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

March 15, 2011

Sorry i didnt write yesterday. it was crazy we had cambios so the last two days have been so busy. first sunday night we were busy picking up all the missionaries who are leaving and all there luggage. i went with elder moreno who was an assistant to say good bye to some people and then i went with him and a few of the other missionaries who are leaving. we didnt get to bed until 1 in the morning running around trying to get everything done. it was kind of sad. this is the first group in the mission that i will actually really miss the other groups were just older people that i really didnt know but in this group i have a lot of friends that are leaving and its sad but i guess its just part of the mission. the only thing in life that is constant is change. thats when we learn the most in life is when there are changes that we have to adapt to and learn from. i think that is why there is so many changes in the mission, changes in companions, in sectors, in assignments, because that is when you learn the most. so i found out that i am leaving to lota in two weeks. i am really excited to leave the office. it was a good experience and i feel i progressed a lot, but i am excited for another change and another experience to learn. three new missionaries came today, we got to eat lunch with the President and sit through all the meetings it was interesting. President is such a great guy he is leaving in 3 and a half months. that has probably been my favorite thing about the office is getting to know President more. So ya this is the really busy time in the office cambios are always crazy, it wasnt as bad with the last one because we didnt have anyone coming but this cambio was insane. i am so tired, i think we have gone to bed at 1 o clock for three nights in a row. i think this will help my cramming abilities in college when i get home from the mission jk. so ya i am doing good, really tired looking forward to finally going to bed at 11 again, it will be awesome to get my good 8 hours of sleep, but i guess this is good practice for when i am a dad as well. so ya everything is good, the sector is doing well, we found some really cool people. so ya all is well thanks for your letters and thoughts on my birthday. we went bowling and had a good time. i attempted to bake the cake that leah sent me but we tried to do it in a bread pan so the bottom was burned and the top was still uncooked, but we ate it anyway. but is was a good birthday. thanks for everything love you lots.


Elder Brimhall

March 8, 2011

This week went by really fast, the time in the office is flying by we are always busy. Everything is going well. we had a conference this week that was really good. our president talked to us about caracter. he had this weight and lifted it the whole time as he talked. his point that we could come up there and lift the weight one time and not get any stronger. he compared that with our character you can do something right and not change, its after you do it time after time after time. you cant just do things every once in a while if you really want them to take affect. i thought that was really cool. the president is such a good guy being in the office you get to know him a lot better which has been awesome. i think i am going to be leaving in 3 weeks from the office. but i was suppose to leave 6 weeks ago but my replacement went home early. its hard i have already had two hard companions and a third one is on the way. the office is usually where the president puts people who are having a hard time or are struggling a lot thats why i was so shocked when he sent me here, because we were doing well in lebu we were going to baptize a lot, and he pulled me out all of a sudden and put me in the office to a comp who was pretty much dead. but the office has been a good time, i have learned a lot and it has been a good experience. not everyone gets to experience this part of the mission and i am glad i got to, it helps you not to judge people and be humble. anytime anyone would have an emergency cambio i would always think that they did something bad or messed up, but when the emergency cambio happened to me i didnt want anyone to think those things. thats when i realized that if we dont want people to think bad about us we should not think bad about them. i am still not totally sure why the president put me here, but most things in life we cant understand at the time, all i know is i worked really hard and did the best i could, so i can leave with a clear conscious knowing i did my best. the office has presented new challenges like a computer with internet knowing that u of a is doing well in basketball, but so far i have held out strong. lol, but ya its been good. so i think thats all i am doing well nothing really exciting, thats one of the down points to the office not a ton of really exciting experiences but i really do love it a lot

with love
elder brimhall