Dobriy Vecher

From 4:00 to 5:00 a.m. today I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to get up and check email, because I didn't want to read it and then know that I wouldn't get another email from Elder (Andrew) Broekhuijsen.  So, I waited until 5:00, and then gave in.  No email.  When I finally got back to sleep, I slept right through my alarm and didn't get up until 6:45.  Oops!  Happily, there WAS email by then!  So, without further ado or explanation from me - here is the last email from Elder Broekhuijsen written in Russia.  (But hopefully I can talk him into writing at least one post once he gets home!)

Dobriy vecher. (That's Russian for buenos tardes) 

Well. I've been having a pretty weird day. We got up, did our normal study, etc., and then cleaned up the apartment and hit the store to buy groceries for the week. Good thing we're so fiscally responsible, because otherwise we may have ended up with more than 1000 rubles to spend on food for an entire week. We wouldn't want to actually EAT the last week of my mission, Elder Broekhuijsen grumbled, before remembering that he really likes rice anyways. 

Then we came home and I spent 4 straight hours writing letters to as many of my mission friends as I could. I even got permission to write to a few of the sisters that I've gotten to work with. Usually that's not allowed. So thanks, President! After that, we came straight here. And now we're here. 

I would like to report on a success from last week. You sent me away with $300 and a task to find a suit. I definitely found a spicy euro suit for 4500 rubles ($150). Haggled it down to $120. It fits really well. It's not custom tailored, but it fits almost as if it were. I would like to look into shortening the sleeves and hemming the pants sometime, but yeah. It's really really dark muted blue, and has cool pinstripes that are vaguely shiny, in the Russian tradition.  

So I consider that a victory. 

To answer Sister C's question, yes, I would love to do a duet with Melissa for our homecoming, and yes, I would love to sing a verse in Russian. Let's do Be Still My Soul! I love that song, and it's even prettier in Russian. 

To answer mom's question, [What would you like by way of foods you've been craving when you get home?] — anything with sugar in it. As you know, I decided to go off sugar for this transfer to see if I could do it. I could. But I love sugar so, so much. So I figured I would give myself a week after I get home to splurge and then make some more long-term healthy eating habits to follow. But in terms of meals... I would love to hit up some Bahmi (or however you spell that). With saus ketchang. [Some favorite Indonesian foods of ours.]  Oh, yeah. And I definitely need to make a run to Iceberg for a shake. And I want to make you all Plov and Borsch and stuff because it's so delicious and I'm not even close to sick of it. 

There are my requests. 

So I think I've overcome the "moping around about how sad it is to leave my mission" phase. Actually, to be perfectly honest, this week ahead of us doesn't feel much different than any normal week. So maybe I've just regressed into the "denial" phase again. I guess we'll have to see. 

I don't know what to write. We had some really awesome meetings and new investigators and stuff this week, but it seems pointless to tell about them here when I can give you all the juicy details from not only them, but my entire mission, in like a week. We did end up getting a meeting with a guy named I* from an ancient potential investigator list in the dark depths of the area book (the section that's recorded in reformed Egyptian) from 2006. He came, and is a huge boss. He was an exchange student in Salt Lake City of all places when he was 15. Speaks English pretty well. He's 24 now. And he could be a stake president with a little bit of surgical false doctrine removal and a steady IV of the words of life. Thanks, Heavenly Father! 

I don't have much to report. I'll be seeing you in a week. I keep thinking of vaguely interesting questions I'd like to ask, but then I remember that there is no point in asking questions this week. 

Joshua, Garrett - you better be ready to give me the run down on the G7, Steam, etc. etc. when I get back.   Dad, I get the feeling there will be some in-depth talks about photography and videography in the near future.  Mom, I want to hear when I get back what you did the last week of your mission. It will be interesting to compare to my own.  Melissa, keep smashing it to the end.

I'm out of stuff to say. Back to work over here. 

Love, 

Elder Broekhuijsen

January 21, 2013

It's the best of both worlds!  It's a holiday here, so we get to sleep in and not go to school/work, but it's not a holiday in Russia, so we still get email!  (It's a good one, too!)

In an attempt to get my brain used to the idea of living in America again, I decided to title this email in the US date format, with the month first. I figure if I continue making baby steps like this, I'll be ready to go home in about 2 years or so. [Editor's Note:  Good idea, Andrew, but you need to remember that the year is actually 2013 now!  I'm glad I'm not the only one who still writes/types 2012 all the time!]  Man. Every day my brain screams louder that it doesn't want to go home. But I'm not going to think about going home anymore, because it gets me all sad and stuff.

 Well, the coolest event of the week I think, would definitely have to be T*'s baptism.  Elder Christensen and I went down to the Volga at 4:00am with a pickaxe and a shovel and got to work. After about 4 hours, we hadn't made much progress, so we called President Blinkov and he called a guy who had a jackhammer. That really got things moving at a better pace. The baptism was scheduled for 9, and we actually made it on time.

Okay, I'm going to let my conscience take over here. None of that happened. Presidents Blinkov and Klimov talked President Sartori out of letting me baptize her in the Volga. Besides that, there was another guy named R* getting baptized that day, so they decided to just do them in the Bezimianski branch building. If you want to Google earth that, it's Улица Победы 100А. I spend a lot of time in that building. So that was Saturday at 6:00pm. It was so wonderful. The service went really well and T* is so happy. I'm sure she's emailed Elder M* the pictures by now, but on the off chance that she hasn't yet, someone make sure he knows, would you? He'll be stoked. I got some pictures too, but don't have a way to email them.

Also, S* (a sick member here who served a mission in Washington State, speaks fluent English, and oh yeah, by the way is a legit DJ) and V* (my brat-tan) both loaded up my flash drive with like 4 GB of sweet Russian electronic music for when I go home. Happy birthday to me! 

Other than the baptism, we had some wonderful interviews and exchanges with the Avrora Sisters. They are doing well. In case you were wondering. During the exchange review (where we give each other feedback), I got some really good advice from some of the sisters on things I can do better in my missionary work. And I had this weird realization that I wasn't going to have time to implement it all. And then I got sad, but then I got happy again because I realized that I can just implement it after my mission and it will still be useful and valid. 

Last week after emailing, I went to the reenok and hit up a couple of places selling suits. I found one that I liked, but didn't love. It's a little darker than my current charcoal one, and the pinstripes were not as dense, but it's okay. I tried it on, it fit well (but I still wanted some tailoring done), and said, "Okay, how much?" 8500 rubles. Nope. I haggled him down to 4000 rubles in less than a minute. Is that a testament of Elder Broekhuijsen's legendary haggling skills? No. That is a testament of the Suit Salesman's legendary price inflation skills. At the end of the day, I got him to about 3800. I would have paid 4000 (about $130) if he had included the cost of tailoring, but he wouldn't budge. So I walked away. I wanted to be sure I had permission and money for it anyway. Today I'll go back and see what I can do for about 4000 rubles. Too bad I don't have Elder Benham with me. He would have been able to buy that man's entire store for like 25 kopecks. Seriously, that Elder can HAGGLE. 

In other news, this is the second-to-last email I will ever write as a single full-time missionary. That is pretty dang freaky. They always said it would be way harder to leave the mission field at the end of 2 years than it was to leave your life at the beginning. I didn't think they were right until now though. The weird part is, I didn't think I had done all that great of a job at developing some kind of mega Christlike love for the Russian people. I love my cool investigators and friends and stuff, but it's like Christ says - even wicked peeps like their homies. That was a little bit less formal than Christ worded it, I believe, but you get the point. I still sometimes have trouble staying patient with the people who are just BEGGING for a well-worded, one-sentence reply that will crush all of their logicless brainwashed arguments and make them feel like an idiot for picking a verbal fight with me. At least when I'm in a bad mood I find myself biting my tongue a lot. But I love what I'm doing. I love what I'm learning here. I'm learning SO MUCH. I love the things that I can do here that I can't do again. I love helping missionaries. I love interviewing with sisters. I love sitting around the table at zone leader council and receiving inspiration with the awesome servants of God that are always there and then watching it work to change the mission in a better direction. I love baptizing those elect few that make it through Satan's obstacle course. I love wearing the tag and being immediately judged for it, and then succeeding in changing someone's mind about what kind of people we are, even if they're not interested in learning more. I love letting go of a Book of Mormon when the other person actually wants it. I love those days that I forget my hankerchief and my nose is running everywhere because it's freezing. I love falling asleep during my personal prayer at the end of the day because I'm so exhausted from meetings falling through and hitting the streets, and then waking up at 1:30 in the morning and realizing I'm still kneeling. I love barely containing my emotions when we sing a really awesome hymn. I could list this kind of stuff for hours, and I don't think when the time comes that I'll be ready to leave it behind. I can picture the bus out of Samara for the last time (the airport is an hour outside of the city), and it's not a happy picture. It's like a physical sensation of loss, like I forgot all of the possesions that are dear to me in my apartment before I left or something. 

Anyway. I know there's a ton of good stuff on the horizon. Short term and long term, it's easy to think of things I used to get excited for back when the end wasn't looming so bad. And I'm excited, but it's kinda not at the front of my mind. So don't get me wrong. I'm not going to come home all mopey and teary-eyed and bummed out and be no fun and missing out on the happiness of the moment. I'll be smiling and walking down the escalator with my brethren around me (that being the other Elders that land in SLC International with me) and presumably wearing some exceedingly shiny pointy-toed shoes and a spicy new suit. And I'll probably be able to distract myself from the sadness of my mission being over with all the cool stuff there will be to do long enough for all those feelings to quiet down and stop being a problem. 

But at the end of the day, the Lord knew that a big part of me was supposed to stay in Samara, Russia. 

Have a great day everyone! I'm off to the market; Old Man Jenkins was worried sick when he didn't see me last week. 

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen