Called to Serve: Double Update!

Hey everyone! Here are some portions from Andrew's latest e-mail home, and some pictures! We got our first snail mail from Andrew this past week, and he sent home some pictures. Now that we know the system works, hopefully we'll be getting some more pictures regularly.

Enjoy! (like last week, the Russians' names will be starred out for privacy)

Oh, man. I had some stories this week. First of all. I was on splits with Elder Derby on Wednesday, and at lunch, we were calling Potential Investigators to try and set up an appointment. There was a Uzebekistanian family who invited us over. She lived down in South New City (you'll notice looking at Google Maps that there's kind of a triangle spot in the upper-right, and a square in the lower-left of New City), so we had to take a bus for about 25 minutes or so to get there. We also called a member, Brother G*, to meet us there so he could sit in on the lesson (teaching with members present is highly encouraged). So we got there and walked into the apartment, and the Hazaikas (landladies... who basically sit on the first floor all day and watch the entrance so no drunks come in and sleep or something) was like... "Hey! What are you doing here?" We said we had a meeting with a family and gave her the name and apartment number. (The name of our investigator was T*). She was like, "That's not correct. There is not a T*living in this apartment." CT. Derby asked if we could just go up and check anyway because we were like 90% sure our address was right. She said "I'm telling you, there's nobody here named T*. Get out." So we left back onto the street and called this lady again. Her daughter who is like 16 or so answered and said that T* was coming home and would be there in 10 or 15 minutes, and meanwhile we should come up. And our address was definitely right. So as soon as we went back into the apartment building, not one, but TWO Hazaikas started yelling at us. It was like she went through Mitosis while we were outside. Two evil Babooshkas screaming at us all this stuff like "We said to get out! What are you doing back in here! We don't want Jehovah's Witnesses in this apartment!" We explained that we weren't J-Dubs, and that we had checked the address and it was correct. The whole time, they never stopped yelling. "No! No! Get out! You're not welcome here! You can't come in!" So CT. Derby was like, "Hey! She invited us up?" Nope. "We don't believe you! Get out of here!" It was getting pretty intense. So CT. Derby dials the number again and gives our phone to the evil Hazaikas. "Look! Ask them! They invited us up!" The daughter picks up and one of the evil grandmas starts grilling her while the other one continues to yell at us. "Who is this! Tell me right now, who is this?! What is your name? Who did you invite up to your apartment? What is your apartment number?" Apparently the daughter answered these questions exactly how we expected she would, because Evil Babooskha #1 immediately changes tack, realizing that it's really obvious she's wrong about everything. "For what? Why do you want to talk to the Mormons?" But she was yelling it all rude and stuff. CT. Derby got kind of mad and was like, "Hey! Don't be mean to her." And he grabbed the phone and hung up. The he was like, "Okay. They invited us up. We're going." And we started walking towards the lift. But the evil grandmas literally blocked the corridor to the lift and started yelling about how they were going to call the cops on us. "No, no, no! Get out, right now!" They were super jerks. Well the cops here don't like Mormons very much, and we figured if they showed up they would probably just automatically side with the Hazaikas. So we left. And sent our member home. And took a 25 minute bus ride back to our area of the city. It took me like 30 minutes to cool down. I was so angry. Not that I really cared that I had been wronged, but because here's this lovely family who wants to meet with the missionaries and hear our message, and these two evil babooshkas who don't know why we're here or anything just auto-rejected us and denied the family the chance to meet with us.

Anyway. We'll be meeting with them tonight. If the evil Babooshas are there again, we'll probably just call the family and ask them to come out and meet on a bench with us. But it should be an adventure either way.

Other than that... what's news that would be cool for people there to here? Oh! So basically every cat in this city (there are like 403287 of them) is pregnant. Except the ones that have already had kittens. They are EVERYWHERE. Unfortunately, most of the cats here have ringworm, so we're not supposed to touch them. Bummer.

Also, I finally got some mail this week. It appears that all of it came in the sack. There were a few DearElders from the beginning of May that had outdated info in them. Let me know if you get my letters, BTW. But for everyone else... DearElders DO come! Also I got a letter from Brynne dated 29.04.11 that evidently was addressed to the MTC, and then I'm guessing sent through the pouch, because there's only 1 American standard stamp on it, and it still got here. So pouch mail is going to be the cheapest option, and it's probably not really any slower than mailing directly to the mission office, since they just give us mail kind of "as they can." So like, when the Assistants come down to do exchanges with the Zone Leaders, we get whatever mail was in the office when they left.

Love you all! Love it here in Russia. We are probably going to have a baptism this coming Saturday, so I'll let you know if that goes through in a week. The church is true! God answers prayers!

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen