Crazy Weather

Jerome watches the weather forecasts for Samara pretty closely, and it has recently started warming up significantly there.  Still, we were rather incredulous to see the following forecast last week - which Jerome sent to Andrew and to which he refers in his first paragraph.

How's life? It's pretty hot down here. I was flabbergasted (in Russian, Флэбэргэстировать, "to flabbergast" [okay, not really though]) to see the forecast. It's been hot on the streets today, but not THAT hot. I guess we'll see how the day pans out though, we very well could hit 120F sometime around 3:00 or so tomorrow. Gosh, that's crazy.

It's been a good week; kind of crazy. We watched General Conference this weekend, and I LOVED it. I especially enjoy the way L. Tom Perry says "The Book o' Marmon!" like a pirate. Seriously. I really really enjoy it.

Elder Hale is, right now as I type, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on his way back to America. Sad day, I'll miss that guy. But there will inevitably be road trips in the future. To the extent that we plan anything after our missions, Elders Morris, Hale, Langston and I have vaguely decided that we'll all room together at BYU one of these days.

Ooh! Just remembered! A list of people I saw in the MTC choir during the Saturday afternoon session: Elise Leavitt! Way to serve a mission! Yeah! Also, Dakota Murdock? At least, some dude that looked like him. Also, possibly Tamara Watkins? Elder Swartz called me and said he thinks he saw her. I wasn't looking for any sisters who graduated with me because none of them are old enough to serve missions yet, but apparently her dad is a mission president, so she can serve starting at age 20 or something? Anyway, if it was her, ALSO AWESOME. Actually, if there's anyone who still reads my blog that knows Tamara or could find out what's going on with her, could you tell me if that was her? I'd love to know. Also I'm pretty sure I saw a girl that looked like Kaitlyn Brunsdale, but I think she's already in San Antonio if she went to the MTC in January. So there's that.

So what else cool happened this week? Hmm... well, we found some cool new investigators. We also have transfers going on right now. Against all odds, I'm still in Avrora West ;). And probably will be until like August or September or something. Sweet. Elder Swartz got yanked out of Volzhsky and put back in as a District Leader in his old area in Penza. That's weird, because now both of us have been yanked out of Volzhky and sent back to work in old areas as District Leaders. I'll attach a picture I took of Elder Swartz and I this morning in our apartment. I'll also attach a picture of me indicating a man who is half cat. So, don't worry about it.

In other news... there isn't really a whole lot of other news. O*, our awesome investigator, is moving to Moscow. So with her schedule (or rather lack of schedule; she told us she hates planning, and that's why it's so hard to get meetings with her), we don't have enough time to meet with her and teach her everything and prepare her for baptism, which is a huge bummer. But she called US and asked if the church and the missionaries are in Moscow, to which we replied, "Oh, yes." Actually, what I said was, "Да! Даже, церковь там--намного крепче чем здесь в Самаре." So, there you have it. She'll go up there, meet the missionaries in her new area, and get baptized into a ward and a stake with N*. All the better for her!

So, also, MELANIE HAD A BABY NAMED AFTER A HARRY POTTER CHARACTER! Oh my gosh, what the heck? I swear it was like 20 minutes ago that I read the email that she was expecting. I guess this has probably been a WAY longer 9 months for her than for me. MAN, time flies. Well CONGRATULATIONS to her and Devin. Tell them I'm only 40% disappointed that they didn't name their son Andrew Broekhuijsen. Threenia would also have been acceptable.  [Editor's note:  Melanie is Andrew's cousin who had a baby GIRL last week - so the rest of us are glad she didn't name her Andrew Broekhuijsen!  Also, "Threenia" was the name 4-year-old Melanie picked out for Melissa when she was born.]

We're still working to build Zion here. The church is still true. Hope you enjoyed your vacation and told everyone I said hi.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen