Surprise!

Once upon a time on July 11, 2011, Elder Broekhuijsen wrote two letters and sent them separately to his home in Highland, along with 2 SD cards from his camera.  Letter #2 arrived in Highland on August 5th, but the SD card included with it was corrupted, much to the chagrin of his family.  Letter #1 did not arrive, and had been given up for lost when suddenly today it showed up in our mailbox!  And there was much rejoicing…

Happily, the SD card included with THIS letter came through safe and sound.  There were a few photos from Andrew's last 2 days in the MTC, along with this fun video, which I post here for your viewing and listening pleasure!

The song they are singing is called, "Prayer of the Children" and was written by Kurt Bestor.   Andrew sang it with both his jr. high and high school choirs.  I'm assuming that the other Elders singing with him may have also attended Timberline or Lone Peak - or possibly they just sang the song in their high school choir - it's a popular piece.

September 26, 2011 Update

Happy day!  It's great as always to hear from Elder Broekhuijsen.  Here's what he had to say this week.

Goodness. Is it already September 26th? What the heck. September wasn't even a month.

Anyway. Some awesome stuff this week, in uber-efficient list format:

-B*'s schedule miraculously getting cleaned up. He finished his treatments this week and will be coming to church starting next week. 

-I am a master of making Borch and Plove. You have to wait for like a year and a half before you get to try them, but I assure you they are delicious.

-The Lord is giving us ridiculously awesome miracles lately. Three separate times, we have had one or two people approach US on the street, speaking almost perfect ENGLISH, of all languages, and get interested and become new investigators. One of these people happened to be really involved with some sort of choir in this city. He told us all about how he loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, loves using Mack Wilberg arrangements with his choir, and then played us "The Morning Breaks" on his cell phone before we prayed with him. Yeah... he's coming to General Conference.

Speaking of General Conference, we get to see it! In English, even! It just gets broadcast out to the Komsomolsky branch building one week after you all get to see it. I'm so excited! We'll actually just be in the bishop's office there watching it in English online while the members watch the broadcast on a projector in Russian. But I can't wait. Unbelievable that this is already my second General Conference on my mission. Things are flying by in a lot of ways. It's insane that I'm even starting to come up on my year mark. I think about what I was doing one year ago though... filling out mission papers. So pretty ridiculous. Maybe the time has seemed slow for you, and of course I've had my share of slow days, weeks, and even months, but looking back on the mission so far as a whole, I can't believe how fast it's going by.

Anyway, it's been a great week. I'm excited to hear that the Cougs didn't decide to continue their failtastic trend while Vance and company were in town. I'm glad Melissa got to get out to the field on schedule even though sinuses are the worst part of the human body. I'm glad the weather is really starting to get cold. It's been ridiculously rainy here. To the point that we usually do tracting rather than street contacting. Yesterday we went tracting. The first door my companion ever knocked on his mission, he was told to go back to America. Haha. But we found a few people that were somewhat interested; we just need to follow up.

Kazan (another city in the zone that has two companionships in it) has had some miracles too. They had a man call them who said, "A couple of months ago a man gave me a Book of Mormon. I just finished reading it, and I believe it's true. When can we meet?" Later that same day, a DIFFERENT person called them and said, "I want to be baptized. When can we meet?" What the heck? I love when the Lord gives us crazy awesome miracles. Elder Kuzmin is looking to finish his mission with a bang by baptizing an entire family of five in his last week. We have our fair share of amazing investigators, and better yet, the branch is SO willing to help us with everything.

I'm so excited for Melissa to start having awesome experiences in the field. Be sure to put me on your list when you email home, Melissa! I'm praying for you and I hope you have an awesome time out there in the land of Boston. Tell me about your trainer and your investigators and your area and stuff, okay?

I love you all! I love my mission! I'm amazed by how fast it all seems to be going! Have an amazing week; thank you all for everything! 

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen

Back to New City, Tol'yatti

Sounds like Elder Broekhuijsen, a.k.a. Andrew, is well and happy - which of course makes US very happy too! We sure appreciate all the friends and family members who write to him and keep him in their prayers - we know it means a lot to him. Here are some words from the man himself!

Wow! It's been a crazy week! First things first. I'm training!? My new companion is fresh out of the MTC; his name is Elder Lewis. He's from Brigham City, Utah, and he's awesome. I actually saw Elder Swartz while we were all getting our assignments in Samara. It was cool to catch up with him, and also really, really weird to see someone from "old life." Really, really, really weird. But he's in Penza, an area in the Samara Zone that has maybe the "best" branch in the mission. But I'm absolutely positive that Elder Lewis is the companion I'm supposed to have right now. President Sartori told me that he hadn't even finished his interview with Elder Lewis before he got a prompting to put him with me. So evidently, there is something that I need to learn from him, or vice versa, or both. Probably both.

He's crazy good at contacting. He's not afraid to talk to everyone with his broken Russian, and on numerous occasions I have just told him, "Okay. Go talk to that family. I'm not going to say a word." And he pulls it off. One time I was on the phone with the Zone Leaders discussing a baptismal candidate and he just stopped a guy without me even noticing or paying attention and got the guy's contact info and stuff. It was awesome.

New City is on fire! The branch is like emerging from a cocoon and becoming a family. It's turning into like a Utah ward. Nobody is talking about a stake in Tol'yatti yet because we still need quite a few more members before that's an option. But I think the idea is simmering in the back of some people's minds. And it's awesome. I love the members here so much. They're amazing.

Something I love about New City is that all the people are super nice! Or at least, compared to Saratov, everyone is nice. Nobody just gives you the silent treatment and blows past when you try to contact them. People listen to what you say. Even the punk kids are kind of cool. Or cool in that they don't want to beat us up, they just think we're awesome because we're from America and speak English. As a result of contacting without having to worry about avoiding certain areas or people, we found 7 new investigators in this short week that began Wednesday night. We have about 18 investigators right now that were just found on the street and didn't have a whole lot of interaction with us yet after that.

We also have a really awesome investigator with a baptismal date that we inherited with the area. His name is V* as well, ironically enough. He apparently asked the other missionaries that were here before we got here if he could be baptized because he understood and accepted everything so well. He's in the final stages of cancer treatments and it's looking like he'll make a full recovery. His date is for October 15th right now. We've only met with him once, but he was like hungry to know all the stuff he had to know before he could get baptized. He kept asking us more and more questions about commandments and we ended up teaching him quite a bit more than we planned for. It was awesome.

I can't believe how much of my mission has already gotten over. Being with a first-cycle missionary makes me realize how much I really have learned since I got here, especially with the really noticeable things like the language. It's weird... but I think I could say I'm fluent in Russian now and not be lying. I think that's really weird. I'm fluent in Russian. Obviously there's tons of ground to cover before I'm "satisfied" with my language skills, if such a thing exists. But I started a hardcore study regime of Modern Russian, which is the textbook that the BYU curriculum uses from what I understand. And the more I read, the more I realize that I already know like 90% of the stuff in there. It almost seems like it's mostly a matter of vocabulary at this point. But I'll keep studying just as hard. There are specific things I really want to work on and get good at while I'm still here, like translating, writing, reading (written Russian is quite different from spoken Russian), and my accent and pronunciation.

Anyway, I'm about out of time.  I love you all! Have an awesome day!

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen

Transfers!

Wow - those 6 week time periods between transfers seem to pass pretty quickly. Of course, you'll hear no complaints from ME about time passing too fast! BTW, thanks to all who have written to Elder Broekhuijsen. I know he really appreciates hearing from friends and family. So, keep up the good work! Okay, I know you didn't come to this blog to hear from me, so without further ado…here's Elder Broekhuijsen!

I have some big news. I got a call from President Sartori on Thursday night, and here's the verdict: I'm getting transferred back to New City in Tol'yatti to be a District Leader and train! Whoa! Wasn't expecting that at all! But I prayed really hard, especially at the beginning of my mission here in Russia that I would get to train Elder Swartz. Of course, I can't say specifically that I'll be training HIM, but I know the Lord answers prayers. As I type this, Elder Swartz is probably feeling vaguely guilty about being up past 10:30, and packing everything into two suitcases, desperately trying to stay under the weight limit. He'll be flying out in not too long, and arriving in Samara late tomorrow night (from my perspective). I'll be on a train back to Samara where I'll go through a "New Trainer Meeting" and then each trainee will be interviewed by president and assigned a trainer, then shipped off to our areas. That puts me in New City again Wednesday evening around 7:00. Of course, I'm ready to train whoever the Lord wants me to train. But I can't help but think how strange it is that I was put as a Zone Leader for just one transfer... I know the Lord has great plans for me.

So I'm going to miss Saratov. But It's okay. I love New City. After Zone Conference, (which went awesome, by the way), I've resolved to do a much better job of working with the members. The members and the missionaries in small branches like we have in Russia should be like one big family working for the same thing, all together. It shouldn't be us barely knowing the members but always asking them to do stuff like sit in on lessons with us. So I'm going to hit up relations with the members back in the New City branch right away. Ironically enough, Elder Kuzmin is going to be training for his last cycle in Schloozavoy, which is in my District. Cool!

At Zone Leader Council and Zone Conference, we had the privilege of hosting Elder Zwick of the 70 and President Schwitzer, our Europe East Area president (over all the missions in Russia, Ukraine, etc.). It was fantastic. Elder Zwick is a really amazing guy.

Got mail from a bunch of people when it came down from Samara at Zone Conference. Thanks for writing, everyone! I got DearElders from Elder Derby. I mean Gordy DerbyYates. And Sam Bunderson (although I have NOT gotten any regular letters from you, so apparently nobody sent them) and Kendra Nicholls. I also got a letter from you, Mom, and one from Grandma. Got a DearElder from John and Kimi, and Paula & fam. Everyone's on my list to write back to. :D And next transfer I should actually have time on P-day to do things like "write back to lettters" instead of spending all P-day doing Zone Planning and stuff. And for those wanting to send letters that are not one page, single sided through the pouch, you can mail them straight to the Bodnikov Street 95-1 address that should be on the blog.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers on my behalf. Some days they're the only thing still keeping me going. ;) No, I'm kidding, but I know they really do help. Prayer is ridiculously powerful. I never understood that until my mission.

Mom, Dad, you can rest easy while I'm in Tol'yatti. I never even met an angry drunk once while I was there. It's like the safest city in the mission except maybe Izhevsk or something.

I love you all! I'll do my best to get photos and letters home whenever I can find time! Have an awesome week everyone!

You rock!

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen

Nostalgic Photos

Elder Broekhuijsen finally remembered to take his flash drive with him when he went to send email this week. Since he hadn't done so before, he tried a little "experiment" and sent a few photos from way back when (6 months ago!) in the MTC. It's interesting to see how different he looks already… BTW, sorry that one of the pictures is sideways - I'm too much of a blogger rookie to know how to rotate it!

Here are his explanations of the various pictures.

Alright. Quick experiment. Let me know if these come through. They're all a bunch of old pictures from right before I left the MTC. One of our district, one of me with two of our teachers, one with all the Lone Peak kids we could find at my last devotional, and one out the window of the plane when we were chasing down the sunrise over Iceland. Oh, man. That was weird. It got all dark because the sun went down shortly after we flew out of Atlanta. Then we chased the sun down again as the time zones changed and my internal clock was freaking the heck out.

Anyway.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Labor Day Update

Happily, Labor Day is not a holiday in Russia, so Andrew was able to send us our weekly email. I'm hoping they don't have ANY Monday holidays there, as I would be depressed for a week if we didn't hear from him! Here's what he had to say this week.

Well we had a crazy last week of August in the mission, particularly in the Saratov Zone. I wanted to share one awesome miracle we experienced that I know God gave us because of a whole zone full of faith and prayers. V* was baptized recently as I already told you, and his wife has since become interested in the churh. V*'s son, I*, was also basically a shoe-in for baptism, but we didn't see how it would happen in August, as he was out of town until Saturday the 3rd. Well, we didn't see how, but we knew it was possible. We had every companionship in the Zone praying specifically for a miracle to get I* home and taught in time to be baptized on August 31st. For whatever reason, he came home early from his camping trip. Tuesday the 30th. I happened to be on splits in Engels that day, where they live, so Elder Lythgoe and I dropped by and taught a lesson about prayer and getting answers. We taught I* that God had already picked a day for him to be baptized, and that I* could find out by praying. We committed him to pray that night and ask God which day he should be baptized. The next day, Elder Morris was down there with I* and they had one more lesson with him. This was about 6:00 on the 31st. When they followed up on our commitment to pray, he said, "Yes, I prayed." They asked if he got an answer, and when he answered in the affirmative, they kind of tentatively asked, "Okay then... which day do you want to be baptized?" I* thought for a minute, and then said, "I think I need to be baptized today." A series of other things happened that prevented I* from being baptized until Friday. But God answered our prayers. He finished our faith, and we've started off September strong with two baptisms in the first week. We saw miracles left and right this last week and the last few days of August, but I think this is my favorite one. I* is 13 years old and already the most mature kid I know (sorry, Garrett). And we're expecting his mother, O*, to get baptized in September as well. That means I will still be on my mission when this family goes to the temple to be sealed for all time and eternity. I'm so excited for that day.

I'm glad you got the pictures from Sister Kozlenko. She is such a fantastic member, and such a nice lady. Expect more pictures from her, for sure. The sad part about the watermelon pictures was that we were still fasting when she took those. So we didn't actually get to eat any of the delicious watermelon. As far as the translations go of what she sent, it's definitely the "miss you" one. The Russian phrase to say "I miss you" literally translates as "I am bored according to you." The verb fills both roles. So don't worry. The last thing that will happen to me on my mission is "getting bored."

[Editor's note: We had told him that when we received the first batch of photos, Jerome used some online software to translate the captions of the photos. It came out saying something like, "We love you very much and miss." Melissa used a different translator and got, "We love you and we are bored." Obviously, not all Russian translation software is created equal!]

Well this week we have transfers coming up. Already, Sister Kairys, a rock solid sister from Lithuania who was in the MTC with me has received hers. She'll be serving in Penza. I'm not expecting a transfer as generally Zone Leaders don't get assigned for one transfer and then dropped off the next. On the other hand though, there is a DESPERATE need for trainers in the mission. We have something like 10 missionaries going home, having finished their missions in one week, and we have another about 10 coming in fresh from the MTC, one of which is ELDER SWARTZ! I hope SO bad he gets put in Saratov... or at least that I get to see him somehow right when he comes in. I still can't believe sometimes that I'll get to serve with him for like a year and a half. I'll definitely let you know what goes down when he gets here.

Well that's about what I wanted to write this week. Since I have about 15 more minutes and I didn't forget my flash drive this week, I'll be hopefully sending a few photos home before I get off.

I love you all! Don't stress about Melissa not being home. She's exactly where she's supposed to be, and there's nothing sad about that. And pretty soon, before you know it, she'll be 6 months into her mission and I'll be halfway done and the time will just be flying by.

Melanie is pregnant,
Elder Broekhuijsen!

[Melanie is Andrew's cousin. We just let him know in our email to him this week that she is expecting, so apparently he thought it was good enough news to use it as a closing to his letter. He always has been an original…]

More Photos!

We received a few more photos from a nice woman in Russia who is good to the missionaries' families! It is great to see Elder Broekhuijsen's face! And it's nice to know he's still got plenty of personality!