All the Trees of the Field Shall Clap Their Hands

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

I must apologize, because on my last P-Day in Russia I didn't have any time to write an e-mail and thus this blog does not really have a conclusion, and all good stories should have a conclusion shouldn't they? Thus, this is my conclusion.

I don't know if I can really write anything ground break on this occasion. Most of you have already read quite a few of these letters and thus I hope that you can already feel the love that I have for the people of Russia and have been able to experience just a little bit of what it is like over their. But, to sum things up, here is my welcome home talk. During it I elaborated on the thoughts a little more, but here is the basic talk I gave:

Brothers and Sisters one of the fundamental principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ is faith. Faith, as described in the scriptures is “not a perfect knowledge” (Alma 32:26) rather it is in “things which are^bhoped for and ^cnot seen (Ether 12:6). Faith has two components, a passive belief in things not seen an active attempt to live by those things on which we believe for as we read  that “ ^afaith, if it hath not ^bworks, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17) and always works by the principles of love (Galatians 5:6). Faith is the underlining principle of missionary effort as young missionaries go out, believing in what they do, and demonstrating by their actions that they truly do believe.

When we go out on missions, our faith is weak, yet through the many experiences our faith grows. The same principle applies to all church members. Necessarily, actual experiences are required to grow our faith. Like the rubber band, we need to be stretched and extended in order to reach the full potential of our faith.

The master course on this process is found in the Book of Mormon, Alma 32. Here Alma compares the growing of faith to the growing of a seed to a tree. I have long thought about this comparison. Why did he use the seed? The easy answer is that he was speaking to a primarily agricultural people, and they were familiar the metaphor. But I think he had something else in mind. In very visual terms, Alma is trying to tell us that faith always starts out small and simple. Really during the extent of our lives there will be always some part of our faith that can be classified as small and simple. In order to better understand the small and simple seed, lets look at another reference, another story.

Alma is also well known for writing letters to his sons. In the letter to his son Helaman, (and please insert the word faith after “Small and Simple”) he writes: “behold I say unto you, that by ^bsmall and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by ^ameans to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very ^bsmall means the Lord doth^cconfound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.” (Alma 37:6-7)

Now Alma isn’t just pulling this comparison out of thin air. Actually he is making a reference to an earlier event, where something small and  simple had a great influence for good.

You will recall that the Book of Mormon starts with the story of Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and travelling to the promised land. After a few adventures ending with the acquiring of the scriptures and some wives, they end up wandering around the wilderness. Now, I’ve never tried to navigate in the deserts of the Middle East, but I assume it is quite difficult using 600 BC equipment (if somebody knows differently, please inform me after the meeting) and thus the Lord gives them a compass, the Liahona. Listen to Nephi’s words describing this compass:

“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the pointers which were in the ball, that they did work according to the ^afaith and diligence and heed which we did give unto them.  And there was also written upon them a new writing, which was plain to be read, which did give us ^aunderstanding concerning the ways of the Lord; and it was written and changed from time to time, according to the faith and diligence which we gave unto it. And thus we see that by ^bsmall means the Lord can bring about great things.” (1 Nephi 16:28-29)

Sound familiar?

So what is Nephi trying to tell us? Small and simple. Small, probably because it was portable, I mean, it had to fit on the back of at least a camel. Simple because, for all of its inherent beauty and majesty, mechanically, this compass was no different than the magnetic compasses that the Boy Scouts theoretically learn how to use. However, this compass did not work by the principles of magnetism. The reason that the Liahona was so special is that it was influence by God’s power and thus had a great ability to temporally save Lehi and his family.

In the quest for spiritual salvation where faith is such a key principle, we must be aware of the small and simple Liahona’s that crop up in our lives. As members, we can be very easily tempted to lay off future faith building for no other purpose than the precieved flatness of our current experiences. We need not wait for a miracle or some incredibly inspiring sermon to grow our faith. If we do this, we will spiritually handicap ourselves. Rather, the key is to take the small and simple things in life and turn them into great faith building experiences.

On my mission, I had many such experiences. My mission had no climax. There was no single overarching moment where I got zapped with faith lightning and suddenly moved a mountain. Instead, many small moments contributed to the faith that I now have. I wish to share 3 of them. Now these are not ground breaking, they are not stories of a complex miracle they will probably never be in the annals of church history. I have deliberately chose stories that in a wordly sense are probably pretty unexciting, yet the are building blocks of experience that helped me grow my faith. I hope to make these generally applicable to you, so you can also be inspired to know how you can grow your faith.

I.  While serving in the city of Ryazan, we had been teaching a great Uzbek named Sasha. He was a Muslim, but really liked our message. My companion and I had been holding off with hammering down the truth about the divinity of Jesus Christ (as you may know, Muslims do not accept him as the Son of God and Redeemer of mankind). Instead, we had been teaching him more about a modern prophet and the restoration. Both me and my companion felt that we should do something more, but we couldn’t figure out exactly how too. One day we had a lesson with him, but before that we were showing a member a movie about Thomas S. Monson. As President Henry B. Eyring was talking I thought about how great it was to have the same calling to testify of Christ to all people. As soon as I finished that thought, an impression came into my mind, as clear as if someone had said it, in the form of a question: “Have you been doing all you could to testify of Christ?” My immediate answer was yes… but then… with a little reflection, I realized that I had not, since I had been so hesitant to boldly testify of  Christ to Sasha. I instantly made up my mind, talked to my companion, and we decided to show Sasha the movie “Finding Faith in Christ” and have a lesson with him about Jesus Christ. I was nervous during the whole movie, but once we were done, Sasha had tears in his eyes. We asked him what he thought, and he asked: “When Jesus was in garden, he was suffering for me, for my sins?” We answered yes and a profound, yet sweet silence filled the room, as Sasha’s testimony of Jesus Christ suddenly grew by the power of the spirit. The Pauline scripture comes to mind: “For I am not ^aashamed of the ^bgospel of Christ: for it is the^cpower of God unto ^dsalvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the ^arighteousness of God revealed ^bfrom faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by ^cfaith.” Romans 1: 16-17. Brothers and Sisters, every time we testify boldly of Christ, our faith grows.

II.  A few months later I found myself lying on a couch in Moscow, sicker than I ever had been in my life. The day had started out normally, but when we went over to a fellow companionships apartment to eat dinner before a contacting activity, I had become terribly ill. It seemed to me that all of my bodily systems had a failed at once, and I’ll spare you the in depth details, but things weren’t going well. I felt prompted to ask my the other Elders to give me a blessing, and asked my good friend Elder Olsen to be voice. As he prayed he mentioned that for some reason it was important for me to go home that night, instead of just sleep over at their apartment. After the blessing was over I very slowly got up, and walked home, nearly passing out along the way. Somehow I made it, and was unable to leave my apartment for the next week. I have long sense puzzled over why Elder Olsen felt inspired to declare that it was important for me to go home. I think, because it was a trial of my faith in the priesthood. I cannot claim anything like angels holding my up on my way home, but I felt a very literal application of this Isaiah scripture: “ But they that ^await upon the Lord shall ^brenew their ^cstrength; they shall mount up with wings as ^deagles; they shall ^erun, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Brothers and Sisters, when we rely on God and his restored priesthood, our faith grows.

Now before I mention my last experience, a though. I have yet to find an adequate way to summarize my mission. I will not pretend to be able to see all the results of this mission now, but I know that with time I will be able to understand with more depth the impact this mission has had on my life. That being said, I know I won’t be able to fully comprehend it until I pass from this life into the next and see with perfect vision the eternal effect that God has had on the people of Russia through an imperfect and foolish servant like me. I will not know until then but for now my testimony and my faith are the obvious results and these all came from experiences like the one I had one cold morning in a very small and very cold town.

Things were going terribly. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. My companion and I had nowhere to turn and absolutely no idea what to do. I had never felt so alone and desperate in my life. This morning, during scripture study I read this verse in the Doctrine and Covenants:

“For I am the Lord thy God, and will be ^awith thee even unto the ^bend of the world, and through all eternity; for verily I ^csealupon you your ^dexaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father, with Abraham your ^efather.” DC 132:49

I can still feel a glimmer of the Spirit I felt that day and I can still imagine in my minds eye what I imagined that day. I can imagine myself, walking along on a cold and lonely path at the very end of the world with the forces of darkness seemingly surrounding me and me desperately wanting to give up and stop walking. And I can imagine Jesus Christ, my brother and my Savoir walking up behind my and putting his arm around me. I can imagine him looking me in my eyes and saying:

“Zachery why are you worried? Why do you want to quit? Don’t you know that I died for you and have always been here for you? I am Jesus Christ, I am your Savoir and Redeemer. I died for you personally, I know you better than you know yourself. I know your trials, and your fears and your pains, and I know how to help you. Do not quit! Do not give up! I will always be here for you, I will always help you. The whole Earth may forsake you but I will never leave you. I love you and I want you to be happy, and as long as you keep walking, I will be with you from now on even to the very ends of eternity and the blazing throne of our Father..”

From these and other experiences I have the faith, and I can say, with absolute surety that I know that God lives, that he is a God of miracles, and that he answers prayers, often times through other people. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he likewise loves us more than we can know. I know that the Atonement is real. It is not an abstract concept, it is not a theory, it is a real power that we can experience. I know that God cared enough about us to get involved in the world once again and restore this church. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. There is hope and that hope is Jesus Christ and I say this things in his Holy name.. Amen.

Thanks for reading.

As Always,
Zachery Brasier

The Sidewalk Bagatelles are like a Dream

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well we are about half way through the May holiday season. Labor Day and Easter have passed and now we just have Victory Day on Thursday to get through. Oh May holidays. They are so great.

 

Labor Day was pretty exciting. Since our quarterly culture night is coming up, we got put in charge of buying tickets for that whole escapade. After some decision making we decided to go to some sort of concert in the Sergei Prokofiev museum in the center of the city. Thus on the brisk morning of May the 1st we jumped on the Metro and came out of the metro stop right in front of the Bolshoi Theatre.... to be greeted by a ton of policemen, gates and red banners! It was a communist rally and we hit the middle of it! Everybody was marching around with huge red flags with Lenin's face on it or long red banners with Soviet slogans. It was quite exciting, but we went the other direction. As we were going to the museum we heard more shouting in front of us. It was an anti-communist rally! After the tickets were bought we had to find our way around the city since half of the streets were blocked off and we ran into policemen constantly telling us to go in the other direction! Eventually we found an open metro entrance amidst fiery speeches shouted on loud speakers and got home. Labor Day was an exciting day. I took a lot of pictures.

May the Fourth Be With You. Star Wars day was on Saturday.

 

Due to Labor Day, lots of people had the rest of the week off from work. That means that lots of people were also unwilling to meet with us. On Saturday all of our lessons cancelled and thus we had to hit the streets contacting. We decided to attempt the epic journey of walking from our apartment to the Central Meeting Building for the church. Metro Sokolniki to Metro Novokuznetskaya. It was quite the walk trust me, considering that for parts of it we were caught in the pouring rain. So we walked there, but took the metro back again. Quite the journey.

Sunday was Easter. Everybody kept giving us hard boiled eggs. In Russia they dye them using a boiled onion dye that gives the eggs a weird brown hue. But, we were given a lot of them and we consequently ate a lot of eggs and I consequently regretted eating a lot of eggs.

Easter was great. Fortunately it was a fast and testimony meeting so everybody got to share their testimonies about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I was so inspiring to see all of these sturdy Russian members bearing their testimonies about the reality of the atonement. We had such a special spirit at the meeting and it made this one of my favorite Easters. I really love these people and their testimonies, and I'm so grateful for having the opportunity to serve amongst them.

That morning I had decided to read through the last eight chapters of the gospel of John about the Last Supper, the Atonement and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As I read I was especially struck this time by these two verses in the 14th chapter of John:

18- I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

19- Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

I was really impacted by these words. For me, this Easter I really gained an appreciation for the fact that Jesus Christ promises us that he will not leave us. He will come to us in our moments of suffering and tribulation because he perfectly knows how we feel and what we are going to. He will never leave us alone both in life and in death, and due to his atonement we will all live once again. Easter is such a hopeful holiday, and I am so thankful to be here for it, serving a mission and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in these Northern countries.

Well, there is nothing else to say. Everybody have a nice week!

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

The Continuing Adventures of The Achiever and Pretzel No.2

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

The adventures continue here in Moscow. As I approach the end of my mission we are continuing to face the weather, sometimes hostile people, and off the wall investigator questions with the same tenacity that has graced the past few weeks.

Easter is coming up. Actually a lot of holidays are coming up. On the 1st is International Labor Day, then Easter then on the 9th Victory Day. May is a holiday season here in Russia.

Our investigators are doing pretty good. Not much to report. We will be moving back the baptismal date for Wu-Tao just a little bit, but just enough that I won't be able to see it happen. Oh well. The most important thing is that he gets baptized, and whether or not I am there isn't important, as long as it happens. For the most part, our investigators probably won't be baptized any time in the near future, but they are all on the path. I'm alright with that, because I still love teaching them and seeing their faith grow step by step. A big breakthrough this week was that Vladimir finally came to our church building. We had been trying to get him to come to church for weeks and felt like if we could just get him to come to the building, not even on Sunday, it would make a big difference. So we convinced him to come. I wasn't at the lesson, because I was on splits, but evidently it went really good. The missionaries watched the church produced movie "Finding Faith and Christ" and said that he cried the whole time. Vladimir has so much faith in Jesus Christ, and it is really evident in the way he lives his life. I wish I could have as much faith as he has.

Speaking of splits, they happened. This week I went on splits with the Mitishi elders. As I might have mentioned before, they live in the suburbs of Moscow, and are responsible for a few rad little towns like Pushkino and Voronok. That means a lot of train riding on the intercity "elektrichka" trains, which I rather like, because I have become quite fond of rail transportation. So, I spent the weekend out their, working with those Elders, which was a lot of fun, even though we got caught in the rain on Saturday and had to seek shelter in a shopping mall.

On Sunday I had a pleasant surprise. Some members from Nizhniy were coming back from the temple in Kiev. I was really excited to find out that it was some of my favorite members, and we got to catch up and talk for awhile. It was great to see them again, and even better that they still remembered me, because I left the city almost one and a half years ago! I also forgot to mention that last week some members from Smolensk came to our sacrament meeting, so I have been blessed to seat a lot of my old friends from my old areas.

Well I must apologize that this letter might not be super interesting. I feel bad that as I near the end of my mission, these letters aren't providing some sort of climax to a resounding resolution. Maybe I have just trained myself to think in terms of climax and rising action from my love of literature and film, but the idea of climax on a mission is inherently flawed, for it presupposes eventual falling action. For a disciple of Jesus Christ there is no falling action. As Neal A Maxwell once said, discipleship is meant to be lived in crescendo and that means a steady upward course, and that is how I feel about my mission. Sure there have been low moments or momentary decreases of resolve but overall I feel satisfied in saying (and not meaning to be prideful) that I have lived my mission in crescendo. I am just hoping to carry this upward course that I have been blessed with on through life and continue to progress in the ways that only my Heavenly Father can plan for me.

I hope you all are enjoying the spring and the nice weather it provides. Have a nice week, and live long and prosper.

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Turn a card for my life.

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

It is a beautiful time in Russia! The sun is gone, the days are warm, but not blazing hot like the summer, people are out on the streets and much happier, and most of the museums are open. I love the spring time in Russia! I actually really enjoy being on the streets contacting because the weather is so nice and now we can start hitting the parks because people actually walk in the them (interestingly enough the park near our apartment, Sokolniki park actually plays Kings of Convenience, a Swedish band, on the loud speakers from time to time. It really shocked me.) Really, it is just a good time to be in Russia, and these last few weeks of my mission are shaping up to be some of the best.

Well the investigators are going well. We met with Wu-Tao a lot today to start teaching him the commandments. The lessons are going great with him, and now Mike can help us once again, so my life is becoming slightly more Chinese, for the better. Wu-Tao is super awesome. He is such a great example from me and I learn so much from him. Sometimes I learn Chinese from him. He says that my tones are pretty good.

Also in the international department we had a lesson with a South African protestant missionary this week. It was a break up lesson. He wanted to meet with us to tell us that he doesn't want to meet with us. Unfortunate, but I was really appreciative of the fact that he sat down and told us why he wasn't interested instead of just disappearing or blocking our calls. He knows the classy way to break up with your friendly neighborhood Mormon missionaries.

Vladimir is continuing to do well. He asks a ton of good questions, and I am really glad that I finished reading the Bible cover to cover not too long ago. He loves when we use Biblical scriptures to teach the doctrine, which I enjoy too. It is kind of like friendly Bible bashing, but the other person actually accepts what we are talking about. Last week we had a lesson about the apostasy and after I explained some details he looked at me and said; "Do you mean that [random revival preacher] does not have the fullness of the gospel?" I looked him strait in the eye and said; "Yes." He responded: "And you are telling me that your church is the full restored gospel." Again, I answered simply: "Yes." and then he just sat there and looked at me and eventually started laughing and carrying on about how "cool" we are. I can't really convey how that felt, but I love being able to really simply and boldly declare the doctrine and look somebody in the eye and tell them what you know without a doubt in your mind. It is a thrill, and I love when the Spirit is with us and the timing is right and everything works out. I really love teaching people about the gospel.

Before the Vladimir lesson of which I was talking occurred a funny thing happened. We walked up to his apartment and this little kid was sitting in front of it holding a toy gun. He pointed at us and yelled: "AGENTS!" I laughed and smiled at the boy. He followed us into the apartment and asked really quietly: "Are you agents?" I spun around, looked at him and said really softly: "No, just normal people, now go play..." The kid definitely heard my accent and definitely did not believe me. After the lesson as we exited the apartment the kid was still sitting there and yelled to all his friends: "LOOK ITS THE AGENTS!!!" A walked by as he kept yelling that and then suddenly turned around and stared at him for a good 10 seconds with the most steely eyed look I could muster. Oh man, you should have seen how wide his eyes got! Funny times...

And one more thing. Since the weather is getting better the gypsies are coming out again. They like to go on the Metro and play accordion songs and beg for money. I don't necessarily like gypsies, but the entertainment is nice. However yesterday we made the big mistake of watching one play and we ended up getting chased down the wagon of the train with this gypsy poking Elder Kelly and asking him for money. Blasted gypsies.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I really appreciated them. Have a great week everybody, enjoy the spring weather!

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Spring and the Air Museum

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Spring has officially arrived. Today I had the joyous experience of standing outside and thinking: "Wow, it is pretty hot, I need to take off my jacket." I had this experience while looking at a Tu-4 strategic bomber with the worlds largest helicopter behind my back... But we'll get back to that later.

This week went pretty well. The Assistants to the President came and did splits with us on Thursday. I got to serve the day with Elder Jewkes, which was great, and just like old times, we couldn't get any lessons all day and ended up spending a day contacting. That was alright though, since I like Elder Jewkes (I hope so, since we are going to be roommates up at college!).

In other news, Wu-Tao came back! For the past few weeks I had somewhat half-heartily called him every night only to hear the phone tell me that he was out of service coverage. Then, on Monday night I thought: "Oh, what the heck, lets just call Wu-Tao." I called... and the phone rang... and rang.. and rang... and rang.. and he didn't pick up. Still, it was progress. The next night I gave  him another call and the phone rang.. rang.. rang and Wu-Tao picked up! So we set up a lesson and went over to his apartment. He is doing really great. When he went to China he had some delays, but eventually everything got figured out. He was able to see his family (he has two brothers and a sister, which is out of the ordinary in China) and said that he only brought two books on the trip, his Chinese and English Book of Mormon! We had a great lesson, got to catch up and we are shooting for a mid-May baptism, hopefully right before I go home. It was so great to see him again.

During the weekend we watched General Conference. I really enjoyed being with all the fellow missionaries (and others who wanted to watch in English, like the Stake President) and to listen to the messages from our apostles and prophets. General Conference is always great, especially while on the mission, I feel like every conference I get more out of it, and this conference was no different. I had a lot of questions and concerns that I had been working on, and the talks of conference really helped me out. Here are my favorites (since everybody inevitably asks) in order of appearance:

*These Things I Know- President Boyd K. Packer (especially the part about tolerance and differentiating between the sin and sinner)

*The Savior Wants to Forgive- Elder Craig A Cardon

*For Peace at Home- Elder Richard G. Scott

*Four Titles- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (this was probably my favorite talk from conference, it was exactly what I need at this time.)

*The Hope of God's Light- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

*Marriage: Watch and Learn- Elder L. Whitney Clayton

*Obedience to the Law is Liberty- Elder L. Tom Perry

*Lord, I Believe- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (of course this one gets on the list. Can Elder Holland ever give a bad talk? I think it is impossible!)

* And of course I loved both of the talks from President Thomas S. Monson, but I think that goes without saying!

Yes, so conference was great and I am once again so thankful that we have living prophets and apostles today that can teach and inspire us in such great ways!

And so, to round of this letter, let me explain why I was viewing strategic bombers and the world's largest helicopter today. Well my birthday is tomorrow, and my companion asked me what I wanted to do. In our area is a small suburb of Moscow called Monino. In Monino is the Russian Air Force Academy, also it has the Central Air Museum of the Russian Air Force. I learned about this museum when I was 12 or 13 years old, but never thought I would get the chance to see it. Well, today was my chance to fulfill a dream! We went out to the museum and fortunately it was open. The museum has more than 100 types of Russian aircraft, including some very rare one of a kind types. I felt like I was at Disneyland! It was great to see all of those aircraft, and so that any aircraft buffs can get jealous, a few notable types where the M-53, T-4, Mil V-12, Tu-4, Tu-144, ANT-25, An-22 and many others (if all this is just random numbers and letters, don't worry, my district who so blessedly humoured me and came out as well didn't know anything about them, but I played the tour guide!) P-Day of dreams...

Well then, I hope everybody enjoys the spring and the good times it brings (that was going to be a lot more poetic and corny, but I ran out of ideas.) Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Zachery Brasier

In Passing...

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Unfortunately, I had a lot of administrative tasks to do during my hour of e-mailing, so I won't be able to write you a whole lot of details this week. Here are some highlights in passing.

FALCON MAN- On the metro the other day we saw a man who had a blind folded falcon on his arm walking out of a train. I had to do a double take, but sure enough he was a falcon trainer. As he walked away from the platform and disappeared from sight we heard a loud and piercing falcon cry from the direction he went. The things you see on the metro!

THE FIRST 19 YEAR OLD- This week the mission recieved our first 19 year old sister missionary, and she is serving in our district! That is pretty exciting news and a new step forward for our mission. However, I am weirded out that I am about a year and a half older than a sister missionary. Usually they are much older than me.

VLADIMIR... PROGRESSES?- We are still working with Vladimir, and he is doing pretty well, all though we had some disagreement about the doctrine of the Fall of Adam and Eve. That is always a hard one for people, and so our meeting was less than productive, essentially ending in an agreement to disagree. We did end on a good note though, and Vladimir prayed that Elder Kelly and I would be better able to understand how important our mission is to the Russian people. I was really touched by that, especially coming from somebody who is not yet a member. Vladimir also gave me some old Soviet money. I would say that this was a roller coaster lesson.

IT SNOWS... AGAIN- It snowed again. I am not ok with that. Today the sun is out though. That is a plus.

AUSTIN GETS HIS MISSION CALL- I was extremely excited to hear about Austin's call to the Raleigh North Carolina mission! I'm sure it will be awesome for him and I'm excited that yet another Elder Brasier gets to go do the work in a little part of the Lord's vineyard.

TIMES ARE GOOD- They are. It's true.

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Continuing Adventures in the Increasingly Thalassic Empire of Russia

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

First things first. The weather. I can't get the hang of the weather. It has been off and on snowing for the past week and today we are getting a pretty heavy rainstorm. I will be excited for the spring once it comes. In the meantime, the streets of Russia and becoming inudated with water, since the country hasn't really developed an incredibly effective way of draining the water, mostly because usually the soil absorbs it all. But for now, we have to deal with the puddles. Now I understand why both Napoleon and Hitler had a hard time in this country. The weather is less than ideal for prolonged military campaigns!

The week was, in all honestly, not too promising. We have lost contact with both Wu-Tao and Sasha. We know that Wu-Tao will be back eventually (he is enrolled in a university here, you can't just leave that on a whim) but Sasha's disappearance has been troubling, especially because he has a baptismal date! Hopefully he'll show up once again. Other than those two, we met with Vladimir (the man who had his Book of Mormon epiphany) a few other investigators, but mostly our investigators were too busy to meet with us, for varying reasons; hospital trips, work, and in one case a cabin that burnt down. Oh well, there is always next week.

Other than that, I don't have a whole lot to write this week. Transfer calls came in and it looks like Elder Kelly and I will be staying together for the rest of the the next transfer, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I am pretty excited about that because Elder Kelly is awesome and we have really enjoyed working with each other thus far.

A few days ago we were teaching Vladimir and I had one of those moments when you realize how crazy it is to be on a mission. He had some questions about something he read in the Book of Mormon and it involved the Plan of Salvation, so I briefly explained the related doctrine but it was obvious that he didn't really understand. We had only about 15 minutes left before we had to get to another appointment, so I ended up explaining the whole Plan of Salvation in that time. He loved it and said that it was a huge revelation in his life, but wanted to check in the Bible if the doctrine was written there, so I showed him some Biblical verses really quickly and we left. Afterwards I was thinking about the lesson and realized how crazy that was. I had explained in less than 15 minutes, in understandable Russian, to a 60 year old man who lived under the Soviet Union and with Biblical backup the plan of God for him. I could not have even imagined doing that even a year ago, much less a little more than two years ago before I even started my mission. I realized how blessed I have been that God has helped me gain the ability to teach his gospel and help these people. I have truly been blessed.

Well, I just realized that this weekend was Easter in America. We have Easter here in a few weeks, because we use a different calender. I'll write more about it then. Also, as a note, I heard recently that this has been the longest, on average coldest and wettest winter in Russia for the past 130 years. Yep, we're pretty hard core here.

Well, live long and prosper,

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Oh! Svefn-g-englar!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well I am afraid that I am a source of a little bit of logistical confusion about transfers and stuff. Last week I mentioned that my companion would be Elder Edwards and that we would be having a miniature two week transfer. The short transfer is due to the change in MTC time for the new Russian missionaries, and thus we will have a two week transfer than a normal six week one, but it will basically be one big eight week transfer. Also, my companion is not Elder Edwards. On Tuesday morning President called me and told me that at the last minute they had to change my transfer scheme and so instead I got Elder Kelly. Elder Kelly is from West Chester, New York; a suburb about 30 minutes outside of New York City so for all intents and purposes he is from NYC. He has been on his mission for about eight months and just came from Yaroslavl, the site of my unfortunate hair cutting accident from last spring. I really like Elder Kelly, we have the same sense of humor and like the same things, even some of the more obscure things that I like. He is majoring in film production and wants to be a film editor, so that is super cool.

This week has been a very interesting one. We had our transfers on Thursday, a formerly crazy investigator seemed to have an epiphany and has now started to like us and one of our sister missionaries has had some serious head trauma that has landed her in the hospital. So it has been a bit of a roller coaster of a week.

Transfer meeting was the last day of many of my mission friends. Elder Eliason and Elder Palmer specifically finished their missions. That was really weird to say goodbye to my friends who I've served with for so long. But I'll be seeing them again, so it wasn't too sad, just really surreal.

On the topic of missionary work, things have been going good. We've hit what I like to term a "Business as Usual Stretch" (if I was cool I would turn it into the acronym BUS, but I've never been that cool, so the idea is wasted.) Basically this means that everything is going well, we have a routine going, people are getting taught, but nothing especially outstanding has occurred, or at least nothing outstanding that warrants a mention in a letter home. I'm alright with these stretches, because the work is going forward and we are really helping people. As I mentioned in our previous paragraph, we had an investigator who was kind of crazy. He contacted us on the street by running up to us and yelling: "JESUS IS GREAT!" We had met with him a few times but it seemed that he just wanted to teach us. Finally we decided to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon with him, specifically 3 Nephi 11 when Christ appears to the people in the Americas. Vladimir (the investigator) loved it and the next day read 20 chapters in the Book of Mormon due to a convenient head cold. Once again the Book of Mormon saves the day! Otherwise, we weren't able to meet with Sasha this week due to his work schedule and we are still waiting for Wu-Tao to come back from China. Hopefully that will be soon.

This week we did spend a lot of time in the hospital visiting our sister missionaries. Sister Isenhour has something wrong with her head that is causing splitting headaches and forcing her to essentially be immobile and her companion Sister Jolley wouldn't leave her side. So we brought them food and other things to try to make the hospital stay a little bit more bearable. I am terrible in hospitals because I find all the technology and terminology so interesting. Sometimes I think I'm not all that comforting! On a hospital trip I also scared the security. Here is what happened:

Since Sister Jolley was sleeping on the floor using rolled up towels as a pillow, we decided to bring her one of our extra ones and some pens, paper and books. Unfortunately I couldn't fit it all in my backpack so I decided to use an Elder Lyons technique and just put everything in the pillow case and just carry the pillow around.

I felt like a fool in the Metro.

When I got to the hospital I hung up my coat and we started toward the elevator when I got stopped by a security guard wanting to know what was in the pillow. I told him: "A pillow... and paper and books." I was told to wait as he called the head security guard! I could overhear him talking and was thinking: "What does he think I'll do? Smother the patients? Use the paper to slice all of their IVs?" After a few minutes the chief of hospital security shows up and the following conversation ensues:

Him: "Whats in the pillow?"

Me: "A Pillow, and some paper and books."

Him: "Why did you bring a pillow into the hospital."

Me (thinking that that was a dumb question): "Well I have a friend who is here sick and her sister (see my play on words there? He didn't realize I was talking about a missionary sister. I was proud of myself for that.) is sleeping on the floor without a pillow, so I'm bringing this to her."

Him: "What is the name of the patient."

Me: "Taylor Isenhour, fifth floor, sixteenth room."

Him: "Who?"

Me: "Taylor Isenhour."

Him: "I don't believe that that person exists."

Me: No comment, I just stood there kind of dumbfounded by this whole situation.

And so this security guard essentially drags me to the front desk and demands that I tell the people there who I am looking for. I tell them. The receptionist, with a sigh, tells the security guard that I had already visited the hospital, Taylor Isenhour exists and that I am just a nice American boy. Huzzah! I am free! and on the way to the elevator I could hear the guard starting to lecture the receptionist about the importance of security. See in Russia things are weird. A train station has no security at all, I walk through the metal detectors with phones, coins, belt buckles and as the metal detector is having a seizure of beeping the police just let me through. Airports are a little more tight with security, but getting into a hospital has always been a huge hastle! Oh inverted world!

Thus is my life. Things are going well. The last two days have been a blizzard essentially. That is terrible. But metaphysically, spiritually, morally, psychologically, and geometrically, life is good.

Ok, I'm done writing.

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier (i.e. The Infamous Pillow Infiltrator, security threat #1 of the European Medical Center).

P.S. I'm still indignant.

What's Left of the Flag!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Because I wasn't able to wish you it on the day that it happened, I am now taking the time to officially wish you a happy Saint Patrick's Day. I hope that you had a day filled with great Irish fun. Also happy Pi day (3/14). I hope that the diameter of your life is always unevenly divided by a circumference of happiness. Ok, enough of that.

The weather here is schizophrenic. Here is what has been happening. Things were good through Tuesday, which caused me to have a heart attack. Wednesday brought the cold, and it snowed from Thursday to Friday. The winter strikes back. Saturday brought a thick fog and we were lost in the cloud, once again. Sunday was nice, and today it snowed. Oh how I wish that the spring would just come. Even though I love the winter, enough is enough.

Our investigators are doing good through all of this. Wu-Tao had to go back to China in order to renew his visa and we tried to find a church branch in his hometown for him to attend. Unfortunately the only branch was an English speaking foreigner branch, which he can't go to due to certain religious laws in place in China right now. He'll be back in a week or two. Then on Saturday we set a baptismal date with our investigator Sasha! He is great and such strong faith, but we found out that he lives in a different area and is zoned for a different ward! No.....

Transfers are soon and I'll be getting a new companion. His name is Elder Edwards. I don't know him at all because he has spent his whole mission (all two transfers of it) in the isolated island of the mission known as Voronezh. The next transfer is a half formed midget of a transfer that will only last for two weeks. Then after that we have a normal six week transfer and than that is it...

This week we had a pretty cool English Club. Our topic was leaders and we had everybody discuss the positive and negative leadership qualities of various world and historical leaders, such as George W. Bush, Elizabeth II, John Lennon, Beckham, Ivan the Terrible, Stalin and many others. I really enjoyed our discussion and I realized that I rather like teaching people about these topics. It is quite fun.

And now it is time for some thoughts from the week. Buckle up.

I don't think that I ever told you about how Sasha found out about the church. A while ago he had a good coworker who he was very close to, who died. After this man's death, Sasha found out that he was Mormon. The man had lived such an inspiring life that Sasha vowed to find out more about the church he had joined. Thus, he found us. I am so thankful for the silent example of a man who without fanfare lived the Christan life that we are all trying to live. His example made a profound influence on Sasha's life, even though at his death, this man probably did not even know it. Once again, this is a testimony to me that we never know how much good the little things we do in life bring about. I am convinced that after we pass to the next sphere, we will only then realize the impact that our life had on the people around us.

Good luck and enjoy this unfortunately holiday deprived week!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Tell the Other Phantoms

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

It does not some that long ago that I wrote you, probably because it really wasn't. The unfortunate thing about changing a P-day to the middle of the week is that when you get around to the normal P-day once again, you don't have a whole lot to write, since not a whole lot has happened since then.

Basically the end of this week was business as usual. I went and did my first round of missionary exchanges in Mitishi which is a suburb of Moscow that has a really Japanese sounding name. We have a set of Elders out there, and since it is in my district I get to do splits every transfer. This week I did splits with one of the Elders there, Elder Davis who is a really good guy. He is about a year younger than me on the mission, but we have both been serving in the Sokolniki district for the same amount of time and have become good friends. I enjoyed serving with him in the day, trying to find an inactive member (who actually wasn't inactive, our records were just wrong) and teaching a somewhat crazy guy who just wanted to talk to me about all the "fun" things that you can do in Las Vegas. We still ended up teaching him the Plan of Salvation though. This is something funny in Russia. People here get really really off topic and a lot of time we'll spend 45 minutes to an hour just listening to them talk about everything, since the Russian people are quite friendly and outgoing in close personal settings. Then, even with all the distractions, we still end up teaching a full lesson. No one we hear a lot about learning to take control of the teaching situation.

Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about the influx of missionaries after the mission age change. Basically all that happened to our mission is that our mission compliment increased by about 20-30 missionaries. Over the next few months (until July 1st, when President Sorenson goes home) we will be loosing around 35 of our old seasoned missionaries and getting them replaced by almost 50 new missionaries. So, the biggest change that is happening is that our mission is going to become a very young mission. A year ago almost every outer city had only two missionaries in them, but now all have between 4 and 18 (the biggest being Nizhniy Novgorod. I remember when we only had 10 missionaries there!) Our mission is just getting bigger.

The civil war between the spring and winter is continuing going along. Usually I like the winter but this year I can't wait for the spring to come. I am actually pretty happy right now and I can't pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it is the prospect of an exciting future, a great companion or the advent of spring. I think it might be because the coming of spring is my favorite time to think and reflect and ask important questions: Who is Russia? Why is Lenin? Where are the Elders of yesteryear? People are out on the streets more and we contact amidst scores of couples finally unleashed on the world with the perpetually concerned girlfriends clutching newly wilting flowers gifted to them for the celebration of International Women's Day. It is much better for us when everybody is out on the streets.

And thus spring is coming. I hope it comes sooner than later, for I am ready to thaw out!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Mr. Blue Sky?

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

T.S. Eliot once wrote that April is the cruelest month, but I am starting to think that he really meant that March was the cruelest month. Here in Russia, March is the month of the change of the weather, which means that on one day the weather is above freezing and the sun is shining, then the next day we'll hit -10 C with snow. Last Monday we had a great P-day. We pretty much gallivant about Moscow enjoying the nice weather and taking lots of pictures in the center of the city. Then, two days later, Moscow had a snow storm. Basically we are just waiting for the weather to decided when it wants to turn to the spring.

 

This week we decided as a district to take our P-day on Wednesday so we could see the famous Tretyakovskii art gallery. That is why I didn't write on Monday. I hope that that didn't cause any undue concern. I did not get hit my a meteor.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to write about the last week. We had a really great conference with Elder Randall K. Bennett the Second Quorum of the Seventy. It was very much like the conference that we had last year when he announced that the mission was being split and that we would be in the Moscow mission. Really, I'm having a hard time believing that that was a year ago that I was in Smolensk with Elder Jewkes, it really seems like it was only a few months ago. But, the conference was good, it got everybody fired up for missionary work and gave Elder Stegaby and I a lot of ideas that we have implemented in order to become more effective missionaries.

 

The rest of the week was good. We had quite a few lessons and we have some great investigators, just nothing really spectacularly out of the ordinary occurred.

 

We met with Sasha on Saturday. He is doing super great. He actually had quite a few questions about temples, which usually puts us on edge, since most of the anti-Mormon tracts seem to focus on our temples, and it is usually a sensitive subject for our investigators. But we explained what the temples are for and why they are important to us and he really liked it. At the end of our lesson he said that he could see a light in our eyes when we talked about our temples, and he feels like that the doctrine of them is true. Sasha is doing super good.

 

Wu-Tao is wanting to meet with us more and more frequently now. Often he tells us that he is praying and reading the Book of Mormon and has a bunch of really good questions. I can really see his understanding of the gospel grow, and especially his testimony of Jesus Christ. It has been really exciting to see his opinion of Jesus Christ change from somebody that the Christians talk about to a really powerful man and teacher and now to his Saviour. Also, Wu-Tao's English is getting a lot better, which is good since Mike can only come and translate for half of our lessons nowadays. A funny thing though is that Wu-Tao can't really pronounce faith. He says fish instead. Thus, we asked him to read Alma chapter 32 and the next meeting he said that he really liked the chapter because: "My fish is a seed.. and it can grow to a tree... I can have strong fish." Yeah, that took us a few seconds to figure out. Now, Elder Stegaby and I usually just say fish when we mean faith when we talk to each other and the other day I told him (quoting Star Wars): "I find your lack of fish disturbing." Oh, good times..

 

Otherwise, I have nothing new to report. Things are going really well right now and as always I am happy to be here in Russia.

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

 

PS- The other day I was thinking about the difference between English and Russian, and it made me laugh to think that when I write that I said something, you probably end up imagining me saying it in English. And so when I say that we bore testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith we obviously don't say: "I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God..." we say: "Ya zhayu shto Dzhosef Smit byl prorokom Boga..." I don't know, I was just thinking about that and laughed to myself. Russian is a cool language.

Letter From Zach!

Dear Family,

Unfortunately, the internet cafe that we use (loving dubbed "The Dungeon" by missionaries) does not allow for uploading pictures.  Thus in order to convince you that I am not lying in a ditch after a mafia hit or deported to Siberia to waste away in a gulag, I've decided to send you some pictures. 

Elder Stegeby and I looking strangely photo shopped in front of the "Academy of the People of Russia" in the park VDNKH.

 Just a standard Moscow morning.  I got just about everything in Moscow in one shot: clouds, a Orthodox temple, millions of tram lines, thick traffic, weird stop lights, and a woman wearing a fur hat.

Remember when I told you about the bright moon?  Well this is a picture of that.  I keep showing it to people and telling them that I took a picture of a UFO and they always say: "Where?!  I just see the moon."  ......OK

When I got sick I forgot to shave for 31/2 days of house confinement.  Hello beard!

A cool (no pun intended) shot from the top of a parking garage.

Laser tag with the district on "Pandora" left to right: Sister Joliey, Me, Elder Olsen, Elder Jenkes, Elder Steele and Sister Isenhauer: Photographer.

Giant nesting dolls at the New Moscow Compiego.  Welcome to my abode.

At VDNKH with the giant R4 rocket.

At VDNKH park.  Space the final frontier!

Well I hope you like those!

~As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Four Winds Leveling The Pines

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well another week has passed. Another sunny week strangely enough. The sun has been shining nearly all weak and today is a balmy 0 degrees Celsius. That means that the sun is starting to melt the snow, which also means that a winters worth of liter has been finally exposed to the sunlight. The street crews need to get to that sometime soon. But, it seems as though the winter is on its downward spiral. I'm knocking on wood right now to make sure that I'm not cursing myself in anyway.

So missionary work.. how is it? Good. This week we had two lessons with Wu-tao. Unfortunately Mike couldn't come to translate for us. Google Translate go! Google worked pretty well for us, even though some cynical people might think that Google doesn't translate well, it sure speaks better Chinese than I do! Our lessons went well. We talked about eternal families and showed him a ton of pictures of temples. He loved the temples, and literally snatched our iPod out of our hands when he saw a picture of the Washington DC temple. According to Wu-tao (and this will make my parents happy) this is the most beautiful of all the temples. Thus, things are going great with him. We are just waiting for his wife to come back from China until we set a date with him.

Our other investigators are doing great too. We are teaching a man named Sasha who is a super humble guy who is also spiritually minded. On our first meeting he told us that he believes that Joseph Smith was the prophet for our day and that the Book of Mormon is revelation in our times. Yeah, we really like to hear things like that. He still has some concerns, but he really is doing very well, and even came to church!

This week I also became part of what seemed to me to be a spy story. On Tuesday, a man from Smolensk came into our central meeting building asking to see missionaries. Since I was the only one in close proximity who had served in Smolensk I got called in. The man tells us quite the story, which I clandestinely took notes of, and asks us for quite the sum of money to get him on his feet. We could not do anything about this, since we are as poor as the next person so I called a member of our ward bishopric. He calls us back in a few minutes and gives us the number of an American named Grand. I call the number, explain the situation, and he tells me to tell our Smolensk friend to meet him at a certain metro stop at a certain time. I definitely felt like I was in a spy story. Then a few days later, Grand calls us and tells us that if this man from Smolensk tries to call us ever again, we shouldn't speak with him. Rather we should refer the Smolensk man to Grand, and he'll take care of it. Only later did I find out that Grand had a stake calling to deal with these situations, but nonetheless, I felt like I was in a spy story.

I recently wrote a letter to a friend where I listed every single nationality that I have met on my mission, and was really amazed at all the different people I have met. I've come to realize that the gospel doesn't really care about borders. It is jumping over fences and crossing property lines to get to all the Earth. We are teaching a Chinese man. We can not legally preach in his country, yet he is learning about the gospel in his native tongue. Truly the Lord has set his hand to gather his elect from the four corners of the Earth. I am always grateful, yet at times overwhelmed to realize that the Lord has called me to participate in this great and final gathering. I am truly blessed to see the prophesies of God unfold before my eyes.

Well, that is all I have to write today. I hope you all have a great week.

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

P.S. In an unexpected turn of events, my MTC teacher, Jared Porter is now in Moscow with his expecting wife teaching English. I kind of tripped out when I first saw him, now I see him quite frequently.

Meteor Blasts, Missng Chinese Investigators and Drunk men punching cars... A Day in the Life

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

Just to ease everybodies mind, the meteor that recently fell on Russia did not hit anywhere near where we live. Actually I wasn't even aware that we had a meteor strike until Sunday. So don't worry, everything is alright with us, the only thing that effected us was what some people believe to be a change in weather pattern due to the meteor. No interstellar disasters have befallen us!

 

To follow the order of the title of this e-mail, we finally found Wu-Tao (by that way, that is how you spell his name. I've been doing it wrong for quite some time now and thus I want to set the record straight.) On Tuesday we went to his apartment, and found out that he wasn't there. We asked a neighbor (who spoke English and has been to Sweden) if she had seen him and she said no. More than a little worried, we left a note and went back to our apartment. When we got home I realized that we had gotten 3 missed calls from an unknown number. I called back and asked (in Russian) if that person had called us. I heard back in broken English: "Uh yes.. you are.. church?" I was so excited I almost dropped the phone and started talking way to quickly in English with out even introducing myself. Poor guy was probably so confused. Come to find out he had just had got a new number. So we met, had an awesome lesson, he taught me some Chinese words and things are back to normal.

 

Earlier that day we had an interesting experience. Elder Stegeby and I had made a goal as a companionship to look for more ways to offer simple service during the week, in order to live more like disciples of Jesus Christ. After district meeting we walked out of the senior couple's apartment and saw a drunk man slumped against the door with a poor old lady trying to help him up. We offered to help and take him to the Metro. The guy was so drunk he could barely talk or walk, but once we started talking to him he told us that he likes to fight and knows how to do MMA or something. To demonstrate, he put Elder Stegeby in a head lock. After I pried him off of Elder Stegeby, he decided to show his strength by punching a car, and then gave me a big hug. It was pretty weird. He ended up deciding that he didn't need the Metro, but none the less we were glad that we at least tried to help.

 

Otherwise, this week we have been working hard to find new investigators, and as always, the Lord blesses us when we make righteous goals. We have had the oppurtunity to find and teach some great new people who are really prepared to hear the gospel. In short, things went pretty well this week.

 

I realize that I haven't really mentioned much about our P-Days. Usually I just assume that the pictures I send will cover that topic, but since the internet cafe we use doesn't really allow for SD cards, I haven't been able to. So here are some things that we have done recently.

 

- Toured VDNKh- This is a park in the middle of Moscow that has huge Soviet buildings and a momument to the astronauts and a big Vostok-K rocket, the same that Yuri Gagarin rode into space. So that was pretty exciting to see. We also rode the huge Ferris wheel at the park, and Elder Stegeby and I tried to shake the coupula as much as possible, just to add a little more thrill to the experience.

 

- Ate at a Chinese Buffet- Mike (from Taiwan) invited us to come with him to his favorite Chinese buffet. He says that it is the most like what they eat in China and what his mom makes. It was super good. I tried everything, including fried chicken feet (surprisingly good) and spiced liver (terrible). Since the Chinese workers there realized we were Americans, they gave us forks, but I asked specifically for chop sticks, and felt really pretentiously cool about it.

 

- Got addicted to laser tag- Recently we found a sweet laser tag place. Essentially, we became addicted to it. Last transfer we played every other week. Today that is what we did. This is always a great way to get out pent up energy, and we get a student discount if we show our student ID. Good thing they don't care if your a student in America or Russia and deferred for missionary service!

 

Yep, so that is just about all I've got. The work is really progressing here in Russia. A few days ago we heard from a non-Mormon American that every time he tells people that he is American the people assume he is Mormon, especially in the big cities with missionaries. I guess that we are doing a pretty decent job getting our message out to the people.

 

Take luck, live long and prosper,

 

As always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Slightly More Scandinavian

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

In a slightly karmic book end approach to the times, I am once again serving with Elder Stegeby, my MTC companion from Sundsvall, Sweden. We have been really enjoying each others company, catching up on old times and trying to progress the work. I really have enjoyed my time with him already because it has given me an unique opportunity to reflect upon my mission thus far and appreciate where I have been and where I am going. The difference between now and then is very obvious, and during our planning sessions and teaching, the power and ability that we have both learned to command has come forth, demonstrating to me the difference between my current self and the one that left the MTC all those months ago. Interesting times indeed.

 

The week itself was exciting but also disappointing in a way. None of our investigators could meet with us. This is not a hyperbole! Literally none of our current investigators could meet with us! Thus, we had a lot of time to go contacting, but I would have much preferred meeting with investigators. Also, Utao has disappeared. His phone is off and we haven't seen him in a while. We will be trying to find him at his apartment soon. I have been really worried about him. I hope that nothing has happened.

 

Even though we have had no contact with our investigators this week, miracles continue to occur. I will share one with you. Yesterday we went had a appointment with a lady in our ward name Irina. She has a really crazy family situation which would probably take up much to much space to write down. The bishop asked us to make weekly visits to her so that she has priesthood in her house, and because she loves the missionaries. Usually she feeds us (which is pretty rare) and this time was no exception. As we were talking afterwards she started talking about the miracles that occur in her life, and how one occurred that day. She told us that she had really wanted to prepare food for us but wasn't able to go shopping on Saturday so she had no groceries. Concerned, she went to church, paid her tithing and went home to find her neighbour waiting at her door with some extra groceries for Irina! Irina was able to have enough groceries and make the missionaries something to eat. This was such a clear example of how the Lord cares about the little things in our lives and will make these small miracles occur for our betterment. Being apart of things like that help me to remember "how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men." (Moroni 10:3) It is also a testimony of Irina's faith and dedication that she still made us something to eat with the food that she had obtained in a pretty miraculous manner.

 

On Tuesday this week we went to a classical concert in a really sweet theatre. Every quarter President has authorized us to go to a cultural event, and thus we decided to go to a concert. It was so great! The guest artist was a 16 year old piano prodigy who destroyed the piano (in as flattering a way possible) during some Liszt piano pieces and performed super well in a Saint-Saen concerto. I realized how much I love classical music. The concert was the place for me and also for our fighter pilot gospel doctrine teacher Brother Fadaev. He was there too.

 

And to finish, a little bit of closure. Elder Jewkes was made the Assistant to President this transfer and is now responsible to travel across the mission. He called me this morning to tell me that he had been in Ryazan this weekend and had met Anton, the man we baptised right before I left. He is active, wears a shirt and tie to church, and is ordained to the priesthood and is actively fulfilling his duties. I was so happy! It is hard to describe how good it feels to know that somebody you taught and prayed for and worked with is continuing how he began and is letting the gospel of Jesus Christ change his life. It was certainly great news.

 

Well that's all I've got! Have a great week.

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Transfer Time Again!

Well everybody it is transfer time once again. And also just so you know the computer I am using has a problem with the space bar i.e. it barely works, and thus it is quite difficult to type, so please forgive me if this is slightly shorter than I usually write.

 

So last Monday right after I got done writing President Sorenson called with transfers. As I sort of expected, Elder Steele will be leaving the area and I will be receiving a new companion that I know very well from past experience. On Thursday I will be receiving Elder Stegeby, my old MTC companion! I am super excited since we are good friends and most importantly since we have both been on our missions for a long time so we both have similar outlooks and abilities in concern with missionary work. I'm excited to tear it up in Sokolniki with Elder Stegeby. Really though, it is quite interesting that I am nearing the end of my mission with the very same companion that I started with.

In regards to our investigators things are going well. We once again had a really good lesson with U-tau. We watched a video about Jesus Christ and talked about it. As we were talking (well as Mike was translating what we were saying) I suddenly had the idea that U-tau really didn't understand what the word "atonement" meant, which we were just liberally using with little explanation. So we asked U-tau if he understood what to word meant and in English he emphatically responded: "No!" which lead to a wonderful discussion with him. U-tau is one of my favorite investigators that I have had on my mission. He is so nice and humble. We can barely communicate with each other because of the language barrier, but I've really grown to love this guy. Many people think that it is easy to just love all the investigators that you teach. I mean you teach them right? But sometimes you really have to work on having Christlike love for investigators who either don't progress or don't seem interested. Maybe I'm just a bad missionary, but some investigators really force me to develop charity, which is a great experience. With U-tau however, I felt like we were friends from when we first met, and I think I am more aware with him than with investigators feelings of charity and care for his salvation. I love when you are teaching an investigator and you get to the point where it is just like talking to a friend and it is easy to feel genuine concern for their welfare and you truly realize that they are children of God in a deep and spiritual sense. Sometimes you have to work on that, but sometimes you don't, and I feel really blessed to be teaching U-tau. Ok so I just rambled a while, but that is something I have really been thinking about and understanding more and more over the last few weeks. That is one thing I love about my mission, is that it is such a trial ground for the developing of Christlike attributes that could never be developed in such short a time. Right now I am learning a lot about charity and love, and building on what I have learned before.

 

Russia is getting pretty warm right now. Some of the snow is melting, but I don't trust any signs of early spring. I already lived through one winter so I know how Russia plays these nasty tricks! As it gets warmer though, the people are getting warmer as well, and it is getting easier to contact and find people. Other than that, business is pretty usual here in Russia. We've been hearing a lot about the Olympics lately as that starts to wind up. It is pretty funny, a lot of people don't have a real positive outlook on the Sochi games. Most people point out that Russia hasn't really developed good customer service and a few other negative aspects that they think will ruin the games. That may just be general pessimism, but it has been fun to hear peoples opinions about the games.

 

Right now we are all praying that the stake will get its own meeting house like in America. Right now we use a big former office building, but the stake leaders are trying to get permits to build an actual church building with a spire and everything. I think it is so cool that we are getting close to this important step and in nearly every prayer at the church meeting this is mentioned. I love the faith of the members. There is no doubt in their minds that God will answer their prayers and make this miracle happen.

 

Well that is all for today. Feel free to ask any Russia related questions, I like answering them. Have a great week!

 

As always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

 

P.S. A few days ago I saw a house pretty much explode while on splits in the suburbs of Moscow. It was on fire and then this huge fireball erupted and took down a bunch of the building. We were at the rail station and just as that happened our commuter train came, so we didn't see how that worked out! It was insane though.

 

Zach's District

E-Mail We Received Today!

We received the following e-mail today:

We, the area doctor and area mental health advisers enjoy having our district 

here in our home for district meeting. He makes great pizza. 

Sister Sond

Me: Thank you! He hasn't been able to send me pictures since he has been in Moscow! This made my day!!!! At least I know I taught him one thing!!!!

 

You taught him many good things. It is amazing to see 6 male teenagers around the table along with 2 21 year old sisters and the senior couple. They all act like adolescents. Then they move into the living room for their district meeting and they become the next world’s leaders. And your son has it organized and assigned. Quite a young man he is.

You have bragging rights,

Sister Sonda.

 

 

 

 

Why is the night so long?

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

Today I woke up to a full moon. It blew my mind how bright the moon was this morning and because it doesn't get light until ten o'clock I was able to observe it for such a long time. I took some sweet pictures, but I can't figure out where the SD card port is on this computer so I won't be able to send them to you. Sorry.

 

This week has been kind of a business as usual week. The area has really started to move forward. We are developing a pretty steady pool of investigators that seem to be coming out of nowhere. This is a huge blessing because street contacting is notoriously difficult in the winter and since tracting is illegal in Moscow, we don't really have that option for finding people. Overall though, I can't complain, since things seem to be going really well and looking up.

 

We had three really cool experiences on lessons this week. Maybe they won't seem that cool to everybody else, since really they are small and simple, but I've learned on my mission that these small experiences usually turn into great spiritual moments.

 

U-tau: We were able to teach U-tau this week with the help of Mike from Taiwan. It was super cool to hear them both speak in Chinese to each other, but also a little bit intimidating because I could not understand a single thing, although I start understanding words like repentance, baptism and Holy Ghost. Teaching was kind of funny because sometimes U-tau and Mike would just talk to each other about a principle for five to ten minutes and I would just be sitting there thinking: "What are they talking about?" Then Mike would say to me in English: "He had a question and I resolved it" and then move on. I trust him but it was really awkward having no idea what my investigators concerns were. I guess I should learn some more Chinese!

 

Anton: I hope you all remember Anton, who looks like Harry Potter. We had a really good lesson with him this week. Lately his problem has been that he doesn't really understand why he should read the Book of Mormon. We planned to teach him a little bit about our purpose of life and such, and when we found out he hadn't been reading, we decided to read with him. So we read Alma 34 with him. After we got done he just sat there thinking, and silence ensued. Earlier in my mission I would have just jumped in and started expounding doctrine, but now I have come to realize that silence is a good thing. After a couple of minutes sitting there, he started asking super profound and thought provoking questions. It was an amazing lesson, and we cleared up a ton of his concerns, and we even got him to pray at the end! It was such a great experience that taught me the importance of patience and letting our investigators ponder.

 

Leonid: I don't know if you remember Leonid. He had a baptismal date at the beginning of December, but things didn't go through. One of our big problems is that he never came to church. Well this Sunday, near the end of the meeting Leonid strolls into the building, and I don't even think we called him! He stayed the whole three hours and at the end of Sunday school even offered the closing prayer. We asked him why he felt the need to pray and he said: "I felt the Holy Ghost, and when I feel that, I know that I should offer a prayer." That was amazing! Hopefully we'll see some progress with him in the near future.

 

So yeah, the work is progressing. I'm excited for what we'll see in the future, and I'm hoping to see more success and miracles!

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Chinese Translation

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

It feels like only a little bit ago that I was able to write you. Since Wednesday the sickness came back again and I was done until Saturday. This time the mission doctor officially grounded me. I was at our church building waiting for a lesson and slowly dying, when he saw me there. He was not too happy that I was out trying my hardest to struggle through lessons while still sick, so he used his powers to ground me. In a bit of frustrated humor he exclaimed: "Missionaries are the hardest to deal with!! They never want to worry about themselves!"

 

Now, I'm all better now. Officially. However, because of the fact that most of the remainder of the week was spent at home in bed, I have very little to write, so I'll write about probably the most interesting thing that happened to me during this week.

 

The sisters for a while have been teaching a Chinese couple. The wife, Zhunzhun (and my Chinese name spelling is approximate so forgive me Mandarin speakers) has been taking the lessons from the missionaries for some time and has wanted to be baptized, she just wanted to be married first. Last year she got married, so the sisters were able to get a hold of her and start teaching her and her husband U-tau, who is also Chinese. Zhunzhun had to go back to China for a while so U-tau is pretty much just stuck here in Russia without his wife, and sisters obviously can't teach him because sisters don't teach men.. And thus we step in! In the end of March U-tau also goes to China for a little bit and so we will be teaching him and keeping him on track till then.

 

I am personally super excited about this. U-tau is so cool. Unfortunately he doesn't speak Russian and barely speaks English. I don't speak Chinese, so our conversations involve lots of sign language and drawing. But, I feel like we have already become good friends and I'm super excited to spend time trying to help him learn the gospel. We will be employing a Taiwanese member to provide some Chinese translation services.

 

I think that is about all that I have today. Sorry it was relatively boring and not that interesting. Next week should be much more interesting.

 

As always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

In A Deep Deep Sleep

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well friends, sorry I didn't write on Monday. Truth be told I picked up some sort of intestinal virus that knocked me out for a few days, so today was the first day that I have been able to leave my apartment. Don't worry though, I'm perfectly fine, just a passing thing really. I'm just excited to finally be able to eat again. At any rate, being sick on the mission isn't nearly as fun as being sick at home. No movies to watch (besides church released videos and Preach My Gospel training DVDs [which all recently Returned Missionaries probably remember, especially for their groundbreaking quotes such as: "If you don't understand the Area Book.... you don't understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ". Thanks Preach My Gospel....]) and not a whole lot of musical options as well. Sleeping was nice though... kind of.... Anyways, I'm back in action.

This past week and a half have been pretty exciting. On Thursday I went to Riga, Latvia for my final visa trip. They finally gave me a 3 year multiple re-entry humanitarian visa, which to me sounds like a cross between a legal document and something that NASA developed during the Cold War. I was honestly kind of tripping out to be on my final visa trip. And then when I get back to the office President Sorenson jokingly calls me one of the old, soon to die missionaries. Thanks President...

Our visa trip this time was pretty uneventful. Our plane got delayed due to weather. Then we sat on it for an hour waiting for them to die-ice the wings with what looked like cream of tomato soup. But before that, Elder Eliason and I made a goal to explore the extent of the airport. We ate at a great Latvian restaurant that was serving a fruit drink from heaven, found my favorite Norwegian salted black licorices, a book about existentialism making the case that existentialism and religion can work together, a pizza place that had a passport control booth guarding the entrance, and a 400 Euro John Lennon special edition fountain pen. These were indeed good times, and I looked out my window a little wistfully to be leaving Riga behind for what will probably be the last time.

On the missionary work side of things this week was pretty good. We taught the most amount of lessons that Elder Steele and I have taught together during our time together and had a ton of people at church. I had to play piano because the pianist got sick (I have about 3 hymns I can play without practice, and they have gotten really good use on my mission). This week we also had the privilege of teaching two great new investigators: Anton, who has an uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter and grasped the Great Apostasy shockingly well; and Wahid, this really cool guy from Pakistan who found our website and requested a lesson with the missionaries. We gave him a Book of Mormon (and he gave us a Koran as a present) and we had a great discussion. He even wants us to come over to his house and meet his young family. While we were talking he told us that his brothers and sisters are spread out all over the globe and his sister met our missionaries in Los Angeles. She was very complementary of us and told Wahid that we are humble, honest people who genuinely want to do good. I think that her analysis really helped comfort Wahid and we had a great discussion. I mention this because I highly doubt that those missionaries in America realized that their demeanor and I assume general spirituality and Christlike example was able to influence to course of a lesson half the world away. It just is a testimony to me that our actions on the mission have such a wide spread effect that we often never know the extent of our effect for good in this life.

Well that is about all I've got. I'm hoping to feel 100% in the very near future. Until next week, live long and prosper.

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

PS- OK grammar Nazis, tell me if I used the semi-colon correctly in paragraph 4! I'm trying to integrate it more into my writing, although Kurt Vonnegut will be rolling in his grave.