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

March 28, 2011

So I am in Lota now. I love it so much. Its awesome the its actually a branch but has over 120 members that go. The problem is that it doesnt have enough worthy priesthood holders who go to be a ward. It was funny seeing these huge families go in for church being like 6 girls and not one single guy. I guess there are over 2, 000 members though on the records though, but thats is not always accurate because a lot of times people move and dont tell anyone so they dont get taken off the list. the church system down hear is a little disorganized, but its hard just because there are so many inactive members. We have already met a ton of inactives. Most of our investigators right now are part of incomplete families. One is this really nice lady named Juanita who was a preacher for the Evangelical church, but her son got baptized and now is talking to us, she is so nice. we are going to try to get him the priesthood so he can baptize her. It is a lot poorer town than San Pedro which was like one of the richest. Its nice the people here are a lot more open. The branch is great they do a lot of activities and seem like they have things running pretty effectively. There are two other companionships that work in Lota as well one of them is the zone leaders but they live together with the other companionship and we live alone. We live in an apartment which is really nice as well. President told me its one of the top 3 places to live in the misison. The showers are amazing they really can change your day jk. We live on the fifth floor and have a balcony that is overlooking the ocean it is really pretty. i am getting paid back for never seeing the ocean before my mission. My companions Elder Hillman he is a pretty nice guy. He reminds me a lot of Daniel and looks a lot like him too i think. i ll have to send pictures. i knew him pretty good we were in the same zone in lebu. Today we had to go to Concepcion to get the carnet of my companion and just got back to lota. we take a lot of buses here but they are pretty cheap, its like a dollar 50 to go to concepcion. it takes about an hour. ya so lota is amazing i am really excited to be here. We are going to have a lot of success. Love you all lots thanks for everything.

Elder Brimhall

March 28, 2011

Tell dad thanks for the March madness update its too bad we lost but i am pretty sure no one predicted us to make it that far so thats really good. also its always great when we beat duke and annoying coach k. i never know what is better a duke loss or a wildcat win, but we got to see both so that is awesome. also i am glad that your animals are all doing well and all having lots of kids. the dogs i am not sure about i originally thought about mixing as well, but the money goes way down, but i guess the breeding program never worked to well for morgan, with all blacks weener dogs running around so we will just have to see. i guess if they help dad with the sheep and keep coyotes away they will earn their keep. also if no one wants their pups you can just send them to chile they wont even notice with all the dogs they have running around here. well i am glad all is well. i really love lota, its great it reminds me a lot of lebu which i loved. Thats too bad about grandma but i know everything that happens will be for her good. also i will try to remember to pray for golden and becky that is exciting, for them. also what happened with the eileen thing do you guys ever find out the final answer. Also geneolgy is always great to see. the other day back when i was in the office there was a history of the church book on the ground and i picked it up and turned right to the page that talks about newell knight when the devil was cast out of him it was pretty cool. so ya all is well love you lots.

Elder Brimhall

March 21, 2011

This week was good, it went really fast. We got to pick up the new elders that came in. There were only 3 which i guess was an all time low for the mission, but thats ok, because our mission is huge. we have over 200 missionaries, which i think is one of the bigger missions, at least the biggest in Chile. It was cool since there was only a few new people we did everything in Presidents house, we ate lunch there had all the meetings, it was pretty cool. So this week i had my new companion. We knew each other from the MTC, he is a good guy, he just hates to do missionary work so it is really hard to get him out and leave the office. There was this one day where i had to physically grab the mouse. He is a funny guy though he really likes to fix things, so when he came to our apartment he fixed all our sinks. there is this u pipe under all of them, and he unscrewed it and cleaned it out. it was the nastiest thing i have ever seen, it smelled and looked like poo. he was in the bathroom so i went in to see what he was doing, and right when i opened the door i almost passed out, it smelled so bad. and my comp is just sitting there like nothing scooping the crap out with his hands. that was really funny. This week was really good at church we had 5 people at church the most the office has had for like a year and a half. i wont baptize in the office which i am a little sad about but at least the sector is doing well, and now they have good investigators, that are progressing. when i came the office people never even left to the sector ever it had been like 3 months of just hanging out in the office, but now it has changed a lot. so i am leaving on wednesday to lota. i am really excited. i have to pack and get all my stuff ready. Elder Corbridge from the 1 st quorum of 70 came to our mission. he was really cool. he talked about joseph smith and about how with out him nothing in the world makes since. without him the mediocre would just walk right into heaven with those who had given everything. he talked about Joseph Smith was always so optismist in spite of everything he went through, he always knew he would be successful, and how no man could do that without really knowing something more. His whole life he only had opposition after opposition, but he always had confidence that the church would go on and be successful. he also talked about the book of mormon and how it has a bunch of quiasmas or something like that. Alma 36 is a perfect example of one where the beginning and the end is the same, and you repeat. The first verse is similar to the last, the second verse similar to the second last, third and so on. It is a Jewish way of writing and he explained that there was no way that Joseph Smith knew anything about that. Also that the favorite word of Joseph Smith was confidence that it appears in his personal writing like 500 times, or something crazy, but is not once in the Book of Mormon. It was a really good talk i liked it a lot. Well all is well, going back to the field really excited.


Love you all


Elder Brimhall