are pretty good! He added apples to em. I was impressed. It was really good actually. So yeah! Then we shared a message with him about what kind of a difference prayer has made in his life. So we asked him to pray for missionary opportunities with his wife. So hopefully he does that and has some! Then we went to another members' house to do a little visit. His name is 김성환 (Kim SungHwan). He's super cool. He's the ward secretary. So he's cool. Haha he fed us tons of fruit, peaches, so good. And also corn and he went off about how much better korean corn is than american corn. Haha it was so funny. So that was fun. And we asked him to do the same thing! To pray for opportunities to do missionary work. THen we came home and had dinner then went out and visited less actives, had some people slam the door in our face, and then went to some super sketchy apartment complex. Haha that's why it's on there if you see those pictures. So sketchy huh? But someone lived there! So we went and checked it out. But no one was home. Ah. Stress. Then we came home! Wednesday was also pretty good! We got up and had studies and then had lunch as a distirct. It was 샤브샤브 which is the like baconlike beef. Haha it's super good. You'll have to try it sometime. So yeah! THen we had district meeting! It was realyl good! We talked about working with members and how to do that! Our mission is really pushing ofr it right now so hopefully we see some miracles. After district meeting a couple came up to us looking for a preacher so that they could join our church. It was crazy. But after we told em we don't have one you could tell they felt a little awkward and stuff so they said they would come to church but they didn't...ah. After that we went down to visit our recent convert 이승룡 (Lee Seung Yong). He's doing good. We love him. haha sharted a super good scripture with him. 2 Nephi 5:27. And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. 끝! I like it a lot. Cuz it's how we are supposed to live in this life. :) Then we came home and had dinner and then went to the church for english class! That was fun! Only two people showed up though. We played rock paper scissors with em haha they liked that. and after that we came home!
Thursday was temple day! So that was awesome of course! We got up and went straight there. I love the temple here. It's super cool. Anyway, we were in a korean session though. But it was way cool. Ancient Korean is super duper cool. Cuz it talks like the scriptures or whatever, super cool haha. anyway, we had the temple and it was good. Then we bought some study aids and stuff then we went to costco and had lunch. I had a chircken bake and bought lucky charms. So good. haha i love it. THen we went to our church and watched movies with our district. Well we watched the testaments haha. it was fun. then we headed over to the bishops house cuz we had a dinner appointment with him. He's the coolest. Turns out! He records one of the korean voices in the temple. Probably cut that out before you put it online haha. anyway, yeah. he does. so cool. he took us to a super good beef place. ah so delicious. it was right by his wife's book store. then we went back to his house and showed him pictures of you cuties and stuff then we shared a message about the restoration. it was good! I love joseph smith. We told em to keep trying Moroni's promise and to pray often whether or not the book of mormon is true. Cuz if it's not, there's no point in anything that we do. The bishop shared his experience about when he found out it was true, it was way cool. he's the best. ah. then we came home! Friday was way good too! Haha we had weekly planning at the church which was whatever. it was nice in the air conditioning. Weekly planning. I'll have to tell ya about that sometime. haha anyway, then we went down to 신림 to talk to people. I had a guy talk to me about jesus. It was way weird. He like leans over to me. Hey, you speak korean? I say um yeah a little. And he whispers in my ear. Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins so you should believe in him and go to church. Hmm. okay homie haha. it was super funny. There are actually lots of those people in korea. love it. anyway, then we went and got dinner and then we went and visited our friend named Bong. He's so cool. He's a leather worker. He makes 400$ leather wallets. they're so nice. Super thin and just like way high quality. He's so good at making leather. Like it would blow your mind. Plus he's a super super cool guy. We are trying to get him some gospel interest. But like i could talk to him all day. So we are friends with him and we sorta talk about the gospel so hopefully we can get him into it here soon. But aftyer that we were super far from home so we had to go home. Saturday was fun too! We got up and had soccer which was fun. We played at a highschool so it was outside and nice. But the ground was dirt. Haha a lot of the schools have dirt instead of grass because of how expensive it is to keep it up here. so yeah we played soccer there which was awesome and then came home and showered then went to 김슬기 (Kim SurGi)'s house for our weekly coorelation meeting. That was fun! Haha he gave us some super good orange juice and pistachios. He also fed us a baked potato, egggs and bacon. So it was like i was back! Haha but i realized how greasy and bad for you bacon is. Anyway, then me and elder pruner were on a split so we went out to talk to poeple. That was fun. talked to some nice people. Then we found Jeffrey. Haha we were talking outside of one of our member's houses getting ready for our message, anyway, elder pruner turned and went hey is that a bunny?! So i turned and was like what the! It is! There was a bunny in the middle of the road. haha it was so funny. So elder pruner named it jeffrey and we protected him from being eaten by a cat. it was cool. so that's what the picture is on dropbox^^. then we had a dinner appointment with 김용(Kim Yong) and his family. They're super cool. We had chinese food so that was good! Then we shared a message about the srestoration as well. Itwa ssuper cool. I love the restoration. The spirit was pretty strong. Then we went out and talked to more people adn then came home! On the way home we started talking to a super drunk guy who long story short ended up giving us a hug. Haha it was pretty funny. Sunday was good! We went to the church and started saying hello to the members and stuff. Then the mission president came! That was fun! President morrise his wife and one of the counselors came. That was fun. They seemed to help a lot. THey trained our ward about how to be a good member at member lessons and stuff so taht was cool. They just are the best haha. i love them. After church we had a meal and that was good. I talked to some of our cool members and stuff. then we came home and had studies, elder bryner passed off and then we had dinner. After that we had a district subway 전도 activity! That was super fun. It was raining pretty bad so we decided to do it in the subway. Elder Bryer had a drunk guy grab him and sit him next to him and he was just talking to him super loud. Like yelling but in a nice way. Haha he was rubbin his eyebrows and stuff it was super funny. but yeah! We had that for a while then we came home! And that was our week! One thing from studies. 2 nephi 2:25 "Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy" I've been thinking alot about this lately. The whole reason we are here is to have joy. So if you aren't, figure out what's goin on and change it. :) I wish i coulda gone to yuba with you guys, but i'm likin where i'm at. :) Seoul, korea. I'm basically in downtown now, so it's cool. :) haha anyway, have a good week! Love you and miss you!
Love,
Elder Breinholt
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
August 3, 2014
I can't believe it's august either. It really blows my mind to be honest. Haha like i hate how fast time is going. School's about to start for you guys, and korean's are still studying as hard as if they were in school. :) haha no way! How do you always happen to meet koreans? And yeah I heard about the fusion place in provo from a missionary in the MTC, he said it was way good! So check it out! Yeah that golf course looked way nice! Dad i'm starting to question whether you work or not cuz all i've been getting lately are funny pictures and you golfing. ;) haha yuba will be way fun! Let's see how david does! haha who else is nervous! The new area is good! I do like it! Our ward rocks. Like they're way good. No there is nothing crazy like people shoving people onto the subway, but if you ride it in rush hour there are people making sure that the cars don't get overcrowded. Seoul's subway system would blow your mind with how good it is. I don't think that i got an email with songs....but i'll be lookin for it! Alright so our week.
This one was a bit slower than most. Well it still went fast, just we didn't see anything cool. it's wicked hot here now. like 90 ish degrees every day with 60 or 70 percent humidity. So that's some fun fact for the always outside missionary. :) but i love it. I'm liking this new area. Okay so monday! We had our normal stuff and then we went and emailed. Which you know. after that we went to a huge park to celebrate Sister Mortensen's (A sister in our area) birthday! THat was fun. We sat down on some grass and relaxed. So that was super nice. Our whole district was there which meant one other area of 4 missionaries. So I heard this week also that in Seoul mission right above ours that there are some wards with 10 missionaries and some even have 14. So taht's crazy! The most in our mission is the mission home with like 8 plus a senior couple so yeah 10 as well. But all of the other wards have 6 or 4. Anyway, side tracked. Okay! Haha so we did that then we went and got dinner together! That was okay. Haha we have a sister in our district that's from new zealand. She's super cool. And her accent is awesome. haha so anyway, then we went and tried to hunt less actives down but none of them were home. :( That's a big problem we run into haha. Okay. Tuesday! We had our studies and then we went to that big park to talk to people. Talked to a few drunk people, classic, and also a bunch of old guys playing a game called 장기. Jangi. It's korean chess. It's actually super cool and i like it a lot. It's pretty interesting and a good change from american chess haha. so that was fun. then we left the park and got a 빙수 (BingSu) Which is the korean version of a shaved ice. Pretty delicious. They always have fresh fruit on em. So we got that to cool down. THen we went and tried to find less actives but none of em were home. We totally saw a kid eat it so hard though. It was so sad. Haha so Koreans happen to ride on the back of bikes a lot and these 10 year old kids were riding a bike and the one on the back fell off. So what happened was they were rippin it down a hill. I'm talking like i don't know how they got going that fast cuz the hill isn't even that steep. And then there was a speed bump and the kid driving kinda lost control and it made the one kid on the back lose his grip so he went down off the bike and slid like five feet face to the pavement. It was so crazy. Haha he hopped right up and then a bunch of old ladies started yellin at em and took care of em. but that was an adventure. He wasn't even bleedingt that bad though so weird. anyway, that was crazy. Then we had diner and walked along a little creek type thing talking to people. It was chill and super fun. then we came home and made some phone calls.
Wednesday! We started the day off right with a fun coorelation type meeting with all of the missionaries in our area. So 6. haha 3 companionships. But we just talked about how we want to work iwth members and less actives and stuff like that. to do it in a way that is effective and doesn't waste time. So that was fun. Haha then we went and met a super cool guy whose english name is moses. He's super funny and cool. He is pretty old so he learned english back in the day and so when we asked him how he was doing he goes oh i'm groovy. haha too funny. anyway, we talked to him and tried to get him to read the book of mormon but he pulled the classic korean and said he was busy. :( but that's okay. Then we went to do some more less active hunting. none of the people were home of course. haha koreans are literally never home except for when they sleep i swear. but that's fine. anyway, we saw a dude playing with pigeons! haha he had food in his hand and so thaey would get super close to eat it and then he would grab em and stuff way weird but pretty darn funny. then we talked to people and came home and had dinner that was good. Then we went to the church and had english class. I talked to one of the class members about neuroscience so that was interesting. Although he didn't know anything haha. but anyway, then we had english class which was fun of course. :) haha so yeah. Thursday was good! We got up and studied, which i'm really liking. Since we don't have any investigators yet, i guess it could be good to share some of the stuff i learn! I've learned a lot. But i'll get to that in a little. So we then went to 영등포 (YoungDeungPo) for zone training meeting. That was pretty decent. Haha it was a little too long for my liking but still good. It was on asking questions and listening and how that's what christ does. So thatw as good! After that we had dinner together as a 노량진 ward. That aws good. We got chicken from a super good place. :) Haha then after that we went and met our recent convert 이승룡 (Lee SeungYong). He's doin awesome. Reading the book of mormon and reading liahona talks, like it's great. Shared 2 nephi 4 with him when nephi prays to god and he liked it a lot. He's a solid convert. haha so yeah!
Friday not too much hapened. Except for it turned to august which is blwing my mind. Ah stress. But oh well. So we had 2 appointments for friday but they both cancelled so that was sad. :( So we had lunch and then we had weekly planning which was classic. We did it at the church so that we could have some air conditioning and that was way good. Thenw e went and got ice cream at baskin robbins. Okay so i don't know if i've told you this but baskin robbins here is way nice and way good. Haha there is one at like every subway station and they are probably the most common foreign restaraunt here. It's crazy. anyway, we had that then we went and talked to people around the baskin robbins and then we had dinner and went down to a area pretty far awaythat was fun. We tried to find less actives but none of the addresses had the door number which is weird. Okay so in korea a lot of the like villa things are locked, but if you're smart...the code is always written somewhere you can see it from the keypad. haha it's too crazy. So getting into locked things here isn't even hard. Anyway, we looked for less actives and then came home! Saturday aws good! We got up and went to soccer with our ward. There were like 6 people there other than the 4 missionaries who went so not too many people this week. But it was still fun! We played that for a while! That was fun. Then we came home and showered and had our studies. After that we went down to an area called 신림 (Shilleem) It's a pretty busy area with lots of malls and stuff so we went to look for less actives. but, we couldn't confirm any. So then we raninto a guy who used to be the elders quroum president a long time ago and is now less active. We talked to him for a little bit and he wouldn't give us anything. We asked for his name and wouldn't even give us his name. Way weird. Cuz usually less active members are super nice and willing to talk and give you all the information you need haha. but anyway, then we went to the big park again and talked to some more of the jangi playing friends. they're cool. thenw e came home and made dinner. we bought a cookbook haha. So we bought it cuz we are sick of the same thing all the time. So i'm excited. Plus now i can actually eat somewhat healthy. So anyway, the dinner was pretty good! It was some sort of chicken stuff then we went to 노량진역 which means nothing to you guys but it's a good subway station for talking to people and tried to get em. but no one was too nice to us haha. anyway, we talked to them for a while and came home. Sunday was a good last day of the week. Although our recent convert couldn't come to church cuz he was so sick. :( So that was sad. So literally all of our appointments cancelled but that's fine. So we got up and went straight to the church for our weekly coorelation meeting with kim seurgi. He's way cool. I like him a lot. A good ward mission leader. After that we sung as members came in. We had like 12 people singin with us so it was awesome. :) haha itw as fun. THen we hadchurch! For some reason there was a youth activity or something so none of them were at church. Kinda confused...but yeah. Church was good. Nothing really too noteworthy. But it was way god. THen we came home and had our stuies and then we had dinner. It was the same thing that was from the cookbook. :) haha it was good again too. My cooking skills are pretty dang aweosme. ;) so then we went to talk to people and stuff and that was fun then we came home and called a bunch of ward members and got appointments set up for this next week. I'm excited for all of em. It should be a really good week. But yeah! That was our week! Okay so today i was reading in 1 nephi 17 and one thing i really liked. Verse 21. Laman and Lemuel are complaining to Nephi and they say: "Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." The reason i liked this is because how often do we think ah I'm not gonna keep that commandment cuz i can be happier if i do it my way. They thought doing things their way would make them happy, but really the only way to find happiness is to obey the commandments. :) I'm hoping to realy get member missionary work going. I hope we can. We'll see what happens. Keep on rockin family. I love you so much. Thank you for finally emailing me jace. You're the best. :) You guys rock!
Love,
Elder Breinholt
This one was a bit slower than most. Well it still went fast, just we didn't see anything cool. it's wicked hot here now. like 90 ish degrees every day with 60 or 70 percent humidity. So that's some fun fact for the always outside missionary. :) but i love it. I'm liking this new area. Okay so monday! We had our normal stuff and then we went and emailed. Which you know. after that we went to a huge park to celebrate Sister Mortensen's (A sister in our area) birthday! THat was fun. We sat down on some grass and relaxed. So that was super nice. Our whole district was there which meant one other area of 4 missionaries. So I heard this week also that in Seoul mission right above ours that there are some wards with 10 missionaries and some even have 14. So taht's crazy! The most in our mission is the mission home with like 8 plus a senior couple so yeah 10 as well. But all of the other wards have 6 or 4. Anyway, side tracked. Okay! Haha so we did that then we went and got dinner together! That was okay. Haha we have a sister in our district that's from new zealand. She's super cool. And her accent is awesome. haha so anyway, then we went and tried to hunt less actives down but none of them were home. :( That's a big problem we run into haha. Okay. Tuesday! We had our studies and then we went to that big park to talk to people. Talked to a few drunk people, classic, and also a bunch of old guys playing a game called 장기. Jangi. It's korean chess. It's actually super cool and i like it a lot. It's pretty interesting and a good change from american chess haha. so that was fun. then we left the park and got a 빙수 (BingSu) Which is the korean version of a shaved ice. Pretty delicious. They always have fresh fruit on em. So we got that to cool down. THen we went and tried to find less actives but none of em were home. We totally saw a kid eat it so hard though. It was so sad. Haha so Koreans happen to ride on the back of bikes a lot and these 10 year old kids were riding a bike and the one on the back fell off. So what happened was they were rippin it down a hill. I'm talking like i don't know how they got going that fast cuz the hill isn't even that steep. And then there was a speed bump and the kid driving kinda lost control and it made the one kid on the back lose his grip so he went down off the bike and slid like five feet face to the pavement. It was so crazy. Haha he hopped right up and then a bunch of old ladies started yellin at em and took care of em. but that was an adventure. He wasn't even bleedingt that bad though so weird. anyway, that was crazy. Then we had diner and walked along a little creek type thing talking to people. It was chill and super fun. then we came home and made some phone calls.
Wednesday! We started the day off right with a fun coorelation type meeting with all of the missionaries in our area. So 6. haha 3 companionships. But we just talked about how we want to work iwth members and less actives and stuff like that. to do it in a way that is effective and doesn't waste time. So that was fun. Haha then we went and met a super cool guy whose english name is moses. He's super funny and cool. He is pretty old so he learned english back in the day and so when we asked him how he was doing he goes oh i'm groovy. haha too funny. anyway, we talked to him and tried to get him to read the book of mormon but he pulled the classic korean and said he was busy. :( but that's okay. Then we went to do some more less active hunting. none of the people were home of course. haha koreans are literally never home except for when they sleep i swear. but that's fine. anyway, we saw a dude playing with pigeons! haha he had food in his hand and so thaey would get super close to eat it and then he would grab em and stuff way weird but pretty darn funny. then we talked to people and came home and had dinner that was good. Then we went to the church and had english class. I talked to one of the class members about neuroscience so that was interesting. Although he didn't know anything haha. but anyway, then we had english class which was fun of course. :) haha so yeah. Thursday was good! We got up and studied, which i'm really liking. Since we don't have any investigators yet, i guess it could be good to share some of the stuff i learn! I've learned a lot. But i'll get to that in a little. So we then went to 영등포 (YoungDeungPo) for zone training meeting. That was pretty decent. Haha it was a little too long for my liking but still good. It was on asking questions and listening and how that's what christ does. So thatw as good! After that we had dinner together as a 노량진 ward. That aws good. We got chicken from a super good place. :) Haha then after that we went and met our recent convert 이승룡 (Lee SeungYong). He's doin awesome. Reading the book of mormon and reading liahona talks, like it's great. Shared 2 nephi 4 with him when nephi prays to god and he liked it a lot. He's a solid convert. haha so yeah!
Friday not too much hapened. Except for it turned to august which is blwing my mind. Ah stress. But oh well. So we had 2 appointments for friday but they both cancelled so that was sad. :( So we had lunch and then we had weekly planning which was classic. We did it at the church so that we could have some air conditioning and that was way good. Thenw e went and got ice cream at baskin robbins. Okay so i don't know if i've told you this but baskin robbins here is way nice and way good. Haha there is one at like every subway station and they are probably the most common foreign restaraunt here. It's crazy. anyway, we had that then we went and talked to people around the baskin robbins and then we had dinner and went down to a area pretty far awaythat was fun. We tried to find less actives but none of the addresses had the door number which is weird. Okay so in korea a lot of the like villa things are locked, but if you're smart...the code is always written somewhere you can see it from the keypad. haha it's too crazy. So getting into locked things here isn't even hard. Anyway, we looked for less actives and then came home! Saturday aws good! We got up and went to soccer with our ward. There were like 6 people there other than the 4 missionaries who went so not too many people this week. But it was still fun! We played that for a while! That was fun. Then we came home and showered and had our studies. After that we went down to an area called 신림 (Shilleem) It's a pretty busy area with lots of malls and stuff so we went to look for less actives. but, we couldn't confirm any. So then we raninto a guy who used to be the elders quroum president a long time ago and is now less active. We talked to him for a little bit and he wouldn't give us anything. We asked for his name and wouldn't even give us his name. Way weird. Cuz usually less active members are super nice and willing to talk and give you all the information you need haha. but anyway, then we went to the big park again and talked to some more of the jangi playing friends. they're cool. thenw e came home and made dinner. we bought a cookbook haha. So we bought it cuz we are sick of the same thing all the time. So i'm excited. Plus now i can actually eat somewhat healthy. So anyway, the dinner was pretty good! It was some sort of chicken stuff then we went to 노량진역 which means nothing to you guys but it's a good subway station for talking to people and tried to get em. but no one was too nice to us haha. anyway, we talked to them for a while and came home. Sunday was a good last day of the week. Although our recent convert couldn't come to church cuz he was so sick. :( So that was sad. So literally all of our appointments cancelled but that's fine. So we got up and went straight to the church for our weekly coorelation meeting with kim seurgi. He's way cool. I like him a lot. A good ward mission leader. After that we sung as members came in. We had like 12 people singin with us so it was awesome. :) haha itw as fun. THen we hadchurch! For some reason there was a youth activity or something so none of them were at church. Kinda confused...but yeah. Church was good. Nothing really too noteworthy. But it was way god. THen we came home and had our stuies and then we had dinner. It was the same thing that was from the cookbook. :) haha it was good again too. My cooking skills are pretty dang aweosme. ;) so then we went to talk to people and stuff and that was fun then we came home and called a bunch of ward members and got appointments set up for this next week. I'm excited for all of em. It should be a really good week. But yeah! That was our week! Okay so today i was reading in 1 nephi 17 and one thing i really liked. Verse 21. Laman and Lemuel are complaining to Nephi and they say: "Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." The reason i liked this is because how often do we think ah I'm not gonna keep that commandment cuz i can be happier if i do it my way. They thought doing things their way would make them happy, but really the only way to find happiness is to obey the commandments. :) I'm hoping to realy get member missionary work going. I hope we can. We'll see what happens. Keep on rockin family. I love you so much. Thank you for finally emailing me jace. You're the best. :) You guys rock!
Love,
Elder Breinholt
First pics in NoRyangJeen
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| This pic is taken off of the roof of our church after english class |
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| Elder Breinholt's bathroom. His washing machine by the window. They don't have dryer's in Korea. They hang their clothes out to dry. |
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| Opening the package from home. Everything was cut in half to celebrate my year mark. Haha |
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| Eating some mango ice cream |
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| Pic off of the roof of the church after english class |
July 28, 2014
Hello my family! how are you! I think I am emailing a little before you're used to this week. That's probably how it's gonna be from now on though haha. Yeah i like my new area. it's good. Mom we don't have a new dryer of course. No one in korea does. Only at the office do they have a dryer. haha we hang dry our clothes. I'll try to take more pictures its just hard. ah i'm sorry. haha so the major religion is definitely christianity. not buddhism. Buddhism is what all the people who don't got to church say they are. Anyway, this week was super awesome! I have a bunch of pictures to send you! Hope you're ready. :)
>
> Monday was a good last P-day in 화곡.We went to the 목동 church for a party! They have some recent converts that are twins and it was their birthday so they had a party for them. :) haha it was super awesome. It was way fun. We -layed scum with them for a while and then after that we came home and had dinner and teh tried to find less actives but none of them were home. :( So that was sad. Tuesday was my last day in 화곡! Ah! But it was way good. Busy, but good. We had our studies and then we went and met a member for lunch. That was so awesome. It was called 샤브샤브. Which translates to...some stuff that is like bacon but not as bad for you and made out of beef. So in other words, delicous. :) Haha it was way good. Sorry if i can't type, we have to go fast here cuz we are at a library and they have like a ligitimate timer that if you aren't done within the time it just kicks you off and you can't get on. so sad. anyway, we had lunch with her and she wants to take herkids to canada soon so that's some news for ya haha. anyway, then we had district meeting which was awesome! I really liked it! It was all about working together with members and you could feel the spirit kinda guide our conversation. Long story short we came up with an idea for our ward where we are gonna get a FHE thing going with the single adults and then like help the members with theirs. So i think that'll get things goin in good ol Hwagok. :) Then after that we went to baskin robbins for icecream with one of our members. She's pretty cool. But shes crazy. So like it was fun. I had some sort of delicious caramel turtle ice cream. mm. haha anyway, then we came home and i finished paacking really fast then we went to the post office and i mailed my stuff off. then we had a pizza party with 한용호 and some other english class members. i think they put pictures up on facebook...so be lookin for em haha. anyway, i should have some on dropbox anyway, so that'll be good. Then we had english class which was way fun. Haha last one in hwagok! Then we were going to visit 변창기 the ward mission leader but he wasn't home...:( so we went to visit the bishop at his bread store and it was aweomse! Their store is super cute. You'll get pictures of those too. :) Hha so yeah. We took pictures with them for one last time and then we came home!
>
> Wednesday. Transfer day. We had personal study and then got on the road to 신도림역. Or ShinDoRim station which is in the middle of seoul. I don't know if i told you guys this or not, but all of the transfering missionaries go there and meet and then go to their areas after that. Pretty dang awesome. Haha so we got there talked to all the missionaries for a little bit, got some pictuers, then we came home. To 노량진(NoryangJin) it's a good place. pretty center seoul so there are a lot of big buildings but its cool. I'm in the same house as Elder Pruner again. We lived together in pyeongtaek and were super good friends so it should be way fun. :) Haha then we had like area intro, oh i opened your package! Haha it was super funny. All though i would have liked a full package of all the stuff you sent i got the joke. :) haha good one. ;) Anyway, then we went to a super massive park called Borame park. It's cool. Then we went to a subway station with tons of people talked to some people and stuff. Oh hey i don't know if i told you last week but my new companions name is Elder Bryner. He's super cool. He's from West Jordan. He went to Copper Hills high school. So yea! anyway, then we came home and had dinner then we had english class. Our class is super fun. One of the members, pretty crazy! haha but it's fin. He comes like 30 minutes before class to practice his basketball shot. Backwards from the free point line. For a half hour. Haha it's super funny. I got in on it :) anyway, then we had english class and that was fun. Then we came home! Thursday was basic. Haha we got up and studied then we talked about how we wanted to do missionary work in noryangjin. I really want to push working with the members because that's where i've seen the most success. So anyway, We talked about that for a while and then we were supposed to have some planning meeting with the sisters and other elders, but they couldn't come so we just cancelled it and talked to people and called some poeple. Then we went to visit some less actives. I like this area. This is all super new to me. :) haha so it's good. Anyway, we tried to find some less actives, but either they weren't home or they moved sadly. We knocked on one door in the basement of a house and 5 philipinos look up at us and are like uh hi? They are like running some sort of factory. It was weird and smelled like paint. Haha anyway, we asked em if a person was there and they were like um...no. haha it was way weird. Anyway, then we had a meal appointment with 허병석 (Ho ByungSuk) and his wife 김은희 (Kim UnHee). They're super awesome. Super star members. He was just released as the stake president two months ago. He's so cool. And their apartment is super nice. Like 21st story and stuff. It felt like i was back in a nice marriott again. <3. haha so that was cool. They fed us some super good chicken stuff. Wee talked alot about missionary work and how we can get it going cuz he is now the high priest group leader. so that was cool. Then we shared amessage on how seeking the kingdom of god first can bring blessings. turns out that that was like his favorite verse. so that was awesome! Haha Really though ever since i've become a missionary I've been able to feel the spirit a lot more. And I think that's because i've been thinking about god first and always. So It happens. :) haha and it can happen for you guys too as you try to share the gospel to your maybe one friend who isn't lds. ;) haha anyway, that was our thrusday.
>
> Friday good! We had weekly planning so we talked about what we are going to do with our recent convert 이승룡 (Lee SeungYong) He's way cool. Haha anyway, after wekly planning we went to a super cool university with a super cool dragon statue, but i didn't have my caera so we'll get ya a sweek picture next time. THen we walked around and tlked to people until deciding it was hot and we needed icecream. So we were sitting out side of the restaraunt that we were going to have dinner at enjoying our icecream and this less active guy comes up to us and starts talking to us so we got his number and are hopefully gonna meet him this week. :) haha so that was awesome! Then we had dinner at 유가네 with our district. That is the same place that we went to all the time in pyeongtaek that was super good! Haha so that was a nice memory. :) then we had a proselyting activity as a district where we handed out flyers for our fireside on sunday. that was fun. We ran into the other elders investigator and then we talked to him. Then we went to mcdonalds and got iceream and came home! Haha Saturday was fun. We got up and 6 and went to 영등포 (A really huge church), to play soccer. it wasw super super fun. Our ward came. Not all of em just the cool ones. :) haha so that was super cool. I like them a lot. I got to know them through sports so that was cool. Then we came home and showered and had our coordination meeting with our ward missionleader which was fun. He's a good guy. His name is 김슬기 (Kim SurGi). He's way col. So that was fun. He just got married like 2 weeks ago. SO we had that then came home and had our studies then went down to an area called 신림 (Shillim). It was cool. we got dinner then came back to the church and had a fireside. That was super cool. our new stake president teaches at the best university in korea and plays the violin super duper well. haha i was very impressed. Other than that there were a bunch of people who performed so it was fun. :) haha so yeah! That was our day. Sunday was super good first sunday in 노량진. So we got up and ready to go then went over to the church to greet the members. We actually sing as they come in haha so that was fun. :) None of us are like excellent singers except for one of the sisters, but she wasn't there. so that was lame. then we had church! A super crazy guy showed up who turned out spoke pretty decent english. ah why do all the crazys speak english? Anyway, in priesthood i got to introduce myself which was way fun. I also got to tell the young men like my conversion story sort of...haha anyway, it was cool. THen in sacrament i gave like my introduction talk which was super fun! I was way nervous, but i think that it went okay. Haha i already know a bunch of the ward members names so that was aweosme. haha um yeah! Other than that after church we went home and had studies then went out and talked to people before dinner. After dinner there was another fireside. this time the sister who is super good at singing, sister mortensen sung and so did a guy and girl from another ward who are way good. it was super super good. the spirit was super strong and i decided our bishop is super cool. :) haha but like it was way good. They bore their testimonies on how music can influence our lives and it was just super good. centered around christ. ah so good. :) haha anyhoo. that was it! That was my first week in Noryangjin. I love you guys. you guys rock. Stay cute, and i love hearing from you. Thanks for the pictures. Can't believe June and ruby are so big. Makes me want to cry. They are still just as cute. :) haha love them. Have a great week! <3
>
> Love,
> Elder Breinholt
>
> Monday was a good last P-day in 화곡.We went to the 목동 church for a party! They have some recent converts that are twins and it was their birthday so they had a party for them. :) haha it was super awesome. It was way fun. We -layed scum with them for a while and then after that we came home and had dinner and teh tried to find less actives but none of them were home. :( So that was sad. Tuesday was my last day in 화곡! Ah! But it was way good. Busy, but good. We had our studies and then we went and met a member for lunch. That was so awesome. It was called 샤브샤브. Which translates to...some stuff that is like bacon but not as bad for you and made out of beef. So in other words, delicous. :) Haha it was way good. Sorry if i can't type, we have to go fast here cuz we are at a library and they have like a ligitimate timer that if you aren't done within the time it just kicks you off and you can't get on. so sad. anyway, we had lunch with her and she wants to take herkids to canada soon so that's some news for ya haha. anyway, then we had district meeting which was awesome! I really liked it! It was all about working together with members and you could feel the spirit kinda guide our conversation. Long story short we came up with an idea for our ward where we are gonna get a FHE thing going with the single adults and then like help the members with theirs. So i think that'll get things goin in good ol Hwagok. :) Then after that we went to baskin robbins for icecream with one of our members. She's pretty cool. But shes crazy. So like it was fun. I had some sort of delicious caramel turtle ice cream. mm. haha anyway, then we came home and i finished paacking really fast then we went to the post office and i mailed my stuff off. then we had a pizza party with 한용호 and some other english class members. i think they put pictures up on facebook...so be lookin for em haha. anyway, i should have some on dropbox anyway, so that'll be good. Then we had english class which was way fun. Haha last one in hwagok! Then we were going to visit 변창기 the ward mission leader but he wasn't home...:( so we went to visit the bishop at his bread store and it was aweomse! Their store is super cute. You'll get pictures of those too. :) Hha so yeah. We took pictures with them for one last time and then we came home!
>
> Wednesday. Transfer day. We had personal study and then got on the road to 신도림역. Or ShinDoRim station which is in the middle of seoul. I don't know if i told you guys this or not, but all of the transfering missionaries go there and meet and then go to their areas after that. Pretty dang awesome. Haha so we got there talked to all the missionaries for a little bit, got some pictuers, then we came home. To 노량진(NoryangJin) it's a good place. pretty center seoul so there are a lot of big buildings but its cool. I'm in the same house as Elder Pruner again. We lived together in pyeongtaek and were super good friends so it should be way fun. :) Haha then we had like area intro, oh i opened your package! Haha it was super funny. All though i would have liked a full package of all the stuff you sent i got the joke. :) haha good one. ;) Anyway, then we went to a super massive park called Borame park. It's cool. Then we went to a subway station with tons of people talked to some people and stuff. Oh hey i don't know if i told you last week but my new companions name is Elder Bryner. He's super cool. He's from West Jordan. He went to Copper Hills high school. So yea! anyway, then we came home and had dinner then we had english class. Our class is super fun. One of the members, pretty crazy! haha but it's fin. He comes like 30 minutes before class to practice his basketball shot. Backwards from the free point line. For a half hour. Haha it's super funny. I got in on it :) anyway, then we had english class and that was fun. Then we came home! Thursday was basic. Haha we got up and studied then we talked about how we wanted to do missionary work in noryangjin. I really want to push working with the members because that's where i've seen the most success. So anyway, We talked about that for a while and then we were supposed to have some planning meeting with the sisters and other elders, but they couldn't come so we just cancelled it and talked to people and called some poeple. Then we went to visit some less actives. I like this area. This is all super new to me. :) haha so it's good. Anyway, we tried to find some less actives, but either they weren't home or they moved sadly. We knocked on one door in the basement of a house and 5 philipinos look up at us and are like uh hi? They are like running some sort of factory. It was weird and smelled like paint. Haha anyway, we asked em if a person was there and they were like um...no. haha it was way weird. Anyway, then we had a meal appointment with 허병석 (Ho ByungSuk) and his wife 김은희 (Kim UnHee). They're super awesome. Super star members. He was just released as the stake president two months ago. He's so cool. And their apartment is super nice. Like 21st story and stuff. It felt like i was back in a nice marriott again. <3. haha so that was cool. They fed us some super good chicken stuff. Wee talked alot about missionary work and how we can get it going cuz he is now the high priest group leader. so that was cool. Then we shared amessage on how seeking the kingdom of god first can bring blessings. turns out that that was like his favorite verse. so that was awesome! Haha Really though ever since i've become a missionary I've been able to feel the spirit a lot more. And I think that's because i've been thinking about god first and always. So It happens. :) haha and it can happen for you guys too as you try to share the gospel to your maybe one friend who isn't lds. ;) haha anyway, that was our thrusday.
>
> Friday good! We had weekly planning so we talked about what we are going to do with our recent convert 이승룡 (Lee SeungYong) He's way cool. Haha anyway, after wekly planning we went to a super cool university with a super cool dragon statue, but i didn't have my caera so we'll get ya a sweek picture next time. THen we walked around and tlked to people until deciding it was hot and we needed icecream. So we were sitting out side of the restaraunt that we were going to have dinner at enjoying our icecream and this less active guy comes up to us and starts talking to us so we got his number and are hopefully gonna meet him this week. :) haha so that was awesome! Then we had dinner at 유가네 with our district. That is the same place that we went to all the time in pyeongtaek that was super good! Haha so that was a nice memory. :) then we had a proselyting activity as a district where we handed out flyers for our fireside on sunday. that was fun. We ran into the other elders investigator and then we talked to him. Then we went to mcdonalds and got iceream and came home! Haha Saturday was fun. We got up and 6 and went to 영등포 (A really huge church), to play soccer. it wasw super super fun. Our ward came. Not all of em just the cool ones. :) haha so that was super cool. I like them a lot. I got to know them through sports so that was cool. Then we came home and showered and had our coordination meeting with our ward missionleader which was fun. He's a good guy. His name is 김슬기 (Kim SurGi). He's way col. So that was fun. He just got married like 2 weeks ago. SO we had that then came home and had our studies then went down to an area called 신림 (Shillim). It was cool. we got dinner then came back to the church and had a fireside. That was super cool. our new stake president teaches at the best university in korea and plays the violin super duper well. haha i was very impressed. Other than that there were a bunch of people who performed so it was fun. :) haha so yeah! That was our day. Sunday was super good first sunday in 노량진. So we got up and ready to go then went over to the church to greet the members. We actually sing as they come in haha so that was fun. :) None of us are like excellent singers except for one of the sisters, but she wasn't there. so that was lame. then we had church! A super crazy guy showed up who turned out spoke pretty decent english. ah why do all the crazys speak english? Anyway, in priesthood i got to introduce myself which was way fun. I also got to tell the young men like my conversion story sort of...haha anyway, it was cool. THen in sacrament i gave like my introduction talk which was super fun! I was way nervous, but i think that it went okay. Haha i already know a bunch of the ward members names so that was aweosme. haha um yeah! Other than that after church we went home and had studies then went out and talked to people before dinner. After dinner there was another fireside. this time the sister who is super good at singing, sister mortensen sung and so did a guy and girl from another ward who are way good. it was super super good. the spirit was super strong and i decided our bishop is super cool. :) haha but like it was way good. They bore their testimonies on how music can influence our lives and it was just super good. centered around christ. ah so good. :) haha anyhoo. that was it! That was my first week in Noryangjin. I love you guys. you guys rock. Stay cute, and i love hearing from you. Thanks for the pictures. Can't believe June and ruby are so big. Makes me want to cry. They are still just as cute. :) haha love them. Have a great week! <3
>
> Love,
> Elder Breinholt
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