6.20.11 Update

Andrew's mom here. Melissa is trying to teach me how to do this, since she probably won't be able to do it from Boston! Here are some excerpts from today's email from our favorite Elder.

MELISSA GOT HER MISSION CALL! SHE IS GOING TO BOSTON! AH!!!!!!!!

I won't lie - I was hoping you would go somewhere Russian-speaking. But every mission is the best mission in the world for the missionaries that are there. Why else would God send them to those missions? Besides... when I thought about you going somewhere Russian speaking, it never felt quite right to hope for it. I don't know if that makes sense, but... yeah. Okay. Well, CONGRATULATIONS! And we're going to be getting home super close together! My "projected" (see, "inaccurate and it's really just a placeholder, mostly") departure date from here is March 11, 2013. But I won't know until much later in the mission. But we'll be getting home practically the same time. That is a dream come true. Plus you don't have to wait forever to go to the MTC. Plus you won't be there long enough to get sick of it (probably)! Well congratulations! I'm so excited for you! The mission is the hardest thing I have ever done, by FAR. But also the best. I have improved more in the last 4 months than probably I have in the last like 4 years before the mission.

So, there was Zone Conference on Friday in Samara. It was fantastic! It was so cool to see a bunch of people! Ct. Angerhofer and Ross from the MTC are in my Zone already, but this Conference happened to be a combined Zone Conference with Tol'yatti and Samara zones together, so I got to see a lot of people. It was great! They're doing well. Interestingly enough, Ct. Johnson (who was in the Saratov zone) got transferred to Schloozavoy (IN OUR DISTRICT!) with Ct. Derby, who you probably remember from previous emails. So they're awesome. I'm still in New City, but Ct. Walton, sadly, was transferred to Kazan, which is in the Samara zone. He will be finishing training Elder Angerhofer, interestingly enough. My new companion is a native Russian from St. Petersburg named Ct. Kuzmin! (Kooz-MEEN) He is so so so so so funny and awesome. He speaks fluent English, luckily for me (although I've noticed a big change in how well I speak and understand Russian in the past 3 days already). President Sartori says he thinks I was put with a native so I can really crank it up on the language skills, because he feels like I will likely be training either next cycle or the one following. So that's kind of scary, but still awesome. I feel better and better about the language every day; it's wonderful. Like yesterday! I had a 30-minute conversation with a guy on the street. Which was basically just a really long Bible-bash. Not that that's good. I didn't catch every word, but I could always tell what he was talking about, etc. He didn't accept the Book of Mormon I tried to give him ("I only believe in the Bible, and that's it"), but while he wasn't looking, I snuck a Church Invitation with our information on it to his wife... hee hee. She seemed a lot more interested, just a lot quieter than him. I think she really felt the spirit while we talked to them. So who knows... that might go somewhere someday.

I love it here. I feel comfortable living here, basically. I was so scared to have a native Russian companion, but it's all good. He's amazing. I love being in a district with all my friends - the Zone Leaders who I already know, the Sister missionaries who I already know, Elder Derby and Elder Johnson, and now Elder Kuzmin. Tol'yatti is currently the single highest baptizing city in the entire Europe East area. I'm SO blessed and lucky to be here for another cycle (and who knows? Maybe another after that!) I was talking to a recently-returned Russian missionary who served in St. Petersburg, but lives in Saratov (he was in Tol'yatti to visit his grandmother, and came to our branch on Sunday). He said that the Samara mission is like Zion of the Europe East Area and the St. Petersburg mission is like Babylon. I heard all sorts of ridiculous stories, and I'm SO glad I don't have to put up with any kind of stupid drama or contention or anything here in the Samara mission. I LOVE it here.

So how are things going back home? We've still been having bipolar weather between super rainy and windy and super hot and sunny. Apparently this is kind of just how this area of Russia works until probably later in August... haha. Of course I know that it's freezing in the winter, but part of me doesn't really believe it... like winter is just this myth that everyone talks about. A story. I bet that will be an interesting kick in the pants when I wake up and it's 40 below.

I don't really know what else to say. I love being a missionary. The church is true. Even when things go south with investigators sometimes, it's still the best work ever.

Woot.

Elder Broekhuijsen