Back in the USSR

Well, you're getting this post very shortly after we received Andrew's email - thanks to Joshua who was being "kidnapped" by members of Chamber Choir this morning at 5:00!  Oh the sacrifices we make for our children!  :-)

Hey there everyone -

How we all doing? Things here in Russia are great, as usual. Elder Morris and I had a great week. Lots of getting ready for the upcoming transfer. I can't say anything, because transfers are STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. But I can tell you the stuff that isn't confidential, that being that we have 5 new sisters coming into the mission in a week. Three are from the US, one from Russia, and one from Ukraine. Sweet! The scary part is that we have three of our ironclad battleship sisters going home (seriously three of the best missionaries I've ever met in my entire life), leaving a grand total of... 6 sisters in the mission. Which means every single sister companionship is training, including Sister Moe, who has been in Russia for a grand total of 12 weeks. Gosh, I can't imagine training after my second cycle.  [Hey Andrew - guess what your SISTER in Boston was doing after 12 weeks!  ;-)]   I know two missionaries who trained their second cycle though, and they turned out GREAT. So anyway, we're pretty pumped to double the sisters in our mission. It's going to be one interesting night, picking up 5 exhausted, jet-lagged sister missionaries from the airport at midnight. And then the next morning every single sister in the mission will be there for the orientation lunch when they're all assigned into companionships.

Elder Morris and I have spent 1/4 of our missions together now. Crazy, huh? 6 months if you add it all up. Man. We are going to chill so hard after the mission is over. But we only think about things like "chilling really hard" and "after the mission" on P-days. Otherwise it gets distracting! Anyway, I'm looking forward to the day when you all get to meet him. We'll have him over for dinner. If you're lucky, he and I will even whip up our world-famous "Russian Raman in one of the tupperwares that's still water-tight, with ketchup on top." A staple around here.

A few days ago, we decided that it was time to take stock and kind of re-set back on course with where we wanted our missions to go. So we created a document, entitled "Back in the USSR." That's funny, because it includes imagery of returning to times as they once were, especially in the sense that they used to be more strict, and also it is a Beatles song. And the subtitle is, "You don't know how lucky you are, boy (to serve in the Russia Samara mission)." Man. Ms. Woolsey always taught us the first place you look is the title; and there's all sorts of hidden literary meaning there. I strive to live my life by that rule. ANYWAY. We made two columns on that paper - stuff we do that we shouldn't, and stuff we don't do that we should. It was all just a bunch of really tiny stuff (standing up for morning prayers at 6:30 instead of praying 1/3 conscious in bed, speaking Russian on the streets instead of English, using the Book of Mormon on every lesson, etc.). The last couple of days we've been living it, and it's like it jumpstarted stuff. The first day we tried it, we found three new investigators, two of which are these super awesome college students with super bright futures (especially once we add the Gospel). And yesterday, we took our branch president, President Blinkov, on a meeting with A* and M*, our star Armenian friends. We taught the Plan of Salvation and it went SO well. Word. So thanks for all the blessings, God!

I got a tiny bit sick this week; picked up the gimpy little brother of the cold that Elder Morris had last week (because we have legendary companionship unity). So I took this stuff called Cold Act (or actually Колдакт). It makes you feel better alright, if by "better" you mean "as if your limbs were made out of lead, and also you haven't slept for a fortnight." I'll take a gimpy lil' brother cold, thank you. But I bet I left a really lasting impression on the people we contacted that night. They'll never forget the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Zombies.

So T* came to church again yesterday for the third time in a row! Woot! She was telling us about how she has a friend who is having a rough time in life right now and she wants to introduce her to us. Investigator referrals FTW! [Editor's note:  pretty sure FTW stands for "for the win" but I am no expert in abbreviations…]  We're going to teach her Lehi's Dream and point out just how much she is like Lehi in that scenario; tasting the fruit and immediately wanting to share it. Also, she's got a pretty decent number of fingers pointing at her out of the great and spacious building; but she doesn't care. Man, she's so going to get baptized. So are A* and M*. Which means that in 7 years, so will M*, their awesome rad kid that I sent you a picture of. I'm so pumped.

This week we head down to Tol'yatti for exchanges, and I get to hang out in New City North, where they've relocated the Zone Leaders (they used to be in Old City). It's going to be just like old times, chilling with all the old friends like V*, A*, E*, Y*... I'm way excited. I kind of want to end my mission in New City North. But also it would be cool to be in the trenches of Saratov, just absolutely thrashing an area with no administrative responsibility so that I can do my part for the stake they're going to get there within a year. Basically, I haven't decided. I still got like a year and a half to think about that, right? Also, it's not really my call.

Okay. Well. My mission is going awesome, I love it so much. Thanks for all the support I get from back home. It makes it easy out here. Not really, but I've seen what it's like for the elders and sisters who don't have that support. You know what I mean, at any rate. Love you all, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen