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
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