5.23.11 Update

Hello friends and family! We've sure loved hearing from Andrew - his e-mails from Russia are hilarious and entertaining. Enjoy some bits from today's e-mail:

I am living in Toliyatti (I don't know how to spell that in English... it's pronounced "Tolly-yacht-ee"), which is separated into three distinct sections. There is New City; my area, where CT. Walton and I are the only elders currently. There is Old City, where two companionships of Elders (including our zone leaders) and one set of sisters are serving. There is also the "slooszh," but nobody is there at the moment. We do live in an apartment. There is a bathroom, a shower room, a kitchen, a living room thing, and a bedroom. Our beds are actually just small couches pushed up against each other, but somehow they're insanely comfortable. Maybe I'm just so exhausted at the end of the day that I can't tell the difference anymore. CT. Walton and I are the only elders in the apartment. We do cook for ourselves all the time. We haven't eaten with members yet or at restaurants (it's discourages to eat at restaurants too often, because buying groceries is REALLY cheap and eating out isn't). We eat a lot of really simple stuff, but honestly it's really good. Lots of plain fruit, lots of really good bread (I may or may not put frosting on mine like 50% of the time). Lots of noodles and potatoes and white sauce. I dunno. Just whatever. Oatmeal for breakfast. With this really really good yogurt. Church is at a building about a mile or so from our apartment. It is church-owned (or rented... not totally sure on that). It is a dedicated branch building, but it's not like a self-standing building or anything; just the first floor of a complex. It's really nice though. The AC in there is killer. On average, we probably get 20 or so people to Sacrament Meeting. Elder Walton is from Las Vegas. He has a really interesting background, but I don't have time to get into details right now.

Sounds like you're having delicious weather down there. Here it's like 80s and really really humid and hot. So yeah we're in short sleeved shirts whenever possible (suits are mandatory sometimes, regardless of weather). With that and all the walking and stuff... its really hot sometimes. I'm looking forward to winter.

Aww... LPHS Choir. Good times. Whoever is reading this that is or was in LPHS choir... you're cool. Hi. Tell Momma J I said hi.

So with what time I have left, I'll fill you in on cool stuff that happened that you didn't ask me about:

First off, Garrett would love it here. There are cats EVERYWHERE. And most of them are rather malnourished so they stay small always. There are also drunk people everywhere, which is frankly kind of hilarious. But it gets old when they come try to speak English to you all the time because somehow we stick out as Americans from 100 yards. On that note, there are always teenagers who yell "Hello!" at us across the street. If we say "Hello" back or anything like that, it always sets of a lot of laughing. Actually a few times there have been like 15 year old girls who followed us for a while, then said "Hello" and giggled and ran away. Although to be honest, that happened to me ALL THE TIME in America too, so nothing new there ;)

We had a kind of awesome miracle this week. Actually several, but this is probably the best one. A girl named C* (name omitted for privacy) came to church 2 weeks ago without anyone we know having invited her. She is GOLDEN. Doesn't smoke or drink, Christian since the age of 2, hasn't been baptized at all but wants to, and super nice. We have taught her a few times since then. She just accepts everything, it's awesome. So we set a baptismal date with her yesterday for June 4. Woot woot! I'll keep you updated on that.

We had another baptismal date for a man named V*. He's pretty cool but he's also kind of sad. He's mostly lame; has a really hard time walking. He's on pension because nobody will hire him because he's basically disabled. Pensions here are kind of sucky, so he actually just got evicted from his apartment. That was the saddest service ever... helping him move his Fridge and Microwave and stuff out. So currently he's living on the streets and saving his pension to buy a new apartment before winter hits. But he called us a few days ago and said he needed 200 Rubles to keep his phone going for a while (roughly like $7). Well I'm not opposed to giving him that, but it's against the rules for missionaries. We told him that and he said "Fine, we can't meet anymore. Don't call me." So that was weird. But Ct. Walton Called him back on Monday and he said "just call me back later." I don't think he's given up on us, I think he was just ticked that we weren't going to pay for his phone. But hopefully he'll figure things out and still want to get baptized, although it's looking like he'll miss his original date of May 28.

The language is really coming. It's tough, to be certain. The first week here I would mostly zone out of converstations in Russian because I couldn't understand much. But this last week we were meeting with a great member family to try and get some referrals. We were just having a short testimony meeting, but I decided to just listen as hard as I could and see where I was as far as understanding. Well, friends, the Gift of Tongues is SO real.When the mom bore her testimony (she actually kind of reminds me of Roma, a little bit) I got like 75% of what she said. Generally I would say I get like 25% on average. Just barely enough to know what's going on in a lesson. But I'm learning SO fast right now. It's kind of crazy. But I still need to be patient. Besides... even though I'm not super great at the language yet, I can still help in lessons. I can still bear my testimony and pray. I'm not COMPLETELY useless ;)

One of our Zone Leaders, CT. Zuber, with whom I went on splits for a day last week... is awesome. He's a HUGE fan of Star Trek: Enterprise & Original Series. Respect points. We just have a lot in common. But especially he's just a strong member. He told me the story of how he decided he would come on a mission. It was insanely cool. He also is hilarious, so there's that. He still has almost a year, so I hope I get to be comps with him sometime.

Well I just got the 3-minute-warning. I should go. Love you all! The church is true! Keep writing me letters. It's okay to address them in English. I think the 'rents have the address. If not, let me know and I'll give it to you. Thanks for your prayers and support! I can really really really really feel them.

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen

5.16.11 Update

Here are some snippets from Andrew's first e-mail from Russia! His description of Ward Council had us all laughing. Enjoy! (And write him letters! His addresses are up on the "Write to Andrew" tab above)

FAMILY (and friends)

Well, it's been easily the longest week since my first in the MTC, what with ridiculous jet lag, (over like 2.4 days of travel between 10 time zones, etc.), lots of adjustments to make, and thankfully, a lot of missionary work as well.

So my companion, Elder Walton, as you heard, is awesome. He is the bomb.com. He only has until November here, which means most likely I will be his last companion. But he is amazing. He does everything right. He's everything I hoped for. I really didn't want a trainer who was trunky or lazy or rebellious, and I didn't get one. We have a lot in common, I think. He also speaks fluent Russian. A plus, because I don't.

So while we're on the topic of language, it's hard. But I'll get it. I really just need to be more patient with myself. Sunday was a great example of how things are. We went to church, all the members of the branch greeted me, which was cool. They're all so nice. They also said a lot of other Russian things. Wish I could tell you what. I thought our home ward in Highland was noisy... oh, man. The Russian children are insane. But so funny. I was quickly drafted as the ward pianist. Whoa. Didn't see that one coming. So either I'm going to pick up sight reading really quickly, or people in the branch are going to get used to singing to a one-handed accompaniment. I'm guessing the latter as I don't exactly have time for practicing piano. I also got to bear my testimony, although I was warned about that one in advance.

After church, we had a meeting with one of our investigators' sister, who randomly showed up at church. Unfortunately, there also needed to be a missionary in Ward Council meeting, which meant me. CT. Walton went on splits with a member, and I went to Ward Council. Ward Council is where I go sit down and we pray, and then people say things in Russian to one another, then we pray, and I leave. It's awesome.

After the lesson got over (which went really well... it's her first time meeting with missionaries and she said she wants to get baptized. KAK CKA3ATb prepared?), we stayed behind at the branch building with a member, Yuri, and his insanely cute 5-year-old daughter (who speaks approximately 100x better Russian than me) Katya. CT. Walton and Brat Yuri were calling investigators and inactives and inviting them to church; finding out why people couldn't come, etc. I couldn't contribute much, so I got to entertain Katya. Works for me. She is hilarious. Melissa should come live in Russia for a couple of days. It's impossible not to like the little kids here. None of them are even annoying. Just funny and cute. She taught me how to play a song of her own invention on the piano. Then she made me a hand-crafted paper accordian to play ( "and it's also okay to sing with it if you want" ). But yeah. Moral of the story: Sundays rock.

-C* is the new investigator CT. Walton taught on Sunday. Things are going well; we have another meeting with her this week.

-Va* is this awesome man who got baptized into the Russian Orthodox church when he was 24. He's having trouble committing to baptism because he thinks he made an oath to the RO church and doesn't want to break it. Which is unfortunate, because he really believes and has a testimony that our church is true, I think. Things will be interesting with him; I'll keep you updated.

-V16* is this kind of old man who we have met with twice. He wants to be baptized, so we're basically just getting him ready for his baptismal intervew. Cool cool!

-D*: D* is crazy. We actually have stopped meeting with him or answering his calls, because after one meeting, he said he wanted to get baptized as soon as possible so that he could receive the Holy Ghost and the Priesthood and become a Jedi. I'm not making this up, he really said it and honestly believes if he gets the Priesthood he will be a Jedi. All attempts to help explain things to him have thus far failed. Hilarious.

The names here really are about as diverse as I had heard. THere are approximately six names you can have if you are a man:

Sergei, Sasha (short for Alexander), Igor, Vladimir, Viktor, and Alexei. For reals. I have met maybe 5 people who do not have one of those names. It's awesome. Hence our own made-up names for some people, like Vladimir 16 (because he lives on the 16th block in our area).

People are really easy to find while street contacting. A lot of people will even stop us because for some reason, it is extremely evident at a glance that we are Americans. I'll let you know when I figure out why. So anyway it's actually a good thing because it's easy to transition into the Gospel (yes, we're Americans, want to know why we're here?). The people here are generally pretty nice and willing to talk. It's easy to get phone numbers and addresses, but people don't always answer their phones or doors. We did have one really mean lady shout at us in Russian and slam a door in our face while tracting a few days ago, but whatever. Not ready.

Okay, you're all the best! Love you all tons. Being away from home for so long has really made me realize how much I love my family and friends. I'm making lots of new friends out here, but nothing replaces family.

Good luck!

-Elder Broekhuijsen

*Name omitted for privacy

He made it to Russia!

Hey all - here's a video with our first picture of Andrew from Russia! The sound clip is a special message to you - his faithful blog readers.

Last E-mail from the MTC!

Today was Andrew's last P-day in Provo. He got his flight plans and he will be flying to Russia beginning Monday morning! He sounds really really excited - we'll be sure to post when he get confirmation that he's landed safely.

Here's some of what he had to say:

So last Thursday a group of Elders including me went to try out to sing in a Fireside or Devotional. We sang How Firm A Foundation, and apparently they loved it because they put us in the program for MTC-wide Mission Conference the immediate next Sunday. I was really happy with how the arrangement turned out; the master mind behind it (CT. White) really knows his stuff. Anyway, the musical number on Sunday went really well. I love music. Brother McCleary said that every single one of us will give a musical number in church, at least once, guaranteed, regardless of how much experience we have with singing. He said as long as you can hold a tune, they'll think you're fantastic... haha. Funny stuff. The more I hear about Russia, the more I like it.

 

Also on Sunday, we watched the Testaments. I was hoping one of the three available languages they do every week would be Russian, but no such luck. I think they had Spanish, German, and Japanese. That's okay. I didn't realize before, but I'm pretty well convinced that the person who plays Kohor (the main bad guy) is Steve Perry. For serious. Go watch the movie and tell me it's not him. I kept expecting him to just bust out some Lights or something.

I'm SO grateful for my opportunity to serve. Russia seems more and more real every day. My Russian isn't super good, but it's good enough for right now. I feel confident that with the Lord's help, I can place both the English Book of Mormon and the Russian Book of Mormon that I bought before I arrive in Samara. All I need to do is open my mouth. Who's to say the Lord hasn't prepared someone to receive this message from me in SLC or Atlanta or Moscow? I believe our district is also having a competition to see who can place the most pass-along cards before arriving in Eastern Europe as well. I'm so excited.

 

Looking back over the last 2.5 months or so, I really can't believe how much I've learned. Russian aside (and I feel I've learned a truly miraculous amount of Russian... not that I'm not fully expecting to have my pride crushed as soon as I hit Moscow), I'm not even close to the same person I was 3 months ago. I really have gone through some extreme changes in personality. I've developed my Christlike attributes a lot (particularly Humility, if you didn't notice). I've started and finished the Book of Mormon, and now I'm reading the New Testament along with Jesus the Christ. I LOVE reading the scriptures. I'm hoping to finish at least the 4 Gospels while on various planes. I love the church in a much more active way than I ever have before. I know more and more every day that it's so true. So many people need to find this out, and I intend to find them. Christs love for all of us and God's role in our lives are so, so, so real. I know it. My appreciation for my family has grown exponentially. You guys really are the best.

Love you all. You're the best.

 

-Elder Andrew Broekhuijsen.