Dear Dad,
Your e-mail this week really was exactly what I was needing.
Yesterday we had a great experience with a lady named Marialea. We challenged her for baptism on March 7th. She is the mother of a member here and we’ve been teaching her ever since I got here. She was really active in another church, but after her son got baptized she felt confused. She felt good when she came to our church. One of the problems she had with her other church was that no one would visit her from the church, so she felt a little lonely. We started visiting her with members, WHAT GREAT SUCCESS! Now she rarely misses a Sunday at church. The problem was she wasn’t feeling ready for baptism. Last night we went there and asked her the baptismal interview questions. After that we told her what she answered was exactly right and challenged her. It was so great. We also had the confirmation of Fabricio, our baptism 2 weeks ago, that was also good. The work is moving forward. We are getting ready for the marriage of Gaspar and Carla, things are getting under way on that....YAY!
This week, Thursday to be exact I will have one year in the mission. This week we also have a conference with one of the Area Seventies in Brazil it should be good. It couldn’t come at a better time, a super recharge.
Remember Zone Conferences and how you come away feeling on fire ready to baptize everyone. Now imagine with an Area Seventy! This is the perfect time for this to happen.
I’d really like to know some of the ideas you used on your mission (or saw used) to find new people to teach, besides knocking doors. And maybe some funny stories that have to do with that. (Ok all you cousins that are RM's post a comment about the above and I'll send them on to him)
I will talk to you next Monday and talk about my resolve to do better.
Love your one year old son,
Elder Jed Breinholt
(2 letters this week)
Ok, so I wrote a lot to Dad...but I‘ll write about the questions to you.
This week we are going to get our mail and stuff. So I’ll get my package then.
Pao de Queijo by nature is salty. I’m sure they turned out awesome! But by all means try them again and again and again!
This week has been unbelievably hot and humid. The past 4 days it has rained at night, it’s a good thing it was at night.
I’m going to start a list for my next package. Don’t worry when you send it just so you know.
Barbeque sauce - There is a member that served in Boston here and he wants bbq sauce, peanut butter and such.
Scripture markers - Those simple ones I have and I would also like an all in one. (You can find them at Seagull Book) You mark a lot of scriptures in one year. Even more if you have two sets of scriptures.
I had a whole list of stuff in one of my planners...but this is a start.
The branch is good...growing a lot...we (me and Elder Trindade) are doing good. We've caught the wave in this branch. I hope we can keep it going!
I love you mom and the rest of the fam!
Elder Jed Breinholt
p.s. Ask Elder Oliveira what his first name is...for this member...and ask him if he remembers meeting an Elder de Juli that served 2001-2002 in Boston. He never served in the Portuguese branches but says he knew a lot of Portuguese speaking members.
Do you have a recipe for cheesecake...there is a Brazilian that wants it!
Love you
Elder Elvis Jed Breinholt
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4 comments:
Our mission exclusively taught free english to families in their homes. The whole family had to be there and it was a 6-8 week program focused on families. We always introduced the church at the first visit and invited them to take the discussions as well as the english lessons. We reinvited them each week until the end. We taught them how to pray in English and always started with a prayer etc. I don't know if there is as much interest in learning english in Brazil as there was in Korea, but our mission had great success with baptizing families! Oh, in order to find the families we used member referrals (much easier to invite your friend to learn english than the discussions directly) and we handed out flyers and knocked doors.
We also did street boards - we went to busy parts of town with a big street board explaining Joseph Smith etc. and spoke to people. It attracts all the crazies in the area, but we also found people to teach periodically.
I"d have to ditto what Angela said. We taught English - not in their homes (which wouldn't have worked as well for us, I don't think), but as a group - we had an advanced & a beginner class that we taught once a week at the church & one set of missionaries would teach each group. We also had a husband & wife from the branch that spoke both english and spanish that kind of lead the groups. We always started by singing a hymn in english and a prayer.
Also, we did a lot of street contacting - we called it "fearlessing". We'd talk to people wherever we were on the street, but we also set up specific blocks of time where we would go somewhere where people would be out and about and we'd talk to them about the gospel...we taught a mini 3rd discussion...oh, I forgot, those don't exist anymore. We'd teach about the apostasy & ask them how they'd feel if they knew God had a living prophet on the earth today & then we'd tell them about the first vision etc. sounds longer than it was - we tried to keep it very short & then set up an appointment to meet with them at their home - or we'd get their contact info & give it to the missionaries in their area. We gave away lots of books of mormon that way. It wasn't necessarily more effective in filling up our teaching pool than tracting, but we usually talked to more people that way & more than anything planted a lot of gospel "seeds".
We did street meetings with pictures on boards a coupe of times, but it often just opened us up for lots of criticism from passersby. In manhattan we had a district of missionaries that was called the Abinidi district & all they did was talk to people on the street & have street meetings just to get referrals -most of the people walking around manhattan lived somewhere else...often not even in our mission, so they were a great source of referrals around the world.
oh, as for why teaching english in homes may not have worked for us - generally the kids already knew english & weren't interested in helping their parents learn.
so I doubt Jed would run into that problem.
I LOVE THE PICTURE! The Red Sox always bring a smile to my face, even if Papelbon never smiles.
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