April 25, 2011

this week was really good. it was really stressful preparing for the baptisms. saturday i was really stressed out. we had to go down early and feel out the font. so we started filling it and started to clean the church which took a while, because it has been raining a lot lately so there was a lot of mud. so we cleaned it all up, and then my companion realized that he had forgotten the pants for one of the people that were going to get baptized. so we had to take a bus back home get the pants and come back. when we got back the water was green in the font, because all the rain we have been having. so the mom of the kid didnt want to baptize him in that water, so we had to empty the font and refill it which took a way long time. the baptism was suppose to start at 6 but since we had all those crazy things happen it started at like 7 30. luckily our ward mission leader had a bunch of movies about the church so we were able to watch some as we waited. so then the baptisms happened, it was really good. the water was still green and kind of cold but we did them anyway. the first two went well without any problems, the the third one was crazy. it was the evangelical pastor. her son who just got the priesthood a week before baptized her. but i think he got a little nervous because he mixed up the words a few times, and she was kind of hard to baptize because she is shorter and her belly kept floating up. the first time was kind of funny he dunked her and she came up saying all this evangelical stuff like blessed be the name of Jesus and stuff like that and then we had to tell her that they had to do it again. i think she ended up getting dunked like 7 times it was crazy. we ended up just using a chair, which we should have done in the first place, but they all got baptized and confirmed on sunday so it was a really good weekend. we got cambios this week and i am staying in Lota with the same companion for 6 more weeks. i am happy, the sector is really good, and my companion is a nice guy and we get a long pretty well. so all is well lota is amazing, i am really happy i get to stay here again. thanks for all your letters and everything i really do appreciate everything.

Love

Elder Brimhall

April 18, 2011

This week was good. our investigators right now are kind of funny. We have this one lady named Juanita Campos who was a pastor for the Evangelical church, which is like the same as a Baptist Pastor. Her son just got the priesthood a week ago, and is going to baptize his mom this weekend, which should be really awesome. Her son is awesome he was baptized like 3 months ago but he completely changed when he started to meet with the missionaries. That is what drew her interest in our church, and started going and now is going to get baptized. She still gets a lot of pressure from her church, for example they will tell her that she cant leave they need her and stuff like that, but we are just going to keep visiting her and make sure that she is ready to go this week. she is very evangelical though which is really funny. She will say really loudly AMEN like a million times in sacrament meeting. But she is getting a lot better. Evangelicals when someone prays they pray to, but its really weird they will be mumbling to themselves really loud while your trying to pray. she used to do that all the time but now doesnt so she is getting a lot better. its really funny too because she went to the investigators class and kept answering all the questions it was really funny, she would always quote some scripture in Psalms or Isaiah. She is really cool, and signed up in relief society to feed us on Friday so she is awesome. we have this other person named Christian Saez. He is like 44, his wife and daughter got baptized like a month ago. He is a nice guy, but he hates my companion. last night he told me that i can come to his house if i come with someone else but if i come with my companion he wont accept us. my companion is a nice guy but they always argue and he just does dumb stuff sometimes, so this is going to be really hard because we are going to have to find members to come with us so we can do intercambios. so i will let you know how it goes, but hopefully we will have 3 people this week, if everything works out, but the week of the baptism is always the hardest for the investigators so we will just have to keep working hard and visiting them. so thats a little about the people we are teaching they are all really cool, and have their own personalities. Lota is awesome it is a really good place, i love it alot. Well thanks for everything love you all.

Elder Brimhall

April 11, 2011

this week was good. we just got done playing soccer as a zone it was a lot of fun. we went to arauco and played on this huge field. our zone is pretty cool there is an elder from thatcher named elder lewis, who i guess was pretty good at football he redshirted at ea, but he is pretty cool, and we have a zone leader from New Zealand who is pretty cool as well. this week was good our investigators are all doing well, we just have to find more people this week we didnt really find anyone. that the thing so far in my mission, i go through dry spells where there is no one and then when we start finding people we get tons of awesome people. so we are just going to keep working and hope that we find lots of good people this week. we visited a lot of inactive members this week, and got a lot of references from members, but none of them really worked out. we will just have to keep doing our part and the Lord will do the rest. I was sick on Tuesday but we worked anyway, but it was pretty rough, i was so tired that night i woke up like 5 times. i feel a lot better now though. its turning into autumn here now and all the leaves are turning yellow and falling off. its going to start to get really cold. i guess during the winter it rains like every day, so that will be a good experience. from may to july it is pure rain, which is good because i will probably never experience that in my life living in arizona. so ya everything is good, my companion is nice he is a good guy he is from utah. we have two weeks left in this cambio so we are just going to keep working hard and everything will work our for the best. thanks for everything love you all.

Atte.

Elder Brimhall

April 4, 2011

This week was really good. The conference was awesome. Since i am in lota and there are a lot of gringo missionaries here they actually set up a room for us to listen to it in english so that was really cool. there were so many good talks and great messages. There was a ton of messages about the family, which i liked a lot because most of our investigators here right noiw are part member families. That is really what separates our relgion from the rest, its the fact that through sacred covenants and with the proper priesthood authority we can live with our families forever. obviously there are a lot of things that lead up to that but that is the ultimate goal. baptism receiving the holy ghost are great we cant be saved with out them, but they are only the beginning of the multitud of blessings that our Father in Heaven has in store for us. we offer so much more than that. we now have Gods power on the earth again that has been restored by a prophet of God. We have temples which are such a great blessing. i liked what President Monson said about temples, about when we actually understand the blessings that they offer there is no sacrifice to great, no obstacle too large to keep us from going to the temple. the conference was great, on sunday morning we went to our investigators house and he wasnt really sure about going. i promised him if he went he would find out how to be a better person, husband, and father. he was still unsure and we had to leave, so we left not knowing if he was going to come. he came to the sunday afternoon session, and one of the 70 gave the perfect talk for him, it was awesome. like Elder Holland said it is amazing that the people assigned can give talks to such a wide variety of people with such different needs and still say things that are exactly what you need to hear personally. We didnt get to actually do very much work on Saturday because of conference. we had to go to coronel which is like 20 30minutes in bus. so we had to leave at 12:30 had conference at 1 to went to eat lunch with one of my companions old converts conferenc from 5 to 7, and then 9 to 11 for the priesthood session. we didnt get back until 11 45. so ya it was a good few days. we are working with this inactive member who is really awesome. he went on a mission like 8 years ago was a really good missionary zone leader had great converts, but now is inactive. we went and visited with him and had a good lesson. he speaks great english, we pretty much just spoke english in the lesson, but anyway he went to conference this week. This morning we hung out with the other two missionaries of Lota, the zone leaders had to go to Concepcion for Consejo where all the zone leaders go once a month. I am losing a lot of weight here which is nice, i am not an office fatty anymore jk, lota has a ton of hills. i have been working out really hard every morning. my companion who left early left me a dumbell set, and the other day i bought a fitness orb ball. i am getting back in good shape i have a bet with President Swenson before he leaves. In the office he would always give me a hard time that i got a little chumby in the office so i made a bet with him, if i can get my old form back he will give me one of his top 5 ties (he was a CEO of a fortune 500 company), if i lose i have to give him one of my donald trump ties which are like gold to missionaries jk. so ya i have been working out a lot. its crazy that i have 8 months in the mission now it is going by way to fast, it seems like i just got here. President Swenson is leaving in 3 months that will be really sad. I love him a lot, he is a great guy, i will hopefully stay in contact with him after the mission. So ya Lota is really good, its really pretty. We are ready for a really good week, to find a lot of people and have a very successful week. Love you all thanks for everything.

Atte.

Elder Brimhall