Thanksgiving in Russia

Sounds like Andrew had a great Thanksgiving.  Hope you all did too!  Here's what Elder Broekhuijsen had to say this morning…

It's pretty cold down here in Samara. On exchanges with the Avrora Office Elders this week, we had a lot of meetings fall through, so I spent a good two hours on the street with Elder Long (Elder Johnson's [<-- that's Melissa's friend!] companion from the MTC), just contacting. Man it was chilly. Found out later that day from a member that it was -16 Celcius. So we're not hitting -40 yet, but we're on the way. It was cold enough to finally get the cool "breath freezing on your scarf and eyebrows" effect. Luckily, my coat and thermal stuff weren't phased at all, and my hands stayed in my pockets unless I was giving someone an invitation to church or a Book of Mormon.

We also had exchanges with assistants this week. I got to spend a night with Elder Morris out on the streets. He's such an awesome missionary, I was so lucky to serve with him. And I'm way pumped to get to see him and work closely with him as long as he's assistant and I'm zone leader here, which will most likely be a minimum of one more cycle after this transfer is over.

Happy Birthday Mom! I know it's not yet, but it's soon! I love you! I'll probably find a day to send down a big ol' package of Christmas and Birthday stuff for everyone. I don't have a ton of money to spend on it, but there are certain things here that are cheaper and better here than in America. One of them starts with a 'C' and ends with "hocolate." 

We had Thanksgiving Dinner with the whole district and the office couple and President and Sister Sartori on Wednesday! It was insanely delicious and SO much fun. I haven't eaten that well since before my mission. It really was a fantastic day to think about all the billions and billions of things I have to be grateful for. I remember having a hard time thinking of stuff to write in the Thankful Turkey guy back at home. Man. I guess I was a pretty stinking ungrateful kid.  [Editor's note:  Not true, but still the kind of thing a parent appreciates hearing on occasion!]   :-) 

Elder Wood and I found a really awesome elect man named J* from Georgia on the streets yesterday. He believes in God SO strongly, but he's not real satisfied with religion, especially in Russia.  He wrote his dissertation on Religions of the World back in the Soviet Union times, and told us some stories about how he had to be really sneaky to get his hands on books about religion at all (including one story where he bribed a librarian to let him see the religion books by giving her expensive chocolate). There was also one about how he tricked his professor into writing him a note so he would have permission to get into the restricted section of the library. Madam Pince almost didn't let him in, but in the end of the day, he didn't have to bust out the invisibility cloak. Okay, I made that last one up.

Anyway. Other than that, not a whole lot out of the ordinary going on. I'm loving my mission more than ever. I'm happy to hear there's some sick nasty computer-construct-age going down in the Broekhuijsen house. If I had heard about that my first cycle in the field... oh, man. Distractions. But thankfully, I've gotten past that phase of my mission. Seriously, I'm really glad I don't care about that stuff very much right now. It's not that I won't be interested in it again when I get home, but God has changed my brain somehow. I can just turn off the part of it that cares about my old hobbies for the most part. It's really a huge blessing. 

Speaking of old hobbies (I leave the "caring about old hobbies" part of my brain on on P-days.) :D  Elder Wood Senior (the husband in the office couple... yeah, names are confusing, I know) is a really good photographer, turns out, AND he highly enjoys pen turning. I see  some cool hanging out with him, me and Dad some day in the future. I'll have to make sure to get his contact information before whichever one of us goes home first actually goes home. 

Okay. Well have a wonderful week! 

Happy Thanksgiving/Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday Mom!

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen