Andrew was in rare form when he wrote this email - his personality really comes shining through - he was definitely in a good mood! (Which, of course, is music to this mom's ears.)
Hello family and friends!
I feel a little guilty for having such a fantastic week while Melissa had such a terrible one. [Editor's note: Andrew gets his sister's emails a week late because of the time zone difference - so he is actually referring to her email from last week.] But I guess that's nothing to feel guilty about. Just take this in the spirit of "Elder Broekhuijsen rejoicing over his blessings" rather than "Elder Broekhuijsen bragging about how easy his mission is," okay?
First off. We went on exchanges with the elders in Penza this week. Penza is a lovely little city (seems really "village"-ish even though the population is, of course, way the heck higher than pretty much any city in Utah) where they make delicious Kvass. I actually didn't drink any Kvass in Penza, but I've had Penza brand Kvass in New City before and it beats all others, hands down. Just a fun fact.
Another fun fact about Penza: Elder Swartz is serving there right now! I got to hang out with him and do missionary work for three full days! Can anyone think of something awesomer than doing missionary work for three days with someone who has been one of your best friends since quite a while before the mission? I submit that there are not many things awesomer at all. By the way, Elder Swartz is TEARING IT UP, for those who were curious. The senior Assistant to the President (Elder Hale) said that if the whole mission was doing things po-Swartz-omu (ugh. This translates roughly as "according to the Swartz," but makes approximately 382% more sense in Russian than it does translated into English), we would all be winning. So that should say something, considering he's on his second transfer in Russia.
Final fun fact about Penza (you thought I was going to take advantage of all that automatic alliteration as always, but I didn't): I respect it too much. As we were taking a taxi back to the train station (fun Russian word for train station: Zhelezhnadorozhney Vokzal), I caught a glimpse of a store that just had a giant Canon logo on it and nothing else. As I was basking in the awesomeness of a camera store in Russia that preferred Canon, I happened to look over to the left and see in passing, a bright white Apple logo on another store, shining through the night like a bright beacon of truth directly to my own retinas. I agree, Penza. I agree.
So, something I don't remember if I've mentioned before or not: we eat pancakes ALL THE TIME here. We made some really beastly large ones in Penza, and we have a specially-formed pancake griddle in Bezimanski where I live, and lots of maple extract to go around. And Elder Wood happens to be a pro pancake chef. Pancakes are good.
Our investigator E* is getting baptized on the 19th! I sat by her in Sacrament meeting yesterday and they announced it and had her stand up and everything. She's so excited. She has quit drinking tea and coffee and basically ostracized herself from her group of bad-influence friends and replaced them with good-influence friends instead, and is so awesome.
This week in Elder Broekhuijsen's Russian Language Study, I'm focusing on numbers. Numbers are weird because they're kind of like an adjective, and kind of like a verb, and kind of like an animate thing, depending on what you're saying, and kind of inanimate, and there's four possible genders for some of them, and all of them have six possible case-endings times however many genders. What this boils down to is that there are 24 ways to say the number "one" depending on what role it plays in the sentence. Not long ago, I would have complained about this and said, "English figured out how to function without having more than one way to say the number "one." What gives, Russian?" But now, I'm pumped. I'm owning Russian. I have Russian in a headlock right now and I'm cutting off its circulation. It's kind of like Nephi when he grabbed Zoram. He's like, "I was a pretty big dude, so I grabbed him, but I guess yeah I also got some strength from the Lord." I feel like the Lord is helping me SO much with the language right now. I'm not sure why, to be honest. But I'll take it. Fun fact about how you can say 200 like this in Russian: "Dvoomya-stami." You can.
This morning, I was so tired. I kneeled down at my desk to pray and start personal study, but instead I just started counting in my head. I got all the way up to 60 before I was like, "Hey wait. This isn't why I kneeled down. Something isn't right here..." and then I figured it out. So there you go.
So I'm not going to attempt to send pictures on this dinosaur computer (Beige-a-saurus Rex, I believe), and I printed everyone else's emails off instead of using email time to read them, so I still have some time. Therefore, I'll give you a rundown of the Samara Zone so you can understand a little better what's the deal.
There are four cities in the Samara Zone: Samara itself, Orenburg, Penza, and Novokuybyshevsk (say that one five times fast. Or one time. At all.) In Samara we have one district, that includes the Bezimansky Elders (us), the Bezimansky Sisters, the Avrora Elders (The district leader is one of them, and they are also the office elders), the Avrora Sisters, the other Avrora Elders (aka the Assistants), and actually the Novokuybyshevsk Elders (who are baptizing two full families and another guy named N* next Saturday).
In Orenburg there is one companionship. Orenburg is like a 12 hour train ride east, and also TECHNICALLY IN ASIA! I can't wait to go there so I can say I've been on three continents. It's the only city in the mission where the time zone is off; it's exactly 12 hours ahead of Utah, while the rest of the mission is 10. Orenburg is its own district, and the companionship there contains the district leader.
Penza is roughly an eight-hour train ride from Samara, so they just do it overnight because it's really easy to sleep on trains (you get a bed). In Penza there are normally three companionships: Two sets of Penza Elders (of which one includes the district leader) and one set of sisters. But right now there's an odd number of Elders in the mission, and we weren't able to find a member of the church here who could serve a short-term mission for this cycle, so there's a threesome (I mean tripanionship) of Elders and a regular companionship of sisters there now. By the way, one of those sisters is Sister Callister, who is from Alpine or Highland and knows Melissa. What the random? She seems vaguely familiar to me, but I don't remember ever talking to her.
Fun fact about trains: They are a blast. But nobody will sell you chocolate frogs.
Anyway. That's about all I had to write about this week. I love you all. I hope things pick up for you soon Melissa. Sometimes the Lord has to teach us patience. Right now is an opportunity for you to get REALLY REALLY good at being patient, nothing more. Why not take it?
So. Hopefully that email didn't display too much ADHD on my part. Sorry I'm still pretty much the worst at answering questions people have. I don't remember them really and I get really focused on just writing what I remember from the week when my hour is ticking down.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
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