No, I wasn't up at 4:15 this morning reading Andrew's email… Whatever makes you think that? :-) Think how much I could get done if I had a missionary email coming each day of the week! I suppose then I might not treasure them quite so much. Anyway, here's the latest from Elder Broekhuijsen.
Oh my goodness! I can't believe how awesome your week was! That's insanely amazing! I'm so happy Dad found an amazing new job, that my long-lost SD card showed up, and that everything is just going awesome! I am SOOOO pumped about the Provo Tabernacle being restored into a temple. I seriously cannot believe that news. That is a better solution than I could have possibly dreamed of. Seriously. Now I can say I've SUNG UNDER MACK WILBERG IN A TEMPLE! That is going to be my favorite building in all of Utah, except maybe our house.
We had a pretty amazing week too. It's gotten cold. It's constantly raining and there's a nice biting wind all the time. So we're buying coats today. We have a member who has some hookups in Old City, so we're heading down there once we finish here sending emails.
We had a miraculous evening on Saturday. The sisters in the district (Sister Ostopchuk and Sister Lednyova, two natives) wanted to do kind of a low-key musical evening thing with some investigators, because they had a brand new investigator named C* who plays guitar and apparently sings in English. I was kind of iffy about it, but they invited us and I figured, eh, why not? I honestly was kind of scared it would be a flop and just be this weird awkward thing with like 4 missionaries and 1 or two investigators and a guitar. But we invited a bunch of investigators and members and stuff, and it just went awesome somehow. First off, C* sings these awesome folksy songs in English with a deep alto voice and a very thick Russian accent. I WILL be finding a way to get a video of that home. Don't worry. She's awesome though. Then we sang a bunch of hymns, other stuff, I sang "Let it Be" to the DELIGHT of all the 16-21 year old female church members who were in attendance (I am such a good missionary). No, I'm kidding. I did sing it though, and then we ended off the night with a lovely rendition of "I Know that My Redeemer Lives." Our investigator V*, the MoTab fan was there. He's an awesome baritone and loves the hymns. He was SO excited that we had that hymn in Russian. It's his favorite song he says. We're going to hook him up with a copy of the hymnbook in Russian. He also spontaneously decided that he was going to invite his whole family to come see General Conference with him. Yes!
We have another investigator who approached us on the street speaking English and asking if we are English teachers (an impression that a lot of previous missionaries left behind when there was English club in our mission). We met with him and he's actually super awesome. So we invited him (his name is Vl*, btw) to this evening too, and I was kind of worried he didn't like it much because he was really quiet and didn't want to sing. But the next day in Fast & Testimony meeting, we had another series of miracles. First off, C* came to church and bore her testimony that she felt so much peace at our music thing last night, and that she felt like God had strengthened her enough to come to church today and feel that peace again... (this like 3 days after she first met missionaries). Then A*, a member, got up and bore his testimony, talking about how APPARENTLY Vl* approached him on Saturday night before heading home and asked him what the deal was about this place. Questions like "why is everyone so happy?" "Why is this place so peaceful?" and "What made you want to choose this life in the church?" and finally, "How can I learn more about this?" A* told him straight up: "meet with the missionaries and listen to what they have to say." Vl* was like. "Okay. I'm down." We have another meeting with him and his mother tomorrow night at 8:00.
October is going to be the most miraculous month to this point on my mission. I'm loving it here. Miracles are everywhere. Tracting is really really fun here. People are weird. We had a girl talk to us for a minute through the door, and then when she found out we were missionaries, she went silent. We asked her "Are you still there?" And she said "Nobody is home!" and slammed the door. What the heck? I laughed so hard about that for like 15 minutes. Man. She sure fooled me, I thought someone was home the whole time.
So General Conference for us is next week. I'm so pumped.
I'm running out of time, but I love you all! I can't express the happiness I feel when I look at all the blessings that are raining down on me, our mission, my family, life in general. I love it. I thank the Lord every day for my mission.
Have an awesome week! Keep me posted!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
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