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
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