So, that post title didn't come from Andrew - we just happened to realize at the breakfast table this morning that today marks 11 months since Elder Broekhuijsen entered the MTC! Hard to imagine it's been that long (or that short!) :-) Sounds like he had another great week!
It's Elder Broekhuijsen again! I have about 20 minutes to write, so I'll try to squeeze in as much of the awesome stuff that happened this week as I can.
We had a double baptism on Saturday! A new member, A* (who is now serving on a short-term-mission with Sister Taylor in the Bezimianski Sisters' area, newly re-opened as of today), has a dad named M*. He is a boss. He knows the Bible almost as well as I know my Harry Potter trivia (and about as well as Hermione Granger knows Hogwarts, A History). He is just the perfect definition of elect. And he has the strongest testimony of missionary work. He's so amazing!
G* was also baptized. She is also awesome! So awesome, actually. She asked me to baptize her, so I have officially found, taught, and baptized an investigator from start to finish in one trasnfer. Cool! Yesterday she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and two hours later, helped us on a lesson with another investigator, and she's already the BEST MEMBER HELP EVER! She testifies SO WELL and shares experiences and stuff.
So I have one other large piece of news. I was informed about my transfer on Friday, about 36 hours before I was expecting to hear anything. President pulled me aside into his office after district meeting, and told me that I am going to be an Assistant to the President. Whoa, what? So as of today actually, I'm back with ELDER MORRIS! YEAH! And in about 2 or 3 hours, I'll be taking a taxi right into the thick of things with him. Transfers are in full swing right now, so there are Elders and Sisters attempting to miss trains and buses all througout the Samara oblast! (And the Penza, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, and Izhevsk oblasts, too, presumably.) It's going to be a huge adventure. I'm really excited for the new responsibilities I'll have. And to be honest, I kind of like the idea that I'll be in one place now for a good long time (probably 3 transfers absolute minimum, quite possibly a lot longer than that.) And I can't begin to describe my joy at getting to serve with Elder Morris again. That happens SO rarely that two missionaries get to serve together at two different parts of their mission. It will be so awesome.
I did get all the packages from everyone, by the way, and I wanted to say thank you for everything. I am right now wearing a certain spicy green tie. While drinking hot chocolate. Not really though, you can't bring your own hot chocolate into internet cafes. They don't appreciate it for some reason. Wanted to especially thank Joshua for the EPIC pen that he made me. It's so dicey, and classy, and weighs a lot, and writes so nice, and I examined that beast for like 15 minutes looking for a scratch or imperfection in the finish, and didn't find one. So as they say in Russian, molodyets. Good stinking job.
I got your photos from the S95 as well, Dad. Sweet! I'm WAY impressed with that guy! Of course, you're probably not going to print anything bigger than 11x14 of it if I know you, but I submit that you should hit up that nice black and white shot again with the 4x5. I can't believe you don't have any snow down there. It really does look like fall just kind of died and nobody covered it up yet. We get snow here any day it is warm enough to snow. To be honest, I don't notice the cold. My coat and hat and scarf are warm enough that I don't feel any different than inside in them. The only difference is the air makes you choke on how cold it is for the first 5 breaths when you go outside. And sometimes my face is really cold, but I'm pretty used to that. And if I stand still too long talking to someone, my feet start getting cold, but they warm back up again as soon as I start walking.
Anyway, my time is up. Thank you everyone for everything! I wish I could say I will get right down to writing reply letters to all the letters I've gotten from friends and family like Grandma, Sam, Elder Davis, Kendra, and everyone else. But from what I understand, the Assistants have been averaging about 0.8 P-days per transfer. Usually there's just too much administrative work to be done. I guess we'll see if I can make some letter writing happen.
I love you all! My mission is AMAZING right now. I figured out that I'm in kind of the best time of the whole mission in a lot of ways. I've been out long enough that I'm comfortable in the country, comfortable with the language (not that I don't want to get better, and completely eliminate my accent), and comfortable with the work (or at least as comfortable as you can get with something like missionary work.) BUT I still have the better part of my mission in front of me, so I don't have to worry about "oh, I only have 3 transfers left" or any of that kind of garbage yet. YES!
Have a fantastic week! I'm off to go bring some suitcases over to my new apartment and then dive into transfer work until bedtime.
Love,Elder Broekhuijsen
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