Merry Christmas 2012!

I was 87% sure that we wouldn't get email from our missionaries today, since it seemed likely that the places that they email from would be closed on Christmas Eve.  Happily that doesn't seem to be the case (at least in Russia!)

Hey family! 

How is everyone! I'm doing great. I'm going to start with the really important stuff first - the way things worked out, I need to do my call tomorrow night at 6:00pm, which I am 99.9% sure is 7:00am Utah time. So hopefully we don't get your Christmas started off too early ;) but with 6 missionaries in our branch and Christmas calls limited to the 25th this year because of transfer complications, that's the way the cookie crumbles.  [Editor's note:  That's okay Andrew - we're thinking it is probably worth it to get up at 7:00 a.m. to talk to our son who's been in Russia for the past 22 months!]  

So it's been a pretty eventful week. Lots of ups and downs. I guess I can start by saying that serving with Elder Christensen is pretty dang fun. He's very different from Elder Nielson, kind of a lot more straight-laced, but that's a good thing in many aspects. What's cool is that he's a really experienced and skilled teacher, so when we teach together it's really straight up 50/50 and really smooth teaching. Reminds me of teaching with Elder Langston a lot.

We had a bit of a heartbreak with N* and M*. The situation is a lot more complicated and personal than is good to explain in an email, but it totals up to: we won't be meeting with them anymore for at least a few weeks, which means there's about 0 chance of them getting baptized while I'm here. I guess that's a bummer, but maybe the Lord just needed me to give up my selfish desire for them to be "my awesome golden family that I baptized" and just be happy if they get baptized and I hear about it by email a few weeks later, from Utah. I'm not sure.

On the bright side, Elder Christensen and I have really focused in on finding a bunch of families to work with. Our area is filling up, and there have been miracles with some of our other investigators. K* is a 23 year old girl who was progressing pretty slow (she had a lot of meetings that were spent 75% on us trying to get the lesson on track and off of the topic of "America," or "our hobbies," or "English.") Well she came to church this week and hit it off really good with my brat-tan (Russian/Tajikistanian terminology meaning "brother/friend," or, "stranger that I want to sell shoes to at the marketplace") V*, who is a sick member here who is getting ready for a mission. They ended up just chilling together during all of 3rd hour, and then we had a lesson with them. I'm not exactly sure what V* told her or what happened during that hour, but suddenly she's taking this whole "maybe I do want to join this church and get baptized" thin about 384% more seriously. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and it went great. Now she's reading the Book of Mormon for reals and praying to find out if it's true. She also has begun making her mom pray with her before bed. Yeah baby! Go K*! 

We have a new sister in our district! Sister Young went down to Penza and Sister Clyde came up to... Russia. And she's lucky, because she got to come to Bezimianski, aka miracle central. She's pretty cool. Actually President Sartori has introduced some pretty strict SYL rules in the mission in the last week or so, and so, seeing as how she's been in the country for about 1.5 weeks, we haven't exactly been able to get to know each other that great in Russian, and there's not much English happening in my life anymore. So be looking forwards to me not remembering how to say anything on Skype tomorrow. But I bet she's cool. After all, she's a Russia Samara Mission sister. 

I decided what to spend my gift money from Grandma on and bought myself a spicy pair of European dress shoes today at the market (gosh I wish there was a halfway decent translation for the word "reenok." Saying "market" makes it sound like I went to get a pail of cream and say hi to Atticus, the town cobbler). They are in the traditional Russian/Tajikistanian style, which means really pointy and awesome, and they have fur on the inside and shiny black leather on the outside and instead of laces, zippers. I'm going to save them for special occasions. Can't wait to wow everyone with their glory at Zone Conference and ZLC. So thanks Grandma! If you were worried that my other shoes aren't holding up, worry no longer. I've been pretty faithful about switching them out and just in general taking care of them, and besides that, they're just really solid Ecco shoes, so they're still in almost perfect shape. I'll be wearing them after my mission, I think. I just wanted the Euro shoes because they'll go really well with my Palto, scarf, man purse (*ahem,* satchel), and well-trimmed toothbrush moustache (post-mission only). 

What else happened this week? Well, me and Elder Christensen bought some cookies from a little shop near N* and M*'s house, and they tasted like cigarette smoke. That was awesome. Also we went knocking an apartment complex, and this one guy cracked his door and a little orange kitten came shooting out, but nobody noticed, and he wasn't interested, so he closed the door. He was like, "We don't need your message about families!" And then we picked up his cat, and knocked again and it went a little something like this:

"What?!""Hey, your cat ran out while we were talking to you.""We don't need your cat!""No, you don't get it. Can you hear us through that door? This is your own cat.""We don't need our own cat!"*slam* 

So we named him Funkmaster Flex and he followed us around the rest of our knocking that night. 

Also last night a cool family let us in while we were knocking (Funkmaster Flex patiently waited outside, presumably listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire). The dad's name is Y* and mom's name is E*. They have a daughter who still lives with them because she's 11, and 2 kids who are moved out. So we have an appointment with them actually tonight at 8:00. Should be funtimes; they're pretty cool! 

Anyway. What else is there to say? Things are awesome here.  

Until next time! (which is tomorrow evening at 6:00pm for me) 

Love,  

Elder Broekhuijsen

P.S.  We have almost no snow on the ground here. It's super weird. And because of that (if everyone that we talk to on the streets is to be believed) it is a REALLY COLD winter. It's pretty bitter out there, especially if there's any kind of wind at all. We're doing just fine though in our huge coats, scarves, hats, and hoods. Man. Before my mission, my brain had never conceived of such cold temperatures ever being... felt... by my body before. It's nuts. I just had absolutely no imagination that you could feel that cold.

Another Day, Another Transfer

When I couldn't sleep at 3:00 this morning, I came up to check email and was pleasantly surprised to see this one had arrived from Andrew!  It didn't help me get to sleep, but it was very nice to hear from him.

I'll start off with the big news, because despite any efforts I might put forth to hide it at the bottom of the email, it would slow you down for approximately 2 seconds of scrolling (5 if you don't use the scroll wheel that's built into the mouse).

I'm staying! Elder Nielson, of course, is the new Assistant. I've known that since I was with Elder Morris, so no surprise there. Elder Langston, unfortunately, heads down to Saratov for his last transfer. Unfortunately for me, that is. It's been a year since I was more than a phone call away from Elder Langston. Dag, yo. But that's okay. We'll see each other at ZLC in a couple of weeks, and then... really there's only about a month after that. Jeez. I'm serving with Elder Christensen! Elder Christensen is one of the older missionaries in the mission; he's on his 12th cycle I think. So he's really in his prime with things like the language, experience with missionary work, etc. He's also been a zone leader for like... almost a year I think. So we're going to absolutely trash the place down here. I'm pumped to sprint to the finish line with someone who can keep up with me. Not that Elder Nielson couldn't, I guess. But in a way I'm glad that I'm not training for my last transfer. That's a blessing.

This week was pretty eventful. I had a Visa trip on Friday. So Elder Christensen (a different one, who will be in Novokuybyshevsk with Elder Swartz) and I got up at 2:30am to go pick up the two sisters in our group and get to the airport. I specifically set it up so that the taxi driver picking us up was a former investigator so that we could teach him a lesson during the 45-minute drive to the airport and start off the day right. The lesson didn't go that well (blame that on my teaching skills at 2:30 in the morning? dunno), so he's not a "new investigator," but he was a way nice guy and I think we'll meet with him again. Then we flew to Moscow, Kyiv, back to Moscow, and back to Samara. On the way back to Moscow from Kyiv, they busted out the lunch for everyone: weird spam stuff on a roll. Upon closer examination, I discovered that the mystery meat was ground goose liver. Yay! In the Vnukovo terminal we had about 2 hours after getting through all of security, etc., so we ate at Burger King. It wasn't even good. Waste of $10. Ha. Should have known. Then we got back into Samara at about 12:00 midnight or so. It was -18 degrees, and windy. I was wearing my lighter coat because I figured I wasn't going to be spending a lot of time outside. Ha. After a 30 minute search, we finally found our taxi, parked way out in the boonies and sleeping. [Editor's note:  I assume it was actually the taxi driver that was sleeping!]  Well, all's well that ends well. We got home okay around 1:15 and I got in a solid 8 hours of sleep. So that's it.

All the missionaries who are going home after April 2013 get 3-year Visas that Russia has just come out with, so all the other missionaries in my small group got those put in. They don't have to get a new visa until 2015, so that's pretty cool. Now their visa trips will be just to Rostov on a plane every six months, with only one passport, on a bus to the Ukraine border for like 20 minutes while they fill out a new migration card, and back down to Rostov and then back to Samara. That gives the assistants about 3,824 more hours each cycle to not spend writing Visa trip schedules!

We had a lesson with N* and M* in another attempt to get them to church (we've already taught them everything except the law of chastity, which we want to teach N* alone for the time being). They said they would come. Sunday morning we called, but M* decided that sleeping was more important than obeying God. Dang it... I guess I should be more understanding, seeing as how she's 10. But come on. It's not that hard to get up at 9:00 a.m.

Saturday we had transfer calls and then spent almost all day calling down travel plans and getting little details worked out with phones, etc. Sunday we went to church. I sprayed that Christmas juice you sent me all over the place again, just like last year. It was a hit. So thanks! Ooh! Also, Saturday we bought a Christmas tree. They were only about $20 for the tree and stand. I'll show you the picture sometime, but I don't have my camera with me even though I'm writing in the office today.

Anyway, I want to let you all know that I've got my head down in straight up charge position. I've only got 7 weeks left. Not a second to lose.

Thanks for everything!

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Knocking

I had great timing this morning - checked my email at 5:28 and saw this email from Andrew that had arrived at 5:26!  By the way, he doesn't mention the weather in his email, but Jerome checked the forecast for Samara, and they're having highs of around -10° this week!

Wasn't it like June 2011 not that long ago? I distinctly remember sitting in New City North, Tol'yatti, writing emails to you and typing June in the subject line. With Elder Kuzmin. Man. Good times.

Anyway, things here are going really awesome! We had a little bit of a disappointment with N* and M* - we tried really hard to get them to come to church on Sunday, and they committed, but then M*'s recurring eye infection came back on Friday. So we dropped by with cookies on Saturday night and M* wasn't feeling too bad, so we committed them to come, and on Sunday morning we dropped by to pick them up, and M* was sleeping and N* said no. So they can't be baptized this year, unfortunately, but I guess they'll be ready in January. With a little luck, I'll still be around :)

Really quick, before I forget about all the time zone things that are going on right now - things with Skyping home for Christmas are really crazy this year because transfers are like 1 week before Christmas, which means that nobody knows which area they will be serving in for Christmas until this coming Saturday night. For the time being, we have been directed to schedule our calls for Christmas day here. That means that, unless something changes (and I'll let you know next week), I'll be logging on to Skype at 7:00 pm on the 25th Samara time. I understand that the time difference is currently 11 hours due to daylight savings time, so that will be 8:00am on the 25th Highland time. If I did my math right. You'll want to check that one.

Anyway. I'm still burning hot until the very end. The Bezimianski Sisters, Sister Young and Sister Scoville, had a baptism on Saturday! A cute old lady named L*.  She's so nice. We're hoping to get a date set for the 29th with an investigator named T* whom I have never met. She was found and taught and has attended church twice in the Avrora branch by some other Elders, and they found out she lives in our area. So, cool.

We've put an emphasis on knocking lately in the mission as it's more effective when it's late and cold (few sober people on the streets). Man I've got a lot of good stories from knocking. Nothing makes you feel more like a missionary than trooping out of an apartment complex before the police arrive. :D Don't worry, we're completely legal. I just figure I have better things to do with my limited proselyting time than explain that to police officers when there are 3823049 other apartment complexes I can knock in at any given moment. We've also had a mentally deranged man scream at us for 5 straight minutes, after we closed the door on him and went on to the next floor (he told us to pass a veritable tapestry of Russian obscenities on to Obama, so if you see him this week, let him know), and one heavily-bearded guy who explained to us all about what's going to happen with the magnetic poles of the earth on December 21st, including an in-depth tangeant about Higgs Boson particles, however that's spelled, and what they have to do with righteous people gaining ablities that are uncannily Jedi-like in nature following the 21st. All the best mission stories come from knocking.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet around here. Not really, because missionary life is never quiet, and shouldn't be. But you know.

Saturday is transfer calls. Pray for me to stay in Bezi North.

Talk to you on the 25th.

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Идёт колбаса

Receiving email from our favorite "Russionary" is always such a great way to start off the work week!  He sounds great!

First off, of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I hope your birthday was magical. I didn't send you anything. Sorry. Sending a package entails lots and lots of time wasted standing in line at various post offices for hours only to be denied services for no really good reason (oh yeah, the lady who ties the brown string on the packages is on vacation until July, sorry). So I'm not going to try to send anything. I'll just bring it all home. I've got lots of room in my suitcases, because the majority of my souvenirs are pretty small physically, and because I have learned how to pack REALLY efficiently on my mission. 

So I had a list of stuff in my planner that I wanted to write you all about, but I didn't bring my planner to this place with me. Smooth. 

Here's some cool stuff from over here in Russia:

- We annihilated Orenburg on exchanges. Elder Glad and I randomly decided to go knocking apartments during the afternoon, and he followed a prompting to pick which one. So we loaded up some Liahona magazines and went knocking. On the top floor, we set up a return appointment with a family on the 3rd door we tried. Then we knocked the 4th door on that floor and set up another return appointment with another family for 1 hour after the first one on the same day. The next floor down we also got a return appointment with a family. Moral of the story: knocking is rad, and we need to do it more. 

After that, I worked with Elder Treter in Orenburg North (in the Stepnoy area, for those who were curious. Which is nobody). He is dang hilarious. We walked outside and it was snowing. So Elder Treter, in his new-missionary-(yet-very-proficient-for-how-long-he's-been-out-here)-Russian, says, "It is snowing." Then he pauses, and says, "It is raining." Another pause, and suddenly a crooked smile twists his face. Using a Russian grammar principle in a way that had never occured to me, he says, "It is sausaging." That was definitely a good involuntary image. Идёт снег. Идёт дождь. Идёт колбаса. Oh, man. I was laughing so dang hard. 

The next day, after we had gotten back into Samara, the Orenburg North Elders went knocking again and set up 4 return appointments in 2 hours. Reiterated moral of the story: knocking is rad. 

In our own area, we had approximately "over 9000" potential investigator meetings fall through, but we did connect with a cool potential investigator named S* who wants us to come and talk to a hostel full of post-rehab people who have recently gotten un-addicted from alcohol and drugs in a center that is run entirely by volunteers. Now THAT'S a manly referral. Woot! More to come on that one, either next week or the one after that probably.

The last couple of days have been weirdo weather; with very warm temperatures for this time of year (and they were all promising -50 back in October), and 48 straight ours of thick fog everywhere. I took some epically awesome and creepy pictures in Park Gagarina. Especially the one with the hazy ferris wheel at night. Man. Cool stuff.

This coming week is Zone Leader Council for two days, and then Avrora exchanges for two days, so we're once again not going to have a lot of time in our own area to work, but we're getting used to that and we're positive that the Lord will take care of the area in ways that we can't.

Yesterday, we met with N* and M*. They're doing great. We've taught them mostly everything, but they're having a hard time getting to church. But the Spirit was super strong on yesterdays meeting, and we're really optimistic that they'll come this Sunday and hopefully even be baptized before the new year rolls around. 

Other than that, things are quiet around here. That is to say, things basically are not quiet at all around here. And that's the way I like it. I don't want to end my mission "quietly." I want to end my mission with the loudest bang this side of the Volga.

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen

P.S. I got a letter from Elder Davis. He's so rad. I can tell just from the letter that he's a rockin' missionary.