Monday, October 7, 2013
October 7th, 2013
Downtown area where Connor Serves
One Transfer Down!
Can you believe I've been in Korea for 6 weeks? Because I can't. If time keeps going this fast I am going to be home in what will feel like next week. I'm glad you liked the pics because I got a lot this week! We went hiking and took some good ones. :) So I got some for ya! So good to hear that the Cougars are rockin in football. :) Love it. Well at least against Utah State. By the way! We don't get to watch conference until this weekend because they have to translate it and stuff! So that really stinks. I'm so jealous of all of you! Seriously, like I wish so bad I could watch it. So tempted to get on right now. Ah. Sorry that it wasn't the same poppy. :) When we do watch it, we will watch it at the church. By the way, what candy did you want again? I am going there today so if you respond quickly, it can happen. :) Okay so this week! It rocked! We finally got our two baptisms solidified so at least one is going to happen for sure and I'm pretty sure they both will. They're scheduled for the same day on the 20th! So pray for them! 하유진 and 김나영! Gonna be awesome! Our area is really on fire right now. Like seriously. Alright!
So Monday. after I emailed you we went up to 수원 to get some baskin robbins with some other elders and sisters in our zone. I was licking it on the cone right? And then...the cone shatters and my ice cream is about to fall on the ground but hey I've got skills so I caught it in my hand. It rocked. I saved my ice cream. except for the fact that I had melting ice cream all over my hand. Haha but I could still eat it. Oh I also bought Harry Potter 2 in korean. It's super cool. But I can't read it....haha strugglin. Then we came back and played bang! At FHE, but everyone ganged up on me first. So I lost first in both games we were playing. It was rough. Haha that game reminds me of the Banks. Because they love that game I think. Either that or one time I was over there and they were playing it.
Tuesday started the 4th month of my mission! What the heck. We went down to 안성, the furthest area away from the mission home which is an hour ish away from us. Haha so we went down there because we got to help the elders down there serve a less active lady on her farm. We went to town! We pulled out all of these sesame/poppyseed things out and weeded that whole area. Then we pulled corn out and weeded. Dang. I was so sore. Today is actually the first day I'm like not sore from that. Haha I know. Baby right. Then we went to lunch at Noodle tree. It was delicious. I'm so sorry they don't have that in 미국. Then we made the trek home. And since we didn't get any studies we finished the day with the three hours of studies we had to make up. Forever right. But one thing that I really liked. I reread Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk on Regrets and Resolutions because I felt like there was a lot to learn from it. Something that I really liked this time was when he was talking about enjoying the journey.We need to stop looking forward to when something will happen because we think we will be happy then and just let ourselves be happy now. Life is not meant to be enjoyed in retrospect.
Wednesday rocked too. Obviously, I'm a missionary so everyday does. But I read more talks too. haha I'm sorry I need conference to be here. I'm going to literally cry of joy when I get to watch it this weekend. I read "trial of Your Faith" by Neil L. Andersen again. Haha I learned that we need to treasure, strengthen, pray for more, and proctect and defen\d our faith. It isn't something we can be passive about. ALso i learned that it is our imperfections that help us to become perfect. Super awesome. Like we have imperfections for a reason. So that we can learn and grow. Without them, why come to earth? After that we went around and tried to visit a less active, but she wasn't there. :( Then we just put up fliers for forever! Haha partyin missionary life. Then we did some area book work stuff and had English class! I shared the thought with Elder Pruner on faith! It was so aweome. THen I asked 심우진 to pray. He is the kid who is going to be baptised, its his friend. So when he prayed he was like "And please bless 하유진 that he will be baptised. So freakein cute. I almost started crying. But also! I learned that in Korea, parents don't name their children. Cna you belive that?! They have someone do it for them. Blows my mind. But its because everyone's name has meaning.
Thursday I read a talk on Marriage by L. Whitney Clayton. It was freakin good! The points of it were: In the happiest marriages, both husband and wife consider their relationship to be beyond a pearl of great price. Next, they are built on faith in the Lord Jesus Chirst. THird, repentance and humility. Next, Respect, transparency and loyalty. Last, love. All of these things are seriously all important. You take out one and it is probably going to fall apart.Then we went to a 고기 buffet! So delicious. I love those things. I always eat my eyes out. IS that a saying? Probably not. But I eat a lot. We went because it was 용환's last week in 평택 before he becomes a missionary. :( I'm so sad. He's a missionary now! Cute little yong hwan. :( He's seriously going to be the best missionary. Cutest guy ever. Then we went hiking with 박희정, 심우진, and 김종하. She's the other Elders investigator so we went to build a relationship with her and because they needed a third man and we count! So heck yeah. We hiked and there are these just excercise machines at the top of this "mountain". So awesome. Mostly old people doing it. There are old people exercise machines everywhere. They just hang out and exercise. PRetty sure the old people here are in better shape than most 20 year olds in america. haha so cool. But onething that stuck out to me is that it's not about getting and racing to the top to enjoy the view. It's about the journey. If we were just racing to the top we would have missed a lot of fun along the way. Most of the exercise things were on the way up rather than right at the top. ANd that was super fun. We saaw some small tombs and stuff so that was super cool. But if we wanted to get straaight to the top we totally would have missed all of those things.
Friday! I read Dallin H. Oaks talk "Protecting the Children" That's a good one. Read it. He talked about how we need our children to grow iup in homes solidified in the bond of marriage. Parents should rarely get divorced. He saied that divorce now is an easy thing that you rarely think twice about. And when children are involved, they are rarely brought into the picture. It was good. I can't summarize it. Just read itl Then we went to our scripture study class. It was awesome! I had what is called by missionaries "the Black noodle" It's basically korean spaghetti. The food that is super common that everyone loves. It's pretty good! I liked it a lot! Then the rest of friday was taken up by weekly planning and making up the study that we missed. That's president morrise's thing. He always wants us to make sure we get all the study time. And honestly I'm so glad. It's worth it.
Saturday was super busy and awesome! We went over to the Hernandez's home. They are an amazing family. The dad isn't a member though. Listen to this. We gave her a bunch of book of mormons on sunday and saturday she had already placed two. Like whhat? So awesome. And he had oil for members to use if they ever didn't have any and needed to give a blessing! What the heck! We gave their daughter a blessing and it just made me so grateful for the priesthood and to have a dad who has it. Because I could get a blessing anytime i needed one. Then I blessed their home! That was super cool. The first time! Then we went to the church to plan our lessons because that was at like 10 that we had to go do that. o we were planning and a kid just comes walking into the church. We start talking to him and we sit down with him then he just starts telling us how we shouldn't believe in the Book of Mormon and all this random stuff. It was crazy. He was crazy! Haha Elder Atkind said he couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying. Gotta love that. It was weird. Then we taught 하유진! It was awesome! W etaught him all of the 2nd lesson that day! Then we went down to 평택 because we were meeting 이천수 and her family. We taught them english and then about God, families and prophets! We gave her and her cute little daughter a book of Mormon and they said they would read it! Super awesome! Ohh haha then we went to this place. It was a little tent restaraunt thing. I was gonna cry. But wasn't about to show it. There were spiders in the ceiling and comin down. Oh so gross. But it was actually pretty good food! Haha Ahh. Then on our way home at the 역 a guy came up to us and we started teaching him about the three kingdoms! So awesome! Seriously, like that was super cool. Things like that make you glad to be a missionary.
Sunday was the last day of the transfer! Nothing too big happened. We taught the two that are going to be baptised! That was awesome. We reviewed baptismal interview questions with 김나영 and taught 하유진 lesson three, or the Gospel. It was awesome. I got to ask a few questions and talk about faith and some other stuff. It was good. :) But yeah! That was our week! It was awesome! I hope you are doing well! From the sound of it, you're doing great! I hope conference was amazing, I'm sure it was it always is! Haha I miss you guys! Can't wait to see you in about 20 months! But at the same time, Korea is home. And its going to be hard to leave. You're awesome. Love you!
Love,
Elder Breinholt
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Pictures of Elder Breinholt at a park. Subway. Apt. Etc...
My Mission Rocks!!
Hello my awesome family! It sounds like you had an awesome birthday kenah! Keep drivin mom and dad crazy with that Ukelele. :) Haha that's really fun that you guys got to go up to Utah state to see Alynn and Kira and also watch Anja's soccer game. :) Oh of course it was fun for alynn to spend her money. ;) Um if you could actually send me some deodorant, that'd be great. They don't have it here. Like Koreans don't wear deodorant. They wear cologne. So yeah... Haha other than that actually if they have come out with the 2013 mini scriptures I would love a set of those. Just like the triple and Bible separate. That can be my Christmas present. ;) We got transfer calls on Saturday night and our entire district is staying the same except for we are getting two new elders in 안성, the furthest area away from the mission home haha. So that's cool! I love everyone in our district they rock.
Alright so this week I'm just going to go over the highlights and not a day by day thing. Mostly because Elder Atkin got a pretty dang bad cold so we didn't have too many opportunities this week. So that was sad. Anyway, first highlight! I went to a 목욕탕! which translates to bathouse. Haha it was super cool. Just a buunch of guys chillin in a bunch of hot tubs. I'll be honest, I've never felt that clean in my life and my hands have never been that soft, you know what that means haha. Then we went to FHE and that was super fun! I shared the same thing that alynn told me too and it was super good! That's a way good idea! I learned that really, it is our families and the Church that give us the most happiness, peace and joy. Without Family, this life really isn't nearly as happy as it can be.
Wednesday at our combined zone meeting. hahaa this one is awesome. We were watching this clip from the district on stress and this sister was like "these people are speaking spanish and I can't understand a word they're saying, it's my 3rd day, I was so stressed" President Morrise pauses it. Turns to all of us and says, "Now when spanish speakers say stuff like that, don't you just want to say 'Wow what a baby!'" Hahaha we all died. because its so true. Spanish speakers have no idea how easy they have it. That day we also taught Julie. She's the lady who took us to that nice chinese restaraunt i sent pictures from. She really has a hard time seeing anything with faith. Everything has to be historically correct and make sense. It's so hard. She has faith i know she does! Otherwise she wouldn't be meeting with us. But I learned that without faith, no matter how strong the spirit is, they will never believe. Also another thing I learned is that as missionaries we have to gain trust not only from the members to be successful, but from the lord. We have to show him that we will act on the promptings he gives us and that we will always be obedient. Because then the success can come.
Thursday we taught Jennifer Stoy. She's the lady we met with last week. Say hello to our newest progressing investigator! She read the 소개장 just like we asked. That's the introduction by the way. And she's been praying multiple times a day. So awesome. We taught her about prophets and why it is important to have one guide us today. And boy did I learn that this week. She's so prepared. She really wants something and she feels like this is it. So i hope she continues to read. Oh I read a talk by D. Todd Christofferson that I think should be given in every single priesthood it's that good. He talked about how more and more guys are just sitting around and being passed up by women. They are way more likely to drop out of school and there is a common attitude to not want to become anything. He said men especially in the church and cannot sit around and waste their time. They need to educate themselves past high school and prepare themselves to provide well for their families, be examples in our home church and neighborhood. It seriously is so good. I would reccomend reading it. Then I read a talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf on Regrets and Resolutions. He said that people's biggest regrets are that they waste too much time on things that really don't mean the most to them. They all wished they would have spent more time with the people they love and that mean the most to them. So true. I can understand that. I miss you guys. Everyone so much. But that's okay, because Korea deserves it. :)
Saturday we had Sean's baptism! Sean is the other Elders investigator. He is from new york and is here with the army. It was so awesome. He literally was so prepared. The Lord does prepare people. If the situation didn't happen exactly like it did, he never would have found the gospel. His girlfriend, now fiancee i might add, was going to go on a mission but her parents refused and didn't let her. That was super super hard on her. So a few months went by and she even went less active because of it. Long story, not a lot of time. Anyway, she called the missionaries one day and introduced them to Sean. If it wasn't for that, Sean never would have been found! So yeah. Also I read a bunch of conference talks. Needless to say I'm so jealous you get to watch it this weekend. I have to wait because it comes a week later here so they can translate it. :((( Haha i am dying. It's going to be Christmas. So pumped! But some things I learned. From PResident Eyring's talk "Where is the Pavilion?" I learned that we think that the lord hides himself, when really He doesn't. He's always there for us happy to be there. But we don't follow his will. We don't submit our will to His and that's when the pavilion comes. We put it there. Another talk by him that I really liked was "Come unto Me" I learned that the savior won't give us everything we want and ask for. But he will give us everything we need to get through. And that's super amazing. We are so blessed. Then I read "Lord, I Believe" again by Holland. It was so awawesome. Seriously. Like he rocks. But one thing this time that touched me in particular was just a scripture. "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief." Because i think that is me all the time. Haha like I believe i do! But I need help to believe even more. To be even more truly converted.
Sunday rocked! President Morrise was in our church! He came to speak to the Korean Ward. Even sister Morrise spoke! By the way! About half of her talk was in Korean! So cool! Haha it was awesome. Anyway, Sunday we went to a 시사 with Brother Khan. Amazing story. He had been inactive for 13 years. He runs into Elder Wedam and Pruner and Home Plus and that was all he needed. He's been back at church every week and even gave a talk this week! So flipin awesome. He's an inspiration haha. But from the lesson that Elder Wedam taught and just from our conversations with him. He was muslim and a super rich one at that. LIke there aren't very many people that have given up what he had to give up to join the church. But I learned that God really is a God of Miracles. He does still perform them. Though often they aren't anything like healing someones blindness, though sometimes it can be. They most often times come in small things. I consider it a miracle that families can be close. Like the fact that families grow closer everyday through the gospel, thats a miracle everyday. The fact that I am on a mission right now, that's a miracle. They still happen. We just have to look for them. And that's what I've learned this week. It was a good one. I feel like from this one week alone I've grown a lot. I have lots of pictures to send so you'll like that. :) Ok! I better go. Love you so much!
Love,
Elder Breinholt
Elder Breinholt
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