Tol'yatti Photos

In Andrew's email on Monday, he mentioned that he had run into some friends from Tol'yatti last week.  One of them emailed some photos to Joshua, so I'll include a couple here.

 I'm not sure, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say the guy on the left is V* - who was baptized in October when Andrew was serving in New City (Tol'yatti.)

Judging by what Andrew said in his email, I think the people in this photo are (left to right) Elder Broekhuijsen (I'm actually quite sure of that one!) then either A* or S*, then V*, then O*.

Time Blows My Mind

Hooray for March!  Hooray for Mondays!  Hooray for email!

Man, it's been a crazy week. We started things off with Monday night, when we had to stay in after P-day to finish a transfer schedule (which is actually being carried out right now). Then Tuesday and Wednesday, we had Zone Leader Council! It was fantastic; we really got some great inspiration to have our mission move forwards. We set a baptismal goal for the month of March. It's a tall order, but we're having miracles pop up all over the place. For example, yesterday at church, we had a member show up who had been inactive for years. I'd never met him before. He was one of the first people baptized in the Samara mission - sometime in 1992, about 6 months after the mission opened. He said he'd been struggling with smoking for years, but he always believed, always kept reading the Book of Mormon, and always knew that he would come back. Well, he's been clean from smoking for a few months now, and decided to come back. He's awesome. He's got such a strong testimony, and loved being at church again. He also randomly stood up in Priesthood meeting and just said, "My wife and I, and our older son are baptized. But my youngest son never did get baptized. He wants to come to church and join. Which missionaries live closest to me?" It blew my mind. 

On Thursday and Friday, Elder Morris and I hit up Old City, Tol'yatti, to do exchanges with the Zone Leaders down there. It was a blast. We found new investigators in each companionship both nights, which really boosted the area. We actually found quite a few people tracting, as well. Seems like we kind of found the golden time for tracting in Russia (around 7:00ish in the evening, when everyone is getting home from work). Don't know why it took me that long to figure that out, but there you go. 

On Saturday, we had to be inside almost all day again because the transfers got switched around just enough for us to have to scrap our entire transfer schedule and start again from scratch. So that was awesome. And yesterday, it happened again, except this time the transfers were already happening. So we got to really quickly figure out a chunk of the transfer, and then call it down as fast as we could so that everyone knew where they were going and at what time, and how. Then write another section, and repeat. It was pretty stressful, but everything worked out all right. We felt pretty lame about our ridiculously low key indicators when we totaled everything up that night, but then we realized that we had three hours of missionary work for the week. Suddenly they seemed a little better ;)

So early this morning, Sisters Ostapchuk and Lednyova finished their missions and flew home. Sad day. Both of them were together in New City South while I was district leader there in New City North. It was so much fun to work with them, and they're both amazing sisters. We'll definitely be missing them around here. We have LOTS of new sisters coming in in the next 4 or 5 months though.

While Elder Morris and I were looking over the complement today to get some visa trip information straightened out, I caught a weird glimpse of the end of my mission. At the end of this transfer that starts today, Elder Hale goes home. Elder Hale is the former assistant that left when I got transferred here, and he's one of the Tol'yatti Zone Leaders. The cycle after that, we have one elder, and three of our best sisters going home. And the cycle after that, Elder Morris goes home, with Sister Quinn, who came into the MTC on the same day as me. What the heck? The cycle after that, one more sister goes home. One more, and nobody leaves. The cycle after that is when Elder Bullough goes home. He's my former Zone Leader, and only one transfer ahead of me. Which means the transfer after that, I'm done. This info is all contained on one piece of paper, and I don't know how much I like that. 

At the very beginning of my mission in Russia, they told me I would be going home somewhere in the March teens of 2013. But that info doesn't really get made clear or exact until way later on in the mission. There are a lot of things that affect your going-home date, most notably the way things work out with your visa trip schedule. I was always part of a group that got the long end of the deal (extra 4 weeks past 2 years, rather than 2 weeks less than 2 years) until about a week ago, when I started showing up as going home February 11th, 2013. So if that hasn't flipped back to March in 6 months or so, I think I'll do a little bit of further investigation there. I REALLY don't like the idea of finishing before my 2-year mark. The cycles are just absolutely blowing by these days. I swear I just moved into this apartment like a week ago, and I'm already looking around for a new clean planner. Everyone says the second year goes faster, but I didn't believe them. But I guess what this all boils down to is that I've finally realized that my mission is finite, in a very real and scary way. I gotta get moving if I'm going to accomplish everything I want to (and more importantly, everything that the Lord wants me to). 

Time blows my mind. Anyway, here's some cool news: on our way back from Tol'yatti, we stopped in Komsomolsky branch to pick up some papers that the office needed. Well it just so happens that there was a YSA group meeting there to plan some activities for spring. I got to see a TON of my old friends from Tol'yatti! It was awesome. I saw A*, S*, O*, and V*! V* is the guy that got baptized while I was in New City North in October. I was SO PUMPED! He's doing so well; he's got a calling in the branch now as a Sunday School teacher, and he's dating O*! Ha HA! Victory! Anyways, we took a few pictures on some of their phones. I told A* Joshua's email address, so he probably sent those to him by now.
Speaking of awesome people I know dating each other, SISTER W* AND ELDER E* GOT ENGAGED! Elder E* was the assistant that Elder Morris replaced. He was assistant forever; (actually he was assistant when Elder Morris got to Russia), and he was one of those mission "constants" for me. He's been home since November, but Sister W* got home 1 month ago! Ha HA! She basically went home and then went up to England to visit him, and he popped the question. Oh yeah. Elder E* is from England, and Sister W* always wanted to go to England to study in this one culinary arts school. And Elder E* just went in with his dad and they co-bought a bakery. Those two are going to have a life like a Beatles song. I'm unbelievably happy for them. 

I don't remember if I ever told you, but a few weeks ago I got a call from the Elders in Volzhsky, where Elder Morris and I served before. Usually the only time a companionship that isn't Zone Leaders calls us is when they have to report an incident (like somebody attacking them or something), so I braced myself and picked up, but it was Elder K*!  [Clarification here - Elder K* is a former companion of Andrew's who finished up his mission and went home to St. Petersburg a few months ago.]  He met a girl in Moscow that was originally from Saratov but moved to Moscow before Elder K* came on his mission. Long story short, they're engaged as well, but here's the kicker - she's going on a mission to Kiev for a year and a half, and he's waiting! Poor guy. But the best part is that that means I GET TO GO TO HIS WEDDING! WIN! Oh man. Marriage is the coolest thing ever. He's doing so well, he's like walking around on a cloud all the time now. Or at least that's what it seemed like when he called us. 

Okay. I'm out of time, and that's about all the awesome news I have. Jeez. All my friends and former companions are getting married. Awesome. 

Have a great week! 

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen