We had a great Skype conversation with Andrew for Mother's Day yesterday - such a treat! So when we didn't have an email waiting for us when we woke up this morning, we thought maybe he had simply run out of things to say! As it turns out, their internet was apparently down, so the email was sent out later than usual. It did eventually arrive, however - so we're happy!
How's everyone doing? Funny, it feels like about 22 hours ago that I talked to you all on the phone, with the exception of Melissa. I hope you had a happy Mothers' Day, and enjoyed your Garrett-style patty melts. It was good to see you again, and see that life is continuing in Highland just like always :). I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to the day I have to leave this place and stop spending my entire existence doing missionary work, but at least I know there are a lot of good things waiting for me when I get back. I was also glad to hear some really minor updates from some of my other friends on missions that I don't really find time to write ever, like Elder Davis and Elder Anderson and stuff.
There were a couple of sweet baptisms in the mission this week! In Izhevsk, a young lady named A* got baptized, and in the Centralney area of Saratov (the Zone Leaders' area), there was a guy named I*. I* has the coolest story ever on his baptism day. In the Volzhsky branch building (where the ZLs attend church), there is no font for baptism. So they use the one in Solnechney, just another branch and area in Saratov. Well, I* had never been to the Solnechney building; he just had an address. So the ZLs were getting a bit nervous when he was 15 minutes late. They called him and he was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming still, I'm just having hard time finding the building!" They gave him some more directions, and went outside to wait for him. After a couple of minutes, they spotted a figure off in the distance, full-out running towards them. Sure enough, I* was at a dead sprint, just epically racing to his own baptism; looking at all the buildings to get addresses and make sure he was going in the right direction. He showed up all huffing and puffing and then got baptized, and is now the happiest guy in the world. What a boss.
Elder Morris and I are working with an investigator named T*. We met her on the street a couple of weeks ago, and she came to church for the second time in a row yesterday. It's funny, because the first time, she came, sat quietly and didn't really engage with the branch members, and more or less just quietly slipped out after sacrament meeting. We met with her during the week and taught her the Restoration. She had been reading the chapter headings of the Book of Mormon we gave her; and then gotten curious and went ahead and got online and read just about everything about our church. She apparently hit a lot of misinformation, but it didn't phase her at all. She still wanted to meet and just had lots of great questions. Then yesterday she came, was more friendly with people at the branch, stayed for the second hour, and came up to us after sacrament meeting thanking us for inviting her. She said something along the lines of "I feel really good when I come into this place and when I meet with you; it's like all my stress from the week just kind of gets forgotten while I'm here. But I don't know anyone here really very well at all, so I was wondering if I could invite a friend of mine next week?" [Editor's note: Sarcasm alert - this next sentence is just Andrew kidding around.] Well Elder Morris and I explained that we don't really like when people invite their friends to church, because contacting on the street for 18 hours a day is much more enjoyable than teaching referrals with pre-established support systems and friends in the church; so that pretty much set her straight. Psyche! She promised that next week she'd stay for third hour. Woot!
Elder Langston and I got to go on exchanges this week, just regular Assistant/Zone Leader exchanges that happen every cycle. Every single meeting we set up fell through, so we contacted for about 4 hours after lunch, then went in for dinner and contacted for another 3 hours after that. It was awesome. We found a new investigator named A*, who is in college studying to be a beer-brewer. Interesting choice; I wonder how one gets interested in such a subject while in high school? ;)
Anyway, that's the update. Hope you all have a magical week! Tell Melanie to send some pictures of her baby, but only if it's cute.
P.S. Children in Russia are approximately 34x cuter than they are in America for some reason. Alrighty. Love you all; have a wonderful day!
Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen
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