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!