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!
Moscow Time
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