Week of April 4, 2016

Hey Ya'll!! How was everyone's week?? I hope that you were all able to go give some service to someone this week! This week we did lots of service again. We worked at the Long Term Care Center a lot this week again. We also spent some time on the Bartlett's Ranch. (they are members of our ward) They are super cool! They have a whole bunch of horses. We got to shovel poop for about six hours so it was a great time lol! I got super sunburned but hey at least now I don't look like an albino... This week we also went to the Nashville Tribute Concert it was super awesome it was a great time to be around a bunch of other missionary's and to just have a good time. It was really weird not wearing our tags or dress clothes. It was nice to actually feel comfortable for a couple hours haha. 

This week we had transfer calls and I will be staying in Winner for at least another 6 weeks! Elder Hobson is getting transferred to Newtown so I will be here with Elder Musacchia

This week we had the opportunity to speak in church. My talk was about fasting. I based it off of the Mormon Message "The Hope of Gods Light" In the video a guy who was going to end his life decided to fast to know if God was there. After the fast he hadn't received an answer that God was there but he no longer wanted to end his life. Slowly the gospel started coming into his life. At the end of the video he says that he is happy and know that God is there for him. Anyways the talk went pretty good. 

I hope ya'll have a great week!! Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff

Week of March 27, 2016

Hey Yall! I hope that everyone had a good week and did something exciting this week! This week has been good. On Friday we had ZTM (zone training meeting). Which means we got to go to Pierre! Which also means we were able to hit up a Walmart so we were able to get some shopping in. Its hard to shop here cause everything is like triple the price so its a huge pain. 

I really enjoyed the ZTM that we had this last week. Some one said "God must be up to something good or Satan wouldnt be working this Hard" I really like that. I challange you all to ponder over that this week! 

Also this week while we were volunteering at the Long Term Care Center I was taking this guy back to his room and when we got to his room he had a few pictures of Tiger Woods on his wall in a couple of pictures he was playing with Tiger.  I asked him about the pictures, he couldn't talk very well due to having a stroke but I was able to get that him and Tiger were buddy's when Tiger  was in college at Stanford and they played together a few times. I told him that I played golf in High School and he got the biggest smile on his face. I told him that the Masters tournament was on Friday he told me that he had been to the masters to watch a few times. He showed me some pictures of when he was there. It made him so happy to be able to talk to someone about golf for a couple mins and he said I could come back and talk golf anytime I wanted too.  Later that night one of the nurses told me that I made his whole week by just talking to him for a few minutes.  It feels so good to be able to help people out even if its just something small like this. I challenge all of you to go out and give service to someone, you may even make there week!

Today for P-Day we went fishing at the Curt & Molly Calhoon ranch. One of the other voulnteers from the long term care place invited us to go out to there ranch and go fishing in a pond that they have. We caught 19 fish all together I caught 11 including a 7 lb 26 inch monster! I'll send pics for proof lol. We are trying to build a good relationship with Molly and her family so that we will be able to teach her and her family! So far we are off to a pretty good start!

Also this week we are going to go to Minot to see a concert! Its Nashville Tribute so it should be pretty fun! Minus the 8 hour drive to Minot from here. Presidnet Hess is taking all the missionaries in the mission were not supposed to wear our tags or are mission clothes so its going to be a little different but its going to be awesome!! The reason for this is cause we dont want to scare anyone by having 142 missionaries there haha. 

I hope you all have an exciting week! Love you all!! 

Love, 

Elder Brinkerhoff

Week of March 7, 2016

Hey Y'all!! I hope that everyone had a great week this week!! This week out here on the rock we had a pretty slow week. I've learned that even on the slow weeks that they can still be great weeks. Another thing that I have learned is that days, or weeks are really what you make them. If you want to have a good week then you can make it a good week.

Serving out here on the reservation we learn a lot about the ancient traditions of the native american people. Some of the things are a little bit crazy... Example some of the people think that Jesus Christ came to the people in the form of a white buffalo and they think that Jesus or this white buffalo gave them the chanunpa, which is a sacred pipe that they use, when they smoke on this pipe they see there ancient spirits of there people . So its pretty much some crazy drug that gives them hallucinations.

 On the other hand some of the things that they say is pretty interesting and can really apply to life. We were talking with this guy and he told us that there are two wolves inside of us. There is a bad wolf and there is a good wolf. The one that we feed is what makes us a good person or a bad person. So if we "feed" ourselves with good things such as the characteristics of Christ or the Christ like attributes which are faith, hope, charity, love, virtue, love, patience, humility, diligence, and obedience so if we do these things it will make us a good person. So its important the "feed" ourselves with good things so that we can all be the best people that we can be. We cant feed both wolves so we have to decide who's side we are on. Matthew 6:24 "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." I challenge all of you to be a little more Christ like this week and do a little better on one of these Christ like attributes. 

Some other exciting things that happened this week is that our investigator Nehemiah who is on probation, we had to send in papers to the first presidency to get permission to baptize him because of this probation, we got his papers back this week and it was approved so that we will be able to baptize him... On the down side he got locked up in jail again this weekend so that's kind of a bummer, were not sure when he is going to be out of jail. Our other investigator RJ also got locked up in jail again were also not sure when she will be out either. Geez its really hard to teach these people when the keep getting locked up in jail! #rezlife 

Also they are closing this area so I will be getting transferred. Me and my companions are going to the Rosebud, Mission, and Winner area. We are excited to get out there and meet new people.

I hope that ya'll have a great week!! Love you all!! (all of you that respond to my emails anyways) 

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff 

Week of February 29, 2016 (Leap Year)

Hey Everyone! I hope that you all had the best week ever! Things out here in Fort Yates have been pretty awesome!! We have had some great lessons this week!

This week we had a lesson with this guy named JR. He used to be a gang leader.  He decided that he didn't want to be apart of that life anymore about two years ago. When he decided to leave the gang his fellow gang members weren't to happy about his choice. One day he got jumped and got stabbed 12 times and one of the stabs cut his spine. After they were done stabbing him they dumped gas on him and lit him on fire. He was barley hanging on to life after he got beat up. He ended up living but he is now paralyzed from the waist down. This was all about two years ago that this happened. Since then he has only left his house a couple of times. He has 4 of his kids that live with him. He is living at his moms house, there are 20 people that live there and they only have one bathroom. (I thought sharing with my companions was hard) While we were talking with JR we weren't really sure how we could help him out. Were were thinking how we could help him and we came up with the idea that he should go out side for an hour a day and enjoy the nice weather we have been having, and spend some time with his kids. Even if its just pushing him around the block in his wheel chair. We are hoping that it will bring some happiness to his life and that it will be a good experience too his kids as well. As we were talking with JR the spirit was there so strong as we saw this man who has changed so much in the last 2 years. He really just wanted to do what was right. His faith has been so strong from all the trials that he has faced. He wants to know why all this has happened to him so that he can learn from it and do the best that he can given his circumstances. (Alma 44:4) "Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith."  It is very important that we always keep our faith strong through everything. Sometimes trials may seem like too much but those are the times when we need to exercise all the faith that we can. 

This week I also had to break into someones car... Cause they locked there keys in their car haha not really sure why they called the missionary's for help breaking into a car but we were able to get it done. 

We saw some people out riding a hover board so we thought we would give it a try...  It was awesome but on the down side I ripped my favorite pair of pants so that was kinda a downer.

I hit my 6 month mark last wed so its customary to burn a tie. Me being the pyro that I am had to include some gas a of course a big fire!

I hope that you all had a great week!! Love you all!

Love 

Elder Brinkerhoff!

Week of February 21, 2016

Hey Yall!! I hope that you all are having a sweet week!! Out here on the rock it has been a sweet week. 

So something that I have been thinking about a lot this week is about how to keep a strong testimony and how to increase your testimony. Me and my companions have been talking about it throughout the week. Since lots of the people out here in Fort Yates are inactive or less active members of the church.  We have been trying to think of ways to re-kindle there testimony and get them active in the church.  As we have been talking about and thinking of how to do this we have come down to 3 main things that will help the most. 

The first one and probably the most important one is prayer. Prayer is a very important part of your testimony, the only way to get help from God is to humble yourself and ask for the help or guidance that you need. Matthew 21:22 "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive"

The second one is reading or studying the word of God, weather it be reading talks from apostles, reading the Bible or the Book of Mormon. D&C 11:21 "Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men." Gods not just going to give us all the answers, we need to do our research to find them. 

The third one is going to Church. Church is very important. D&C 59:9 "And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;" One of the most important parts about going to church is the opportunity to partake of the sacrament, to renew the covenants that were made at baptism.  To take upon us the name of Jesus Christ. 

We have been teaching this to lots of the people here in hopes that we will be able to strengthen there testimony and get them back to church. 

I Challenge yall to do these three of these things this week. Let me know how it goes!

Also we had transfer calls this Saturday! I will be staying in Fort Yates for at least the next six weeks! The address to send letters or packages is now 101 Slate Dr Ste 7 Bismarck ND 58503 ​United States

I hope you all have a great week!! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff 

Week of February 14, 2016

Hey y'all I hope that everyone is having a great week! P day got changed to today because we had a zone conference yesterday! It was really good! Going to Bismark is always a good time we get to go get some good food and some cheaper groceries out here on the rez everything is way more expensive. 

This week we had a super awesome with this inactive member named Billy. We talked about the priesthood. We talked about how it is important to always be a worth priesthood holder. We invited him to come to church on Sunday and he said that he would. We weren't really sure if he was really going too but he ended up coming and he brought his whole family to church so it was super awesome! 

Other than that not a whole lot when on this past week. Things are really slow out here on the rock (were on like an island). I hope that yall have a great week!  

Love you all, 

Love Elder Brinkerhoff. 

Week of February 8

Hey Everyone!!

 I hope everyone had the best week ever!! So I got transferred this week. I am now in Fort Yates North Dakota. It is an Indian reservation!! I've been here since Friday and so far its been pretty exciting. Between smelling meth everywhere we go and having to fight off stray dogs I have managed to make it through the first 5 days alive. I am really excited to be in this area and to be able to help the people here. 

This week at church was a very different experience for me. There were 12 people who attended and they had to have people from Bismark come to speak in sacrament meeting. I acted as ward clerk and help the bishop count tithing during Sunday school. It was a pretty good time.

I hope that everyone has a great week this week!! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff