Week of June 20, 2016

​​​​​​Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't send an email last week we were out playing baseball and stuff!  The last couple of weeks have been so amazing! last week we spent lots of time teaching Jared and Dwayne getting them ready for the baptisms. We also have still been doing quite a bit of service, we have been teaching lots more than when we first got to Winner though so its been great!

On Saturday we were able to have the baptisms of Dwayne and Jared it went so amazing! We had a great turn out and were able to have all of there families there. Everyone was so happy and excited for them! The spirit was there so strong at the baptism it was so awesome! After the baptism we gave the parents of the two boys to give a little talk they were both pretty nervous but they both did such a did job! It has been so good working with these 2 families and helping them come back to church. Gerard who is Dwaynes dad was mad the young men's president this last week. There is no better feeling in the world than bringing people unto Christ and helping them to increase there faith.

This week we were also able to go to one of Molly's kids baseball games they were able to win the championship game it was a really good time! We also went on exchanges this week I was able to go up to Pierre I was able to learn so much. Going on exchange's is always awesome because it seems like crazy things always happen and we are able to learn so much from the other missionaries.

I hope that everyone is doing great! I hope that you all have a great week!!

Love Elder Brinkerhoff

Week of June 6, 2016

Hey everyone I hope that yall are doing great! Things out here in Winner are going awesome. It was super hot this week! I think everyday it has been over 100 degress this week so it has been super hot this week! We did a whole bunch of service this week. We went out to the Bartlets and helped them out on there ranch we had a huge fire and burned a bunch of stuff we also found some wild Marijuana so that was kinda funny, apparently there's a lot of it that grows out here in all the fields and stuff. This week I also umped a baseball game for one of our investigators it was awesome!

So we have been working really hard the last few months and haven't really been seeing any success. But this week we saw so many blessings it was amazing. We were able to put 3 people on date for baptism this week. 2 Kids named Jared and Dwayne and the third one is Kristina. We are super excited! All of our had work has finally paid off. We are really hoping and praying that everything will go as planned. Its super awesome to help people to increase there faith and it is really cool to see them change as they start to become converted to the gospel. I love being a missionary and to help people to come unto Christ. There is no better feeling in the world than brining people into the gospel.

I hope that everyone has a great week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff

Week of May 29, 2016

Hey yall! I  hope everyone had a great week! Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! This week was a good one! Out here the weather was super nice all this week! Its really weird not being able to wear shorts all the time as most of you know I'm not a big fan of the whole pants thing.  This week had my birthday and I hit my 9 month mark its crazy how fast time fly's when your on a mission at the beginning it feels like 2 years is forever but time is flying on. 

This week was a great one! We have still been doing lots of service with the weather getting good we have been doing lots of yard work for people and working out on the farms and stuff which has been good. It has also allowed us to meet lots of new people service is our main way of finding. It has been working pretty good and has opened up lots of doors for us in the community. 

We have been teaching a less active family and there 9 year old son is wanting to be baptized so we have been teaching them and they have been coming back to church and we are teaching the rest of the lessons to this kid. and he will most likely be baptized by the end of the month which is super exciting!

I hope everyone has a great week! Love you all!

Love Elder Brinkerhoff!

May 12, 2016

Week of May 16, 2016

Hey y'all! I hope that you made this week a great week! Weeks and days really are what you make them. That's really something that I have learned since being on a mission so if you don't like where your at right now change it.

We had a super awesome week out here in South Dakota! This week we were super busy on Tuesday night we went out to Rapid City which is about 3 hours away. We spent the night with some of the Rapid City Elders and the next morning we had our Zone Conference it was really cool because we had the Elder Martino who is part of the Seventy come and he talked to us. He talked mostly about how we need to unite the Members of the church in missionary work and how we need to use the members of the church to find people for us to teach. So that was super awesome!

We had two awesome things happen this week. (1) On Tuesday before we headed out to Rapid City we had a few minutes so we decided to make the best of our time and we went tracking. Which is something we don't have much success with in this area, we tracked 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th, 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th, and 6th street with 0% success. Then we got to 5th street and apparently that's where all the magic happens in this area. Anyways when we were tracking on Tuesday and we knocked on this girls door name Star, she let us in and we taught her the restoration and it went great!  And she told us we could come back this week! We are super excited to go back and teach her some more this week. (2) On Sunday we took one of the Youth in the ward out with us he is 16 and is planning on going on a mission in a couple years. Anyways we took him to see some less active members and it went really good. After we saw the two less active members we decided to take him tracking so we started where we had finished off on 5th street and we were able to teach 5 more people and hand out 5 Books of Mormon it was super awesome!! Also last week some people from the Methodist Church called us and they want us to go teach them about our church so we are super excited for that. 

We had a crazy awesome lightning storm last night it was super cool!! I guess they had some pretty bad tornado in Valentine Which is like 30 or so minutes from here. I was hoping that we could see it but it never came this way.

I hope y'all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Brinkerhoff

Week of May 9, 2016

Hey I hope that everyone had a great week the last couple of weeks! Things out here in Winner have been going great! We have been doing tons of service... This week we are going to help the baptist church pour cement on by there church... We want to put a Book of Mormon in the cement so when were done we can tell them that the foundation of there church is built on the Book of Mormon.  Being on a mission really gives you a weird sense of humor lol. 

So this week we had a super awesome lesson about the restoration of the church. Its crazy how much things have changed over the last 9 months. I remember the first time that I was able to teach the restoration ha that lesson was all over the place. I've gotten much better at being able to teach people. Anyways we had the lesson in a Members home and he was a huge help in the lesson! It went really good the investigator (Shandra) was really interested and was asking tons of questions. Lessons where the people are asking questions and participating are the best ones! The Spirit was super strong during the lesson!

This week we have Zone Conference. It is going to be in Rapid City which is awesome because we are going to be able to make a quick trip out to Mount Rushmore. 

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

Elder Brinkerhoff! 

Week of April 11, 2016

Hey Yall!! I hope that everyone had a great week!! Sorry I missed yall last week! We didn't spend very much time emailing because we were fishing again! We caught 33 fish so it was super awesome!! Today we are going to go play golf so I'm super excited for that! 

This week we had a really great week!! We are starting to get some pretty good movement in the area! We got a couple of new investigators this last week! Things are really starting to move along in the area and I am loving it! 

Last night we went to Molly's and helped her with some things and then we played some games with her little boys! They are all the same ages as my three brothers so I love going over there! Anyways last night we were able to the her and her family about the restoration.  It went really good they were very interested in what we had to say. They are a super awesome family and we are hoping that we will be able to continue teaching them! 

We have still been doing lots of service at the long term care center which has been really good. We have been getting some other investigators form doing that so that has been great!!

I hope everyone has a great week!! Love you all!!

Love,

 Elder Brinkerhoff!