Wahoo! Melissa is going into the MTC day after tomorrow? What the deuce?
Well congratulations! I'm so pumped you're going to be a missionary! Everyone do your best to end the "crying and being sad that Melissa is gone" phase ASAP because then it just gets all awesome and stuff. And you only have to be there for 3 weeks, which is barely long enough to being to tire of the things that aren't so fun.
Anyway, that's enough advice.
So. L* isn't baptized yet. He wanted his family to go to church down in Brazzaville, Congo, to make sure they weren't against the idea of him getting baptized. So far they're not, but he doesn't want to feel rushed. We're hoping for Wednesday. L* is amazing. He believes it's all true; he's reading the Book of Mormon a TON (in French now!) and he's ready to go, so I'll let you know how things go with him. But V* got baptized in Engles on Tuesday! He's amazing. He went from being one of the saddest people I had ever met to being one of the happiest people I know. He's completely quit smoking, and appears to be having no problems with temptation. He is officially engaged to his "wife," and they are waiting for their marriage date so that they can move back in together on September 28th. His son is going to be baptized within a week after he returns from a camping trip he's on. His wife is going to be baptized as soon as the elders in Engels finish teaching her everything. His whole family will be going through the temple before I'm even done with my mission. I LOVE this kind of story. BTW, V* loves us. He's the nicest guy around. He always wants Elder Morris and I to come down to Engels and have dinner with him or something.
It's been insane crazy crunch time for the last week, and there are still two days left of insane crazy crunch time. I'll definitely make time to pray for Melissa on Wednesday though. I should even be able to time it so that I can be praying around the same time she's going in.
It's going to be an unbelievable month. President Sartori is going to a Mission Presidents' Seminar and is expected to speak... Everything points to September just being absolutely phenomenal.
I love my mission. Whenever I'm focused on the work and doing my absolute best, I always feel good about my mission, even when I'm really stressed about about the Zone or exhausted from a hard day's work, or running away from drunk people in my Elder Derby nametag. Someone tell him I'm wearing his nametag, BTW. He'll think that's funny.
I'm glad you got those pictures; I guess the first time it didn't go through, so I told Sister K* it didn't work and gave her your email addresses again, as well as Joshua's. I guess it worked this time. She comes up to us like every other week before church starts and says "Oh, your family must be missing you so bad. It's time to send them another picture, I think." As far as the bandaged-up thumb, that's just a covering I put on. I had a couple of warts on my hand there and I kept hearing about this Russian wart stuff called "Super Chistityela" (which means "Super Clean Body"). So I picked some up; it was only 13 rubles in one of the little pharmacies that are all over everywhere. It's the most terrifying chemical I've ever encountered. In about two minutes, one application turned my warts into these awful looking craters. So, good news is the warts are gone. Bad news is my hand looks horrendous. But it will heal over in a few weeks. So no big deal.
Anyway, that's about it for news this week. One more cool story: we had a random babooshka come up to us while we were heading home one night and was like, "Hey, do you kids want some apples?" We were like, "...okay." So she loaded us up with like 10 kilgrams of apples. SO MANY OF THEM. And she also gave us a big ol' bundle of herbal tea she grew, which is actually way good; we've been drinking it all week. So today, we're making Borscht, and some sort of ridiculous quantity of apple crisp. It will be a success.
Okay. Well I'm out of time. Love you all! Have an amazing week! Don't be sad for a second about Melissa going into the MTC! She's about to do the best thing she's ever done! It's so much fun! Yeah there are some adjustment to make, but you get through them and then it's the best thing ever!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
It's been an eventful week. Today I'm trying a new approach where I just print off your emails and read them throughout the day and week so I have more time to write. Because there's a LOT to write around here.
Let's start things off with the epically awesome story of the week. It happened last night. My first REAL "incident." We were heading home from some emergency splits in Solnechney (another area). We spent all day down there because the elders there needed some help setting one more August baptismal date. It was about 8:00 or so and starting to get pretty dark. So we walked down to the general viscinity of the bus stop and asked a guy where the actual stop was because neither of us know that area particularly well. It quickly became apparent that he was both drunk, and inexplicably angry at us. He started yelling stuff at us. It was Russian, and presumably curse words because I didn't understand them (I have a goal to come home from Russia without knowing any such words). So as is the rule, we just started walking away. Of course, he started following us. So we sped up a little but he was still following us. We happened to locate the bus stop while he followed us through a park, and saw our bus pull up. So we started booking it to the bus, figuring we'd lose the drunk guy and head out. Well for a drunk guy he could run pretty fast. He tried to tackle me but basically missed and kinda face planted in the dirt. So we kept going and hopped on the bus and then looked back to see that he was back up and after us again. Before the doors closed on the bus, he got on and grabbed my companion. So we all together kinda shuffled up to the front. We kept saying, "Hey, somebody help us. This drunk guy is attacking us, we didn't do anything. Someone help us out." Meanwhile he's kind of like open-hand slapping my companion on the head and just kind of roughing him up. Everyone on the bus just kind of stared at us, so Elder Morris went up to the front doors and started trying to disengage this guy from him and get him off the bus. Anyway he lets go of him and starts on me. He grabs my throat and tries to throw me off the bus, so I figured I might as well take him with me. So we both fall out of the bus and I hop back on while he drunkenly tries to get up again. When he's standing again he for some reason gets really fixated on my nametag. He's like, "What the heck is this?" and grabs my entire shirt pocket and just rips it off and gets back on the bus again. So I bend down and start picking up all my stuff that fell out of my pocket, and the bus driver finally just is like, "Hey, get outta here," and pushes him off the bus again and shuts the door. Unfortunately, my nametag fell out of the bus. So the only nametag I have now is one that Elder Derby gave me before he went home that he had extra. So until the new tags I ordered get in, I'm Elder Derby. Cool!
Anyway. That was the cool story of the week. No need to worry about us. No harm done, not even a scratch. The Lord is absolutely protecting us. Satan right now is seeing how much good the missionaries are doing, particularly in Saratov. Saratov is on the absolute BRINK of getting a stake. And there is currently already a team of nine people searching out a spot of land for the church to buy and build a temple complex with a temple, a stake center, and a guest house. It's really freaking Satan out, and he knows that he stands NO CHANCE against God's power. So he keeps trying to scare us out of here by sending drunk guys after us and stuff like that. There have been record numbers of "incidents" in the Zone in the last two weeks. The good news is that the police here are starting to take us seriously now that we are submitting 3 or 4 cases a week through all the right legal channels. The other good news is that if Satan's flipping out, it means we're almost there. And as long as we're following the rules and not doing anything to provoke people when they get aggressive, the Lord is keeping us 100% safe. There have not been any incident injuries in the Zone for nearly a year, and that one only happened because the elders involved started fighting back (it was 6 against 2, so that didn't go so well). It's been insane. Elder Fearn, one of the district leaders here had a guy straight up wind up and just deck him in the face recently. He said he felt the impact, and it was really really hard, but he felt no pain and had no visible marks or swelling or repercussions at all from the hit. We're immune to the attacks of those who are in opposition to the kingdom of God. And it gets me pumped up.
In other news, L* is straight on track for baptism Saturday. V* actually moved back home to Engels (the city accross the Volga from Saratov, and another area in our Zone), but not before we set his baptismal date for tomorrow. That baptism will go through as well, although it will be the Engels elders who get to baptize him. V*'s son is also ready to be baptized, but is out of town this week, so will likely be baptized at the beginning of September instead. And miraculously, V*'s alcoholic wife has expressed interest in the church. She will likely be baptized in September or October, fixing all the family problems going on there and adding an entire family to the fantastic branch in Engels. There are miracles popping up around the Zone as fast as we can pray for them. Baptisms are coming out of the blue from mysterious sources. We found a hostel full of African Christian students who are interested in meeting with us and coming to church. Our mission found 158 new investigators last week. Everyone is so full of energy and the Lord is blessing us beyond our wildest dreams. The work is exhausting, but it's the best work I've ever done. What is more rewarding than watching people's problems dissolve as they integrate the Gospel into their lives, and then seeing the joy on their faces as they emerge out of the font, 100% clean? The investigators we're finding are better people than I am. The members here are 200% as strong as I was before my mission.
We had the Assistants over for splits last week and they taught me all sorts of things about administrating a Zone, finding people on the street, etc. The whole mission is full of faith that we're going to hit our goals this year. We're working harder than we ever have, and our success is off the charts.
And in not so many years down the road (possibly as few as two), I'm going to be sitting somewhere watching general conference, and President Monson is going to stand up at the pulpit and start announcing new temples. And he's going to say "Saratov, Russia." And I don't even know what I'm going to do. Take a victory lap around the block or something. I'm SO priviliged to be here right at the time where this mission completely just turned into gold and started baptizing left and right and bettering the lives of all people here. This is the part of God's plan for Russia where it turns from an awesome mission that is tough and doesn't see a lot of "success" (depending on how you define that word) into a mission that is popping up new stakes and getting temples built and stuff. I really think the first temple in Russia will be in Saratov. And I get to be a Zone Leader there while we're making the final push to get a stake here instead of a district. Russia is changing. It's becoming the next Brazil. I get to be here to witness and take part in that shift. I'm SO grateful for that opportunity.
I know this church is true. Nothing can ever change that. And no matter how many people who don't understand why we're here try to stop us, with words or with fists, I will keep spending every ounce of energy I have furthering the work of the Lord in this country and among this amazing people. And the only thing Satan can do is cry because his power is waning insanely quickly here. It's the Lord's turn to have all the influence in Russia.
I love you all. I'll hopefully have time to write some letters today to those of you who have been so faithful about writing me letters and DearElders, as long as we don't spend too long doing the conference call we want to do to pump up the Zone for the last week of August. I'm so thankful for your prayers and support. I feel it every day here when I somehow do things that my body and my brain can't do on their own.
Have an awesome week! I'm so excited for Melissa! I'll be praying for her! And I'll be sure to write her an email next week right before she goes into the MTC! Craziness!
Love,
Elder Derby
So we're having some really awesome success here. L* is doing awesome. He is such a good man. He is sensitive to the Spirit. And he has such love and respect for Jesus Christ, it's awesome to see that in him. So far, he's right on track.
Our other baptismal date is for a man who was sent to us by God. His name is V*. His life has been tough lately and it's REALLY humbled him. He is currently living with his cousin, who is a rock solid member in our branch. We met with him and talked about the Restoration of the gospel. He accepted everything and committed to reading the Book of Mormon and praying to find out if it was true, and if Joseph Smith was really a prophet. Then we began talking about faith. Important note: this entire meeting was out on a patio, and they had cut up a watermelon for us all to eat while we talked. V* stopped me and said, "You want to know what faith is? I'll tell you what faith is. Faith is looking at this tiny seed, and believing that if you put it in the ground, you'll get a watermelon." Needless to say, we excitedly assigned him Alma 32 for that night's reading :D We met with him again yesterday after church. He thanked me profusely for giving him that chapter to read, and said it blew his mind. He said that for some reason on our first meeting, he really just felt for some reason like he should give me a watermelon seed, and couldn't explain why he felt that way. It was awesome. The man is golden. He said during third hour of church, "Man. I feel so good when I'm here. I wish I had already quit smoking by now so I could just get baptized like today." His son, I*, is also totally ready, but we haven't been able to extend him a date yet. I'll keep you updated here! I love it when you just KNOW that you've found one of the people that God has prepared for you. I love V* and L* so much, they're just rock-solid people. I often feel like members here and even investigators are better people than I am. That's one of the ways I know that the Lord has prepared them to receive the Gospel.
On some more... interesting... news. Saratov is definitely a rougher place to live than Tol'yatti. I never once, in 12 weeks in Tol'yatti, had a problem with a drunk person who was angry, or a punk kid who wanted to fight. But already, two weeks in here we've had some close shaves. A drunk guy stopped us and started yelling at us about how our church is ruining Russia. While Elder Morris was on splits with one of the brand new missionaries who got here two weeks ago in Zavodskoy (an area in the zone), the new missionary, Elder Elwood, walked up to a guy and said "Hello." Without a word, the guy pounded him in the face with his elbow. We also had a guy a couple of nights ago start yelling at us. So we left and stopped trying to talk to him, and he kicked me on my way out. He was being girly about it so it wasn't a big deal, but it is interesting to see the differences between here and New City. This is where the REAL adventures happen :)
Anyway. That's about it for now. Things are going really well. I'm loving the mission!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
P.S. Got a haircut last week after email. The lady didn't listen to a word I said about how I wanted my hair. Well, no. She listened, and then told me that that would look stupid and she would do something better. Then she stopped listening when I began to protest. Well the popular hairstyle around here is really short, maybe 3 or 4 millimeters all around, except really long bangs. So I definitely have the "buzz cut with bangs that were really long but then got hacked off by scissors at my house a week ago" look going on right now. It's a good one.
It has actually been a ridiculously awesome week. I'm in the Volzhsky area of Saratov (Saratov is the city), and actually it hasn't been too hot at all recently... actually overcast most of the week. Also our apartment has AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!! so inside is always a lovely temperature. We actually went to Samara this week for Zone Leader Council, which is held at the beginning of each month. It was an amazing experience. We discussed problems each Zone has, and how to resolve them.
It's amazing to see how the Lord's organization works. As Zone Leaders, the president has told us that we need to spend 70% of our focus and effort planning and working for the Zone, and 30% on our own areas. Yet, we are still expected to set examples for the rest of the zone by having really really strong areas with lots of success. So the Lord provides miracles for us that make up for the time we can't spend working in our own areas. For example, my first real day in Saratov (Tuesday), we went contacting on the street trying to find our one new investigator (each companionship in the mission is expected to find one new investigator each day). The third person we talked to was a really awesome guy from Congo. He speaks French, some African language that I don't remember the name of, English and Russian. So we have been teaching him in English. He is the most humble, good man ever, and he is going to be baptized in August. He has this super-sensitivity to the Spirit, and can really tell when it's talking to him. His name is L*.
I guess at this point my main thoughts on being a zone leader are that it's really really tough and a TON of work and stress, but it's also a blast. In the Saratov Zone, we have three districts, and each district has three companionships. Four of our companionships have missionaries that got here on Tuesday from the MTC, completely green. And they are all super stars. One of them studied Russian for three years before he got his call, so he is already nearly fluent. The other three are just insanely hard workers with tons of faith and they are finding miraculously. We had a baptism yesterday even in our Zone, and two other baptisms in other zones in the mission. I really enjoy how much interaction I get to have with other missionaries on a consistent basis. In the month of July, our mission baptized a record-shattering 20 people. At Zone Leader Council, we discussed how this is the beginning of a new era for the Russia Samara mission. Almost all of the leadership now is new missionaries who have been on a mission for 6 months or less. After one more group of missionaries coming in in September (including Elder SWARTZ), there are no major changes in the complement of the entire mission for the entire year of 2012. It's a perfect storm to just absolutely blow the mission up with success. The Lord has a huge plan, and it's a lot easier to see it in its entirety (or more so, anyway) when you are coordinating a third of the mission all day long.
The members here are fantastic. A good number of them speak pretty decent English, actually, which is interesting. Many of them are among the very first people who were ever baptized in Russia. They are kind of the hard core of super solid members here as they have been members for around 20 years.
Life is crazy and I'm busy all the time, but I also feel more blessed than I ever have before. This kind of stress and work was exactly what I hated so much before my mission, and I was terrible at getting things done. But because there is absolutely no way I could do this without the Lord helping me, it's very evident that he's basically just holding me up as this deluge of work and responsibility washes over me. And I'm learning at rapid pace just how to be a Zone Leader in general.
Okay. I love you all! I'm cutting this one short because we gotta get out of this place and take care of some stuff today.
Love from,
Elder Broekhuijsen
WHOA!
Okay. I've got like 40 minutes or so to write. This week was absolutely insane, so we'll see how much I can pack in.VISA TRIP: Awesome awesome awesome. I could spend 40 minutes typing about this alone. So just know that when I get home or when I get a phone call or something, I will have an awesome, really long story to tell about my first ever visa trip. But the readers' digest version goes a little something like this: We got up at 1:30 AM and took a taxi to the Samara airport. Our plane was scheduled to take off at 5:30, so we just kind of chilled in the terminal for a couple of hours and then got in line to board. Turns out they sold our tickets. Evidently standing in line at 4:50 (40 minutes early) doesn't count as being 40 minutes early; because they kept saying "No, you were 35 minutes early, it was cool for us to sell your seats). Anyway, somehow, miraculously, when they called straight to the plane, they were like "Oh yeah, we have 8 seats left). There were 7 of us. So that worked out. Then we flew to Kiev and couldn't find the taxi that was supposed to be standing there in the terminal holding a sign that said "LDS Church." We eventually found him, but the mission cards weren't working in the ATM. So I busted out the personal card and started trying to withdraw money. I got 500 Griven (somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 I think) to pay for the taxi, and we got things figured out and departed for the temple. While sitting on the taxi, we found a scrunched up sign in the back seat that said "LSD Church." :D Good effort, Ukraine.So we got to the temple and stopped by the mission office, which is on the temple grounds for the Kiev mission, as evidently they were supposed to be waiting there with our new visas. They were. So that was good. It was so nice to go through the temple again. Really helped remind me and ground me again.So then we went back to the airport after taking a few pictures outside the temple, flew to Moscow, and went to our next flight which was to depart at 9:30 to Samara, getting us home to Tol'yatti around 1:00 in the morning or so. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed about 90 minutes due to a big thunderstorm. Then finally they let us board, and we sat on the tarmac not doing anything for another 90 minutes before finally taking off. That put us in the Samara airport at around 2:30 or so. The taxi we took home to Tol'yatti totally ripped us off (1300 Rubles for a 1.5 hour drive), but we were beyond caring. So then we got home and slept until 11:00 the next morning (the rule is you get 8 hours of sleep after a visa trip regardless of regular scheduling).The only reason they got us up at 11:00 was because they wanted us to eat something before we started a fast from 12:00 to 12:00 to hit our mission goal of 25 baptisms in July. The fast was interesting. Not only was it the hardest fast that I've ever done, but I could already tell was was super dehydrated right at the beginning. But the mission saw so many miracles in that 24 hour period (going from 14 baptisms to 20, including one in Tol'yatti New City!) that I know it was the right choice to do it instead of making excuses about how I was an exception because of the visa trip. And let me tell you; that was the most delicious cup of Kool-Aid I have ever had at 12:00 the following day.So the big news: Transfers! You may have noticed that I am not writing this at the normal time. Roughly 8 hours after the normal time actually. Well, I'm sitting in the mission office in Samara right now, waiting until 9:00 or so when I'll head to the train station and take an overnight train out to the Volzhsky Area of Saratov to be a Zone Leader for the Saratov Zone. Saratov is one of the three zones in the mission (the other two being Tol'yatti and Samara). The entire city is right now on FIRE with success. So I'm SUPER lucky to get to be there as a ZL at this time. I'm blown away that I will be a ZL on my third transfer in the field. I'm not even particularly steady with the language yet, so this will be an interesting challenge.My companion is Elder Morris. I actually haven't met him yet, but I've heard good things. He'll be the senior companion as he has been Zone Leader in Saratov for a cycle already. Apparently the branch I will be attending (along with I think 2 or 3 other companionships of missionaries) has about 80 members, and they are awesome from everything I've heard. I'm so pumped to get to work there. I'll miss Elder Kuzmin, who is training a brand new missionary in Komsomolsky Area in Tol'yatti next cycle, but the future of the whole mission looks really bright right now.One more interesting story for today. The man who was baptized on Saturday was actually not our investigator (the sisters took him once they got transferred to Tol'yatti and we had to split our area with them). His name is A*. I got to take part in confirming him yesterday during church. He is the most humble man I've ever met. So awesome, and so prepared to accept the gospel. He does service all the time at this place where homeless people can come to take a shower for free, and we found him in the area book. Well this morning when the Assistants called and said I needed to find a member of the church to be my "companion" while I bussed up to Samara, Elder Kuzmin suggested that I call him. So I called him, and he was super excited to travel with me. I love this guy. He's the best. I'll miss a ton of the members in the Tol'yatti branches, but somehow I feel like I'll see them again.Anyway. That's about it. Killer delicious week. Next email will be full of all sorts of information about Saratov and Elder Morris and being a Zone Leader when you don't speak Russian. Woohoo!Love you all! The church is true!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
