My Last Letter from The MTC, Utah, America, and Ultimately This Side of the Atlantic

Dear Blog and Loyal Family Readers,

 

Well this is it. My last letter from the Provo MTC. This is pretty exciting for me, because it's a moment that I never really quite expected. In many ways I logically knew that at some point I would leave the MTC, but the goal always seemed quite a bit aways so my mindset still hasn't changed. For some reason I still am thinking like I have two months left or something along those lines. My brain will probably be in a big state of shock when I board the plane in Salt Lake and depart for this adventurous undertaking in Russia.

 

Fortunately for me, all international flight plans and VISA information came through and I am good to go. I will be leaving early in the morning on the 2nd from Salt Lake, arriving in the afternoon in Atlanta and showing up in Russia in the afternoon.. of the next day. Its going to be a pretty darn exciting flight. I'm pretty excited too because some of my other friends who will be serving in the Moscow-proper mission will be flying with me, so its going to be a bit of a long flight.

 

Other than all this exciting travel plans and the fact that we are leaving quite soon, this week has been like every other week I have spent here in the MTC, so nothing new to report there.

 

I feel as though that as this is the final e-mail I will be sending from America, I should make some sort of grand lesson, tell you about all the things I have learned, and utter some pretty good idealistic (if not slightly propaganda-esque) phrases. Well I probably won't do any of that, but I can sum up what I've learned here.

 

I think that although in all honesty I can't say that I loved the MTC, I have learned alot about myself that I otherwise wouldn't have. I have really started to realize what is truly important to me in my life and the goals that I have. I also feel like I have been able to appreciate more of the things around me. For instance, since my toe got all messed up, I haven't been able to play soccer very much so I spend my gym time laying in the grass, sometimes writing short stories or writing poetry, but most of the time looking around at the Utah valley, specifically the pretty cool looking mountains behind the MTC. Its so cool to see all of the beauty of the mountains and of the world from my little vantage point, and I think I have come to appreciate all of the beauty of the world. No matter were we are or what situation we are in, there is always something that we can admire and love, just sometimes we have to look really hard for it. Over the past few weeks I have been trying hard to do that.

 

I have also decided a lot about what is truly important in my life and what is important in my future. It's interesting how much a mission forces you to think about that and mature a little. A lot of the other Elders came and there goals in life were to be famous, get rich quick and go on hundreds of adventures. I must say those things never really made me excited, and I've realized even more that the most I could want in my future is to have a family of my own and to be the best to them. I honestly regret taking family for granted, and I've realized that that is the most important thing I could want in my future life. I've learned a ton of other stuff too, but a lot of it is pretty personal, so sorry, I'm not going to share it, you'll just have to wait until I return to see the external effects of much of my thinking!

 

Finally, I am so excited to go serve the people of Russia. Right now I am so fired up, I want to talk to everybody I possibly can to tell them the good news of the gospel. If I could stand up in the airplane over and start teaching on a soap box I would (but we can't, very specifically we are told not too). In the Old Testament the prophet Jeremiah talks about how he just has to go talk to people and tell them about God and Jesus Christ, he can't be restrained. I feel like I am feeling a sliver of that emotional state. I can not wait to talk to the people of Russia.

 

Well folks, that's about all I've got for now. Next e-mail comes in from Russia, so I'm sure I am going to have seem pretty cool stories already to tell you. It's a strange land over there and I really am not quite sure what I am getting myself into but I have faith and confidence that this is where I am supposed to be going, so I think I'm entitled to a little extra power than most people. I'll let you know how things go!

 

Signing off from the MTC one final time,

 

Elder Zachery Donovich Brasier

 

P.S.- I leave August the Second, which is a Tuesday, so please do not send any mail after August the First (Monday) I will not get it for a long time. As soon as I know I will give you my Russia mailing address.

Why Medical Experimentation And Practice Is Not Fun For The Patient!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Well my days in the USA are finally numbered. Yesterday we received our full Cyrillic tags with my last name in Cyrillic letters and we might very well be getting our travel plans tomorrow or some other time in the coming week. I'll let you know as soon as my travel plans come in where I am going and which airports I am flying through. I'm hoping for JFK in New York and Charles de Gualle in Paris, France. But we'll see.

So I had an ingrown toenail removed on Monday. It was fun, except that it really wasn't that fun. Here is the story. I go in and the doctor looks at my toe, and then after he decided not to remove the whole toenail, he decided to just cut off half of it, which I was fine with. But then the injection came. In order to numb my toe they had to quickly but some Novocaine in a nerve in my toe, which would hurt but only briefly because the doctor assured me it would be quick.

Unfortunately I made a mistake here. The doctor told me that he had a medical student doing some sort of internship and asked me if he could practice the injection. I thought "Who am I to stop the medical training of an individual" and gave him permission. I openly admit that this was an error, because the new guy wasn't used to the resistance of the needle and I had a needle stuck in a nerve in my toe for FIVE MINUTES! I was not a happy camper because as you might guess, it was a bit painful. Eventually the doctor got impatient, took the needle and did the rest quickly. I was very grateful for that..... The rest of the surgery was uneventful. But I'm getting all healed up now and I feel pretty good with it.

I went to that on Monday, and Monday was just an off day for everybody. The night before my teacher Brother Porter got in a car accident on his mo-ped. He got hit by a F-350 and was thrown sliding across and intersection. A cop saw the whole thing and thought he was dead, but he wasn't, he just got up and walked over to his mo-ped. He did get a little injured though and has some nasty road burn. Then Monday night Elder Porter went to the bathroom at 3:00 AM but locked himself out of his room. In an unfortunate turn of events his roommates sleep with ear plugs so they couldn't hear him knock. So he just curled up in a ball in the hallway and tried to sleep until the cleaning crew made him get up because they had to clean. So we all had a bit of some off days.

Otherwise, things are going well. We are all getting pretty anxious due to the fact that our departure is quite imminent. I can not tell you how excited I am. I want to meet and teach the Russian people so badly! I was reading the story of an early Mormon missionary named Heber C. Kimball who was so excited to get to England he jumped off the boat onto the dock as soon as he could, nearly broke his ankles I assume, and talked to the first person he saw. I might very well do that (except that I'll be in an airplane, and may not have a parachute but if I could I would). At any rate, I tell you this to tell you that I kind of understand the feeling Heber C. Kimball had. I am absolutely pumped to go and teach the people.

So I've got very little more to write. Next week I will send my last e-mail from the MTC and by extension from America! I feel bad that I don't have more to write to you, but it would just be a rote recitation of trivia that you already know. Also, I am trying to respond to everybod's letters as quick as possible, but even on Preparation Day I have very little time, especially since I have to start organizing my suitcase! Thanks for all the support you give me! You all rock!

Sincerely Wishing These Spanish Speaking Elders next to me Would Stop Being So Loud and Annoying,

Elder Zach Donovich Brasier

P.S.- The day Harry Potter came out was hilarious in the MTC. When we played soccer we were commentating it like it was Quidditch so there was a lot of "KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE QUAFFLE!" "My Firebolt is much faster than your Cleansweep 9" "Watch out Harry, there are dementors on the field!" "(when somebody messed up) Who let Neville Longbottom play Quidditch?!" "Thats a nasty blugger, looks like somebody is going to the Hospital Wing." and since we play Red vs. Yellow, we made it Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff my favorite quote was "Nobody cares about Hufflepuff! All you've got is Cedric Digory...... and he's dead!" Missionaries are even more nerdy than normal people sometimes!

Unfortunately I Don't Think This Is The Right Scripture.

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Unfortunately I find myself somewhat unable to use the Cyrillic alphabet in this letter because of some sort of technologically problem currently being experienced by the software at hand. For this I sincerely apologize. Nevertheless, I will proceed to inform you about my week.

This week has kind of been an up and down week, and I don't mind telling everybody this because I think that people should realize that sometimes, missions are pretty darn difficult. We had a lot of problems with my District early this week, so I was very concerned and had no clue what do to fix the problems that we were experiencing. However after much prayer and consulting with some of our Branch leadership I was able to work out a lot of the personnel issues that we were experiencing. So for the beginning of the week this was weighing heavily on my mind. Then one of my good friends went home somewhat inexplicably. She had been having quite a bit of issues in the MTC and had talked to me about a few of them. I guess things just got too much for her, so she packed up and left Thursday morning. That was pretty hard for me to have one of my friends leave and go home. Otherwise, for some reason I just was not on my A-game this week and was kind of struggling, but I'm feeling a lot better nowadays and have worked everything out. I don't tell you this to worry you, but I think it's important to acknowledge that missions can be quite challenging at times, especially in the MTC, but I've learned a lot from the hard times and my resolve and faith to spread the gospel increases every time I have a bit of a rough patch.

This week, even though challenging has actually been pretty funny. Me and Elder Stegeby have had quite a few scripturally problems in the past week teaching lessons. I will explain:

EXPLANATION!

The Russian Bible is organized differently than ours. The Epistles of the New Testament are organized chronologically instead of by length, as is common in the King James Version of the Bible. This proves to be problematic since our meager Russian skills sometimes have a hard time discerning what book we are in and have a hard time determining which scriptures we are giving. Three times we have struggled (and mom, if you could put in the scriptures, I'll just put the reference)

- I was teaching about sin and wanted to give Romans 3:23 (For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;), but I couldn't find Romans, so I found what I thought to be Romans, but turned out to be Acts. And so I gave a "new investigator" Acts 3:23 (And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.) and told her to ponder how we all sin in our lives. Yeah, that didn't go over well.

- To correct my mistake I tried to give the same investigator 1 John 4:3 (And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.) but instead thought it was St. John 3:4-5 (Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?  can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.). So I had her read the scripture and since I don't know Russian didn't know what she was saying and then asked her about what that scripture said about sin. She was very confused.

- We also tried to give another investigator 1 Corinthians 6:19 (What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?) which talks about how our body is a temple. Unfortunately Elder Stegeby though we were on the wrong page and flipped the page so that our investigator ended up reading 1 Corinthians 7:19.  (Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.) Yes, that was pretty bad as well.

END OF EXPLANATION

So that was all very interesting. Other than that things are going pretty good here in the MTC. We are in the home stretch now, and its crazy to think that in a little under 20 days I will be in Russia. Thanks everybody for all the support that you have given me and the letters that you write. I really appreciate it. I'm trying to respond to them as quick as I can, so I'm sorry if it has taken awhile. You all rock!

Yes,

Elder Zachery Donovich Brasier!

Once Again I Find Myself At A Loss For A Title For This Email

Дорогой семья и други,

That's right, I figure out how to type in Русский (Russian) on these computers! Unfortunately it also takes significantly longer since I am not quite used to the Cyrillic layout of the keyboard, so I will be unable to type very much of the language to you, even though I would really like to. Also seeing the Cyrillic way of writing Russian feels significantly more natural to me than typing out Russian, if that makes any sense.

So this week was 4th of July, with was pretty exciting. On the 1st of July a hot-air balloon almost landed in the MTC. They had developed a tear in the fabric of the balloon and were dramatically loosing altitude. They almost hit some of the buildings a few times and were very close to landing in the parking lot. It was pretty exciting and fortunately they were able to just clear all of the buildings and trees to make a relatively safe landing. Sometimes we have a problem with people trying to "escape" the MTC by jumping the fences and running away, but that was the first time I had ever seen anybody try to break in, and in such an interesting way as hot air balloon.

We celebrated the 4th of July on the 2nd and it was probably the coolest 4th of July that I've ever had. We had a big meeting with all the missionaries and had some speakers and sang some American songs. Then they focused on the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith and how it was important to have a country with freedom of religion in order for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to come forth in the modern time. They had a Scottish bagpipe band come and play "Praise to the Man" which was way cool and they had a big montage showing all the missions in the world on a big map. When Russia and Ukraine came up, we were cheering pretty loudly. I think that only the Pacific Island missionaries were louder. Afterwards, we were allowed to go outside and see the Stadium of Fire fireworks which were pretty awesome. Since we were allowed to stay out later, me and Elder Porter just kind of sat outside and talked about life and stuff. I really enjoyed it because Elder Porter is pretty much my favorite person here in the MTC.

All of the new missionaries have been getting their bearings in the MTC. It feels really weird to be the "older" more experienced missionaries. A lot of the new Elders and Sister's commented on how we seemed like we were all 21 or older. I thought it was funny how much the mission really matures you. It was also fun to speak Russian to the new Elder's because obviously they do not know as much as we do. It's hard to believe that only 7 weeks ago I was in that same situation. I really enjoy having the new Elder's and Sisters around though, especially because their are five new Elders and a new Sister going to my mission!

My district is also doing pretty good right now. I am a lot busier nowadays with meetings and interviews and reports to fill out! But I enjoy being able to serve the members in my district, even though most of the times I feel like they deserve a better leader than me. I always use a Batman quote to describe: "I am the hero Gotham has, but not the one it deserves." In my situation I like to say : "I am the District Leader District A has, but not the one it deserves." And yes, I do say that in my Batman voice.

Otherwise, it has kind of been an uneventful week, so I'm sorry this e-mail hasn't been the most exciting thing you have ever read in your life. In less then a month I'll been in Russian though and I promise to have significantly more awesome stories then! Thanks for all the support and love that all of you show, you don't know how much that means to me to know of the support I have!

Stay classy my friends,

Старейшина Зак Донович Брэйжер

(Elder Zach Donovich Brasier [We have started using Russian middle names, which are your fathers name + ovich for men, yep, its pretty cool])