Merry Christmas 2012!

I was 87% sure that we wouldn't get email from our missionaries today, since it seemed likely that the places that they email from would be closed on Christmas Eve.  Happily that doesn't seem to be the case (at least in Russia!)

Hey family! 

How is everyone! I'm doing great. I'm going to start with the really important stuff first - the way things worked out, I need to do my call tomorrow night at 6:00pm, which I am 99.9% sure is 7:00am Utah time. So hopefully we don't get your Christmas started off too early ;) but with 6 missionaries in our branch and Christmas calls limited to the 25th this year because of transfer complications, that's the way the cookie crumbles.  [Editor's note:  That's okay Andrew - we're thinking it is probably worth it to get up at 7:00 a.m. to talk to our son who's been in Russia for the past 22 months!]  

So it's been a pretty eventful week. Lots of ups and downs. I guess I can start by saying that serving with Elder Christensen is pretty dang fun. He's very different from Elder Nielson, kind of a lot more straight-laced, but that's a good thing in many aspects. What's cool is that he's a really experienced and skilled teacher, so when we teach together it's really straight up 50/50 and really smooth teaching. Reminds me of teaching with Elder Langston a lot.

We had a bit of a heartbreak with N* and M*. The situation is a lot more complicated and personal than is good to explain in an email, but it totals up to: we won't be meeting with them anymore for at least a few weeks, which means there's about 0 chance of them getting baptized while I'm here. I guess that's a bummer, but maybe the Lord just needed me to give up my selfish desire for them to be "my awesome golden family that I baptized" and just be happy if they get baptized and I hear about it by email a few weeks later, from Utah. I'm not sure.

On the bright side, Elder Christensen and I have really focused in on finding a bunch of families to work with. Our area is filling up, and there have been miracles with some of our other investigators. K* is a 23 year old girl who was progressing pretty slow (she had a lot of meetings that were spent 75% on us trying to get the lesson on track and off of the topic of "America," or "our hobbies," or "English.") Well she came to church this week and hit it off really good with my brat-tan (Russian/Tajikistanian terminology meaning "brother/friend," or, "stranger that I want to sell shoes to at the marketplace") V*, who is a sick member here who is getting ready for a mission. They ended up just chilling together during all of 3rd hour, and then we had a lesson with them. I'm not exactly sure what V* told her or what happened during that hour, but suddenly she's taking this whole "maybe I do want to join this church and get baptized" thin about 384% more seriously. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and it went great. Now she's reading the Book of Mormon for reals and praying to find out if it's true. She also has begun making her mom pray with her before bed. Yeah baby! Go K*! 

We have a new sister in our district! Sister Young went down to Penza and Sister Clyde came up to... Russia. And she's lucky, because she got to come to Bezimianski, aka miracle central. She's pretty cool. Actually President Sartori has introduced some pretty strict SYL rules in the mission in the last week or so, and so, seeing as how she's been in the country for about 1.5 weeks, we haven't exactly been able to get to know each other that great in Russian, and there's not much English happening in my life anymore. So be looking forwards to me not remembering how to say anything on Skype tomorrow. But I bet she's cool. After all, she's a Russia Samara Mission sister. 

I decided what to spend my gift money from Grandma on and bought myself a spicy pair of European dress shoes today at the market (gosh I wish there was a halfway decent translation for the word "reenok." Saying "market" makes it sound like I went to get a pail of cream and say hi to Atticus, the town cobbler). They are in the traditional Russian/Tajikistanian style, which means really pointy and awesome, and they have fur on the inside and shiny black leather on the outside and instead of laces, zippers. I'm going to save them for special occasions. Can't wait to wow everyone with their glory at Zone Conference and ZLC. So thanks Grandma! If you were worried that my other shoes aren't holding up, worry no longer. I've been pretty faithful about switching them out and just in general taking care of them, and besides that, they're just really solid Ecco shoes, so they're still in almost perfect shape. I'll be wearing them after my mission, I think. I just wanted the Euro shoes because they'll go really well with my Palto, scarf, man purse (*ahem,* satchel), and well-trimmed toothbrush moustache (post-mission only). 

What else happened this week? Well, me and Elder Christensen bought some cookies from a little shop near N* and M*'s house, and they tasted like cigarette smoke. That was awesome. Also we went knocking an apartment complex, and this one guy cracked his door and a little orange kitten came shooting out, but nobody noticed, and he wasn't interested, so he closed the door. He was like, "We don't need your message about families!" And then we picked up his cat, and knocked again and it went a little something like this:

"What?!""Hey, your cat ran out while we were talking to you.""We don't need your cat!""No, you don't get it. Can you hear us through that door? This is your own cat.""We don't need our own cat!"*slam* 

So we named him Funkmaster Flex and he followed us around the rest of our knocking that night. 

Also last night a cool family let us in while we were knocking (Funkmaster Flex patiently waited outside, presumably listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire). The dad's name is Y* and mom's name is E*. They have a daughter who still lives with them because she's 11, and 2 kids who are moved out. So we have an appointment with them actually tonight at 8:00. Should be funtimes; they're pretty cool! 

Anyway. What else is there to say? Things are awesome here.  

Until next time! (which is tomorrow evening at 6:00pm for me) 

Love,  

Elder Broekhuijsen

P.S.  We have almost no snow on the ground here. It's super weird. And because of that (if everyone that we talk to on the streets is to be believed) it is a REALLY COLD winter. It's pretty bitter out there, especially if there's any kind of wind at all. We're doing just fine though in our huge coats, scarves, hats, and hoods. Man. Before my mission, my brain had never conceived of such cold temperatures ever being... felt... by my body before. It's nuts. I just had absolutely no imagination that you could feel that cold.

Another Day, Another Transfer

When I couldn't sleep at 3:00 this morning, I came up to check email and was pleasantly surprised to see this one had arrived from Andrew!  It didn't help me get to sleep, but it was very nice to hear from him.

I'll start off with the big news, because despite any efforts I might put forth to hide it at the bottom of the email, it would slow you down for approximately 2 seconds of scrolling (5 if you don't use the scroll wheel that's built into the mouse).

I'm staying! Elder Nielson, of course, is the new Assistant. I've known that since I was with Elder Morris, so no surprise there. Elder Langston, unfortunately, heads down to Saratov for his last transfer. Unfortunately for me, that is. It's been a year since I was more than a phone call away from Elder Langston. Dag, yo. But that's okay. We'll see each other at ZLC in a couple of weeks, and then... really there's only about a month after that. Jeez. I'm serving with Elder Christensen! Elder Christensen is one of the older missionaries in the mission; he's on his 12th cycle I think. So he's really in his prime with things like the language, experience with missionary work, etc. He's also been a zone leader for like... almost a year I think. So we're going to absolutely trash the place down here. I'm pumped to sprint to the finish line with someone who can keep up with me. Not that Elder Nielson couldn't, I guess. But in a way I'm glad that I'm not training for my last transfer. That's a blessing.

This week was pretty eventful. I had a Visa trip on Friday. So Elder Christensen (a different one, who will be in Novokuybyshevsk with Elder Swartz) and I got up at 2:30am to go pick up the two sisters in our group and get to the airport. I specifically set it up so that the taxi driver picking us up was a former investigator so that we could teach him a lesson during the 45-minute drive to the airport and start off the day right. The lesson didn't go that well (blame that on my teaching skills at 2:30 in the morning? dunno), so he's not a "new investigator," but he was a way nice guy and I think we'll meet with him again. Then we flew to Moscow, Kyiv, back to Moscow, and back to Samara. On the way back to Moscow from Kyiv, they busted out the lunch for everyone: weird spam stuff on a roll. Upon closer examination, I discovered that the mystery meat was ground goose liver. Yay! In the Vnukovo terminal we had about 2 hours after getting through all of security, etc., so we ate at Burger King. It wasn't even good. Waste of $10. Ha. Should have known. Then we got back into Samara at about 12:00 midnight or so. It was -18 degrees, and windy. I was wearing my lighter coat because I figured I wasn't going to be spending a lot of time outside. Ha. After a 30 minute search, we finally found our taxi, parked way out in the boonies and sleeping. [Editor's note:  I assume it was actually the taxi driver that was sleeping!]  Well, all's well that ends well. We got home okay around 1:15 and I got in a solid 8 hours of sleep. So that's it.

All the missionaries who are going home after April 2013 get 3-year Visas that Russia has just come out with, so all the other missionaries in my small group got those put in. They don't have to get a new visa until 2015, so that's pretty cool. Now their visa trips will be just to Rostov on a plane every six months, with only one passport, on a bus to the Ukraine border for like 20 minutes while they fill out a new migration card, and back down to Rostov and then back to Samara. That gives the assistants about 3,824 more hours each cycle to not spend writing Visa trip schedules!

We had a lesson with N* and M* in another attempt to get them to church (we've already taught them everything except the law of chastity, which we want to teach N* alone for the time being). They said they would come. Sunday morning we called, but M* decided that sleeping was more important than obeying God. Dang it... I guess I should be more understanding, seeing as how she's 10. But come on. It's not that hard to get up at 9:00 a.m.

Saturday we had transfer calls and then spent almost all day calling down travel plans and getting little details worked out with phones, etc. Sunday we went to church. I sprayed that Christmas juice you sent me all over the place again, just like last year. It was a hit. So thanks! Ooh! Also, Saturday we bought a Christmas tree. They were only about $20 for the tree and stand. I'll show you the picture sometime, but I don't have my camera with me even though I'm writing in the office today.

Anyway, I want to let you all know that I've got my head down in straight up charge position. I've only got 7 weeks left. Not a second to lose.

Thanks for everything!

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Knocking

I had great timing this morning - checked my email at 5:28 and saw this email from Andrew that had arrived at 5:26!  By the way, he doesn't mention the weather in his email, but Jerome checked the forecast for Samara, and they're having highs of around -10° this week!

Wasn't it like June 2011 not that long ago? I distinctly remember sitting in New City North, Tol'yatti, writing emails to you and typing June in the subject line. With Elder Kuzmin. Man. Good times.

Anyway, things here are going really awesome! We had a little bit of a disappointment with N* and M* - we tried really hard to get them to come to church on Sunday, and they committed, but then M*'s recurring eye infection came back on Friday. So we dropped by with cookies on Saturday night and M* wasn't feeling too bad, so we committed them to come, and on Sunday morning we dropped by to pick them up, and M* was sleeping and N* said no. So they can't be baptized this year, unfortunately, but I guess they'll be ready in January. With a little luck, I'll still be around :)

Really quick, before I forget about all the time zone things that are going on right now - things with Skyping home for Christmas are really crazy this year because transfers are like 1 week before Christmas, which means that nobody knows which area they will be serving in for Christmas until this coming Saturday night. For the time being, we have been directed to schedule our calls for Christmas day here. That means that, unless something changes (and I'll let you know next week), I'll be logging on to Skype at 7:00 pm on the 25th Samara time. I understand that the time difference is currently 11 hours due to daylight savings time, so that will be 8:00am on the 25th Highland time. If I did my math right. You'll want to check that one.

Anyway. I'm still burning hot until the very end. The Bezimianski Sisters, Sister Young and Sister Scoville, had a baptism on Saturday! A cute old lady named L*.  She's so nice. We're hoping to get a date set for the 29th with an investigator named T* whom I have never met. She was found and taught and has attended church twice in the Avrora branch by some other Elders, and they found out she lives in our area. So, cool.

We've put an emphasis on knocking lately in the mission as it's more effective when it's late and cold (few sober people on the streets). Man I've got a lot of good stories from knocking. Nothing makes you feel more like a missionary than trooping out of an apartment complex before the police arrive. :D Don't worry, we're completely legal. I just figure I have better things to do with my limited proselyting time than explain that to police officers when there are 3823049 other apartment complexes I can knock in at any given moment. We've also had a mentally deranged man scream at us for 5 straight minutes, after we closed the door on him and went on to the next floor (he told us to pass a veritable tapestry of Russian obscenities on to Obama, so if you see him this week, let him know), and one heavily-bearded guy who explained to us all about what's going to happen with the magnetic poles of the earth on December 21st, including an in-depth tangeant about Higgs Boson particles, however that's spelled, and what they have to do with righteous people gaining ablities that are uncannily Jedi-like in nature following the 21st. All the best mission stories come from knocking.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet around here. Not really, because missionary life is never quiet, and shouldn't be. But you know.

Saturday is transfer calls. Pray for me to stay in Bezi North.

Talk to you on the 25th.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Идёт колбаса

Receiving email from our favorite "Russionary" is always such a great way to start off the work week!  He sounds great!

First off, of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I hope your birthday was magical. I didn't send you anything. Sorry. Sending a package entails lots and lots of time wasted standing in line at various post offices for hours only to be denied services for no really good reason (oh yeah, the lady who ties the brown string on the packages is on vacation until July, sorry). So I'm not going to try to send anything. I'll just bring it all home. I've got lots of room in my suitcases, because the majority of my souvenirs are pretty small physically, and because I have learned how to pack REALLY efficiently on my mission. 

So I had a list of stuff in my planner that I wanted to write you all about, but I didn't bring my planner to this place with me. Smooth. 

Here's some cool stuff from over here in Russia:

- We annihilated Orenburg on exchanges. Elder Glad and I randomly decided to go knocking apartments during the afternoon, and he followed a prompting to pick which one. So we loaded up some Liahona magazines and went knocking. On the top floor, we set up a return appointment with a family on the 3rd door we tried. Then we knocked the 4th door on that floor and set up another return appointment with another family for 1 hour after the first one on the same day. The next floor down we also got a return appointment with a family. Moral of the story: knocking is rad, and we need to do it more. 

After that, I worked with Elder Treter in Orenburg North (in the Stepnoy area, for those who were curious. Which is nobody). He is dang hilarious. We walked outside and it was snowing. So Elder Treter, in his new-missionary-(yet-very-proficient-for-how-long-he's-been-out-here)-Russian, says, "It is snowing." Then he pauses, and says, "It is raining." Another pause, and suddenly a crooked smile twists his face. Using a Russian grammar principle in a way that had never occured to me, he says, "It is sausaging." That was definitely a good involuntary image. Идёт снег. Идёт дождь. Идёт колбаса. Oh, man. I was laughing so dang hard. 

The next day, after we had gotten back into Samara, the Orenburg North Elders went knocking again and set up 4 return appointments in 2 hours. Reiterated moral of the story: knocking is rad. 

In our own area, we had approximately "over 9000" potential investigator meetings fall through, but we did connect with a cool potential investigator named S* who wants us to come and talk to a hostel full of post-rehab people who have recently gotten un-addicted from alcohol and drugs in a center that is run entirely by volunteers. Now THAT'S a manly referral. Woot! More to come on that one, either next week or the one after that probably.

The last couple of days have been weirdo weather; with very warm temperatures for this time of year (and they were all promising -50 back in October), and 48 straight ours of thick fog everywhere. I took some epically awesome and creepy pictures in Park Gagarina. Especially the one with the hazy ferris wheel at night. Man. Cool stuff.

This coming week is Zone Leader Council for two days, and then Avrora exchanges for two days, so we're once again not going to have a lot of time in our own area to work, but we're getting used to that and we're positive that the Lord will take care of the area in ways that we can't.

Yesterday, we met with N* and M*. They're doing great. We've taught them mostly everything, but they're having a hard time getting to church. But the Spirit was super strong on yesterdays meeting, and we're really optimistic that they'll come this Sunday and hopefully even be baptized before the new year rolls around. 

Other than that, things are quiet around here. That is to say, things basically are not quiet at all around here. And that's the way I like it. I don't want to end my mission "quietly." I want to end my mission with the loudest bang this side of the Volga.

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen

P.S. I got a letter from Elder Davis. He's so rad. I can tell just from the letter that he's a rockin' missionary.

Mind-Blowing Realizations

We were just a little alarmed when we checked email at 6:00 this morning and didn't have one from Andrew.  Happily, by 6:21 we DID have one - and here it is!

What the heck it's almost December. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day: Elder Bullough goes home in 3 weeks. I was in the MTC with him. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day, part II: Elder Ruesch in Minnessota also goes home in like 3 weeks-ish. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day, part III: Actually didn't have one. 

So I have not much time to type, and then I gotta get out of here and get on a train to Orenburg. I don't know if you may have sensed a theme, but we basically get Monday afternoons, Saturdays (kind of), and Sundays in our area, and the rest of this transfer, we're on exchanges in various other areas. It's been nuts, but SUPER fun. 

N* and M* are doing good. They came to a really fantastic branch activity that was a talent show. Y* put it together. I played Annie's Song with a guitar that a member let me use. Right when I sat down, I realized that it was not particularly missionary appropriate to sing a love song, so I on the spot came up with a devastatingly creative solution: sing it with an insane Josh Groban/Opera voice and practically dance with dramatic enthusiasm and rapture for my absent lover (to whom I was supposedly singing), so that everyone would understand that the whole thing was a joke. 

So after the show was over, (M* gave me a rose. Cute! She's 10, don't worry). I found out that Sister Young, who completely understood that I was joking around, had been laughing in the back and a bunch of investigators and members around her got really mad at her because she was "being rude." "Don't laugh, that's so mean! He's not that bad!" Oh gosh. After a random sampling of asking members, I realized that now everyone in the branch is under the impression that I think I'm some kind of reincarnation of Luciano Pavarotti. Great. Well, there's a good mission story I guess. 

We have such awesome members. One member came up to me the other day and told me he's planning on giving his suit to a new member that is just getting active again. So Christlike. 

So we went to Penza and did exchanges with everyone and some zone training. It went great. On the last day, I decided to go with Elder Benham, (an Elder from my MTC district) and just do an 8 hour day on the streets without any meetings or anything to see if we could stay high-energy the whole time. Long story short, we did, and found a whole bunch of really sick people.  [Editor's note: And by "sick" I'm sure he means "cool" or "great" or something other than "infected with disease.]  Woot! It pumped me up to do the "dirty work" (i.e. hard work) for so much time all at once. I think that's a lot of what I'll miss. I can always help less-actives, work with missionaries on lessons, etc. etc. But I can't really just slap on my nametag and go do a 2 hour contacting sesh after my mission is over :( 

So I got your letter with my homecoming talk assignment. Nuts. I'll probably just prepare that when I. You know. Go home. Or whatever. I also got your Thanksgiving card. 

I also got your Christmas package. Yeah... sorry that candy isn't going to make it to December. But I'll use my patience skills to not open the presents until Christmas. :) Thanks! 

Well. I'm out of stuff to type. I printed your emails from last week, but I lost them in Penza, so I can't really reply. If you have any questions you wanted answered, please send them again :) 

Thanks for everything! Looking forwards to seeing you on Christmas in a few weeks. 

Back to work over here. Tell you all about Orenburg next week :)

Love,  Elder Broekhuijsen

Darn Post Offices

It was a little disconcerting to not see an email from Andrew when we checked at 5:30 this morning.  Happily, after another hour or so of patient waiting, we DID get an email!  Yay!  Here it is!

Hopefully Sister Connell was able to inform you of the reason I didn't get to write for the second p-day in a row last week. Darn post offices. Anyway, we decided to skip the post office idea for a while for a few reasons, so we're writing in a gaming place. The guy to the right of me is playing DOTA.  Advantages: fast internet, fast computer, ...actually works... Disadvantages: No USB ports, which means no photos or audio. 

Luckily, Sister Connell was also kind enough to fax me your emails from last week, so I was able to read them, and that's what I'll be responding to as the bulk of this email. 

So in no particular order: 

Oh, man Joshua. I remember the hours of rehearsal. They are some of the best times ever. Seriously. It's like missionary work: exhausting and sometimes frustrating, but the best thing ever and you're always inexplicably happy and hanging out with your best friends. And getting pepper sprayed (just kidding, I've never been pepper-sprayed, let alone with ghost pepper). Also, you're the Jester. I'd still have preferred Master of Salt, but to each his own. Or as they say in Russian, "to who, what." The English version makes more sense, but, the Russian version is easier and faster to say. 

Garrett: You go get that Eagle. I don't have a lot of regrets really about not being super active in scouting and stuff. But it would have been a good idea to get my Eagle. 

Mom: You went and toured DI, huh? Man, I remember doing six volunteer hours there right before a choir concert because of our mandatory "community service" project for Govt. Cit. class. Ha. That place gets about 20 high school students there to "volunteer" at the end of every term, I bet. The night before the project is due. They won't turn anyone away, but I recall my "service" being things like, "organize this glassware on the shelf for the third time today," and "see if you can make the stuffed-animals bin look better," and "no, you're doing a great job; see if you can find anything else useful to do!" DI's a pretty cool place though.

I did hear the election results. I probably would care more if I had bothered studying up. Kind of a bummer that I didn't get to vote, but I guess there's always next time. 

Dang it. Danny D* got his call? No offense to Danny or anything, but somehow in my head I didn't make the connection that he wasn't still in elementary school somewhere.  I didn't realize he was anywhere near old enough to be getting the papers done. Congrats to him, that's rad. 

As far as Hailey's call goes, that's super awesome. I bet she was so pumped to go to France. It's like the most fitting mission call I've ever heard.

Things here are going great. Elder Anderson, an old mission comrade (notice my appropriate local jargon), is my district leader now. The gigantic Samara district of 12 missionaries finally got split up as another companionship was added to our Bezimianski branch. It's awesome to have him in town and in my branch, and it's a relief that I didn't get a change and neither did our sisters (the Bezimianski Sisters are SO rad), but we did have to give Elder Anderson like 3 of our progressing investigators. That's okay though, I won't be bitter, because I can honestly say I'm not really too worried about who baptizes them. I just liked meeting with them, and we're a little bit scrambling to find new investigators again now. Actually, they haven't found an apartment for Elder Anderson and his companion (who flies out of the MTC to Samara tomorrow sometime, by the way), so he's just been staying with us. It's been a blast. 

We're still meeting with N* and M*. M* has this recurring eye infection that keeps coming back that keeps them at home (and not at church...), and makes it tough to meet sometimes, and we have an absolutely nuts exchange schedule this transfer (remember how it's only 5 weeks? Well now we have 4 district leaders to exchange with, two of which live in outlying cities, and we also have Zone Training to do in each city in our zone). So we have to plan really well to meet with them, but we're going to make it happen. They're so wonderful and they're still progressing. We just need the Lord's help to get them over their last big obstacle before they can be baptized: church attendance. 

Today we made French onion soup, and rolls, and apple crisp. We are turning into a bunch of weird chefs or something. But I realized I love cooking. 

I'm way sad to read about Zorro of course. I loved that guy a ton. That's a huge bummer that I never get to see Melissa squeeze loving him again, too. I guess not until we see him again anyway. I guess that means you'll have to buy another kitten, probably. I recommend waiting until around the end of January; that's when they go on sale, usually. 

Elders Langston, Benham, Long and I (the four of our original MTC group that are currently in Samara Zone) have really kicked it into afterburn mode. The end, unfortunately, is a little more in sight than I'm entirely comfortable with, so we're just turning up the volume until they make us go home. It's been inspiring. The Lord provides some pretty nuts miracles if you can figure out a way to bounce back after (metaphorically) getting your face kicked in for a few cold hours on the streets and keep going for one more hour. My way is to remember that, although I will, of course, get to do missionary work even after I can't wear the tag anymore, I won't get to do that really nitty gritty missionary work like street contacting ever again, really. And even if I somehow do end up contacting, it won't be the same. Elder Nielson and I have plans to bring the fire down to Penza and Orenburg as well; it's burning brightly here in Samara. I have some goals to leave every proselyting area I touch this transfer having found a person that is ready to be baptized in December or January. I also have set it up so that while we're in Penza, I get to work with Elder Benham for an entire day, and we're going to go without meetings. 12-5: contacting; then dinner, and 6-9: contacting. I've only done that before when I was forced to due to a lack of investigators/cancelled meetings, etc. But when we do hard things because we want to instead of doing them because we have to, they work about 38 times better. So I'm gearing up for a solid 8-hour day on the streets of Russia. I know the Lord + Elder Benham + I can make some big things happen. 

Well, I'm probably about done writing. Thanks for always emailing! And for those of you who always write letters, thanks for always writing letters! And for those of you with whom I have had literally no communication for almost 2 years, thanks for NOTHING! Ha. Just kidding. See you later. 

Love, Elder Broekhuijsen

Zone Leader Council

Still no email from Andrew, but we did receive one from Sister Sartori, his Mission President's wife.  She said:

Dear Elders and Parents,

Just want to share our photo from our last ZLC (Zone Leader Council) on 1 Nov 2012. 
We love serving with you, Elders!!  Parents, we love your sons.  Thank you for sharing them.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE AND WE ARE TRYING TO FIND THOSE WHOM THE LORD HAS PREPARED TO JOIN US.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS IN OUR BEHALF.
Love, Laughter and Sunshine
Sister Sartori
Russia Samara Mission

Skunked Again! :-(

Rats!  Apparently there will be no email from Andrew today.  Here's the explanation we received from a sweet Sister in the mission office.  I guess we'll try to be patient!

Elder Broekhuijsen just called and asked me to tell you that again they could not get into a place to email today.   All is fine.  I know they were making a huge pot of soup.  Maybe they can use the office computer later in the week or it will be next Monday.

Friday Surprise!

We had basically given up on getting an email from Andrew this week and were consigned to our fate of waiting until next week to hear from him, when lo and behold —an email showed up this morning!  Yeah!

We got lucky - on Monday, there were no post offices open, because apparently working is optional the day after a holiday here. 

SO we got permission to spend a few minutes today writing an email to you. 

There's actually been a ton of awesome news from the last week and a half, so I'll see how much I can fit in the time I have to type. 

In no particular order: 

N* and M* are doing AWESOME. We've taught them almost everything and they are receiving testimonies. But they need to come to church, and that's a major concern. So that's kind of our focus with them right now. 

Zone Leader Council was awesome. We really came away with some good decisions.
Halloween was pretty ordinary, until night, that is. Around 10:25, things started getting spooOOOooky! We have a rule in our mission called, "get off the phone by 10:20pm, then spend the last 10 minutes winding down and going to sleep by 10:30." So at about 10:30 or so, we had the lights out and everything, with a few missionaries on trains inbound for a visa trip, etc. etc. Suddenly, the phone goes off, and I recognized the ringtone as Elder Langston (the senior assistant). Well that's weird. I picked it up, and he hurriedly tells me something along the lines of, "Just so you know, tomorrow is a lockdown day, we just heard there have been some threats against church buildings in Samara. So call everyone from your zone who is going to be in Samara tomorrow and tell them to travel low profile, no tags, etc. etc. and we'll call everyone who's not in your zone." About 1 second after I hung up from that call, I got another call, this time from Elder Woolley, my district leader. "Hey, our carbon monoxide alarm just started going off. What should we do?" We had them turn off the alarm and take it with them out into the stairwell, then turn it back on to see if it would go off again. Then we got to calling everyone and warning them about the emergency lockdown day (oh yeah... "lockdown day" means everyone stays inside all day, period. We have them on New Years; and Victory Day because of all the drunks). So we got the stuff with the carbon monoxide figured out (false alarm, it never detected any again in the apartment), and the next morning we had to ride with no tags and no ties to Zone Leader Council on a taxi, and do our best to look like Russian businessmen. I felt so much like a spy speaking with my most perfect accent and not saying anything in English. Elder Nielson was debating installing a laser into his watch, but I figured that wouldn't be the best way to travel low-key, so we settled for a silenced PP-7 in our pockets. 

So the details are basically that the government spoke out against "foreign cults" and the danger they posed to society, and there were a bunch of protests planned against all sorts of churches that weren't Russian Orthodox. I guess in Moscow they got a handful of people to go picket the stake center for a couple of hours, but everywhere in Russia where there were protests scheduled, they just evacuated, so the picketers and news crews got bored pretty quick protesting at an empty building, so they went home. There was supposed to be a demonstration in Samara on Molodogvardyeyskaya street (say that five times fast), but nobody showed up. So nothing really happened here. 

Pretty crazy though. Fun stuff. 

Anyway, that's about it. It's been some fun times. The work is going forwards. I'm about out of time to type, so I'll probably just get off. 

If you're wondering what to put in my package: Root Beer Extract, and also Maple Extract. But that one brand isn't concentrated the same as the regular McCormick or Crescent, and I can't figure out how much to put in. Also, photos. I love getting photos. So thanks. 

Thanks for everything! Love you all! Glad Melissa survived the hurricane! 

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Me studying the finer points of Russian grammar.  Yesterday I learned about genetive flexions.

The result of studying too much about genetive flexions - mania ending with squeezing mayonnaise out of a bag directly into my mouth.  Don't worry, I didn't really do it; that would be gross.

Unity Day

Hello Elder Broekhuijsen fans!  We received a short email from the Russia Samara Mission office this morning informing us that Andrew won't be able to send email today since it's a Russian holiday and the post office where he usually writes us from is closed.  :-(  I don't know if we'll get to hear from him tomorrow instead, or if we'll have to wait until next Monday.  Guess we'll find out tomorrow!

Time Is Being All Smart-Alecky

When it's cold outside and we haven't yet turned on our heaters it takes something pretty good to get me to leave my warm and comfortable bed in the morning.  Email from Elder Broekhuijsen works!  (Not sure what will do it for tomorrow, though!)

Man, it seems like my mission is laughing at me by speeding up the weeks from "crazy fast" to "you are in front of this computer screen in this post office every 4 hours." 

October has come and passed. The weather is starting to get cold. Actually, it's really awesome right now. Cold enough to wear my ridiculously attractive European fall coat (Called a "Palto," and prounounced with a soft "l" for those of you who know what that means, which, if I were to draw a representative venn diagram, would perfectly coincide with those of you who know what a Palto is already) and my rad checkery scarf. But not cold enough to give me frostbite if I forget to rub my nose every few seconds.

So. We've had a great week. First epically cool news: 

N* and M* are doing super wonderful. We went by with our home skillets Y* and her mom G* on like Thursday or something, and when we sat down, N* started asking all these questions about our responsibilities as Elders. But they were... really like... aimed. It was obvious she had gained a vast amount of information but not yet finished processing it. Turns out, she had stayed up until 2:00am the night before completely reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover, INCLUDING the Russian equivalent to reading the LDS KJV Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary (they put them together in the back of the BoM here, because the church can't print Russian Bibles). She said the alphabetized section was her favorite because it was much more simple and understandable than the rest. Oh, man. So we taught her the first half of the Plan of Salvation. She wants to get baptized, but clearly has some things making her nervous, because she was asking questions like, "What are your thoughts on people who know they should get baptized, but they just realize that it's a really huge, important decision, and they don't want to make the wrong choice because they rushed it? Do you still meet with people like that?" Yes, N*.  Yes we do. 

So they're doing wonderfully, and little M* is really starting to warm up. We're going by their place for the second half of the Plan of Salvation tonight, and we're planning on getting a picture of two; I'll be sure to send them next week. Unfortunately, I think we may be kinda done with the audio files as long as I'm here in Bezimianski. This post office doesn't have a printer, and the only other one in our area that I know of has computers that work about 1 in 5 times we stop by. So I can't print your letters anymore. Oh, well.

Other cool news from this week: We had a meeting with E*, who got baptized last November while I was here with Elder Wood. She's having a little trouble staying active, but she's as awesome as ever. Turns out she's still in contact with L* and K*, two girls that ALMOST got baptized while Elder Langston and I were here. So she's going to read the scriptures, pray for guidance on what to say to them, and then call them and see if she can set us up a meeting. It will be awesome because, aside from just getting us more awesome investigators to work with, it will help E* a ton to be on meeting with us and help her own friends learn about the restored Gospel. 

Other sick news! I think maybe I already told you this, but maybe not. V*, my BRAT-TAN from this branch, decided to go on a mission! YEAH BABY! He's probably going to be heading out sometime in like January or something, so we'll see. But man. I love that guy so dang much. 

We set up a day (with permission, of course) to go do "exchanges" (see: "contacting on the street for 4 hours") with the Bezimianski sisters this week. The sisters in the mission in general are all just undertrained because all of our older, experienced sisters finished and went home, and then we got a giant influx of brand new sisters right after that, so even now, we still have 2nd-transfer sisters training 1st-transfer sisters, etc. etc. So all the sisters in our zone have had trouble with things like stopping people on the streets; having conversations with their still-new Russian skills; setting up meetings, and as a result they've been killing themselves contacting all day long with very few meetings in between. So we went down and hopefully helped them out a little bit with showing them our ridiculously pro contacting skills. Or something. Either way, they said it helped. So I guess that's good. The sisters are so rad though. They earn miracles the way I never have been able to :D 

This coming week we have Zone Leader Council. Pretty pumped. It was going to be on Halloween, but now not. Which is probably for the best, as Elder Nielson and I had some somewhat less-than-dignified ideas kicking around in sections of our brain that are still 6 years old about trading nametags for the day, or going as "3-hole-punch Elders" or something dumb like that. 

Other than that, it's just been another solid week of missionary work. I figure if the time is going to be all smart-alecky and speed up on me, I'm going to do the same thing and speed up the pace of my missionary work. So what now, time? I got three whole big old months left to throw as many monkey wrenches in Satan's plans for this place as I can. Another potential missionary and Melchizidek Priesthood holder, baptized, walking the streets of Samara. What now, Satan? 

Also, I had a member download the Russian audio of Elder Holland's talk onto my flash drive, so I can listen to it in the morning when I work out. It's had a noticeable effect on my physique AND the amount of facial hair I am now capable of growing, and that's after one morning so far. 

DANG everyone is going on missions. I mean, that's great and all, but I was hoping to have a few friends when I got back :D k

So no photos or audio this week. Thanks for all the updates. Thanks for being awesome and stuff. I love you all! I guess I'll be talking to you in about one transfer or so, so probably before I finish typing this sentence I'll be sitting in front of a webcam Skyping with you all. 

Keep on keeping on. If I didn't answer someone's questions, just keep asking. Maybe I'll catch on one of these days :) 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen 

Extra Post!

Lucky us!  We received an email this morning from a man who had met up with Andrew and his companion in Samara.  He was there on business and is a friend of Andrew's companion's family.  So, he must have gotten Jerome's email address from Andrew and he sent us this photo!  He said,
They seem very happy and healthy!  It's obvious that they are anxiously engaged in the the Lord's work."  Thanks nice man!

Elder Broekhuijsen and Elder Nielson right outside their apartment.  Looking very European, don't you think?  

Awesome Miracle!

Sorry to be so late in posting this.  It came at the normal time, but I got distracted and forgot that I hadn't yet posted it.  My bad.  Andrew tried sending us an audio clip today, but said that the computers where they send email are just too old and slow so it wouldn't work.  :-(  Oh well, happily, we still got the normal written email!

Hey everyone!

This is Elder Broekhuijsen. 

So! I have lots of questions. Actually 2 

1. Who of my friends have mission calls now? Because let's face it. There are now girls who graduated a year AFTER me who could be going on missions within the next few weeks. What the heck.2. Who of my friends are already working on their papers/have decided to go on missions? 

We had an awesome miracle this week! Remember N*? The lady who thought we were ridiculously beautiful? (I mean, come on. I think we are quite reasonably beautiful.). We got a meeting with her. She invited us over to her house, and we had a member come with us, Brother S*. And we taught the most perfect Restoration lesson I've taught in probably my whole mission. She accepted everything and was coming to conclusions about things faster than we could smoothly transition between doctrinal points in a fabulous display of preparation and companionship unity. I mean. We sat down and prayed, and she was like, "So I'm a little confused.  How are Joseph Smith and Nephi related?" And we were like, "Yeah... we'll tell you." So as we were teaching, we got to the point where we explain the restoration after the great apostasy, and we started explaining about Joseph Smith. Elder Nielson was like, "Joseph Smith was a 14-year-old boy who lived about 200 years ago." And she cut him off and was like, "Ohhhhh! That makes way more sense! I thought when you said 'prophet' that he was like 50 years old or something, but it makes WAY more sense why God would want to restore his gospel through a young person who didn't have the life experience to form a bunch of his own opinions yet. Now I have no problem believing that he was a prophet!" And we looked at each other in a rather flabbergasted manner. And then finished teaching. So she wants to be baptized. Unfortunately she couldn't come to church this week because her daughter, M*, who is 10, has bad health and got sick this weekend. But last night after church we had a meeting with both of them again and taught Lehi's Dream (in this mission there is a policy called "teach about the great and spacious building REALLY soon after you meet someone because otherwise they will hear something bad or find something bad on the internet and stop answering their phone," so we didn't move on to the Plan of Salvation just yet). So that lesson went great, and M* is a small-sized boss. 

Anyway, we're pumped about her. 

Another cool story: The Priesthood in Bezimianski is so active that President Sartori decided to put the extra companionship that our mission complement will gain in our branch. So next cycle, assuming I'm still here (I can't imagine otherwise, and I actually have the experience to back up an assumption like that now), we'll have us, Bezi Elders, and Bezi Sisters. 

Speaking of the Bezimianski Sisters, and the Avrora Sisters while we're at it, we had interviews with both of them this week. They were wonderful. Those sisters are so dang cool. Actually, sister misionaries in general are so dang cool. Also one of the Avrora Sisters, Sister Wynn, knows Kaitlyn Brunsdale, because they worked together. Man. Small world. 

So that's probably about it for the week. Hopefully things are still going great down there in Highland. The weather is starting to get colder down here, and everyone is saying that it's supposed to be the coldest winter in 20 years, and we're going to break -40C. Yeah baby! Talk about snagging an extra mission adventure story that I can tell all the young'uns for the rest of my life. Presumably in a Scottish accent: 

"When I w's yer'age, we dinna have no warm wayther! Oal we had was dert! And we were gretful!" Yeah, don't worry that typing in a Scottish accent isn't a skill I've obtained yet. 

I'll try Pirate:
"When aye was YAARRRR age, 'twas bein' right cold outsiiiiiiiide!" Better. 

That's probably enough nonsense for today. 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen 

P.S. Ooh! I have a few minutes left, so I'll probably try to send a few photos.  [Editor's note:  No photos came, so I'm guessing that the computers he sends email on were also too old and slow to send photos on.  Drat.]

Mid-October Update

No school for Joshua and Garrett today, so I got to sleep in a bit - and I'm glad I did because getting up at 5:30 would NOT have been worth it, since this today's email from Andrew didn't come until 7:30!

I'll give you the bad news first: I'm not going to be able to send pictures or sound or anything today. Turns out the post offices by our branch building close at 5:00 generally. So I'm in an internet cafe that blocks all USB ports. Sweet. 

So it's been a pretty cool week. On Friday we had a cool "Zone Meeting." Which is kind of like a zone conference, but mostly the point is just to get all the new information, training, decisions, etc. down the line from Zone Leader Council. We'll be doing one once a month, so obviously it will have to be smaller scale than Zone Conference, because otherwise we would be pulling Elders and Sisters out of there cities like every week and a half on trains and busses. It went well, so that was pretty fun.

We also had exchanges with the Assistants. I worked with Elder Langston one day, and we went contacting down closer to the Volga. We talked to this guy who was out taking a smoke break, and he invited us into his office. Turns out he was a really nice, well-put-together, successful contractor kind of a guy. Very religious, did lots of construction contracting for the Russian Orthodox church, etc. etc. Then out of nowhere, he told us that he was the subject of a Nostradamus prophecy. The conversation went down in quality from that point. But we did get his signed business card, so if (I mean when) he DOES become a famous and influential politician, we can sell them on eBay for lots of rubles. 

Saturday was Elder Nielson's birthday! His family sent him a suitcase full of candy.  In the box was a Betty Crocker cake mix. It was delicious. 

Also on Saturday was the Europe East Area viewing of General Conference! It was wonderful, as always. Every year I appreciate conference more. I just can't understand the mentality of some of the members who aren't real interested in coming. It's like... "Hey! Have questions in life? God wants to answer them for you for 10 hours. Free!" And they're like, "Nah, listen, I'm going to watch some movies at home." Laaaaaame.

Then on Sunday was the sickest [in a good way…], most pumping-up talk I've ever heard by Jeffery R. Holland. I was wondering... could someone get an MP3 of that guy and email it to me? I want to listen to it while we work out in the morning. Seriously, that was probably my favorite conference talk I've ever heard. Man.

So it's actually kind of starting to get cold around these parts now. Yesterday I added the inside lining to my palto and wore my gloves and earmuffs. We went contacting for a couple of hours, and saw something totally nuts, which is in no way related to the weather, but still is a great story:

Once upon a time, at the tail end of a contacting block, Elders Broekhuijsen and Nielson were walking home. Elder Broekhuijsen was talking to the Orenburg missionaries on the phone to solve some sort of nonsense with city registration for a new missionary, and Elder Nielson was talking to a Tataran guy to the left while they walked. Suddenly, two completely smashfaced guys in leather jackets started walking behind them. Or, staggering behind them in a less-than-straight line which was, admittedly, mostly confined to the sidewalk. Elder Broekhuijsen wasn't paying much attention, even when they started arguing in loud, drunk voices. That is, he wasn't until the sound of a bottle being smashed over someone's head put an abrupt halt to the phone conversation he was having. He turned around, and saw Drunk #1 sitting on the ground, stunned, and Drunk #2 throwing the remains of the empty beer bottle on the ground, about 10 yards behind them. Drunk #2 proceeded to put his steel-toed boot into Drunk #1's face at a high velocity. That was not a pleasant sound. Think of the sound it would make to swing a sledgehammer with all your might at a solid block of concrete. So obviously, Drunk #1 was no longer especially conscious. On his way down, Drunk #2 decided to put his knee into the exact same face, at a similar velocity. Ouch. A lot of ouch. Drunk #1 was out for the count. Elders Nielson and Broekhuijsen decided that, in the interest of safety, they should probably cross the street to get out of the path of Drunk #2, who was staggering forwards again as if none of this had just happened.  

Anyway, we looked back across the street when we got to the other side, and miraculously, Drunk #1 was up and at 'em again. He was just walking around aimlessly with his head and hands totally covered in blood. His face was a mess. I don't know how in the world he was still alive, let alone awake. Poor guy. Moral of the story: Alcohol is bad.

Okay. Well, that's all for this week's adventures of Elders Broekhuijsen and Nielson: World Class for LIFE!  [Editor's note:  For those readers not from Highland and/or Alpine - "World Class for Life" is the motto of Lone Peak High School - where both Andrew and his companion attended high school - so that obviously makes their companionship "world class for life!"  :-)]

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen

Everything is Awesome!

We've been anxiously awaiting Andrew's email this week to hear how his adjustment back to "regular missionary" has been going.  Sounds like it's going just great!  See for yourself…

Hey everyone! 

It's been a pretty crazy week. This Russian computer I am writing on in this Russian post office thinks that I am spelling every single word of this email wrong so far. But it is the one that is mistaken! I'm just bilingual. Don't worry about it. 

I have some very excellent things to report. 

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

Elder Nielson is a giant boss. I specifically took some small pictures on my camera so that I could email them to Melissa. [Seen at the end of this blog post]  So hopefully everyone is as pumped about the fact that I'm serving with Elder Nielson as I am.

On Thursday and Friday, we had a 2-day Zone Leader Council with all of the district leaders in attendance. Aside from being pretty nuts how many people we fit in the apartment, it was possibly the best ZLC of my whole entire mission. There was revelation flowing in that room the same way peanut butter oreo shakes flowed when I was serving with Elder Langston. That's a lot, for the record. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened is the redefinition of what constitutes "finding" a new investigator. Virtually my whole mission (well, starting from about 3 weeks after I hit the field out of the MTC), the Russia Samara Mission has been operating under the goal of "one-a-day, one-a-month." Meaning one new investigator found every day per companionship, and one baptism a month for each companionship, as an ideal. In order to make that goal more achievable, President Sartori saw fit to tweak the Preach My Gospel definition of a new investigator from "a lesson taught with a commitment given, a firm return appointment set, and an opening and closing prayer" to "a lesson taught (could be as small as one principle) with at least one prayer and a commitment + return appointment). Basically taking one prayer out of the scenario, which made it VERY possible to find people on the streets the first time you met them. 

No longer. President felt that it's time to return to finding the way PMG says. That sounds like a very small change, but it has really changed EVERYTHING in my mission. No longer can I expect to find new investigators on the streets the first time I ever meet them. That kind of sounds bad, but this is all good, really. It forces us to look ahead, plan better, and what I've noticed is that every single person on the streets that we talk to seems to be full of potential, and if we can get their number or place a Book of Mormon with them or have a prayer with them right there, or anything, suddenly, they're WAY important to me to follow up on, instead of just confining them to the endless Potential Investigator sheets of the area book and forgetting about them, because it "wasn't a find." This change helps me see the value in every person, and the potential they have to learn more about the truth we share, instead of just searching out the people who are absolutely crazy religious or prepared. It has also led to us having approximately 108,347 meetings set up every day, of which maybe 2 or 3 go through :D. That's the nature of potential investigator meetings here, I guess. 

Anyway, sufficeth it to say that I'm pumped about this change, and I'm loving it, and coming in from contacting feeling like I accomplished something, because there's not so much stress about "finding" anymore. We still want to find new investigators, but it's not an instantaneous thing anymore, so we're not expected to do it every time we hit the streets. 

So another good thing from this week: A* is a guy that Elder Langston and I taught here in Bezimianski right before I left. He got baptized, and is a boss. But right around the time Elder Langston left, he started having some major hardships at work, and with money, and who knows what else. He went inactive, and it was "bad" inactive, not just "call him and invite him to church" inactive. He said he didn't believe in God, and that he didn't want to meet with anyone, even though we had E*, his best member friend, calling him all the time. 

Well, he decided to let the missionaries meet with him. Elders Langston and Bishop met and committed him to read, pray, and come to church. He showed up to church on Sunday right before I got transferred, and seemed to like it. That night, he called Elder Langston and said "Langston! I was at work, and I got online and for some reason I found a talk by Thomas Monson to listen to during my lunch break! And I listened to it and I felt the Spirit! I still have a testimony!" He was so stoked. So Elder Nielson and I met with him on our first night in Bezi. Elder Nielson introduced himself at the beginning of the lesson, and then said, "Well, A*, tell me about yourself!" And A* was like, "What is there to tell? I found my testimony. I believe in God and I believe that Christ is his Son. I believe this is the true church. I'm coming back, and I'm not missing church ever again. I listen to conference talks while I'm at work and they help me feel something from above all day long." And he was just beaming, and then he said the closing prayer and I was happier than I can even possibly describe with words in any language.
Man, God is so cool. 

So, two more miracle stories and then we'll call it quits. Both of them have to do with a lady named N*. Actually, two ladies named N*. They are different miracles, and each miracle has its own N*. Make sense? Okay, here we go.

Elder Nielson and I decided to take a break from all the drudgery of overhauling the unorganized apartment we had just moved into (as of this morning, by the way, it is TOTALLY organized and sparkling clean), and punish the streets for a few hours. So we hoofed it out to a far corner of our area, and talked to everyone on the way there. Street one: Sovetskoy Army. We got our faces kicked in. Nobody wanted to talk or even break step. Street 2: Novo-Sadovaya. Now we're talking. We were getting numbers and meetings set up left and right, and then we talked to this mom with a 10-year-old daughter. Her first reaction to Elder Nielson's enthusiastic "Zdravstvooytye!" was the typical "hide my child from the cultists" maneuver. She seemed to be ready to walk off, but then suddenly her eyes got all wide and she said, in tones of absolute rapture, "Takiye krasiviye..." For those of you playing at home, that means, translated by meaning rather than literally, "Oh my gosh, you're so beautiful..." I guess that's more of a normal thing to say in Russian; it doesn't translate real well as far as how awkward that sounds. Anyway, we started laughing and the conversation took off. Turns out she's really pumped that we're Americans (normal). She believes in God (mostly normal). And she really wants to meet with us really bad (not that normal). Her daughter, M*, is super cool. She's an artist and she speaks English pretty well because of her specialized school. So later that night, after we concluded a particularly spiritual planning session (with the help of two candles and no electric lights), she called us to report that she had read the introduction to the Book of Mormon, and wanted to move her meeting to a closer day because she had lots of questions about Joseph Smith. Yeah baby! 

Miracle number dva (2): Not 5 minutes after N* #1 finished talking to Elder Nielson and we fist pumped, I got a call from "Potential Investigator: N* AB" on my phone. The very last potential investigator that I hadn't been able to get ahold of or sort or organize in any way, left over from the last Elders here. She told me that she was told by her daughter that she was meeting with two missionaries from a church that wasn't the Russian Orthodox church, and that the missionaries who her daughter, Ksyusha, was meeting with, were leaving town, but there were supposed to be two new missionaries moving in. That would be us. She then proceeded to explain that not long ago, she decided that her church wasn't for her, and she was planning on getting re-baptized into a different church, but then she found out about our church, and went online to research. Usually that's bad, because online contains about 99% trash about our church, and 1% truth. But she just said she was really interested in meeting to find out more, and asked some detailed questions about what we believe in, etc. Got a meeting set up with her in a couple of days now. 

Yeah, Elder Nielson and I enjoyed another fist pump. 

Basically, everything is sick awesome. 

I can't seem to print your emails anymore, so I'm probably going to have to figure out some other system of making stuff work here. We'll see what happens.  But for today, enjoy the photos. Thanks for the updates from home. 

Also - I'm way in shock about the missionary age change. That's nuts - 19 year old sisters? That is nuts. So cool though. The sisters down here are really "angry" about that, because "I HAD TO WAIT SO LONG BEFORE I WAS ALLOWED TO PUT MY PAPERS IN!" Ha. 

So we'll be talking to you next week.

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen

Elder Nielson and I being gangsters in my old stomping grounds (Bezimianski North Apartment.)

Elder Nielson posing a question of the soul (Is there life after death?) while I just pose in general. And lift a weight that is lots of kilograms. So yeah, I'm strong. Don't worry about it.

Elder Nielson and I marveling at how organized our zone is, while enjoying the possibility of hands-free conversation if the need arises.

Elder Broekhuijsen (hand model comparable in many ways to David Duchovny) doing some nightly planning by candlelight. Yes, that's a thing in Bezimianski North. 

Transfers

Andrew warned us last week that he might not have time to send much of an email today - but it turns out he DID have time - so here it is!

Man, is it weird to be in October.

Well the time has finally come to spill the beans with transfers. I know you've all been waiting. Or at least, if you're anything like every single Elder I have talked to on the phone for the past two weeks, you've all been waiting. (Come on, just give me a clue!)

I am headed over to the fruitful vinyard of Bezimianski North! My old stomping grounds. Woot! And my companion is none other than the famous Elder Nielson. For those of you playing at home, why, yes, that is indeed the very same Elder Christopher Nielson from the Lone Peak class of 2011. And what's more, Elder Swartz is in our district; serving over in Novokuybyshevsk, the smallish neighboring city to Samara right across the Volga. So we pretty much have the Lone Peak District chilling in Samara. Woot again! The new Assistant is Elder Taylor. You don't know him, I don't think. But he's from Morgan, Utah. And he's a pretty cool guy.

So things are going to go down over there in Bezimianski.  Elder Nielson and I are going to parachute in and get some hardcore new-investigator-finding going on from day one. I've seen what that area and that branch can do, and I'm ready for a repeat performance. The last 8 months of administrative work have been steadily pulling me back further and further like a slingshot. Without so much "extra-curricular" stuff to do, it's about to get unleashed.

So this week we made maple bars. There's not much to say about them except that they were delicious, and I haven't eaten any such thing for a year and a half.

 The insanely delicious maple bars we made. From scratch.

 

T* is doing well. She has understood and told us that she will eventually get baptized. But any time we bring it up, she digs in her heels and clams up, so we told her to pray and read and ask God every day when she should be baptized, and that we won't have any more lessons about it; it's her decision. She really wants to get baptized in the Volga. We told her it's getting late. But there is a picture hanging in the MTC of an American Elder baptizing someone in a rectangle of absolutely arctic water that they chopped through who knows how many inches of ice. It was taken somewhere near Vladivostok. Cold water is something I just don't do. It's the worst thing ever when the city turns off our hot water and we have cold showers for a week. But I would do that to baptize T*. She's also really bummed that I'm leaving Avrora, and has threatened a bunch of times to start going to Bezimianski branch, even though she lives in the Avrora boundaries. We tried everything to get her not to... but we'll have to see what happens. I'm not allowed to meet with her anymore, but she's being really stubborn about that. She really in general just doesn't like rules, and has a long way to go before someone can just tell her, "You can't do this because God said so," and have that be a good enough reason. I remember Mom wishing me children "just like you" whenever I was being argumentative as a child for the exact same reason - not agreeing with the "why" and not understanding the whole doctrine of obedience. I guess this is my paycheck. :D  [Editor's note:  "Ah - music to my ears!"  :-)]

So we had exchanges this week too. They were fun. But honestly not a whole lot to talk about there. Elder Langston apparently went out to explore the far corners of our area one day and followed the train tracks out to the bridge that goes to Novo-k. I guess there weren't a whole lot of options as far as where you can run when a train starts coming at you by that point... as in "left" or "right." Not exactly sure what happened, but the way I heard Elder Langston recording it into his journal last night it seems like he narrowly escaped... :D

Well, that's about all I got. I hope everything back home is going great. Looking forward to reading almost twice as many emails as usual today :D

Love you all!
Elder Broekhuijsen

Lithuania!

Good morning!  It's always fun to wake up to email from  Elder Andrew.  We got some audio files too, so it feels almost like we just got through talking to him!  I love technology (but not as much as [him] you see…)  :-) Sorry - couldn't resist the Napoleon Dynamite reference…  Also, Andrew mentioned that he may or may not have time to email next week (because of transfers.)  So, fair warning…

Hey family!

It's been a pretty nuts week. First off, we had visa trips. I went on the 18th, and we got to go to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania! So we hopped on a plane to Moscow, and I got some interesting, if not particularly photographically stunning shots through the window of Moscow from the air. It is such a huge dang city. We went to our next gate in Vnukova airport, hopped on a very small propellor plane that took us to Vilnius, and got out. Vilnius kind of pretty much looks like Russia, except no big tall buildings. At least from what we saw. Mostly private houses as far as I could see. We went through passport control no problem. But being in that aiport was pretty weird. There's still plenty of Russian going on because it's an airport, but all the signs are in Lithuanian, and then English. No written Russian anywhere to be seen. After quickly exchanging some rubles for Lithuanian money to add to my collection (cool!), we went back through passport control, but in the other direction. The exact same lady was checking my documents. Heh. After some narrowed eyes and awkward questions, she let us through. (Yeah... we came here to renew our Russian visas... and we're already done and ready to go back. Quick, wasn't it?) We boarded the exact same airplane that we took to Vilnius, and went back to Moscow. Ha. After landing in Moscow, we all said a quiet prayer in our hearts that nobody would notice the mistake that the people in Prague made on Elder Elwood's visa (AGAIN! Grrr...). They didn't. We flew back into Samara and the group went home on a minibus. Elder Langston (he did his trip on the 21st) was, as it happened, at the airport already, with the Connells, waiting for the new senior couple, the Childers, to fly in. So I just stuck with them. The new couple flew in, R* took us home, and everything was great. I was ready to hit the hay for my guaranteed 8 hours.

So on the 20th, we had a sweet cultural day (we get one a cycle). We went to this place called Philharmonia, which was basically a really swanky concert hall. All the missionaries in the district, and a whole bunch of members and investigators came. We saw this cool quartet of guys play tango music for a couple of hours. It was a guy on a big old accordian, his son, who was a really good pianist, some other guy with crazy long silver hair on the violin who was amazing, and a guy playing the cello that was old enough to have invented the cello. It was so dang cool. So that was fun.

We also had a meeting with R* and O*. And we FINALLY got to the bottom of what's going on. [Details omitted for privacy reasons - suffice it to say, R* got some bad news and is kind of focused on that situation right now.]

On Saturday, we had a double baptism in Samara - S* from the Avrora Elders' area, and A* from the Bezimianski Zone Leaders' area. I worked with A* almost a year ago back when I was in Bezimianski with Elder Wood. Cool beans! Both of them are so dang cool. Actually, there were 5 baptisms in the mission this weekend, so that was really awesome.

Perhaps the most interesting news from this week is what happened yesterday. Sunday morning, at about 2:00, Elder Langston woke me up with some terrible stomach pains. I gave him a blessing, and then we talked to Sister Sartori on the phone for a while before going back to sleep. The next morning he was feeling a little better, so we went to Sacrament Meeting at least. He was out the rest of the day, so I tried to make myself useful, organized the whole area book and cleaned up a little and stuff. Today we headed to the clinic to get some tests done and try to figure out what's going on. We suspected maybe an ulcer. The doctors did a blood test and an ultrasound (yes, there were many pregnancy jokes made; no, none of them were inappropriate). While observing the ultrasound, I came to the conclusion that Elder Langston has a lot of weird black and white bubbles in his insides. The doctor, no doubt, came to some more educated conclusions. They basically said that they see nothing wrong with him, and he's feeling a lot better today, so hopefully that's the end of that epic saga.

And now here I am. Hopefully everything on your end is going great.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Visas & Varyenyeki

In addition to this nice email, we also received some sound files from Andrew today.  Maybe I'll see if I can get Joshua to help me post something…Meanwhile, enjoy the written word!

Hey everyone!

It's a cloudy day here in Samara, and I'm loving the weather. Cloudy weather is the best thing ever. That rhymed. Well... slant rhyme.

I guess one of the most exciting things that's happened this week happened this morning. We had Elders Ceimers and Berrett from Dachney (an area and branch in Saratov) up in town yesterday, because they are headed out to Latvia for a week for Elder Ceimers, who is from Latvia, to renew his Russian visa. Elder Berrett just got lucky enough to be his companion at the time. Anyway, they left the apartment this morning to go to the airport at about 1:30. Then the fun started. At about 4:00, we got a call. Elder Ceimers has two tickets. Elder Berrett has none. Awesome. We woke up President Blinkov. He said, "No, we definitely ordered Elder Berrett tickets. I saw them with my own eyes." We were on and off the phone with virtually everyone for the next two and a half hours, including almost sending Roman back to the airport to pick up the Elders, because they were going to miss their flight. Somehow, by some miracle, they got on the plane. God obviously softened somebody's heart, because the way they told it, there was one guy who was REALLY pushing for letting Elder Berrett on the plane to Moscow. So they got on, we breathed a huge sigh of relief, and then we arranged with President Blinkov to make sure their tickets from Moscow to Riga were good. He said they were.

Fast forward about the amount of time it takes to fly from Samara to Moscow. We got another call from the Dachney Elders. "The same thing is happening." Awesome. Face palm. We got President Blinkov on the phone again. "I'm sitting here behind my computer double checking this order on the internet, and I am staring at the ticket that has Elder Berrett's name on it. It has the correct passport number and everything!" We flexbusted out of the house and started going down to the office to get to the bottom of this. Meanwhile, the travel agent that President Blinkov orders all of our tickets through is on the phone and the internet with Moscow airport, trying to get everything straightenend out. For whatever reason, Elder Berrett's tickets, which were 100% correct and valid, were not in either system. But we gave them the order number, and they miraculously turned up. So they're on a plane to Riga now. President Blinkov is on his way down right now and we'll be taking a nice long look at what exactly happened, so that it never happens again. Meanwhile, the travel agent is cancelling and re-ordering all of their tickets back from Riga to Moscow to Samara. So that was a fun adventure.

Next up on the docket. Good news on the R* and O* front! We kind of figured they had looked at some anti-mormon trash online, and decided they didn't want anymore, beacuse R* was super rude at the door that one time. Well this week we just bumped into them on the street, and said hi, and they said hi back. And the next day, we decided to call them to test the waters, and it was as if nothing had ever happened. They were like, "Yeah, come over!" So we haven't had a meeting yet because of scheduling difficulties, but they almost came to watch the Avrora Sisters' investigator get baptized on Saturday, and we'll be meeting with them this week. In any case, they're back on the radar. Woot!

Our area is actually doing really good. We have six progressing investigators, and three baptismal dates (R* and O* are not progressing until we have another meeting with them). F* is doing great - I don't remember if I told you about her, but we set a date with her for the 27th. She is wonderful. Super solid Christian background, really delightful to teach, because she listens and contributes on lessons and doesn't get all off-topic, and just the nicest lady ever. So she's doing wonderfully. We also got a referral from a member named G*. He's 19, and getting ready for a mission, and he has a girlfriend named K*. She's also a boss. I'll send you a picture of me with G* sometime. He has the spiciest mullet/goatee combination I've ever seen. So K* is doing wonderful as well - going to be praying and trying to find out more about whether or not Jesus Christ was the Son of God. We also have a cool guy named M* who is accepting the message really well. We had a meeting with him and taught the Restoration, and he was like, "So it seems like there needs to be a church founded on the Book of Mormon then." Well. Yes. Sorta. We ran out of time to set a date with him on that lesson, because it was like 9:20, and we were a 20 minute walk from home (or a 9-minute run, as it turns out). But we'll set a baptismal date with him next time we meet. He works as a security guard, and he came straight to church yesterday after working a 24-hour shift (those are really common here). So he's a huge boss as well.

T* is doing great. She understands more and more about baptism and how it's necessary. She is what I call an eternal-progressing investigator. She will get baptized, but she's not the fastest at getting ready for it. That's okay though - it has lots of advantages actually. She's really well tied-in with the branch, when she makes a decision, like following the Word of Wisdom, she sticks with it despite social pressure from her friends, and she LOVES the missionaries. We had a lesson with her about how getting baptized to make the missionaries happy isn't a cool idea, and how it's way more serious, and there's a million inactive members that just went inactive as soon as their favorite missionaries left. She really gets that, so when she gets baptized, she'll be active.

We finalized transfers this week with President Sartori. I'd tell you now, but this kind of information has a way of leaking everywhere. So I'll just tell you at the end of the transfer. Sufficeth it to say that I'm really pumped.

What else do we have going on? Oh! Cool recipe. It's called Varyenyeki. It's pretty much ravioli, except instead of meat and red sauce, there is no meat or red sauce, and instead, you fill them up with mashed potatoes. It goes like this:

Make some mashed potatoes, and you can put stuff in them if you want. Like basil, or hamburger, or whatevs. Then take 1 cup of milk, 1 egg, and 3-4 cups of flour (I find it's usually closer to 3), and make super simple dough out of it. Then roll out the dough nice and thin, maybe 2 or 3 millimeters, cut out circles with a cup or biscuit cutter. The circles I use are about 3 inches in diameter, probably. Then you put some mashed potatoes in the middle, fold it in half, and pinch the edges really well so that they'll never come apart. If you want, you can kinda bend the two corners back around and join them together the same way. That will make it look more like a ravioli instead of a weird ugly lumpy half circle.

So then you can fry them in a pan with oil, (my personal favorite) or you can boil them. And if you made more than you want to eat right then, you can throw them in the freezer (cover them in flour so they don't stick to each other) and cook them all the same later. They're super good. Also they're super cheap, because, let's examine the ingredients: Milk (cheap), Flour (cheap), Eggs (cheap in Russia - 10 eggs for $1), potatoes (insane cheap). That's all. So a good combo for missionaries. And they make you feel like a professional chef once you have assembled them. And if you eat them in garlic sauce, or mayonaisse, or anything else that sounds decent, they are delicious.

So there's a cool recipe for you that we've been making this week.

Well. That's about it for my week. Hope everything with you all is going great! I'm looking foward to reading your emails that I just printed off.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen