Letter 12.10.18 { week 12 }

Hey Mom! 

This week has been has been amazing! I don't have too much to report on this week, it's been hard finding new people but the people we are teaching have been progressing! I'll just start on with the mass email!

We met with Uttam again and he is insane! The first thing he told us was he did a lot of research about our church online. At first me and my companion just kinds looked at each other and said "uh oh" because usually when people do their own research, they find lots of anti material, but Uttam is definitely apart of the elect! Being a PhD student, we assume he knows which sources are reliable and only trusts those. He told us he thought the "conspiracy theories" were funny! Man hes such an awesome guy. 

Oh here's the best part about him: the sisters in our YSA Branch have seen him around since last semester, but he only started taking the discussions once we approached him a few weeks ago! Talk about a perfect example of Alma 32! His heart was finally prepared to hear the word and now the seed is growing!

We also had a branch Christmas party on Saturday! We couldn't stay for everything unfortunately, but we stayed long enough fir the white elephant gift exchange! 

Elder Hawes' mom gave us $10 sonic cards each, but unfortunately there aren't any sonic's around us so we re-gifted them. I decided to add salvation (the Book of Mormon) to my present as well. The gift cards actually went pretty quick!

I ended up getting a cutting board, summer sausage and a cracker spread! I was only in it for the cutting board really. We didn't have one and I was sooooo excited to get an actual cutting board. I'm taking that with me wherever I go for sure!

We also met with Yoon on Wednesday! We invited Arthur to our lesson as well who is a member of our branch and has taken it upon himself to really get to know Yoon. Arthur is from China and very self confident. Regardless though, he was a big help in our lesson with her! Since we were the ones who drove Arthur to the lesson, we figured we would drive him back, but after the lesson he asked Yoon to give him a tour of the place (buffalo state - the school she goes to) and Yoon said ok. Arthur was quick to make sure the missionaries were out of the picture and said "you guys can leave I'll get an uber." 

This is YSA for a reason right?! And THAT was definitely a first date if I ever saw one! 

Oh my goodness we heard from Kadeem yesterday!!!

Kadeem was someone we were teaching my first transfer here, about 9 weeks ago! Kadeem is now living in the Bronx with his mom so unfortunately hes not in our zone. But we are the only people he will respond to so we are still allowed to work with him for a few more lessons. We are video chatting him over Facebook and we plan to do so tonight! We are so excited to hear from him again!

I was also asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting about service! The talk was supposed to be 17 minutes long! It's easily the longest I've ever talked in front of people... not gonna lie I told a LOT of stories to help pass the time. But hey it was a great talk regardless and one of the members came up afterwards to thank me for talking about a few key points of service that aren't usually spoken of. By individual request I can email the talks to all of you if you'd like!

That's basically all I have for this week. Its been super hard to find people who will let you talk to them considering every college student has finals right now and throughout the rest of this week, but we haven't stopped trying!

Oh one last thing though: a chick-fil-a opened up in our mission! You betcha that my companion and I went there today and stood in line for 30 minutes! Man that was amazing. Unfortunately I'll probably never be able to make time to go there again!

Spiritual thought for the week:

This spiritual thought will actually be a story I used for my talk on service. This is from Spencer W. Kimball:

"A young mother on an overnight flight with a two-year-old daughter was stranded by bad weather in Chicago airport without food or clean clothing for the child and without money. She was … pregnant and threatened with miscarriage, so she was under doctor’s instructions not to carry the child unless it was essential. Hour after hour she stood in one line after another, trying to get a flight to Michigan. The terminal was noisy, full of tired, frustrated, grumpy passengers, and she heard critical references to her crying child and to her sliding her child along the floor with her foot as the line moved forward. No one offered to help with the soaked, hungry, exhausted child.

“Then, the woman later reported, ‘someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, “Is there something I could do to help you?” With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.’”

Several years later, President Kimball received a letter that read, in part:

“Dear President Kimball:
“I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich, West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much. …
“I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week, when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some twenty-one years ago in the Chicago airport. The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a … screaming child, in … distress, waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her. She had experienced four previous miscarriages, which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift.
“You comforted the crying child and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off my mother. I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan.
“I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example!”

Guys, seriously service is everything

When ye are in the service of others, ye are Only in the service of your God!

Elder Breshears

Elder Breshears address:

Elder Breshears
660 Cleveland Dr. unit 4
Cheektowaga, NY. 14225

Pictures:

1. My comp and I at a Christmas party during white elephant!

2. All the presents! 

3. A church we found called "church of the assumption" yeah... 

4. Me and my chic-fil-a!!!

Letter 12.03.18 { week 11 }

Hey everyone! 

I hope all of your weeks were absolutely fantastic! Our week wasnt super eventful over here. Unfortunately a lot of people are busy studying for finals so its harder to teach, but that will never stop us! 

Last Monday we taught a new person we found named Uttam! (Pronounced oo-tdum) hes a PhD student at UB from India studying Chemical engineering! Hes crazy smart. We met with him twice this week and extended the invitation for him to be baptized once the spirit confirmed to him that the Book of Mormon was true. He accepted it and even said he wanted to read the entire book of Mormon! Holy moly we were a bit blown away by his dedication, but we are excited for him!

On Wednesday we skipped most of our dinner hour to go see Patrick's art presentation! Patrick is the art grad student. He recently had his art project professionally moved into his friend's childhood bedroom. We were a bit late so we missed the presentation part, but we were there for the discussion afterwards. Art students are sooooo smart! They find symbolism in ways I cannot even begin to imagine. 

We also had our last Booth of the year! We thought 2 weeks was the last week... but it turns out this week was! We actually ended up using the Christmas tree (thanks mom!) And had people help put ornaments on it! We snagged a picture this time around too!

Wednesday we also had zone meeting - most missions have zone conference instead. The only difference is zone meeting goes for 2 hours less than conference. We are super big on "don't waste a single minute!" And we've cut down a lot of the excess meeting hours we don't need. 

We also met with a woman named Katiria! She was a former (a former is someone who used to be taught by the missionaries but was eventually dropped) and lives in Niagara. It's about a 30 minute drive from where we are so we use up a lot of miles to see her, so we always make the best of it! Shes going through some rough times right now, but we know that we can help her through it! 

Thursday we met with a guy named Taha! Taha met Elder Hawes (my companion) and Elder Edwards when we were on exchanges and this is the first time we have met him since. He is Muslim and is probably the nicest person I will ever meet! When we saw him he actually gave us Ferrero rochers! If you guys don't know, he probably spent $10 on that stuff. It's expensive candy!! 

Anyways we made a deal with him that he could educate/teach us about Islamic beliefs if we could teach him about Christianity/our faith's beliefs. He is the most respectful guy I have met out here. When he explained how Muslim's believe Christ to be a prophet and not the Son of God, he made sure to apologize for possibly sounding offensive multiple times. We noticed that whenever he mentioned Muhammad (the last Muslim prophet) he always added "peace be upon him" right after. We started saying the same after we said his name as a sign of respect and being courteous to his beliefs. 

Unfortunately, as amazing as a guy as he is, we probably wont see him again. Our purpose as missionaries is to meet with those who are prepared to make commitments to come closer to our savior. Having a first lesson with Taha was great, but unfortunately he was only looking to be educated about Christianity. That being said, Taha has restored what little faith in humanity I had!

On Friday, we went to Jorge's baptism! Jorge is someone who is being taught by the sister missionaries in our branch. Jorge had been taking lessons for a month and a half, dropped off the face of the earth for a few months, then came back out of no where and was baptized within 2 weeks! I was asked to give a talk on baptism and that was a little scary since I've never given a talk at a baptism... but hey it all worked out.

One of the best parts of Jorge's baptism, besides Jorge being baptized, is that Yoon came too! Yoon has been wanting to come to the church for weeks, but unfortunately she has meetings on Sunday from 9am-3pm. We are working with her to see if she can be excused early. We should have an update on that next week.

Anyways, one of our members, Arthur, started talking to her IMMEDIATELY. They talked basically the entire time. I think I can officially say that I am not only a full time missionary, but a part time matchmaker! 

On Sunday, we went to UB before church. We parked and as soon as we opened the car door, this bright orange car with a giant (giant, meaning like 5 feet tall) coffee mug strapped to the back rolls up next to us. It was a car advertising Dunkin donuts. A woman gets out of the passenger seat, says shes from Dunkin, and gives us gift cards for Dunkin donuts! They were $5 gift cards and at first we thought she was just gonna give us one each, but NOPE! SHE GAVE US $15 EACH WORTH OF FREE GIFT CARDS! Of course we knew where we were going on Monday to get lunch now! 

That was basically my week, here's a spiritual thought for you all:

"Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children DO what is right; it is to have His children CHOOSE to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors." ~Elder Renlund Oct 2018

Elder Breshears

Pictures:

1. $30 worth of free donuts that we ate today

2. Elder Hawes and I at our booth with our Christmas tree 

3. The absolute feast we had after fast Sunday (Mom I really hope you're proud of me!)

Letter 11.26.18 { week 10 }

Hello everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving/weekend, I know I did!

I dont think clarified this very well, but last week was transfers week. My companion and I did not transfer though! We are staying here for another 6 weeks. Our address/everything is the same.
That being said, Elder Clinger from our district was transferred! It was sad to see him go and he totally did not expect it. But, we got a brand new Elder! He is being trained by Elder Edwards, our district leader. What's really funny is that this is Elder Bernal's first transfer here in New York, and this is Elder Edwards' LAST transfer until he goes home! It's funny to see both of them work together during roleplaying. Elder Edwards is super comfortable doing roleplays, working on listening, and following the spirit to know what to say. Elder Bernal on the other hand goes straight to the scriptures and answers questions through the Book of mormon! It's so cool to see them work together even though they are such a new companionship. 

Most of the people we are teaching are college students, and as such, they went home for Thanksgiving break so we really didn't have a lot of contact with them, but that didn't stop us! We went to campus almost every day and even though there were maybe 5 people total that we saw at any given time being there, that forced us to talk to EVERYONE and to teach and testify on the spot. We had a lot of sit down lessons right then and there and were able to talk for 30-45 minutes to a few people! On Saturday we scheduled a lesson and met with him for awhile, we left and as soon as we finished reporting on the lesson, the very next person we saw, we sat down and talked to him for the rest of the night! Teaching people has gotten a lot easier. I find myself much more able to relate gospel topics to their everyday lives and help them understand how jesus christ can specifically help them personally. 

That's basically been our week/last 4 days. The highlight was probably when we went downtown to contact people on the streets and we see a guy waiting for his bus. Here is how our conversation went:
"Hey man can we give you a picture of jesus christ?"
"Absolutely, thank you!"
"Yeah no problem, we see the bus right there and we just wanted to let you know we are missionaries for Christ and that he can help us no matter what we go through in our lives. Call the number on that card if you want to learn more!"
"For sure! I love God Junior!"

My companion and I continued to laugh for a solid 3 minutes after that conversation in regards to someone calling jesus christ "God junior..." I mean hes not wrong, but still it was very funny. 

Spiritual thought for the week:
I was reading one of the old general conference talks from waaaaay back when, this one was specifically on television. Inside of this talk,  Elder M. Russel Ballard quotes this poem:
"All the water in the world
No matter how it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship
Unless it got inside.
All the evil of the world
And every kind of sin
Could never damn a human soul
Unless we let it in."

I truly dont think I need to add anything else to that poem, it explains everything that I could ever say so perfectly and so clearly. I hope you all remember this poem when you go through any negatives in your life and understand that it is YOUR decision for what happens next. With our savior's help, we can always choose to make the right decision.

Elder Breshears

I slacked on pictures this week, but here is what I have:
1. Picture of me trying to look awake/happy in the morning
2. A picture of our Christmas tree we setup today (thanks mom!)
3. Me next to said Christmas tree

Letter 11.22.18 { week 9 }

Hey Mom! 

Here's the email for this past week and a half. Thank you a bunch for the greenie package! I really did like it  especially the rhymes written on there! Oh and in case you are interested for whatever reason I tried egg nog for the first time today and I felt as though I was drinking liquidated candy! Wow that stuff was sugary, but hey it did taste pretty good. I dunno if I'll get it again but I'm glad I tried it!

There are a few different people who we are teaching that have been progressing super well. We continued talking to Jefferson and he can be spotty to get in contact with but he really likes meeting with us. He relies on us as missionaries a lot to get the encouragement to continue reading the Book of Mormon, so we asked him how we can help him to remember each day to read! We offered that once a week, if he reads on his own, we would also send him a scripture to read as well. He seemed to really like that idea. A lot of people who we teach are going home for Thanksgiving so unfortunately for us we aren't able to meet with them this week, but we are still texting them positive and uplifting scriptures to read while they are away!

The next person we have been teaching is Lewis. Lewis' faith in our heavenly father is UNWAVERING. He knows he is only where he is because of God and Jesus Christ. That being said, we are very concerned for him because hes really not doing well. I cannot go into too much detail but hes just not doing well. We have been praying and praying for him hoping that he will continue to be safe and okay.

On Wednesday we had our booth setup for the last time of the year! Our mission president, President Evans, even came with us! He is such an amazing guy. 

President Evans also came with us to meet with Yoon again! She is super solid. We met with her and invited her to church but unfortunately she has meetings from 9am - 3pm every Sunday! We asked her what goes on during the meeting and she said it's a lot of presentations. We have a few ideas for her to see if she can ask the professor to be excused early to come to church, we pray that her professor will allow her to. She has such a strong desire to continue to feel the holy spirit and to go to church. She knows that if she comes to church she will better feel the spirit. She knows this is true! She has such a desire to come closer to our savior and we are trying everything we can to give her every opportunity to do so!!

We also met with Patrick again who is absolutely amazing! Hes such a solid guy and asks crazy deep doctrine questions. Unfortunately our first few lessons were very intellectual and not so spiritual. After we realized this we focused our next lesson to be entirely on BAPTISM BY FIRE AND THE HOLY GHOST! I say that excitedly because baptism by fire just sounds so awesome (and it is!!) Anyways, our lessons are much more spiritual now. We tie everything back to the Book of Mormon and receiving that spiritual confirmation that it is true. He has yet to receive that confirmation, but we know he will!

We also had exchanges again! Last time I was on exchanges with elder Edwards, our district leader. This time I was on exchanges with Elder Clinger, his companion. We were super hungry for dinner and we decided to go to Burger King. We saw an advertisement that said "$1 - 10 piece nuggets" so naturally we both take upon ourselves the 50 chicken nugget challenge. 

It was a hard battle against those nuggets, but with a lot of help from ranch, sweet and sour, and barbecue sauce we were both able to finish the challenge! Pictures will be here. Guys don't try this, it was fun to do once but I dont even want to look at another chicken nugget for the rest of my mission.

On a more spiritual note, we received a text while on exchanges asking us to come to the hospital. A member's daughter hurt her eye very bad and needed surgery. Before they took her to the children's hospital we were able to get to the triage room and give her a blessing. Thank goodness I had my wallet on me which holds my oil because Elder Clinger didn't have any. We were able to drop everything and get right over there. I've yet to receive any update on how she is doing, but as soon as I know I'll report on that here.

On Sunday we taught a gospel doctrine class and talked about Faith in Christ. I'll go into more detail as part of my spiritual thought for the week. 

On Monday, which wasn't pday, we went to UB and after about 10 minutes I looked over to my companion and said "I'm honestly feeling like we shouldn't be here." We prayed about it, then decided we should go parking lot contacting. So we drove about 10-15 minutes to a parking lot and we put the car in park and I said again "Elder Hawes, I don't think this is where we need to be. Let's pray again and find out where the Lord wants us." We prayed again, and decided to go door knocking at some student homes. As soon as we parked I knew this is where we needed to be. An hour and a half later we actually ended up teaching 3 first lessons! One of those lessons was even taught at a frat house while we were looking directly at a coffee table filled with many items that totally goes against the word of wisdom! We planted many seeds that day. Within the coming days those seeds will grow, and they will call us back, we just know it.

Anyways, that was basically my week!

Spiritual thought:

We were talking about faith in Jesus Christ on Sunday, and someone related faith in Christ to the faith we have in a mechanic who fixes our car:

We don't know everything about Christ, nor God's plan for us, similar to how (most of us) don't know how a mechanic fixes our car. BUT, we do know that the mechanic DOES fix our car, just like how we know that Christ is perfect along with God's plan for us. 

Elder Breshears

Pictures:

1. Elder Hawes (my companion) and I

2. Elder Clinger and I (who I went on exchanges with)

3. Elder clinger and I with our 100 combined chicken nuggets + sauces

4. Elder Edwards (my district leader) and I

5. A screenshot of the weather here! I love it!!!
6. "Chair" picture for our district. Apparently its tradition that you sit upon the amount of chairs for how many transfers you have left. Of course this was the end of my first transfer so I had the most with 16! Elder Edward's up front as you can see is only sitting on one chair. Hes about ready to go home in 6 weeks!

Letter 11.12.18 { week 8 }

Hello everyone! 

Before I begin I want to let you know our p-day has been moved this upcoming Monday to the holiday as well. I will not have a p-day on November 19th. Instead it will be on the 22nd. I will not be able to read/respond to emails until then unfortunately.

Also I wanted to quickly say: Happy birthday Dad and Aaron! I hope you both had wonderful days and I know that mom/grandma took extra care of both of you!

Now onto my actual week:

We met quite a few new people this week! 

Lewis, who originally we found on Halloween night, has the most prepared heart out for this gospel than I have seen from anyone else. His first concern: "i need to go to church. I have to go and i know that it can help me" so of course we responded by saying we can make sure he gets a ride to church every week!

His second concern: "I do think these preachers are good people and can help, but I feel like I need a living prophet to guide me and tell me what I need to do." So of course we responded by saying we are the only church to have living prophets who can do exactly that!

This week was stake conference and Lewis came to the Saturday night session- which I am SO glad he did because I promise you the people who spoke there literally could've spoken at general conference. The spirit was strong and I know he felt it. He has told us he us very excited to go to church with us again! 

Patrick also came to church with us on Sunday! Patrick is the person who has his own art studio. Some of the members in the YSA saved us front row seats for the person we were teaching! It was so nice of them and that truly did help the spirit flow better because we could hear so well. Patrick was sitting and listening and I looked over at him once and he was even taking notes! He took like 4 pages of notes!!! 

At the end we had him meet our mission president and his wife - president and sister Evans who were delighted to meet him. Man I hope one day they can come see his art studio because it is so cool! I'll attach a picture that i took of his studio (I had his permission to do so).

My companion and I also had the opportunity to give a member of our branch a priesthood blessing. Guys for real, these actually do work. Priesthood blessings are the coolest because they really do help you feel the comfort God gives us.

On Friday we had Jose's baptism by water AND by fire! Since it was stake conference this week we received permission to give Jose the holy ghost right after his baptism! He's so solid. We brought along Abhishek who we are teaching as well! One of our members, Brother D'alba drove him and they've hit it off. They talked the ENTIRE time and Abhishek really enjoys hearing an older member of our church explain what we believe rather than believe two 19 year old guys... which is understandable honestly.

We also met a woman at Buffalo State and her name is Yoon. When we met her we showed her the book of Mormon and her eyes lit up and said "oh I've been to Utah! I went to Orem!" Turns out she went to UVU for awhile! We got her a Korean copy of the Book of Mormon (because her native tongue is Korean) and we had a first lesson with her on Saturday. She is very interested in learning more!

Sunday night we went knocking doors which I've only done 2 times before... we met some really cool people and almost everyone gave us the time of day! It was really nice to see. We only teach people who are of YSA age (18-30) and the first person who asked us to come back was an older woman. We referred her name to some other missionaries who hopefully will see her on Tuesday. We also met another guy for maybe 3 minutes and he asked us to come back too! He is definitely of YSA age and we will get back with him Tuesday as well!

That's all I really have for this week. I do have a spiritual thought though:

We can see that the Book of Mormon truly is connected to the bible!

Ezekiel 37: 16

This scripture references the stick of Judah, which we know Christ comes from the tribe of Judah and is speaking of the bible. Then it also references the stick of Joseph, who is Joseph of Egypt. Then says to join the two sticks as one. 

We know that Lehi and his family - the family who was told by God to sail to the Americas - are the remnants of the tribe of Joseph of Egypt! So by joining the the sticks of Judah and Joseph together, we then are asked to read the bible and the book of Mormon because those are the only 2 records which talk of the two tribes.

Of course, with all this said, don't just read both books and take it for 100% truth. We are ALWAYS asked to pray to know that what we read is the truth - "And by the power of the holy ghost, ye may know the truth of all things" - Moroni 10:5. This us the challenge we issue to everyone we see. We never ask people to believe our words because if they only believe our words, we have converted them unto us. If you read and immediately take the bible or book of Mormon for the truth, you've converted unto the bible or the book of Mormon. Our purpose for being here is to be converted unto the LORD and nothing else. I know that as we continue to ask for the holy ghost to testify of the truth in the 2 records that we read, we will continue to be converted unto the Lord and no one else. 

Elder Breshears 

Letter 11.05.18 { week 7 }

From: Christian Breshears <christian.breshears@myldsmail.net>

Hey everyone! I hope everything is going well over there! My week was absolutely amazing and the highlight of it all was going on exchanges with my district leader! (For those who don't know, an exchange is when you are companions with a different missionary for 24 hours - so you bring your bedding and a small carry on and everything you need for 24 hours and switch it up)

Anyways, so this week went by very fast and it wasn't insanely eventful, but when pday ended last Monday at 6pm, we were given a lemon cake (which was given to us last Sunday, but we are it on Monday) and we are half of it which tasted amazing! But then I also remembered when we talked to the sisters serving in the YSA branch with us, they said they basically live off of granola and wraps and I just thought to myself "how in the world do you do that??" So Elder Hawes and I decided to give the other half of that cake to them. They really appreciated the gesture.

Also Mom, those toys and knick knacks you sent us for Halloween- we can't actually use ourselves so they were sitting in a box for forever... but it's okay! We got some new neighbors who we heard as they were moving in had a little boy, so we walked over to their apartment and asked if they wanted some toys and the little kid was soooooo happy! He picked out just one from the box thinking he could only pick one and we said "oh no you can have them all!" And he got soooooo excited!! The parents were very nice. We might try and see if they are interested in our message sometime soon.

Wednesday was of course Halloween and we were asked by our mission president to not be outside after dinner to proselyte since it might be dangerous for us to go out during that time, so Elder Hawes and I stayed in our apartment for the rest of the night. But before we did, we had a crazy big dinner! (Crazy big in comparison to how we usually eat, that is... do not that big Haha) it was so good. I took a picture of it and seriously Mom you would be proud. 

We stayed inside for the rest of the night and did some "former finding" which is where we go through previous teaching records from other missionaries who served here even years ago and tried to contact them. One of them responded back and we are meeting him on Tuesday! His name is Lewis, we have both never met him before so we will see how that goes!

We also had a zone meeting on Halloween and every zone meeting we have sandwiches from a local grocery store and they are SOO GOOD!! We were promised to get these sandwiches after the meeting ended BUT THEY LIED TO US. I was mildly upset to say the least... but the meeting itself was very good. 

We saw Malcolm again and we committed him to be baptized on December 8th! He's such a good guy. He works on Sunday starting at 11:30 and our congregation starts at 1:30 so he couldn't go, but from now on he starts work at 3 and he has said he would love to come to sacrament if he can get a ride to work after!

We also are teaching Jefferson and we asked him to be baptized as well, but his response was along the lines of "well I was baptized as a kid, but it couldn't hurt to do it again so I'll give it a shot." Which means we haven't explained about the priesthood authority very well so we need to work on that. He loves coming to church though! He came yesterday and he loves the environment

Friday Elder Hawes and I were supposed to meet Patrick, but that was also the day we went on exchanges. I went with our district leader (Elder Edwards who is from American Fork and is 22 months into his mission!) So unfortunately I wasn't able to see Patrick... I was looking forward to that aaaalll week! It wasn't a total let down though, Elder Edwards and I went door knocking and saw a lot of older people. None of them were mean to us though! In fact THEY EVEN GAVE US STUFF!!! the second door we knocked on was an older gentleman who said "now I'm not interested in your message, but I did miss you guys last time so hold on a second and I'll be right back." He came back with 2 full sized kit Kat bars!

We continued knocking doors and many times we were asked if we wanted any water, then we knocked another door which a person of the Saik (I think that's how you spell it) religion asked us 3 separate times if we wanted a soda. We finally accepted and he gave us each a Sprite and insisted we take some chips as well! We did decline the chips but many people are so nice here! 

One of the last doors we knocked was an 89 year old woman who immediately invited us in and gave us some apple cider. She wasn't interested in our message either but she was so nice.

 

We also had dinner with some members who had 2 young kids, who were twins. They gave us a ton of food and were very very nice. One of the twins accidentally knocked a glass cup off the table and it shattered and she looked as though she was getting ready to cry but the dad handled it soooooo well and she was totally okay. I helped him cleanup and asked if there was anything we could do for them. We shared a spiritual message and then we had to leave. 

Another really cool part of my week is that I was able to give a priesthood blessing of comfort to one of the people the sisters were teaching. Jacob, who needed the blessing, was going in for a doctor's appointment and the night before he was getting really anxious because he wasn't treated with professionalism the last time he went there, so he was very worried it would happen again. I was able to offer the blessing and before we did we told him a little about priesthood blessings and finally we asked "Jacob, do you have the faith that this blessing will offer you comfort as you go through with tomorrow?" 

As we asked that all I was thinking of was Christ. So many times he asked those before he healed if they had the faith to do so. Specifically I remembered the father holding his son who had evil spirits in him and I remember the father said something along the lines of "help thou mine unbelief" and he saw our savior heal his son within the next few verses. 

Spiritual thought for the week:

     Alma 56 & 57: the epistle of Helaman and his two thousand stripling sons (for they were all worthy to be called sons).

If you don't know the story, in short a portion of the Nephites had taken an oath upon them to never pickup their weapons of war. The Lamanites started attacking the Nephites with great power and the Nephites were taking some serious losses. The portion of Nephites were stirred with courage and the liberties of their families and wanted to pick up their weapons again, but instead their children (who had not taken this path upon them) took their places

Literally any child of theirs who could hold a weapon went to war. I know of a few pretty strong 12 year olds (Jackson, I'm looking at you!) So I'm sure they had kids as young as that who left for war. 

Anyways, in their first battle, not only did they save another portion of their Nephite army from being totally wiped out, not only did they slay all of thoseHey everyone! I hope everything is going well over there! My week was absolutely amazing and the highlight of it all was going on exchanges with my district leader! (For those who don't know, an exchange is when you are companions with a different missionary for 24 hours - so you bring your bedding and a small carry on and everything you need for 24 hours and switch it up)

Anyways, so this week went by very fast and it wasn't insanely eventful, but when pday ended last Monday at 6pm, we were given a lemon cake (which was given to us last Sunday, but we are it on Monday) and we are half of it which tasted amazing! But then I also remembered when we talked to the sisters serving in the YSA branch with us, they said they basically live off of granola and wraps and I just thought to myself "how in the world do you do that??" So Elder Hawes and I decided to give the other half of that cake to them. They really appreciated the gesture.

Also Mom, those toys and knick knacks you sent us for Halloween- we can't actually use ourselves so they were sitting in a box for forever... but it's okay! We got some new neighbors who we heard as they were moving in had a little boy, so we walked over to their apartment and asked if they wanted some toys and the little kid was soooooo happy! He picked out just one from the box thinking he could only pick one and we said "oh no you can have them all!" And he got soooooo excited!! The parents were very nice. We might try and see if they are interested in our message sometime soon.

Wednesday was of course Halloween and we were asked by our mission president to not be outside after dinner to proselyte since it might be dangerous for us to go out during that time, so Elder Hawes and I stayed in our apartment for the rest of the night. But before we did, we had a crazy big dinner! (Crazy big in comparison to how we usually eat, that is... do not that big Haha) it was so good. I took a picture of it and seriously Mom you would be proud. 

We stayed inside for the rest of the night and did some "former finding" which is where we go through previous teaching records from other missionaries who served here even years ago and tried to contact them. One of them responded back and we are meeting him on Tuesday! His name is Lewis, we have both never met him before so we will see how that goes!

We also had a zone meeting on Halloween and every zone meeting we have sandwiches from a local grocery store and they are SOO GOOD!! We were promised to get these sandwiches after the meeting ended BUT THEY LIED TO US. I was mildly upset to say the least... but the meeting itself was very good. 

We saw Malcolm again and we committed him to be baptized on December 8th! He's such a good guy. He works on Sunday starting at 11:30 and our congregation starts at 1:30 so he couldn't go, but from now on he starts work at 3 and he has said he would love to come to sacrament if he can get a ride to work after!

We also are teaching Jefferson and we asked him to be baptized as well, but his response was along the lines of "well I was baptized as a kid, but it couldn't hurt to do it again so I'll give it a shot." Which means we haven't explained about the priesthood authority very well so we need to work on that. He loves coming to church though! He came yesterday and he loves the environment

Friday Elder Hawes and I were supposed to meet Patrick, but that was also the day we went on exchanges. I went with our district leader (Elder Edwards who is from American Fork and is 22 months into his mission!) So unfortunately I wasn't able to see Patrick... I was looking forward to that aaaalll week! It wasn't a total let down though, Elder Edwards and I went door knocking and saw a lot of older people. None of them were mean to us though! In fact THEY EVEN GAVE US STUFF!!! the second door we knocked on was an older gentleman who said "now I'm not interested in your message, but I did miss you guys last time so hold on a second and I'll be right back." He came back with 2 full sized kit Kat bars!

We continued knocking doors and many times we were asked if we wanted any water, then we knocked another door which a person of the Saik (I think that's how you spell it) religion asked us 3 separate times if we wanted a soda. We finally accepted and he gave us each a Sprite and insisted we take some chips as well! We did decline the chips but many people are so nice here! 

One of the last doors we knocked was an 89 year old woman who immediately invited us in and gave us some apple cider. She wasn't interested in our message either but she was so nice. 

We also had dinner with some members who had 2 young kids, who were twins. They gave us a ton of food and were very very nice. One of the twins accidentally knocked a glass cup off the table and it shattered and she looked as though she was getting ready to cry but the dad handled it soooooo well and she was totally okay. I helped him cleanup and asked if there was anything we could do for them. We shared a spiritual message and then we had to leave. 

Another really cool part of my week is that I was able to give a priesthood blessing of comfort to one of the people the sisters were teaching. Jacob, who needed the blessing, was going in for a doctor's appointment and the night before he was getting really anxious because he wasn't treated with professionalism the last time he went there, so he was very worried it would happen again. I was able to offer the blessing and before we did we told him a little about priesthood blessings and finally we asked "Jacob, do you have the faith that this blessing will offer you comfort as you go through with tomorrow?" 

As we asked that all I was thinking of was Christ. So many times he asked those before he healed if they had the faith to do so. Specifically I remembered the father holding his son who had evil spirits in him and I remember the father said something along the lines of "help thou mine unbelief" and he saw our savior heal his son within the next few verses. 

Spiritual thought for the week:

     Alma 56 & 57: the epistle of Helaman and his two thousand stripling sons (for they were all worthy to be called sons).

If you don't know the story, in short a portion of the Nephites had taken an oath upon them to never pickup their weapons of war. The lamanites started attacking the nephites with great power and the nephites were taking some serious losses. The portion of nephites were stirred with courage and the liberties of their families and wanted to pick up their weapons again, but instead their children (who had not taken this path upon them) took their places.

Literally any child of theirs who could hold a weapon went to war. I know of a few pretty strong 12 year olds (Jackson, I'm looking at you!) So im sure they had kids as young as that who left for war. 

Anyways, in their first battle, not only did they save another portion of their nephite army from being totally wiped out, not only did they slay all of those lamanites, but not a single one of those two thousand stripling warriors were killed. This is all because of their faith in God. They knew God would deliver them out of the hands of the lamanites and by that faith alone did those children go out and play a huge portion in saving their prosperity.

Not only that, but they went out a SECOND TIME to defend their land, liberty, families, and ability to serve our God. When they went a second time into an even more ferocious battle, AGAIN, not a single soul among them had fallen. 

Their army surviving entirely once could be a fluke. Their army surviving entirely TWICE is proof that if we put every single ounce of our faith into the Lord's will, he will provide a way for us. He will deliver us out of anything we sre going through - whether that be a war, or physical/emotional pain, or absolutely anything we go through in our lives. God is there to help us all the way through.

Anyways, that was basically my week! Let me get some pictures before I forget:

The first is a picture of a car my comp and I noticed in front of us. It's very blurry but it had a ton of star wars stickers on it AND THE CAR WAS ALSO A ROGUE so it was pretty awesome to see.

Second:  crazy beautiful sunset as we drove to UB

Third: my companion and I eating popcorn while watching training videos to be better missionaries

Fourth: our Halloween feast

Fifth: my comp and I raking the leaves from the yard of an older woman

Sixth: a rat that was caught in the church by that trap... the presidency had a great laugh bringing it close to some of the members and watching them scream and run away from it!

, but not a single one of those two thousand stripling warriors were killed. This is all because of their faith in God. They knew God would deliver them out of the hands of the lamanites and by that faith alone did those children go out and play a huge portion in saving their prosperity.

Not only that, but they went out a SECOND TIME to defend their land, liberty, families, and ability to serve our God. When they went a second time into an even more ferocious battle, AGAIN, not a single soul among them had fallen. 

Their army surviving entirely once could be a fluke. Their army surviving entirely TWICE is proof that if we put every single ounce of our faith into the Lord's will, he will provide a way for us. He will deliver us out of anything we sre going through - whether that be a war, or physical/emotional pain, or absolutely anything we go through in our lives. God is there to help us all the way through.

Anyways, that was basically my week! Lemme get some pictures before I forget:

The first is a picture of a car my comp and I noticed in front of us. It's very blurry but it had a ton of star wars stickers on it AND THE CAR WAS ALSO A ROGUE so it was pretty awesome to see.

Second:  crazy beautiful sunset as we drove to UB

Third: my companion and I eating popcorn while watching training videos to be better missionaries

Fourth: our Halloween feast

Fifth: my comp and I raking the leaves from the yard of an older woman

Sixth: a rat that was caught in the church by that trap... the presidency had a great laugh bringing it close to some of the members and watching them scream and run away from it!

Letter 10.29.18 { week 6 }

Oct 23rd - 29th

Pday again! Sundays and Mondays have both become my favorite days of the week. It used to be Friday/Saturday but that has since changed.

From now on I'm gonna keep my messages shorter. It won't be a "Monday: etc etc etc. Tuesday: etc etc etc" unless you would all rather continue seeing that? I dunno, we'll see!

We are still teaching Kadeem who is not doing super well. I can't really get into it but he's been having a rough time lately. We had him on date for baptism in November but as it turns out he's going to Florida until the end of November for Thanksgiving. We got his address and we found the nearest missionaries to him, gave them a call, and asked them to continue teaching Kadeem while he is there. They were more than willing to help us out which is awesome!

We've also still been teaching Malcolm - I don't remember if I said this last time but Malcolm is someone we used to teach before I got here. Apparently we had a great first lesson and that he just stopped responding. About a month later (while I was here) he texted us out of the blue and said he lost his phone and had to get a new one. We met with him on Tuesday and invited him to be baptized once he knew for himself what we were teaching was true and he accepted it! He's currently working 2 jobs and is in school which means he has barely any time to meet with us or read the book of mormon, but we have been sending him scriptures through text with a spiritual message involved as well. 

We had our booth again at UB (University at Buffalo) and we met a lot of cool people. Someone ran right past us and said "I don't want to be a mormon!" While running away which was pretty funny for us.

The sisters in the YSA branch have been teaching a guy named Jefferson and handed him over to us. They thought that his needs would be more effectively met if we taught him from then on. So we met with him on Thursday and he is a super awesome guy! We don't think he has a good understanding of the importance of this church though. The sisters extended an invitation for him to be baptized and from what they told us, his exact words were "yeah I'll give it a shot." Which tells us that we as missionaries haven't taught to his needs well enough and we need to explain the importance of it to him. He's a really awesome guy who has seen how the gospel has helped his life already - specifically he has become more patient!

We are also teaching Patrick, WHO IS THE COOLEST GUY EVER! he is an art grad student who has his own art studio and the place actually looks like a stereotypical art studio! Papers and drawings and art pieces literally everywhere!! Its so cool! He took some yarn and made a grid above the ceiling so he can hang stuff in the air and let it drape down do he can better draw stuff and it's so cool! I wasn't here when we first met him and neither was my companion, but apparently he was never open to the idea of a "God" before, until after the first time he met the missionaries. We met with him Thursday and he asked a ton of seriously deep doctrine questions. this was the first time we met with him AND WE HAD TO EXPLAIN HEAVENLY MOTHER! HOW INSANE IS THAT?!?! He posed the question that went something along the lines of this:

"If our spirits have the potential to become perfected, but at the same time you tell me that the woman completes the man in eternal marriage, would it then be impossible for our spirits as individuals to be perfect without that partnering gender? Or would we be above gender once perfected?"

We straight up had to talk about heavenly mother to be able to answer that question. He's such a cool guy and is way interested in learning more. The next day he sent us a text and ASKED US if there was anything we wanted him to read in preparation for the next lesson! Who does that!?!?

We also met a refugee named Mireh from Buffalo State and he has had a lot of trials in life. He wasn't too interested but he referred us to a friend who was! His name is Pray Reh and has a similar background. Pray Reh is a missionary himself and travels the US to teach people a non-denominational faith in Christ! He's even been to temple square!! He wasn't too interested in learning about the Book of Mormon or our church specifically but he is probably the coolest and most spiritual person we have met with. He's doing a lot of amazing things in his life and has basically devoted the rest of his life to his family and missionary work.

We also got a referral from the missionaries serving in downtown buffalo! His name is Abhishek. That’s basically all we were told. So we met with him on Saturday for what we thought would've been a quick 15 minute "get to know you" meeting. Oh but no - it was literally an hour long conversation! We talked a lot about how through Jesus Christ we can better ourselves and "put off the natural man" as he has had concerns with selfishness in his life. We plan to meet with him again later next week!

Lastly, we met Anthony. Anthony is a devout Catholic and goes to church regularly. That being said, he was very interested in talking with us and learning about our religion. We met with him later on Saturday and talked about the main differences of our religions. He is a super nice guy and he said multiple times before asking any questions "I really don't want to sound disrespectful but I have a question about..." which was really cool. He had legitimate questions but was so worried about the thought of being disrespectful - he was super awesome. He ended up telling us he was stuck on the "where did we get the authority/priesthood from" (which for us is the priesthood given to Joseph Smith through Peter James and John. But Catholicism, if I'm remembering correctly, believes that Peter gave the authority to Linus - the next Pope - who gave his authority to the next Pope and so on and so forth.) Anthony thanked us for talking with him and said he wanted to learn more about his own beliefs before stretching himself to learning about other religions. We asked for him to keep the Book of Mormon and us (us as missionaries) in his prayers and if he felt any urge to continue talking to us, then he had our number - but we wouldn't pressure him into learning about anything he didn't want to. 

Oh also, a tender mercy: 

My companion and I forgot to thaw the chicken for dinner and we didn't remember until halfway through sacrament. We were both so upset at ourselves (and we already ate the chips and chili you sent us, sorry Mom!) Well, during third hour we got a text and was invited to eat dinner at my companion's cousins' house who lives pretty close to the church. Thankfully we were saved that day. 

Oh also, a spiritual thought:

During the 2018 conference, President Nelson gave some opening remarks:

"The long-standing objective of the Church is to assist all members to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ...The adversary is increasing his attacks on faith and upon us and our families at an exponential rate. To survive spiritually, we need counterstrategies and proactive plans."

We have seen examples of counter strategies and PROACTIVE plans in the church already. Let me name the one I thought of specifically earlier this week: A Proclamation to the World - The Family.

At the time, this was accepted by the world. People said "yeah sure. That's good I believe it."

But in this day, with so many issues concerning gender and same sex marriage, people don't know what to do. The proclamation to the world IS A PROACTIVE COUNTERSTRATEGY to the adversary and his plot to twist the truths we hold close. 

President Nelson continued to talk to us about 2 hour church and a home centered church supported plan for the gospel. I can promise you all now that while we do not know all of the specifics for this plan and how it will help us in the future. But just like the proclamation to the world, it will bless families everywhere years down the road.

That's basically my week, I hope you all are doing well. I love you all!

~Elder Breshears