Winter in Samara

You'll notice if you check the weather forecast on this blog page that the HIGH today in Samara will be -4° F!  I'm glad he's got that nice coat!  He must be pretty used to it, because I don't think he even mentions the weather in this email!  He DID, however, send some photos, which I will include along with the captions that he wrote himself!  

How's everyone doing! I'm doing great! I'll start off by saying I haven't yet read your emails. We write home in the office now, which has several advantages and a few disadvantages. Advantage: fast computer that has a USB port right there so I can send pictures now, and print your emails to save time during my internet hour for writing. Disadvantage: lots of people who need me to take a second and do something for them. But that's okay. I have a huge testimony of sacrificing my own time for others - even if it wasn't "worth it" already because I get to help someone else and do the right thing, God also tends to bless you more than if you had used that time for yourself. But what this means is that I'm going to blaze through this email, and FINALLY send some long-overdue pictures!

This week was eventful! The Assistants' area has been kind of sagging lately (the last 4 months or so) because the Assistants just have so much stuff to do that isn't missionary work in their own area. But Elder Morris and I decided we were going to reverse this trend and get back to finding our one new investigator a day in our own area. After all, it's a promise from the Lord through the mission president that it's possible for every companionship, and that if we do it, then we will be able to baptize one person a month in each area as well.

Our best investigator at the moment is named D* Sith.  "Sith" is because when he wears his hood, I expect him to pull out a red lightsaber at any given moment. But he's the nicest guy ever. He's a Pentecostal, and just says the most powerful, sincere, pump-you-up prayers ever. Super open to new truth and willing to try anything we ask him to do (like reading the Book of Mormon, etc.).

Elder Morris and I have done lots of really interesting administrative work already. We've so far welcomed a new elder in from the airport (Elder Strebe, he's amazing!), and figured out a Visa Trip schedule from scratch. It's amazing how complicated those things are, what with organizing 20 missionaries in all sorts of different cities, getting them all gathered by train and bus and taxi into a couple of apartments, and onto the same plane to Moscow and Kiev and back, and then back out to their own cities and areas, all within about 48 hours. It feels like a big giant logic puzzle while you're figuring it out, and you feel really accomplished when you hit "Print" on the finished schedule.

We'll be heading down to Saratov Zone Leaders on exchanges after Zone Leader Council on Wednesday, so that should be a blast. Actually, Elder Swartz is serving in the Volzhsky area and branch (same area and branch I served in while I was in Saratov, but they've moved the Zone Leaders to Centralney), and we're going to do split-down exchanges with the Zone Leaders and the Volzhsky district leader while we're there, so I'll probably get a chance to work with Elder Swartz again in Saratov. Woot woot!

Everything is more or less looking awesome. Our area is building back up and we are being given some really awesome investigators from all sorts of sources. The Lord is in this work.

Awesome. Well, I'm looking forwards to reading the updates from home and Boston! I love you all, thanks for everything you do! Have a fantastic day!

Love,
Elder Broekhuijsen

Without further ado, here are some photos! 

We have a nice selection here... First off, a picture of me sitting at my desk in the Bezimianski Zone Leaders' apartment. Displayed is my own face, and also my own face as rendered in oils (hanging on the wall). There was a lady we found on a transport who wanted to paint us really bad. So we let her borrow our photos and she painted me. Sweet! I definitely left that painting hanging over Elder Woolley's desk when I moved out of that apartment, as a joke. But I kind of want it back now, even though it makes me feel like someone who is very self-satisfied and prideful to have an oil painting of my own stupid face hanging over my desk. 

Next is a lovely sunset as seen out the grimy, reflective window of the Bezimianski Zone Leaders' aparment. If you look not very carefully, you can probably see my camera lens and our ceiling light in that picture too.

After that we have a picture of me standing both in Asia and Europe at the same time. Seems like I'm a little bit partial to Asia.

And lastly, we have the best baptism ever. From left to right, there's Elder Langston, G*, M*, and me. Yeah! They are both doing great, by the way. M* will be getting the Aaronic Priesthood next week, I believe.

11 Months Today!

So, that post title didn't come from Andrew - we just happened to realize at the breakfast table this morning that today marks 11 months since Elder Broekhuijsen entered the MTC!  Hard to imagine it's been that long (or that short!)  :-)  Sounds like he had another great week!

It's Elder Broekhuijsen again! I have about 20 minutes to write, so I'll try to squeeze in as much of the awesome stuff that happened this week as I can.

We had a double baptism on Saturday! A new member, A* (who is now serving on a short-term-mission with Sister Taylor in the Bezimianski Sisters' area, newly re-opened as of today), has a dad named M*. He is a boss. He knows the Bible almost as well as I know my Harry Potter trivia (and about as well as Hermione Granger knows Hogwarts, A History). He is just the perfect definition of elect. And he has the strongest testimony of missionary work. He's so amazing! 

G* was also baptized. She is also awesome! So awesome, actually. She asked me to baptize her, so I have officially found, taught, and baptized an investigator from start to finish in one trasnfer. Cool! Yesterday she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and two hours later, helped us on a lesson with another investigator, and she's already the BEST MEMBER HELP EVER! She testifies SO WELL and shares experiences and stuff. 

So I have one other large piece of news. I was informed about my transfer on Friday, about 36 hours before I was expecting to hear anything. President pulled me aside into his office after district meeting, and told me that I am going to be an Assistant to the President. Whoa, what? So as of today actually, I'm back with ELDER MORRIS! YEAH! And in about 2 or 3 hours, I'll be taking a taxi right into the thick of things with him. Transfers are in full swing right now, so there are Elders and Sisters attempting to miss trains and buses all througout the Samara oblast! (And the Penza, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, and Izhevsk oblasts, too, presumably.) It's going to be a huge adventure. I'm really excited for the new responsibilities I'll have. And to be honest, I kind of like the idea that I'll be in one place now for a good long time (probably 3 transfers absolute minimum, quite possibly a lot longer than that.) And I can't begin to describe my joy at getting to serve with Elder Morris again. That happens SO rarely that two missionaries get to serve together at two different parts of their mission. It will be so awesome.

I did get all the packages from everyone, by the way, and I wanted to say thank you for everything. I am right now wearing a certain spicy green tie. While drinking hot chocolate. Not really though, you can't bring your own hot chocolate into internet cafes. They don't appreciate it for some reason. Wanted to especially thank Joshua for the EPIC pen that he made me. It's so dicey, and classy, and weighs a lot, and writes so nice, and I examined that beast for like 15 minutes looking for a scratch or imperfection in the finish, and didn't find one. So as they say in Russian, molodyets. Good stinking job.

I got your photos from the S95 as well, Dad. Sweet! I'm WAY impressed with that guy! Of course, you're probably not going to print anything bigger than 11x14 of it if I know you, but I submit that you should hit up that nice black and white shot again with the 4x5. I can't believe you don't have any snow down there. It really does look like fall just kind of died and nobody covered it up yet. We get snow here any day it is warm enough to snow. To be honest, I don't notice the cold. My coat and hat and scarf are warm enough that I don't feel any different than inside in them. The only difference is the air makes you choke on how cold it is for the first 5 breaths when you go outside. And sometimes my face is really cold, but I'm pretty used to that. And if I stand still too long talking to someone, my feet start getting cold, but they warm back up again as soon as I start walking.

Anyway, my time is up. Thank you everyone for everything! I wish I could say I will get right down to writing reply letters to all the letters I've gotten from friends and family like Grandma, Sam, Elder Davis, Kendra, and everyone else. But from what I understand, the Assistants have been averaging about 0.8 P-days per transfer. Usually there's just too much administrative work to be done. I guess we'll see if I can make some letter writing happen. 

I love you all! My mission is AMAZING right now. I figured out that I'm in kind of the best time of the whole mission in a lot of ways. I've been out long enough that I'm comfortable in the country, comfortable with the language (not that I don't want to get better, and completely eliminate my accent), and comfortable with the work (or at least as comfortable as you can get with something like missionary work.) BUT I still have the better part of my mission in front of me, so I don't have to worry about "oh, I only have 3 transfers left" or any of that kind of garbage yet. YES! 

Have a fantastic week! I'm off to go bring some suitcases over to my new apartment and then dive into transfer work until bedtime.

Love,Elder Broekhuijsen