Dobriy Vecher

From 4:00 to 5:00 a.m. today I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to get up and check email, because I didn't want to read it and then know that I wouldn't get another email from Elder (Andrew) Broekhuijsen.  So, I waited until 5:00, and then gave in.  No email.  When I finally got back to sleep, I slept right through my alarm and didn't get up until 6:45.  Oops!  Happily, there WAS email by then!  So, without further ado or explanation from me - here is the last email from Elder Broekhuijsen written in Russia.  (But hopefully I can talk him into writing at least one post once he gets home!)

Dobriy vecher. (That's Russian for buenos tardes) 

Well. I've been having a pretty weird day. We got up, did our normal study, etc., and then cleaned up the apartment and hit the store to buy groceries for the week. Good thing we're so fiscally responsible, because otherwise we may have ended up with more than 1000 rubles to spend on food for an entire week. We wouldn't want to actually EAT the last week of my mission, Elder Broekhuijsen grumbled, before remembering that he really likes rice anyways. 

Then we came home and I spent 4 straight hours writing letters to as many of my mission friends as I could. I even got permission to write to a few of the sisters that I've gotten to work with. Usually that's not allowed. So thanks, President! After that, we came straight here. And now we're here. 

I would like to report on a success from last week. You sent me away with $300 and a task to find a suit. I definitely found a spicy euro suit for 4500 rubles ($150). Haggled it down to $120. It fits really well. It's not custom tailored, but it fits almost as if it were. I would like to look into shortening the sleeves and hemming the pants sometime, but yeah. It's really really dark muted blue, and has cool pinstripes that are vaguely shiny, in the Russian tradition.  

So I consider that a victory. 

To answer Sister C's question, yes, I would love to do a duet with Melissa for our homecoming, and yes, I would love to sing a verse in Russian. Let's do Be Still My Soul! I love that song, and it's even prettier in Russian. 

To answer mom's question, [What would you like by way of foods you've been craving when you get home?] — anything with sugar in it. As you know, I decided to go off sugar for this transfer to see if I could do it. I could. But I love sugar so, so much. So I figured I would give myself a week after I get home to splurge and then make some more long-term healthy eating habits to follow. But in terms of meals... I would love to hit up some Bahmi (or however you spell that). With saus ketchang. [Some favorite Indonesian foods of ours.]  Oh, yeah. And I definitely need to make a run to Iceberg for a shake. And I want to make you all Plov and Borsch and stuff because it's so delicious and I'm not even close to sick of it. 

There are my requests. 

So I think I've overcome the "moping around about how sad it is to leave my mission" phase. Actually, to be perfectly honest, this week ahead of us doesn't feel much different than any normal week. So maybe I've just regressed into the "denial" phase again. I guess we'll have to see. 

I don't know what to write. We had some really awesome meetings and new investigators and stuff this week, but it seems pointless to tell about them here when I can give you all the juicy details from not only them, but my entire mission, in like a week. We did end up getting a meeting with a guy named I* from an ancient potential investigator list in the dark depths of the area book (the section that's recorded in reformed Egyptian) from 2006. He came, and is a huge boss. He was an exchange student in Salt Lake City of all places when he was 15. Speaks English pretty well. He's 24 now. And he could be a stake president with a little bit of surgical false doctrine removal and a steady IV of the words of life. Thanks, Heavenly Father! 

I don't have much to report. I'll be seeing you in a week. I keep thinking of vaguely interesting questions I'd like to ask, but then I remember that there is no point in asking questions this week. 

Joshua, Garrett - you better be ready to give me the run down on the G7, Steam, etc. etc. when I get back.   Dad, I get the feeling there will be some in-depth talks about photography and videography in the near future.  Mom, I want to hear when I get back what you did the last week of your mission. It will be interesting to compare to my own.  Melissa, keep smashing it to the end.

I'm out of stuff to say. Back to work over here. 

Love, 

Elder Broekhuijsen

January 21, 2013

It's the best of both worlds!  It's a holiday here, so we get to sleep in and not go to school/work, but it's not a holiday in Russia, so we still get email!  (It's a good one, too!)

In an attempt to get my brain used to the idea of living in America again, I decided to title this email in the US date format, with the month first. I figure if I continue making baby steps like this, I'll be ready to go home in about 2 years or so. [Editor's Note:  Good idea, Andrew, but you need to remember that the year is actually 2013 now!  I'm glad I'm not the only one who still writes/types 2012 all the time!]  Man. Every day my brain screams louder that it doesn't want to go home. But I'm not going to think about going home anymore, because it gets me all sad and stuff.

 Well, the coolest event of the week I think, would definitely have to be T*'s baptism.  Elder Christensen and I went down to the Volga at 4:00am with a pickaxe and a shovel and got to work. After about 4 hours, we hadn't made much progress, so we called President Blinkov and he called a guy who had a jackhammer. That really got things moving at a better pace. The baptism was scheduled for 9, and we actually made it on time.

Okay, I'm going to let my conscience take over here. None of that happened. Presidents Blinkov and Klimov talked President Sartori out of letting me baptize her in the Volga. Besides that, there was another guy named R* getting baptized that day, so they decided to just do them in the Bezimianski branch building. If you want to Google earth that, it's Улица Победы 100А. I spend a lot of time in that building. So that was Saturday at 6:00pm. It was so wonderful. The service went really well and T* is so happy. I'm sure she's emailed Elder M* the pictures by now, but on the off chance that she hasn't yet, someone make sure he knows, would you? He'll be stoked. I got some pictures too, but don't have a way to email them.

Also, S* (a sick member here who served a mission in Washington State, speaks fluent English, and oh yeah, by the way is a legit DJ) and V* (my brat-tan) both loaded up my flash drive with like 4 GB of sweet Russian electronic music for when I go home. Happy birthday to me! 

Other than the baptism, we had some wonderful interviews and exchanges with the Avrora Sisters. They are doing well. In case you were wondering. During the exchange review (where we give each other feedback), I got some really good advice from some of the sisters on things I can do better in my missionary work. And I had this weird realization that I wasn't going to have time to implement it all. And then I got sad, but then I got happy again because I realized that I can just implement it after my mission and it will still be useful and valid. 

Last week after emailing, I went to the reenok and hit up a couple of places selling suits. I found one that I liked, but didn't love. It's a little darker than my current charcoal one, and the pinstripes were not as dense, but it's okay. I tried it on, it fit well (but I still wanted some tailoring done), and said, "Okay, how much?" 8500 rubles. Nope. I haggled him down to 4000 rubles in less than a minute. Is that a testament of Elder Broekhuijsen's legendary haggling skills? No. That is a testament of the Suit Salesman's legendary price inflation skills. At the end of the day, I got him to about 3800. I would have paid 4000 (about $130) if he had included the cost of tailoring, but he wouldn't budge. So I walked away. I wanted to be sure I had permission and money for it anyway. Today I'll go back and see what I can do for about 4000 rubles. Too bad I don't have Elder Benham with me. He would have been able to buy that man's entire store for like 25 kopecks. Seriously, that Elder can HAGGLE. 

In other news, this is the second-to-last email I will ever write as a single full-time missionary. That is pretty dang freaky. They always said it would be way harder to leave the mission field at the end of 2 years than it was to leave your life at the beginning. I didn't think they were right until now though. The weird part is, I didn't think I had done all that great of a job at developing some kind of mega Christlike love for the Russian people. I love my cool investigators and friends and stuff, but it's like Christ says - even wicked peeps like their homies. That was a little bit less formal than Christ worded it, I believe, but you get the point. I still sometimes have trouble staying patient with the people who are just BEGGING for a well-worded, one-sentence reply that will crush all of their logicless brainwashed arguments and make them feel like an idiot for picking a verbal fight with me. At least when I'm in a bad mood I find myself biting my tongue a lot. But I love what I'm doing. I love what I'm learning here. I'm learning SO MUCH. I love the things that I can do here that I can't do again. I love helping missionaries. I love interviewing with sisters. I love sitting around the table at zone leader council and receiving inspiration with the awesome servants of God that are always there and then watching it work to change the mission in a better direction. I love baptizing those elect few that make it through Satan's obstacle course. I love wearing the tag and being immediately judged for it, and then succeeding in changing someone's mind about what kind of people we are, even if they're not interested in learning more. I love letting go of a Book of Mormon when the other person actually wants it. I love those days that I forget my hankerchief and my nose is running everywhere because it's freezing. I love falling asleep during my personal prayer at the end of the day because I'm so exhausted from meetings falling through and hitting the streets, and then waking up at 1:30 in the morning and realizing I'm still kneeling. I love barely containing my emotions when we sing a really awesome hymn. I could list this kind of stuff for hours, and I don't think when the time comes that I'll be ready to leave it behind. I can picture the bus out of Samara for the last time (the airport is an hour outside of the city), and it's not a happy picture. It's like a physical sensation of loss, like I forgot all of the possesions that are dear to me in my apartment before I left or something. 

Anyway. I know there's a ton of good stuff on the horizon. Short term and long term, it's easy to think of things I used to get excited for back when the end wasn't looming so bad. And I'm excited, but it's kinda not at the front of my mind. So don't get me wrong. I'm not going to come home all mopey and teary-eyed and bummed out and be no fun and missing out on the happiness of the moment. I'll be smiling and walking down the escalator with my brethren around me (that being the other Elders that land in SLC International with me) and presumably wearing some exceedingly shiny pointy-toed shoes and a spicy new suit. And I'll probably be able to distract myself from the sadness of my mission being over with all the cool stuff there will be to do long enough for all those feelings to quiet down and stop being a problem. 

But at the end of the day, the Lord knew that a big part of me was supposed to stay in Samara, Russia. 

Have a great day everyone! I'm off to the market; Old Man Jenkins was worried sick when he didn't see me last week. 

Love,

Elder Broekhuijsen

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Wow!  Elder Broekhuijsen turns 21 today!  His mother must have birthed him when she was very young!  :-)  Anyway, it sounds like he's doing just fine as a legal adult.  See for yourself…

Elder Broekhuijsen here. Who is now a legal adult in all meanings of the word! 

It's been a fun day. I got to wake up at 6:30, take a 7 degree bath (not that bad, actually; and it's a better simulation than a shower), do regular study, and clean the apartment! The Bezimianski Sisters kindly faxed me a card with a wonderful poem on it that they wrote. That was really nice of them. A few friends here and there from the branch, investigators, missionaries, etc. have called and sang to me and wished me a happy birthday. Then we went and bought all of the things we needed to eat food this week, including the ingredients for a GRECHKA CAKE! What is a grechka cake, you may ask? Words do not do one justice. You'll have to wait until I either a) write in a post office so that I can send pictures, or b) come home and make you one. 

For the record, being 21 feels about the same as being 20. 

Yesterday, T* came to our branch after 3rd hour to discuss details and planning of the baptism on the 19th. They're having a hard time finding a place where we won't have to cut through like 2 feet of ice, but President Blinkov is on the case, and if anyone can find a place, he can. She also gave me a really nice picture dictionary that has 12,000 some-odd words in it for all sorts of objects and parts of objects. I now know how to explain in detail how to build a guitar from scratch in the woodshop. That will come in handy, I think. Probably what I'll teach my MTC district on their first day. 

Also: I am going to look at suits today at the market. I'm also going to buy a fresh pail of buttermilk and have the cobbler mend my galashes (sp?) while I peruse Madame Rosemary's apothecary. GOSH! Reenok. I hate that there is no English word for that. 

Point being. Probably won't buy anything today. I'd like your opinions on buying one. But my suits are pretty hashed up after 2 years (I DID take good care of them though - most missionaries here replace their suits long before they go home), and it's not going to be any cheaper to fix them than it is to buy a new one. Also, it's going to be a lot cheaper to buy one here than in America. So I figure that can be my birthday present. 

Other news. A few days ago I had a dream that I came home, and right when I stepped into our house, before Dad even said anything else to me, he just handed me a box that had a 5D Mk II in it.  [Yeah, dream big, Andrew!]  I was, of course, quite excited to play with that and immediately started. I was excited to see everyone. All the good things that I'm looking forward to after my mission were there, basically. And yet... the whole dream was just overcast in sad. The closer I get to the end here, the less I want to leave. I know it's time, but man. I didn't really believe them in the MTC when they said it would be way harder to leave my mission than it was to leave my life before. But it's like 392x harder to leave here. I'm going to miss these people and this place so dang bad. I can talk to many of them on Skype and stuff. But I can't go walking on Leningradskaya Street or Kirov Square on Skype. I can't talk to any of the missionaries that are basically brothers and sisters to me on Skype. I can't put on a nametag and go preach on Skype. I'll stop whining now. I'm going to enjoy everything to the end here. But I can really honestly say that if I could go home for a month or so and hang out with all of you, and then just come back and do another 2 years, I would do it. Even though that would make me a 23-year-old freshman. 

We had a good week. Actually, in terms of investigators moving or "measurable" missionary work getting done, we had one of the worst weeks of my mission. But that's beside the point. We had interviews and "exchanges" (basically we work in a group of 4 all day) with the Bezimianski Sisters. They were the best interviews I've ever had. It was weird, because Elder Christensen and I were conducting the interviews, and I feel pretty safe in saying that we were able to help the sisters find answers to some of their questions and feel better about some of their stresses, but the Spirit was so strong on the interviews that I was like receiving personal revelation in real time, live streaming. It was mostly quite unrelated to the things we were discussing on interviews. I think I probably learned way more for myself than the Bezimianski Sisters did that evening. I don't know how to describe the experience very well, but before we knew it, we had spent about 5 hours doing 2 interviews. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that THAT was exactly what the Lord had in mind for each one of us that day. I also had the opportunity to give one of the sisters a blessing. Probably more than any other blessing I've ever given, that one was really obviously not from me. The Bezimianski Sisters weren't like "struggling" in any sense of that word, and we didn't have any specific reason to be worried about them, so I'm not sure why the interviews turned out so awesome. I dunno. This paragraph isn't doing very good justice to the whole experience. The Spirit lingered over us the rest of the day, and through personal study the next morning it was like a continuation of the personal revelation flood. It was awesome. 

Anyway, things are great. Thanks for the birthday card! It looks awesome. I know several missionaries here who would approve. Don't worry about not sending one, I don't mind at all. [Editor's note:  We had to scan and send the card via email, since SOMEone didn't get it in the mail in time!]

My mission is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm not pumped that it's almost over. But I still have 3 full weeks to tear it up here, and the Lord can teach me a LOT of things in 3 weeks if I let Him. 

Happy Birthday Dad, BTW. I didn't say anything about that in my last email even though I celebrated a little bit here and didn't forget. So I felt kinda bad about keeping quiet. So hope it was a great day! 

Love you all! 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen

Happy Surprise!

I admit it.  I had abandoned all hope of getting email from Andrew this week, when "Poof!"  A magical email appeared in my inbox at precisely 6:35 this morning!  Hooray for happy surprises!

Wow, it's not even 2012 anymore. Ask me if I still say "2012" every night when recording in my journal, and then hastily correct myself every single time. Yes.
So I guess I'll start off with an explanation for the weird emailing happenings of the last couple of weeks. On New Years' Eve, of course, nothing was open (well, bars and liquor stores), so we didn't even try looking for somewhere to write. And last week was, as it happens, Russian Orthodox Christmas. Same connundrum (slightly fewer drunk people). Luckily, we got permission to write today. So anyway, that's the dealio. 

I do have some replies from your emails last week, which I was allowed to print in the office after the first day of Zone Leader Council last week.

First off deer photos. Pretty awesome! On an unrelated note, how long does it take to get your expert archer license? On another unrelated note, I've heard that deer jerky is real delicious. [Editor's note:  Forget about it, Andrew!  You're not hurting our "pets!"]

As far as Christmas calls, they were awesome. So thanks! And thanks for letting me talk to Sister Broekhuijsen. That was a blast. President K* got LOTS of thank-yous for letting us come over. He's such an awesome guy. So here's the kicker. President K* and his family ARE COMING ON VACATION TO AMERICA! YEAH BABY! I already invited them over for dinner. Sorry if that was presumptious, but I don't think it was. They will be in Utah for the entire month of April, effectively. They will be going to conference if they can get tickets, and just going around seeing the sights, visiting missionaries, etc. I can't WAIT to introduce you to all of them in real life. They are seriously the coolest people ever. 

Joshua is cleaning his room. Ha. Elder Christensen and I spent 5 hours of our lockdown day to DEEP clean our apartment. I'm talking DEEP. Like, there is no dust left anywhere, and EVERYTHING is organized. Fortunately/unfortunately, the Bezimianski East Elders moved out the morning of the first lockdown (they finally got their own apartment). It was fun living with 3 other Elders, but the apartment was always a mess, and I don't like that very much (and Elder Christensen REALLY doesn't like that very much). I have realized how awesome having a super clean place to live/work/be is. Step one upon getting home: deep clean the room. Who knows, I may finally get around to re-arranging the furniture for the first time in 16 years as well? 

Ooh! Note for Grandma! I spent the money for my birthday/Christmas! I bought myself a spicy pair of European dress shoes. I'll send pictures sometime if I ever get to send pictures again. Otherwise I'll just show them to you when I WEAR THEM AT MY HOMECOMING TALK. Oh man. They are so rad. 

So here's some cool/crazy news: T*, who decided a while ago to get baptized on the 26th, changed her mind. She wants to get baptized on the 19th. And she wants me to baptize her. In the Volga. I've started my President B*-recommended "body actualization" training to get ready for the cold water: increasingly long parts of my morning shower need to be at the coldest temperature our faucet will offer: 7 degrees Celsius. Today was 30 seconds. There was screaming involved. Soon, I'm supposed to start trying to completely submerge myself in the 7 degree water in the bathtub for various periods of time. We figured I would need to be in the Volga for no longer than 2 minutes at maximum (which is, for the record, 4 degrees Celsius) to do the baptism. So once I can do 7 degrees for about 2 minutes, my body is "ready." I don't know exactly what that means, but it doesn't seem like the right word if you ask me. 

So that's going to be one heck of an adventure! Also, V*, my brat-tan (don't worry, he has little to no interest in selling me shoes) promised to make all the missionaries a sala and holodyetz feast on the 20th. Sala would be pork fat with various spices melted into it, and holodyetz is Jello if they had a flavor called "Presumably Unsanitary Meat and Stuff (with REAL chunks of animal byproduct!)" Two straight-up real Russian experiences right at the end of my mission? Yes, please. 

This week we had Zone Leader Council with all the sisters in the mission (we have 15 right now). It was a two-day job. The first day was more or less like normal ZLC, except instead of the zone leaders and assistants putting their concerns up, we just had the sisters put theirs up and everyone discussed those. It was not only enlightening to see what the sisters are worried about, but we came up with some good discussions and solutions. We also decided on a handful of breakouts that we were to prepare that night and teach the sisters during the morning of day 2. That night, we feverishly threw together a "play" that had all the breakouts involved. It was quite interactive, with practice sections interwoven into the storyline the same way that strands of pig artery and tendon are interwoven throughout the gelatin in holodyetz. Critics were raving. It actually turned out really good, considering it took 4 times longer to "perform" (teach? I dunno) than it did to plan. I had a fun time, and hopefully it was instructive. 

After that, the sisters went off to go do "girl stuff" while we stuck around and discussed any concerns that hadn't been hit on day one, as well as setting mission goals. Suddenly, the time came for me to bear my testimony. Why, you ask? Because missionaries always are given the chance to bear their testimony on their last Zone Leader Council. Wait, what? Oh gosh, I forgot it was my last one. Wait, I only have a month? Hang on, I had 7 weeks yesterday! After that, we all said our various, "See you laters" and went our separate ways, the way Steve Perry always knew we would. Except mine were mostly "see you later... wait, no we won't. DANG IT! It was fun serving! Keep the fire burning!" S. (<-- now it's plural). 

So that was sad. But it was one good ZLC to end on, I guess. 

During ZLC at some point, N* called. As in, N* and M*. She wants to meet again! Since then, we've met with them once, with the Penza sisters (who hung around in Samara one extra day so we could do interviews and "exchanges"). The meeting was good, but they are still just halted at the "come to church" part of the conversion process. More to come, I'm sure. 

Can I just take a moment and say how much I love Sister interviews? There is nothing more fun than Sister interviews. Sister missionaries are so rad. And nothing feels better than feeling like you actually helped somebody who is rad. 

Today, we made chili. We bought some farsh to put in it. I don't know if I've told you about farsh before. Farsh means "hamburger." Or I can't really think of a better one-word translation for it. The thing is, farsh and hamburger are not really the same thing at all. The average person looks at hamburger and says, "Oh look. Ground-up meat." The average person looks at farsh and says, "Oh, gosh, what is that? Why does it smell like it has been in 20 different armpits? WHO AM I REALLY?" Also, we're pretty sure that today's farsh is a mix of chicken gristle, stomach, and liver. I threw away the package really fast, because deep down, I didn't really want to know. That being said, the chili is pretty good. Man. I promise I know how to cook good, even if every food description I ever email you is horrible. 

Hey did I tell you all that I decided to go off sugar for the rest of my mission? That sounds really impressive to say it that way instead of "I'm going off sugar for a few weeks." It's not that hard actually. You just have to justify really well.
Welp. I'm about out of stuff to say. Thanks for emailing! Looking forwards to reading what you have to say. 

Love, Elder Broekhuijsen 

Mystery Solved

Today (7 January) is the day that they celebrate Christmas in Russia.  I think that just might explain why we didn't get any email today…  :-)

No Fair!

Okay, I'm going to whine now.  We didn't get email from Andrew again today - that Russian New Year's celebration must be ridiculously intense!  I know that (especially in the days before email) plenty of missionary families have had to go more than 2 weeks without hearing from their Elder or Sister, but we've been lucky enough to usually hear from ours every week - so I'm not accustomed to this neglect! :-)  I promise to publish any email we do get as soon as we get it!

Meanwhile, we DID receive final confirmation from the Church travel department on Andrew's flight plans.  He'll leave Samara on Monday, February 4th at 6:35 a.m. (Samara time) and arrive in Salt Lake at 6:18 p.m. on Monday, February 4th.  Sounds like he's only traveling for about 12 hours, but there IS an 11 hour time difference between here and there, so he'll actually be traveling for closer to 23 hours.  Of course, 4 of those hours will be spent hanging out in the Denver, Colorado airport!  How crazy to have him so close and yet so far away for 4 whole hours!  Anyway, I have a feeling he's going to be a little jet-lagged - maybe he can take a nap in Denver!  :-)

New Year

So sorry to report that we didn't get email from Andrew yesterday.  We were disappointed, but not actually surprised, since he warned us on Christmas when we Skyped with him that since New Years is such a huge holiday there in Russia that he might not be able to send email this week.  Apparently, the missionaries are asked to stay in their apartments during the height of the festivities.

Anyway, I will report that we had a great conversation with Andrew on Christmas.  He sounded great (and apparently remembers at least some English!)  He looks great and seems very happy.  If anyone happened to mention anything about how many days until he would be home, he would say things like, "Oh no, we're not talking about that!  I'm not coming home until next year!  That's a long ways away!"

FYI - it's 34 days until he gets home - because although he's not counting down, we definitely are!  One month from this Friday!  Woo Hoo!

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.

Mind-Blowing Realizations

We were just a little alarmed when we checked email at 6:00 this morning and didn't have one from Andrew.  Happily, by 6:21 we DID have one - and here it is!

What the heck it's almost December. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day: Elder Bullough goes home in 3 weeks. I was in the MTC with him. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day, part II: Elder Ruesch in Minnessota also goes home in like 3 weeks-ish. 

Mind-blowing realization of the day, part III: Actually didn't have one. 

So I have not much time to type, and then I gotta get out of here and get on a train to Orenburg. I don't know if you may have sensed a theme, but we basically get Monday afternoons, Saturdays (kind of), and Sundays in our area, and the rest of this transfer, we're on exchanges in various other areas. It's been nuts, but SUPER fun. 

N* and M* are doing good. They came to a really fantastic branch activity that was a talent show. Y* put it together. I played Annie's Song with a guitar that a member let me use. Right when I sat down, I realized that it was not particularly missionary appropriate to sing a love song, so I on the spot came up with a devastatingly creative solution: sing it with an insane Josh Groban/Opera voice and practically dance with dramatic enthusiasm and rapture for my absent lover (to whom I was supposedly singing), so that everyone would understand that the whole thing was a joke. 

So after the show was over, (M* gave me a rose. Cute! She's 10, don't worry). I found out that Sister Young, who completely understood that I was joking around, had been laughing in the back and a bunch of investigators and members around her got really mad at her because she was "being rude." "Don't laugh, that's so mean! He's not that bad!" Oh gosh. After a random sampling of asking members, I realized that now everyone in the branch is under the impression that I think I'm some kind of reincarnation of Luciano Pavarotti. Great. Well, there's a good mission story I guess. 

We have such awesome members. One member came up to me the other day and told me he's planning on giving his suit to a new member that is just getting active again. So Christlike. 

So we went to Penza and did exchanges with everyone and some zone training. It went great. On the last day, I decided to go with Elder Benham, (an Elder from my MTC district) and just do an 8 hour day on the streets without any meetings or anything to see if we could stay high-energy the whole time. Long story short, we did, and found a whole bunch of really sick people.  [Editor's note: And by "sick" I'm sure he means "cool" or "great" or something other than "infected with disease.]  Woot! It pumped me up to do the "dirty work" (i.e. hard work) for so much time all at once. I think that's a lot of what I'll miss. I can always help less-actives, work with missionaries on lessons, etc. etc. But I can't really just slap on my nametag and go do a 2 hour contacting sesh after my mission is over :( 

So I got your letter with my homecoming talk assignment. Nuts. I'll probably just prepare that when I. You know. Go home. Or whatever. I also got your Thanksgiving card. 

I also got your Christmas package. Yeah... sorry that candy isn't going to make it to December. But I'll use my patience skills to not open the presents until Christmas. :) Thanks! 

Well. I'm out of stuff to type. I printed your emails from last week, but I lost them in Penza, so I can't really reply. If you have any questions you wanted answered, please send them again :) 

Thanks for everything! Looking forwards to seeing you on Christmas in a few weeks. 

Back to work over here. Tell you all about Orenburg next week :)

Love,  Elder Broekhuijsen

Darn Post Offices

It was a little disconcerting to not see an email from Andrew when we checked at 5:30 this morning.  Happily, after another hour or so of patient waiting, we DID get an email!  Yay!  Here it is!

Hopefully Sister Connell was able to inform you of the reason I didn't get to write for the second p-day in a row last week. Darn post offices. Anyway, we decided to skip the post office idea for a while for a few reasons, so we're writing in a gaming place. The guy to the right of me is playing DOTA.  Advantages: fast internet, fast computer, ...actually works... Disadvantages: No USB ports, which means no photos or audio. 

Luckily, Sister Connell was also kind enough to fax me your emails from last week, so I was able to read them, and that's what I'll be responding to as the bulk of this email. 

So in no particular order: 

Oh, man Joshua. I remember the hours of rehearsal. They are some of the best times ever. Seriously. It's like missionary work: exhausting and sometimes frustrating, but the best thing ever and you're always inexplicably happy and hanging out with your best friends. And getting pepper sprayed (just kidding, I've never been pepper-sprayed, let alone with ghost pepper). Also, you're the Jester. I'd still have preferred Master of Salt, but to each his own. Or as they say in Russian, "to who, what." The English version makes more sense, but, the Russian version is easier and faster to say. 

Garrett: You go get that Eagle. I don't have a lot of regrets really about not being super active in scouting and stuff. But it would have been a good idea to get my Eagle. 

Mom: You went and toured DI, huh? Man, I remember doing six volunteer hours there right before a choir concert because of our mandatory "community service" project for Govt. Cit. class. Ha. That place gets about 20 high school students there to "volunteer" at the end of every term, I bet. The night before the project is due. They won't turn anyone away, but I recall my "service" being things like, "organize this glassware on the shelf for the third time today," and "see if you can make the stuffed-animals bin look better," and "no, you're doing a great job; see if you can find anything else useful to do!" DI's a pretty cool place though.

I did hear the election results. I probably would care more if I had bothered studying up. Kind of a bummer that I didn't get to vote, but I guess there's always next time. 

Dang it. Danny D* got his call? No offense to Danny or anything, but somehow in my head I didn't make the connection that he wasn't still in elementary school somewhere.  I didn't realize he was anywhere near old enough to be getting the papers done. Congrats to him, that's rad. 

As far as Hailey's call goes, that's super awesome. I bet she was so pumped to go to France. It's like the most fitting mission call I've ever heard.

Things here are going great. Elder Anderson, an old mission comrade (notice my appropriate local jargon), is my district leader now. The gigantic Samara district of 12 missionaries finally got split up as another companionship was added to our Bezimianski branch. It's awesome to have him in town and in my branch, and it's a relief that I didn't get a change and neither did our sisters (the Bezimianski Sisters are SO rad), but we did have to give Elder Anderson like 3 of our progressing investigators. That's okay though, I won't be bitter, because I can honestly say I'm not really too worried about who baptizes them. I just liked meeting with them, and we're a little bit scrambling to find new investigators again now. Actually, they haven't found an apartment for Elder Anderson and his companion (who flies out of the MTC to Samara tomorrow sometime, by the way), so he's just been staying with us. It's been a blast. 

We're still meeting with N* and M*. M* has this recurring eye infection that keeps coming back that keeps them at home (and not at church...), and makes it tough to meet sometimes, and we have an absolutely nuts exchange schedule this transfer (remember how it's only 5 weeks? Well now we have 4 district leaders to exchange with, two of which live in outlying cities, and we also have Zone Training to do in each city in our zone). So we have to plan really well to meet with them, but we're going to make it happen. They're so wonderful and they're still progressing. We just need the Lord's help to get them over their last big obstacle before they can be baptized: church attendance. 

Today we made French onion soup, and rolls, and apple crisp. We are turning into a bunch of weird chefs or something. But I realized I love cooking. 

I'm way sad to read about Zorro of course. I loved that guy a ton. That's a huge bummer that I never get to see Melissa squeeze loving him again, too. I guess not until we see him again anyway. I guess that means you'll have to buy another kitten, probably. I recommend waiting until around the end of January; that's when they go on sale, usually. 

Elders Langston, Benham, Long and I (the four of our original MTC group that are currently in Samara Zone) have really kicked it into afterburn mode. The end, unfortunately, is a little more in sight than I'm entirely comfortable with, so we're just turning up the volume until they make us go home. It's been inspiring. The Lord provides some pretty nuts miracles if you can figure out a way to bounce back after (metaphorically) getting your face kicked in for a few cold hours on the streets and keep going for one more hour. My way is to remember that, although I will, of course, get to do missionary work even after I can't wear the tag anymore, I won't get to do that really nitty gritty missionary work like street contacting ever again, really. And even if I somehow do end up contacting, it won't be the same. Elder Nielson and I have plans to bring the fire down to Penza and Orenburg as well; it's burning brightly here in Samara. I have some goals to leave every proselyting area I touch this transfer having found a person that is ready to be baptized in December or January. I also have set it up so that while we're in Penza, I get to work with Elder Benham for an entire day, and we're going to go without meetings. 12-5: contacting; then dinner, and 6-9: contacting. I've only done that before when I was forced to due to a lack of investigators/cancelled meetings, etc. But when we do hard things because we want to instead of doing them because we have to, they work about 38 times better. So I'm gearing up for a solid 8-hour day on the streets of Russia. I know the Lord + Elder Benham + I can make some big things happen. 

Well, I'm probably about done writing. Thanks for always emailing! And for those of you who always write letters, thanks for always writing letters! And for those of you with whom I have had literally no communication for almost 2 years, thanks for NOTHING! Ha. Just kidding. See you later. 

Love, Elder Broekhuijsen

Zone Leader Council

Still no email from Andrew, but we did receive one from Sister Sartori, his Mission President's wife.  She said:

Dear Elders and Parents,

Just want to share our photo from our last ZLC (Zone Leader Council) on 1 Nov 2012. 
We love serving with you, Elders!!  Parents, we love your sons.  Thank you for sharing them.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE AND WE ARE TRYING TO FIND THOSE WHOM THE LORD HAS PREPARED TO JOIN US.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS IN OUR BEHALF.
Love, Laughter and Sunshine
Sister Sartori
Russia Samara Mission

Skunked Again! :-(

Rats!  Apparently there will be no email from Andrew today.  Here's the explanation we received from a sweet Sister in the mission office.  I guess we'll try to be patient!

Elder Broekhuijsen just called and asked me to tell you that again they could not get into a place to email today.   All is fine.  I know they were making a huge pot of soup.  Maybe they can use the office computer later in the week or it will be next Monday.

Friday Surprise!

We had basically given up on getting an email from Andrew this week and were consigned to our fate of waiting until next week to hear from him, when lo and behold —an email showed up this morning!  Yeah!

We got lucky - on Monday, there were no post offices open, because apparently working is optional the day after a holiday here. 

SO we got permission to spend a few minutes today writing an email to you. 

There's actually been a ton of awesome news from the last week and a half, so I'll see how much I can fit in the time I have to type. 

In no particular order: 

N* and M* are doing AWESOME. We've taught them almost everything and they are receiving testimonies. But they need to come to church, and that's a major concern. So that's kind of our focus with them right now. 

Zone Leader Council was awesome. We really came away with some good decisions.
Halloween was pretty ordinary, until night, that is. Around 10:25, things started getting spooOOOooky! We have a rule in our mission called, "get off the phone by 10:20pm, then spend the last 10 minutes winding down and going to sleep by 10:30." So at about 10:30 or so, we had the lights out and everything, with a few missionaries on trains inbound for a visa trip, etc. etc. Suddenly, the phone goes off, and I recognized the ringtone as Elder Langston (the senior assistant). Well that's weird. I picked it up, and he hurriedly tells me something along the lines of, "Just so you know, tomorrow is a lockdown day, we just heard there have been some threats against church buildings in Samara. So call everyone from your zone who is going to be in Samara tomorrow and tell them to travel low profile, no tags, etc. etc. and we'll call everyone who's not in your zone." About 1 second after I hung up from that call, I got another call, this time from Elder Woolley, my district leader. "Hey, our carbon monoxide alarm just started going off. What should we do?" We had them turn off the alarm and take it with them out into the stairwell, then turn it back on to see if it would go off again. Then we got to calling everyone and warning them about the emergency lockdown day (oh yeah... "lockdown day" means everyone stays inside all day, period. We have them on New Years; and Victory Day because of all the drunks). So we got the stuff with the carbon monoxide figured out (false alarm, it never detected any again in the apartment), and the next morning we had to ride with no tags and no ties to Zone Leader Council on a taxi, and do our best to look like Russian businessmen. I felt so much like a spy speaking with my most perfect accent and not saying anything in English. Elder Nielson was debating installing a laser into his watch, but I figured that wouldn't be the best way to travel low-key, so we settled for a silenced PP-7 in our pockets. 

So the details are basically that the government spoke out against "foreign cults" and the danger they posed to society, and there were a bunch of protests planned against all sorts of churches that weren't Russian Orthodox. I guess in Moscow they got a handful of people to go picket the stake center for a couple of hours, but everywhere in Russia where there were protests scheduled, they just evacuated, so the picketers and news crews got bored pretty quick protesting at an empty building, so they went home. There was supposed to be a demonstration in Samara on Molodogvardyeyskaya street (say that five times fast), but nobody showed up. So nothing really happened here. 

Pretty crazy though. Fun stuff. 

Anyway, that's about it. It's been some fun times. The work is going forwards. I'm about out of time to type, so I'll probably just get off. 

If you're wondering what to put in my package: Root Beer Extract, and also Maple Extract. But that one brand isn't concentrated the same as the regular McCormick or Crescent, and I can't figure out how much to put in. Also, photos. I love getting photos. So thanks. 

Thanks for everything! Love you all! Glad Melissa survived the hurricane! 

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Me studying the finer points of Russian grammar.  Yesterday I learned about genetive flexions.

The result of studying too much about genetive flexions - mania ending with squeezing mayonnaise out of a bag directly into my mouth.  Don't worry, I didn't really do it; that would be gross.

Unity Day

Hello Elder Broekhuijsen fans!  We received a short email from the Russia Samara Mission office this morning informing us that Andrew won't be able to send email today since it's a Russian holiday and the post office where he usually writes us from is closed.  :-(  I don't know if we'll get to hear from him tomorrow instead, or if we'll have to wait until next Monday.  Guess we'll find out tomorrow!

Time Is Being All Smart-Alecky

When it's cold outside and we haven't yet turned on our heaters it takes something pretty good to get me to leave my warm and comfortable bed in the morning.  Email from Elder Broekhuijsen works!  (Not sure what will do it for tomorrow, though!)

Man, it seems like my mission is laughing at me by speeding up the weeks from "crazy fast" to "you are in front of this computer screen in this post office every 4 hours." 

October has come and passed. The weather is starting to get cold. Actually, it's really awesome right now. Cold enough to wear my ridiculously attractive European fall coat (Called a "Palto," and prounounced with a soft "l" for those of you who know what that means, which, if I were to draw a representative venn diagram, would perfectly coincide with those of you who know what a Palto is already) and my rad checkery scarf. But not cold enough to give me frostbite if I forget to rub my nose every few seconds.

So. We've had a great week. First epically cool news: 

N* and M* are doing super wonderful. We went by with our home skillets Y* and her mom G* on like Thursday or something, and when we sat down, N* started asking all these questions about our responsibilities as Elders. But they were... really like... aimed. It was obvious she had gained a vast amount of information but not yet finished processing it. Turns out, she had stayed up until 2:00am the night before completely reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover, INCLUDING the Russian equivalent to reading the LDS KJV Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary (they put them together in the back of the BoM here, because the church can't print Russian Bibles). She said the alphabetized section was her favorite because it was much more simple and understandable than the rest. Oh, man. So we taught her the first half of the Plan of Salvation. She wants to get baptized, but clearly has some things making her nervous, because she was asking questions like, "What are your thoughts on people who know they should get baptized, but they just realize that it's a really huge, important decision, and they don't want to make the wrong choice because they rushed it? Do you still meet with people like that?" Yes, N*.  Yes we do. 

So they're doing wonderfully, and little M* is really starting to warm up. We're going by their place for the second half of the Plan of Salvation tonight, and we're planning on getting a picture of two; I'll be sure to send them next week. Unfortunately, I think we may be kinda done with the audio files as long as I'm here in Bezimianski. This post office doesn't have a printer, and the only other one in our area that I know of has computers that work about 1 in 5 times we stop by. So I can't print your letters anymore. Oh, well.

Other cool news from this week: We had a meeting with E*, who got baptized last November while I was here with Elder Wood. She's having a little trouble staying active, but she's as awesome as ever. Turns out she's still in contact with L* and K*, two girls that ALMOST got baptized while Elder Langston and I were here. So she's going to read the scriptures, pray for guidance on what to say to them, and then call them and see if she can set us up a meeting. It will be awesome because, aside from just getting us more awesome investigators to work with, it will help E* a ton to be on meeting with us and help her own friends learn about the restored Gospel. 

Other sick news! I think maybe I already told you this, but maybe not. V*, my BRAT-TAN from this branch, decided to go on a mission! YEAH BABY! He's probably going to be heading out sometime in like January or something, so we'll see. But man. I love that guy so dang much. 

We set up a day (with permission, of course) to go do "exchanges" (see: "contacting on the street for 4 hours") with the Bezimianski sisters this week. The sisters in the mission in general are all just undertrained because all of our older, experienced sisters finished and went home, and then we got a giant influx of brand new sisters right after that, so even now, we still have 2nd-transfer sisters training 1st-transfer sisters, etc. etc. So all the sisters in our zone have had trouble with things like stopping people on the streets; having conversations with their still-new Russian skills; setting up meetings, and as a result they've been killing themselves contacting all day long with very few meetings in between. So we went down and hopefully helped them out a little bit with showing them our ridiculously pro contacting skills. Or something. Either way, they said it helped. So I guess that's good. The sisters are so rad though. They earn miracles the way I never have been able to :D 

This coming week we have Zone Leader Council. Pretty pumped. It was going to be on Halloween, but now not. Which is probably for the best, as Elder Nielson and I had some somewhat less-than-dignified ideas kicking around in sections of our brain that are still 6 years old about trading nametags for the day, or going as "3-hole-punch Elders" or something dumb like that. 

Other than that, it's just been another solid week of missionary work. I figure if the time is going to be all smart-alecky and speed up on me, I'm going to do the same thing and speed up the pace of my missionary work. So what now, time? I got three whole big old months left to throw as many monkey wrenches in Satan's plans for this place as I can. Another potential missionary and Melchizidek Priesthood holder, baptized, walking the streets of Samara. What now, Satan? 

Also, I had a member download the Russian audio of Elder Holland's talk onto my flash drive, so I can listen to it in the morning when I work out. It's had a noticeable effect on my physique AND the amount of facial hair I am now capable of growing, and that's after one morning so far. 

DANG everyone is going on missions. I mean, that's great and all, but I was hoping to have a few friends when I got back :D k

So no photos or audio this week. Thanks for all the updates. Thanks for being awesome and stuff. I love you all! I guess I'll be talking to you in about one transfer or so, so probably before I finish typing this sentence I'll be sitting in front of a webcam Skyping with you all. 

Keep on keeping on. If I didn't answer someone's questions, just keep asking. Maybe I'll catch on one of these days :) 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen 

Extra Post!

Lucky us!  We received an email this morning from a man who had met up with Andrew and his companion in Samara.  He was there on business and is a friend of Andrew's companion's family.  So, he must have gotten Jerome's email address from Andrew and he sent us this photo!  He said,
They seem very happy and healthy!  It's obvious that they are anxiously engaged in the the Lord's work."  Thanks nice man!

Elder Broekhuijsen and Elder Nielson right outside their apartment.  Looking very European, don't you think?  

Awesome Miracle!

Sorry to be so late in posting this.  It came at the normal time, but I got distracted and forgot that I hadn't yet posted it.  My bad.  Andrew tried sending us an audio clip today, but said that the computers where they send email are just too old and slow so it wouldn't work.  :-(  Oh well, happily, we still got the normal written email!

Hey everyone!

This is Elder Broekhuijsen. 

So! I have lots of questions. Actually 2 

1. Who of my friends have mission calls now? Because let's face it. There are now girls who graduated a year AFTER me who could be going on missions within the next few weeks. What the heck.2. Who of my friends are already working on their papers/have decided to go on missions? 

We had an awesome miracle this week! Remember N*? The lady who thought we were ridiculously beautiful? (I mean, come on. I think we are quite reasonably beautiful.). We got a meeting with her. She invited us over to her house, and we had a member come with us, Brother S*. And we taught the most perfect Restoration lesson I've taught in probably my whole mission. She accepted everything and was coming to conclusions about things faster than we could smoothly transition between doctrinal points in a fabulous display of preparation and companionship unity. I mean. We sat down and prayed, and she was like, "So I'm a little confused.  How are Joseph Smith and Nephi related?" And we were like, "Yeah... we'll tell you." So as we were teaching, we got to the point where we explain the restoration after the great apostasy, and we started explaining about Joseph Smith. Elder Nielson was like, "Joseph Smith was a 14-year-old boy who lived about 200 years ago." And she cut him off and was like, "Ohhhhh! That makes way more sense! I thought when you said 'prophet' that he was like 50 years old or something, but it makes WAY more sense why God would want to restore his gospel through a young person who didn't have the life experience to form a bunch of his own opinions yet. Now I have no problem believing that he was a prophet!" And we looked at each other in a rather flabbergasted manner. And then finished teaching. So she wants to be baptized. Unfortunately she couldn't come to church this week because her daughter, M*, who is 10, has bad health and got sick this weekend. But last night after church we had a meeting with both of them again and taught Lehi's Dream (in this mission there is a policy called "teach about the great and spacious building REALLY soon after you meet someone because otherwise they will hear something bad or find something bad on the internet and stop answering their phone," so we didn't move on to the Plan of Salvation just yet). So that lesson went great, and M* is a small-sized boss. 

Anyway, we're pumped about her. 

Another cool story: The Priesthood in Bezimianski is so active that President Sartori decided to put the extra companionship that our mission complement will gain in our branch. So next cycle, assuming I'm still here (I can't imagine otherwise, and I actually have the experience to back up an assumption like that now), we'll have us, Bezi Elders, and Bezi Sisters. 

Speaking of the Bezimianski Sisters, and the Avrora Sisters while we're at it, we had interviews with both of them this week. They were wonderful. Those sisters are so dang cool. Actually, sister misionaries in general are so dang cool. Also one of the Avrora Sisters, Sister Wynn, knows Kaitlyn Brunsdale, because they worked together. Man. Small world. 

So that's probably about it for the week. Hopefully things are still going great down there in Highland. The weather is starting to get colder down here, and everyone is saying that it's supposed to be the coldest winter in 20 years, and we're going to break -40C. Yeah baby! Talk about snagging an extra mission adventure story that I can tell all the young'uns for the rest of my life. Presumably in a Scottish accent: 

"When I w's yer'age, we dinna have no warm wayther! Oal we had was dert! And we were gretful!" Yeah, don't worry that typing in a Scottish accent isn't a skill I've obtained yet. 

I'll try Pirate:
"When aye was YAARRRR age, 'twas bein' right cold outsiiiiiiiide!" Better. 

That's probably enough nonsense for today. 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen 

P.S. Ooh! I have a few minutes left, so I'll probably try to send a few photos.  [Editor's note:  No photos came, so I'm guessing that the computers he sends email on were also too old and slow to send photos on.  Drat.]