4.27.11 Update

Here are some portions of his e-mail yesterday. Can you believe next week is his last week at the MTC?

Well it's been an awesome day and an awesome week. I hope you all remembered that my Preparation Day was moved to Wednesday as part of the new schedule, and weren't too freaked out when you didn't get an email yesterday.

 

So, tons of awesome stuff has happened since I last emailed. First of all, two apostles have spoken in the last week. Every Sunday and Tuesday here we have a fireside in the evening. Last Tuesday, we had Richard G. Scott come. It was awesome. His talk was fantastic, and halfway through, he just paused, looked around for a minute, and then said something like "I feel like I should exercise the privilges of my apostleship and bless you all with the gift of tongues. You will still have to study, but I think it will be a little easier now." And it totally has been. Then, yesterday, we had Dallin H. Oaks come and speak on basically his personal advice for missionaries. Also awesome.

 

So last week was the first week we get to host. Since our preparation day is now Wednesdays, it may be the only day I will get to host here. But I got to host JORDAN LEWIS! I knew he was coming in that day, but I didn't dare hope for more than a chance to see him, since there are a lot of missionaries that come in every Wednesday. But lo and behold, he pulls right up to my station and gets out. It was awesome. I just talked to him yesterday at choir (where we performed When I Survey the Wondrous Cross - shout out to all my A Capella friends!) and he's now a district leader. Go figure :) It was kind of weird hosting though. I think in hindsight, our family took things REALLY well at the drop-off. I saw lots and lots of lingering, sobbing sisters/mothers/aunts/you name it. This one girl was maybe 13 or 14 years old and wouldn't let go of the missionary coming in. I think it probably just barely hit her that she wouldn't see him for two years. Sad stuff; I'm glad we were prepared to do things a little more smoothly than that.

 

The new schedule is... a wonderful opportunity for me to practice being more patient. Service on Mondays starts at 6:05 AM, which usually consists of cleaning bathrooms for 1.5 hours. But that's okay. The bathrooms here are surprisingly un-disgusting. Usually. Other changes are the TE is shut down, there's no more MDT (it's the same thing, except personal, companion, and language study are blocked out for us now, which I don't entirely like), the teaching blocks are 3 hours instead of 4, and there are a bunch of little 15-minute pads of down-time between activities that make things seem less rushed. So there are advantages and disadvantages.

 

On Monday (oh, man, was it really only two days ago?) we started SYL. Ridiculous, but awesome. I'm surprised with how much I am able to communicate. But it also serves to make our study times significantly more... uh... reverent.

 

Brother McCleary told us some pretty awesome stories from his mission in Novisibirsk. Apparently one of his transfers was in the coldest town in the mission. It was a really really poor town where most people lived in home-built shacks and huts. During the winter, while he was there, it got down to -80 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. -80. What? He said when it's that cold, you have to rub your nose every 30 seconds or so when you're out contacting or else you get frostbite. Apparently one elder had a haircut appointment at a barbershop about 100 yards down the street, and figured he didn't need his Shopka (big furry hat). So he just booked it down to the barbershop in about 30 seconds, and when he got there, his ears were completely white. He bent one and it stayed that way, then totally swelled up all huge when it thawed. Pretty scary. I'm glad I only have to worry about -40 degrees in Samara. Toasty warm :)

 

Brother McCleary also said that there are McDonalds in Russia, and they're super nice (granite tables, black leather booths, the works). Apparently McDonals is where all the rich businessmen and high-ranking Mafia members hang out. Somewhat ironic :D

 

So I should get my travel plans tomorrow in the mail. We'll see how that goes. But I'm so excited to get to Russia. Next week will be my last preparation day in Provo. I have an English Book of Mormon and a Russian one that I got from the bookstore. My plan is to place them both before I find out who my trainer is. I think I can do it... there are bound to be several hours of plane ride which = captive audience.

 

************

Ooh! Random funny story. CT. Ross sleep talks all the time, but apparently Monday morning (early early morning) I told CT. Berger, "It's not illegal, just throw it through the trash." Not sure what that means. Any interpretations out there?

 

Now for the part of the email where I prove decisively that Russian is the awesomest language:

 

There are several words that sound exactly like other words that mean VERY different things. For example...

-Pee-SAHT (to write), and PEE-saht, to urinate

-I don't remember the words, but the verb for "to tell," sounds very much like the verb "to give birth to."

-YXA can mean "ear" or "fish soup" depending on where the accent is.

-In our English Bible, Jesus says, "Woman, why weepest thou?" The Russian translation from their Bible is more like "Lady, quit your crying."

 

Well, that's about it. Oh. I'm putting together some songs for sacrament meeting and maybe a fireside with some other elders. There are a lot of Russians who are really good at singing right now, so that's kind of nice. Also, one of the elders in our zone got a personal letter written and signed by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Lucky.

 

Ah! I'm running out of time. Love you all. You're the best. As far as mail works once I get to Russia, I think there's some kind of pouch system, because that's how DearElders get to me there. They will no longer be same-day. Email is the only "instant" way to communicate I think, and I only check that on Preparation days, although I think I get an hour instead of 30 minutes. Mail will take roughly 3 weeks to arrive, but I may only be able to pick it up once a transfer (so every 6 weeks). Pouch mail could take any amount of time. Packages I've heard can take up to 3 months, and if you don't address them in Cyrillic, apparently the Russian post workers like to go through them and take stuff. So I'll get you more details as soon as I have them. Have an awesome week! Love you all, you're the best. The church is SO true, and I'm so pumped that I get to go share it with the world in less than 2 weeks!

 

Best,

Elder Andrew Broekhuijsen

4.19.11 E-mail (late, sorry)

Hey everyone - sorry for the delay in posting this. Final Exams and then a quick vacation got the better of me. I promise to stay better caught up.

Anyway, here are some portions of his e-mail home last week - pay attention to the "P.S." if you've been using DearElder.

Also, some logistics got changed - starting this week Andrew's P-day (the day he's allowed to write e-mails) is now Wednesday so we'll be getting another e-mail tomorrow!

...On Sunday, I finally figured it would be okay for me to go to Music and the Spoken Word. They play it every Sunday in the multipurpose room, but we're encouraged not to make a habit of going since it's right in the middle of our block of time where the Branch Presidency interviews us. Since I (finally) got interviewed last week, I felt safe going this week. Anyway, it blew me away. I know I love music and that Motab is fantastic and stuff. But I think a combination of just being somewhere so special as the MTC and having been mostly deprived of music for about 2 months now gave me this supernova of appreciation for the music that happened at the Spoken Word. I may or may not have cried a little during For the Beauty of the Earth, especially when they showed that giant panoramic view of Yosemite that had half-dome in it. The Nearer My God to Thee was also fantastic. In fact, I'm getting goosebumps even recalling it. I'm SO going again next week. Music is without a doubt the easiest way for me to feel the Spirit, and it was indescribably beautiful.

So tomorrow I host new missionaries (and my friend Elder Lewis comes in, so maybe I'll see him!), and the following Monday, we get our TRAVEL PLANS! Also starting on Monday I believe is 100% SYL. We did every other day SYL last week. It's hard, but at the same time I'm surprised with how much I've learned. Thanks, Spirit. Molodiets (awful English spelling, but I'm running out of time and I don't want to waste any switching to the Russian keyboard and hunting for the right letters). Mahl-uh-dee-ettes means "Good Jobber." They basically use it like "Good job."

Funny Russian moments from this week:

-CT. Smith was getting to know his investigator in the TRC and they said he looked like Zac Efron (which he totally does). He was trying to say "People tell me that all the time," but he accidentally confused a couple of verbs that are inexplicably similar, and instead it came out "People give birth to me every day." Win!

-Greensleeves, or What Child Is This is in the Russian Hymnbook, and it's not considered a Christmas song there; they sing it all year 'round. Which is awesome, because I love that song. But anyway, when you translate the title, it includes a common idiomatic saying that kind of means like... "What's the deal with this"...ish. So the title isn't "What Child is This," but "What's up with this kid?" Win! Russian is the best language.

Well, I love you all. I have a lot to say in my handwritten letters this week, so I probably won't be able to get back to all of you who mailed me this past week. But I'll do my best! Thanks for all your prayers and support! I really do notice them. There's no way I would be learning as much as am or enjoying it as much without them. I know this church is true. My testimony of that gets stronger every single day. Can't wait to get to the field!

покой,

Elder Broekhuijsen

P.S. I don't remember if I told you this before, but when you send me Cyrillic characters in letters through DearElder, they get translated into this terrible hex codes before printing, so it's unintelligable. Jay Dee figured out how to get around that though... just use English characters that look like Cyrillic letter! Like 6 = Cyrillic equivalent to "B." 3 = Z, 4 = Ch, etc. Thanks!