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

Letter 10.22.18 { week 5 }

Hey everyone! I hope you have all been doing well, I sure have! We met our first bible bashers!! More on that later though haha. I'm gonna try to keep my emails more brief from now on:

On Tuesday we had waffles in the morning, they were pretty dang good. We met with a few different people who were interested in the church, they all were willing to come closer to Christ which was so amazing.

Wednesday:

We had our booth setup again! That thing draws a ton of attention, it's so nice! Unfortunately some of that attention can be negative... There was one older guy looking at our booth and I just said to him "hey how are you doing today?" And without making eye contact he just waves his hand as if to say nothanks and says "I know more about your church than you do" I was soooooo ready to get into some deep doctrine about the Archangel or Kolob or even the 7 trumps that will sound during the second coming but instead I just decided to laugh and say "alright have a good one"

Another student approached us while we were pskcing up and had a very, very specific hypothetical situation about justice and mercy which was odd... 

Later that day we met with Yikai who is super cool! He said he was looking to come closer to Christ already and after a solid lesson with him we asked him to give the closing prayer. Right after he said that he felt tons better! How awesome is that?!

Thursday:

Thank you so much for all the packages!! Honestly we are gonna be good on cereal for the next 5 years haha!

We met with Kadeem and he seemed really distracted, we fear he's not doing so well right now but he hasn't opened up to us. It's not our position to pry though. If he wants us to help, he'll come to us when he's ready. Until then we have been keeping him in our prayers.

BIBLE BASHING!! IT WAS AWESOME! ok so we go to the union (the place at school where it's like the main building) and right out in front there are people from the "born again Christian" religion, anyways my companion walks up to an older man and says "thank you for helping spread the message of Christ to others" and the older guy just starts going off on us. He says to be saved at the last day we gotta be born again (btw they don't believe in baptism) and he said Christ is our Lord and God. My companion subtlety adds in "hmm that's interesting I think I remember reading while he was on the cross he said "my god forgive them for they know not what they do" and he basically denied that and said they were the same person. Anyways we tried to back away but finally he said "at the last day you must be born again, you can't be Catholic or Presbyterian or Mormon." This is where we took up President Nelson's challenge in his talk. We said "oh, we aren't Mormons though so that's good!" He just said "yes you are, you're Mormons" we insisted and said "no we aren't" so he said again "then what are you?" And we said, pointing to our tags, "we are disciples of Jesus Christ!" 

He got reeeeaaallly mad after that. We kept smiling and stifling laughs all the way through it. We finally shook his hand, thanked him again for bringing people closer to Christ (even if it's not the true church, he's bringing people closer than if they had no religion), and we were on our way. 

Friday:

We went to the church to study and do some online planning. Later that day we met with a member - Logan - who reminds me a lot of me! He's in his first year of college and knows he's gotta go on a mission but doesn't know how or when or anything. He's a really cool guy and has a very animated personality. Super fun to be around

We then met with Malcolm who we apparently taught over a month ago and then had zero contact with him. Turns out he lost his phone, bought a new one, then texted us telling us he wants to meet again! How awesome is that?! He's going to be an uncle soon and when he heard that news he said that really put a different perspective on life for him.

Saturday:

There was a family history tour at the church! Over 200 nonmembers from the community showed up! We attended for a few hours and we were not allowed to proselyte unless people asked us questions. We mainly just showed people where their classrooms were at or the bathroom

Later that day we met with a new member, Donald. He's been a member for about 3 weeks and he has such a great testimony! We also brought Logan with us to this lesson to give him an idea of missionary work.

Sunday:

My comp and I try to get ready quickly before church so we can go out and find people to teach. When we got to the church at around 11:30 We talked with the other missionaries about how to better help those we teach and bounce ideas off of each other. We had church from 1:30-4:30 and I'm not gonna lie I was dozing off a bit but I think I did pretty well in not falling asleep haha. 

We went knocking doors off campus later that night. We met a firefighter who already has her beliefs and wasn't interested in our message but she assured us that what we were doing was such an amazing thing and that we were really helping people. She wished us luck and even to stay safe! It was probably the nicest rejection I have ever received. 

A few doors later we unknowingly knocked on a frat house. A guy opened the door, realized who we were, then invited us in saying to everyone "guys! It's my friends, the Jesus Witnesses!" Everyone started laughing and one guy asked "does Jesus like weed?" To which my companion responded "Jesus loves all of you!" 

We saw them vaping and then also saw a few bongs in the corner of the room and then we decided to quickly usher ourselves out. They were really funny and pretty nice even though they weren't making the best decisions!

That's basically my week! The work is very hard, but when you go finding for hours and hours and finally at the end of the day you find one person who is interested in learning more, that one person makes everything else worth it. I love what I do and I'm so grateful to be here!

~Elder Breshears

I keep forgetting pictures sorry!!

The first my my comp and I today before we started eating lunch 

The second is my profile picture on Facebook (yeah Facebook is a thing in our mission! You can friend me and I can friend you back but I don't think I'm allowed to message you unless it's pday)

The third is a random guy we saw with a dog. I asked to take a picture of the dog and he said the dogs name is Leo but he calls him oreo cookie

The last one is of my breakfast. I got the cereal to make a perfect circle around my bowl and it made me very happy

Letter from Buffalo! 10.15.18 { week 4 }

I'm in New York!!! All 3 of us landed safely in Detroit and then hit our layover flight from Detroit to Rochester. No issues there. My mission President is President Evans. The first thing I noticed was that in Rochester we are VERY big on exact obedience (literally to the minute) which personally I love. The MTC seemed fairly casual but that's because of the amount of agency we are given, and President Evans (while we still get the same amount of agency) has asked countless times for exact obedience. As President Nelson said, obedience brings blessings, EXACT obedience brings miracles. I can promise you we've seen miracles here. I absolutely love it.

As soon as we got off the flight we were met by President Evans, and our zone leaders Elder Bouck and Elder Jaynes - both of whom are very close to going home. They took us, went downtown, and we immediately started contacting people! I split with Elder Bouck and he is such an amazing guy! We had a great time (which was a tiny bit uncomfortable to me because I'm not used to talking to so many people on the streets) talking to people. The biggest thing I noticed was that ANYONE could have their heart prepared by the Lord. What struck me the most was this one guy who was long dreadlocks, headphones in and singing along to a fairly explicit rap song. He was in his own world enjoying it all and I was thinking in my head "ah we'll probably just keep walking past him" but NOPE! Elder Bouck walked straight up to him and just started talking! I was like "is this for real??" And it turns out his heart was more than prepared for us! He was more than willing to come to church, and also gave us his phone number so we could contact him again. Unfortunately downtown wasn't the area I was later assigned to so it's likely I'll never see him again, but he was a very nice guy... As intimidating as he may have come off initially.

Anyways that was amazing. After that we were treated to an amazing ham, funeral potatoes and green bean dinner, followed by the best chocolate cake I've ever had in my entire life. Even saying THAT is an understatement! The grocery store here that everyone loves is called "wegman's" which is where the food is from. It's on the more expensive side but it is very good. Unfortunately I won't be shopping there much on a less than $50/week budget. 

Thursday:

In the morning we went to the sacred grove and also the Hill Cumorah! While walking the trail getting ready to enter the sacred grove, I felt the spirit so strongly. Before I even saw the place I knew that this grove truly was something special compared to the rest of the world. The power of the spirit there can be related to the strength of the spirit inside of the temple. Seriously, it's that truly amazing. While we don't know exactly where Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, that doesn't matter so much. His spirit is everywhere in that grove

Later that day we also met our new companions! My companion is Elder Hawes. He is from Herriman and actually knows Christian and Clay Hughes from Summit's baseball team! He's a super awesome guy and has been helping me hold to the exact obedience rule that we have established here. At first I resisted it a bit thinking "what I'm doing is enough to be obedient" but honestly it's been easier for me to not fight it! I really appreciate what he's done so far as a trainer. We will be together for 2 transfers (at least). As the training process takes 12 weeks. He's a great guy and I've gotten to know him pretty well. Later that day we went proselyting/finding and we saw 3 people:

Kadeem - apparently we have been meeting with Kadeem since August. He is from the Bronx and moved to Buffalo (I forgot to mention I'm serving in Buffalos YSA branch. The branch consists of literally 30 members it's so cool!). Kadeem has had a pretty hard life. He's had trouble obeying the law of the land before and needs to find a job. I asked him the day we met if I could get to know him better and he's not the best with words but he just kept saying "the church is true. The church is true. The church is true. You gotta pray, you gotta go to church." He really just kinda kept repeating those statements and while it wasn't much, I felt the spirit in Him. He knew. He knew the church of Jesus Christ is true no matter all the trials he has been through. He's almost ready for baptism but there's a few things we gotta work with him on. I'll keep you updated on him - he's such an amazing guy!!

We also met Conan at the university at Buffalo (UB). He's a freshman from China and he's such a cool guy. We've met with him once after the initial contact and he says that this is all a lot to take in which is definitely true. Hopefully we can see him again soon.

Friday:

Mom, thank you so much for teaching me how to do food. I can't express my gratitude enough to you for that. Thank you very much! For breakfast I threw together an egg/ham/cheese burrito (kinda a go-to breakfast since we ran out of cereal) and that was pretty awesome. For lunch we decided to do PBJ sandwiches but I posed the idea of making them and then throwing them on the grill. Thank you again mom for that glorious idea. They were so much better than what they would've been!! For dinner I made the Parmesan chicken with tomato sauce you showed me as well. He actually took a picture of it to send home! 

We also met Donald! Donald is a brand new member of the church. Wanna know how he found out about the church of Jesus Christ?? THROUGH A YOUTUBE AD! HE SAW AN AD ON YOUTUBE FOR THE CHURCH AND REFERRED HIMSELF TO THE MISSIONARIES!! Talk about a seriously prepared heart right!?! He actually just went yo the temple for the first time on Saturday and he brought his own names for baptism that he found through family tree!!! How absolutely amazing is that?!?!

Saturday:

We woke up at 5:45 for a meeting with Elder Bennett of the seventies in Rochester. Rochester is about a 1.5 hour drive from Buffalo so we carpooled with other missionaries because we have a limited amount of miles per month that we can use. We try our best not to go over that amount. Sometimes it's impossible when you make multiple trips to Rochester though. 

Anyways Elder Bennett is such an amazing guy. You can tell he loves everyone. The biggest thing I took away from meeting with him was I need to learn to love those I teach. During his talk he mentioned a scripture reference in D&C that while we look for people to teach, we are looking for those whose hearts have been prepared, for the "elect" we did a roleplay and we figured out that it takes roughly 15-20 seconds of conversing to be able to (most of the time) see if someone is apart of the "elect" 

Sunday: 

Fast Sunday! I actually look forward to fast Sundays in the YSA branch, after church we have something called "break the fast" in which we just get a ton of food... for free!! Since we are rarely fed by members of the church (YSA members are all going to college and are on meal plans. We don't ask them to feed us), I love fast Sundays even more so now!

We had a meeting with Conan scheduled for around 6 tonight but unfortunately that fell through. Hopefully we will be able to meet with him again soon. Also, my prayers were immediately answered tonight while finding people to teach.

I learned how to love those I teach. While finding, there was someone who we talked to that didn't seem very interested at all in the chur church but we were able to continue talking to them for awhile. While my companion was talking, 3 words came to my mind that were not my own: he isn't prepared. 

This broke my heart once I realized it. This person we were talking to was not prepared to hear literally the most important message of his life. That Christ, our savior, was literally tortured in every way imaginable and then also in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend because of his love for us. He wasn't prepared to learn about him. That broke my heart and I almost started crying right after we walked away. You all know how much I cry... I don't really do that. My prayers were answered that day and I believe that I have learned how to truly love those that I teach. 

Well, that's my week aside from pday. So far we've just cleaned the apartment, gotten groceries, then a pizza at the local gas station WHICH ACTUALLY TASTES SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANY PIZZA CHAIN IN UTAH!! NEW YORKERS REALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE THEIR PIZZA HERE! 

The work here is hard. Finding people to teach hasn't been impossible but I know that even if I only bring one person to baptism on my mission, my 2 years here will have been well spent. 

Spiritual quote for the week: Alma chapter 26. 

Ammon starts "boasting" about how much work he, Aaron, and his brethren have done for the lamanites in converting them to the Lord. Aaron tries to correct Ammon, saying he fears you are boasting of yourself. Ammon says he does not boast of himself as he knows he is weak, but he boasts of his God.

But that's actually not what intrigued me the most. He and his brethren converted thousands of Lamanites. People who delighted in murder and all sorts of evil doings. Not only did he convert thousands, but look at the time frame - from 90-77 BC. THAT'S 13 YEARS. AMMON AND HIS BRETHEREN CONVERTED THOUSANDS OF WICKED PEOPLE IN 13 YEARS. 

Anyways, that's been my week. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! I've felt them as I've gone through my week. I love you all!

~Elder Breshears

The first is Elder Weber (left), me, and Elder Barry (right) at 4:30 ambefore we left for New York 

Second is a picture of my luggage from the plane window. You can tell it's mine because of the pineapple tag. Told you it was a good idea mom!!

The third is a picture of our bedroom. It's suuuuuper small but honestly we don't need much room anyways. Our apartment is on the second floor and there's not much extra space anywhere but we are doing just fine in it! I'm loving everything here so far!

Letter from President Evans 10.09.18 { Arrived in New York Rochester Mission }

Hi Everyone,

Christian arrived in New York! 

We got this email from his mission president and a great pic. 

We wanted to let you know that your wonderful missionary has safely arrived in New York. We got them off the plane and went street contacting in Downtown Rochester. Each of them was awesome. It was impressive. We came back to the mission home and fed them dinner, had a short meeting and put them to bed (they are all tired from a  long travel day).  They will get up tomorrow morning at 6:30, get ready for the day and we will have breakfast for them. We will then head to the Mission Office for a short logistical meeting that covers driving, health, housing and finances.  After this meeting we will take them to the Sacred Grove (what a great way to start your mission)!  After that experience we will head back to the Mission Office where they will meet their new companion and they then will head to their new area with a sack lunch in hand.  They will be out teaching the gospel by early afternoon. They will write to you on preparation day, which is Monday.  Sister Evans and I are so impressed with these 3 faithful Elders who are filled with love and desire. We promise to do all in our power to watch over them and to help them to continue to grow spiritually.  If you have questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to me.  Thank you for sending this wonderful young man out on a mission.

With love and appreciation,

President Zach Evans
New York Rochester Mission

{ short } Letter 10.09.18

Hey mom! I just realized we had an internet connection at the airport so I want to ask you a question if you could relay it to everyone on the email list:

Please tell me one thing you like about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I want EVERYONE to respond to this. It doesn't have to be a huge response. It can be one word even. I'd love for everyone (including nonmembers and the kids) to be able to respond to this.

Letter 10.06.18 { week 3 }

Let me answer the questions I got before I go into my week (if you have any questions, you can just email me directly! Christian.breshears@myldsmail.net - I can read these emails whenever but can only respond on my p-day):

When do you leave for new York?

Tuesday at 4:45 am - we have a connecting flight and I think we are supposed to touch down in New York at around 4 pm. We already got our itinerary and everything for that day.

Where are you going to watch general conference?

I actually don't really know... I'm waiting for someone to tell me that actually!

Where do you usually eat? 

There's a huge building that consists of an information desk, scheduling information, classrooms, laundry room (in the basement) and the biggest room is a cafeteria. I think it can hold like 700-800 missionaries. We don't all eat meals at the same time - they are spread out in different timeframes.

Where do you teach other People?

There's another separate building that has classrooms for us to learn in (more like lecture rooms - usually 50+ missionaries being taught at once) on the main floor. Then floor 3 is where there are smaller cubicles (like office cubicles) just big enough for a few chairs that we teach people. We meet them there. 

How is the teaching going? Are you working well with your comp?

It's going pretty dang well! For only teaching each person for 2 lessons and no more, we thought we did very well. I'll get more into that in the email about my Week: 

Pday again! We started our morning at the temple doing initiatories. That was my first time and it was a very spiritual experience. It's also much much faster than the regular session which was great haha. After the temple my comp and I did laundry And while that was going we just wrote emails the entire time- literally for the hour and a half of time we took to do emails we just wrote emails. It was pretty relaxing.

Oh also, I did get those cookies you sent from crumbl! I got them at around 6:05... pday ends at 6... so I couldn't email to tell you I got them.

Sunday:

We started our day preparing 2 talks on the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. President Samuelian randomly calls on people during sacrament to gives talks, so EVERYONE has to be prepared to speak. While I was preparing the talk on enduring to the end, I went to the preach my gospel booklet and there was a section that referred to God saying "ye have eternal life." And I immediately started thinking of the hymn "Press Forward Saints." It has honestly become one of my favorite hymns. I highly suggest to lookup the lyrics to it. The last verse is sooo powerful.

Monday:

Monday was not fun. I was about to start writing in my journal before I went to bed when I was told to get out and come outside. One of the sisters in our zone had her best friend die earlier that day and she just got the news. We all were feeling horrible for her. Our district/zone leaders gave her a blessing and it wasn't more than 60 seconds after that blessing ended that another sister came running over with tears down her face. There was ANOTHER death that a sister barely just got the news from. We were all in utter shock. A few of the districts on our floor got together and we decided to start a fast for them right then. 

We've been told quite a few times that Satan tries to break the Lord's missionaries more than anyone else in the world... After today I believed it. He is trying his hardest to break us, and he won't ever stop. 

One thing I can say for certain is that our zone of missionaries was created by the Lord. He knows that EVERY ONE OF US has something to offer to carry our brothers and sisters alike. The Lord knew this would happen to those sisters and he put everyone else in this zone SPECIFICALLY because he knew we could offer a form of help no one else could. 

Tuesday: we had a TRC with Jose today - he's doing super well. He suffers from chronic anxiety and has been struggling all this past month, his biggest thing is that he feels alone. Mainly because of the culture of Utah- he says LDS people are "always willing to invite him to things, but when I invite them to something they immediately become ' too busy'" which I totally understand. I don't even remember what we told him to provide comfort, but whatever we said definitely did help. I'm gonna cut some of these days a bit shorter because I know it can be a lot to read sometimes.

Wednesday: we had another TRC with Jose, I found the PERFECT scripture for him and what he needed! Matthew 28:19-21

This scripture basically days if ye follow Christ, He will NEVER leave you. Also, not related to the scriptures, we shared a poem with him - footprints in the sand. If you haven't already, please please please read this poem. I get the chills every time I read it. It's so beautiful. Anyways so we had him read this outloud during the lesson, and we knew it was exactly what he needed. Jose struggles with feeling alone and left out. It was such an amazing experience to be able to tell him that the Lord will never leave him, and even during the darkest, scariest times of his life, when he only sees one set of footprints in the sand, it was then that the Lord carried him. 

Thursday:

It's my birthday today! Thank you so much for the presents. I think I'll be able to find room for everything in my luggage somehow... I was most excited for the family history stuff and the photo album. I don't even know how you got some of those pictures but I am so glad you did!

In terms of other missionaries knowing my birthday, I decided to keep that on the down low. I need to remember that while today is my birthday, I'm a missionary now. Im not on my time anymore. I'm on the Lord's time- I shouldn't be taking away from that time. A few people did find out it was my birthday but I asked them not to make a huge deal out of it. That being said, we are definitely gonna party with all the treats you gave me for the next few nights. 

Friday:

Turns out our teacher in the morning, brother rosenbalm, is planning to get engaged with his girlfriend on Saturday! He's already got everything planned out! He called her dad, got the day all setup, lights and everything! He showed us a picture of the ring and it looks amazing. The best part is she doesn't expect a proposal until November so she's totally gonna be taken by a blind side! Hopefully he keeps us updated on it all after we leave the MTC!

Oh also, I've been playing the piano in my free time for the past week or so. I'm determined to learn if you could hie to kolob and we'll bring the world his truth. Oh also mom - send some of my old piano books to new York Please! The hymns made easy, Les Miserable, and the other book I always played out of that I can't remember the name of...

That's all I have for this Week! Thank you again so much for all the packages! Special thank you to Kate and Lucy for the cards, I'll send pictures of those because I just feel like everyone should see the inspiring words I was sent 😂

Some spiritual invitations I have for all of you:

-Read (don't sing) the lyrics to hymn 81 - Press Forward saints

-read the poem "footprints in the sand"

-Matthew 28:19-21 - Christ will not leave us!

~Elder Breshears 

OH I ALSO TOTALLY FORGOT!! I KNEW 2 MISSIONARIES THAT JUST GOT TO THE MTC ON WEDNESDAY!

Elder "Christian" Coldera (I can't remember the last name exactly) - my district hosted new missionaries who got in on Wednesday and the first missionary I hosted was him. Turns out when Lamar took his priests shooting, one of the best friend's of one of Lamar's priests came - that was this missionary! He recognized me first but as soon as he told me where he knew me from it all came back to me. When his parents dropped him off they were thrilled to know he was with someone he knew.

Also - Elder Rounkles! I had no clue who he was until he came to my room and said "did you play baseball for summit academy?" And I was like "uuuhhhhh yeah?" And he just shows me his hand and there's a giant scar and says "you did this to me when you played Morgan! And I instantly remembered what he was talking about but I didn't actually know his face!"

When we played Morgan, he was on first vase and I was holding him on. Gerritt went to pick him off and It was a horrible throw so I jumped to get the ball and I landed directly on his hand and finger. I felt pretty horrible when I did it... thankfully there's no hard feelings! He's a pretty great guy.