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])
Moscow Time
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