Welcome To Russia

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Well I made it, today is my first time that I am actually writing from the country of Russia, after a somewhat long and confusing flight, I was dropped off in Moscow at the mission home and as of yesterday was assigned to my first area, the city of Nizhny Novgorod (or something like that, I'm not sure exactly how it works out in English). In Moscow I was able to see a few of the sites, mainly the Kremlin and Red Square as well as some old Eastern Orthodox churches. I was pretty jet lagged at the time so the whole day seems like a bit of a blur, but I really enjoyed seeing those sites and acting like a tourist for a few hours. The only really intimidating part was that pretty much everybody was speaking Russian, the language I theoretically learned in the MTC. At any rate, it is a pretty exciting place and I'm pretty excited to be out of the MTC and into the actual mission field.

Nizhny is a pretty large city due East of Moscow. It is the fourth largest city in Russia and the used to be a Soviet manufacturing facility for all sorts of munitions during World War II. In fact, it was quite impossible for anybody non-Russian to get into the city during that time and on a lot of old maps it doesn't even show up, despite being such a big city. Now though, it is a thriving commercial center and its nice to be in a big city.

My companion right now is Elder Dannenberg from Hamburg, Germany. He has been out on his mission for 11 months now and I am the first missionary he has trained. Dannenberg is a bit of vetern in this city, he has been here for the longest part of his mission but usually has worked the upper part of the city so he's new to the lower part. Perhaps I should explain a little bit of city geography: Nizhny is divided in half by two rivers, the Volga and another one that starts with an R. The western part is known as the lower city, and the Eastern as the upper city. So we are serving in the western part of the city. From what I've seen in the area book, we have a lot of people that we can teach and a lot of less active ward members that we need to work with, so it looks like I am going to be pretty busy here for a while.

Besides all of that technical stuff, my first few days in Russia have been pretty interesting. I've already got to experience some Russian food, which for the most part has been pretty delicious. The best Russian food I've had so far is the fruit juice. Russian fruit juice is delicious, it is almost like drinking directly from the fruit. This is specifically true for apple juice which is unlike Mott's or other apple juice brand tastes exactly like an apple. It doesn't have a whole lot of sugar or stuff in it, just straight juice. It is very very delicious. Also they have this yogurt drink called Чудо which is pretty good too, its pretty much just yogurt and fruit in a bottle.

I wish I had more to report right now from Russia, but I haven't seen or done a whole lot just yet. Me and Elder Dannenberg will be going up to the Upper Part of the city tonight to get some of his clothes and toiletries and while we are there we will be going to a game night with the Upper Branch church members, which should be fun, even though I am well aware that I will probably not understand a whole lot of what they are saying. I am excited though to meet some of church members and possibly see one of my MTC friends Elder Harrison again.

Overall, Russia has been pretty cool for these first few days. I've enjoyed seeing and being in a new country, and also have been enjoying the weather, which has been quite nice compared to the desert conditions of Las Vegas and to a certain degree Provo. I can't wait to meet some of the investigators and start teaching very simple in Russian. I'll let you know how that goes. Everybody have a great week and I'll let you know how my first full week in Russia goes!

From Russia with Love

Старейшина Зак Брэйжер

P.S- I also had my first run in with a Russian police officer yesterday, for some reason I looked really foreign so he demanded my passport before I got on a subway to get to the train station. Ironically though he didn't ask Elder Dannenberg, I guess German's look less foreign than Americans!