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
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