Sweet! A Good Week!

Although he almost always sounds upbeat, it is particularly rewarding to hear Andrew sounding so happy!  Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers in his behalf!

Hey everyone!

It's been a good week for the area. Which is sweet, because it's been quite a while since we've had a particularly good week for the area.

The transfers went as smooth as butter (not lumpy butter though). Actually, that is a dumb saying, because "smooth" isn't even on my "first 15 adjectives I think of when I think of butter" list. The transfers went as smooth as a rock that has been sitting in a river for four centuries and then somebody took it out and sanded it with 400 grit, then 600, 800, 1000, and 1200 grit sandpapers, and then painted a perfect four coats of lacquer over it, resanding and buffing as needed.

On Tuesday, we randomly had an old former investigator, Y*, call us. He is a really successful businessman who lives outside of Samara, but comes in frequently. He's very very Christian. He always says that he wants to walk away from it all and just follow Christ, (although he hasn't seemed to do it just yet) and he's just about the nicest guy ever. Anyway, he called us and asked if there was going to be family home evening in the branch that night. There was, so we met him there, and had a lesson afterwards where he asked if there were going to be baptisms anytime soon. We told him there were and asked him if he would get ready to be baptized on May 5th. He said he was already ready. "Can't we just fill up the font right now? It's right over there." Sweeeeeeeeeeeet answer. So he's a big miracle this week. He doesn't answer his phone though because he's so busy all the time, so we're a little bit at his mercy as to when we can meet. But that's okay, I think he'll make his date.

Throughout the rest of the week, we had other missionaries in and our of our area for various reasons. Elders Woolley and Ceimers found an Armenian guy named A* on Friday. We met with him on Saturday and he's amazing. He and his wife say they have "dedicated their lives to Christ." He has a big ol' tattoo of Christ on his shoulder, and he calls him "My cool brother." That sounds way better in Russian though. So he and his wife, R*, are solid investigators now, reading the Book of Mormon and praying and stuff. Gosh, they're so cool. He also already doesn't smoke or drink. And he loves meeting, so he gave us a standing invitation to come over any time after 8, when they're always home, any night. And by the way, they live 5 minutes on foot from our apartment. YEAH baby!

There are also a couple of other new investigators we found by setting up meetings with them on the tramvai between our place and the branch building in Avrora. Tramvai contacting is seriously the best thing ever, I love it. So yesterday, while Elder Morris and I were planning, I noticed that we had started doing something that Elder Langston and I did every night - we had so many investigators in our area that we could just write down a list in any given time slot (say, 7:30-8:15) of investigators to meet with. Man, having a full area is the best thing ever.

So our area is finally building up. We're finding new investigators really consistently, and God is putting really really really awesome and elect people in our paths. I'm not sure what we did that changed things from "average" to "good," but I'll take it!

Thanks for getting those addresses for me! I've waited a LONG time for K's address (everybody look at Joshua with disappointed eyebrows for a moment, please).

The weather is amazing. Samara is SO beautiful once winter gets over. The whole mission is really picking up; with transfers, everyone ended up with companions that they really get along with or already know somehow or something, but there's tons of excitement about it, and that's translating into way more success in the key indicators and in the number of baptisms and just everyone's moods in general. The days can get hot, but I haven't seen TOO hot yet (wait until June/July for that ;) ), and the evenings are just absolutely perfect. The Volga is so beautiful with the sunset when we're headed down to the office in the evening for a meeting.

I'm loving it. Everything is going absolutely fantastic. Thanks for all the support I've gotten from all of you!

Looking forwards to Mother's Day, by the way. Weird, because last time there was Mother's Day, I was in the MTC and packing to get ready to go to the SLC airport. Weeeeeird.

Awesome.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen