From Russia With Love

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

It is always interesting for me to write these letters, because things that seem like they are old news are actually new for you, considering the week delay that we have. The reason I start this blog post with this observation is because right after I wrote last weeks letter, I got transferred back with Dannenberg because Lantuk and Wadsworth got their Visa's and headed off to Kazakhstan. I just think its funny that for a whole week you have thought that Lantuk has been my companion, when in actuality it has been Dannenberg. So maybe it is not that funny for you, but I just thought I would make that comment.

Basically me and Dannenberg are working together again, which has been nice. Unfortunately I had to leave my really nice apartment in the Avtozavodskaya region of Nizhny Novogorod and move back to the somewhat tiny Leninskaya apartment, but I am really happy to be working with Dannenberg again. The really good thing that happened is that now we have more people interested in learning the gospel then before due to the work that both companionships were able to accomplish. Me and Dannenberg are currently working still with Mikhail (I don't know if you remember him, he was the one dissecting the Book of Mormon) who still has a major concern with us observing the Sabbath Day on Sunday, since he believes it is on Saturday and always unloads a menagerie of Biblical scriptures whenever we bring it up. We are also working with a man named Viktor who absolutely loves America, a man named Alexander who broke his leg and is in the hospital, a woman named Stalina who has a huge fear of being underwater (a problem for missionaries who teach baptism by immersion) and a really nice family that we met tracting. When we don't have appointments, of course we are talking with a ton of people out on the street.

Halloween is coming up and it should be a lot of fun. The branch puts on a Halloween party which the missionaries help set up and run. Rumor has it that this party is always a lot of fun. Unfortunately my Visa expires on October 31st so I hope I'm not in Ukraine when it happens. Me and Dannenberg have been getting ready for Halloween too. Next week we are going to buy pumpkin juice (like Harry Potter) and Dannenberg has been carving out apples since we don't have any pumpkins and putting them on our flashlight. Its like a Jack-O-Lantern, but with an apple.

One thing I can't believe I never mentioned is the crazy lady me and Dannenberg met one day. It happened about a few weeks ago but has become something of a legend in Nizhny Novgorod. One day we were talking to this man who wasn't very interested and this lady came up from behind him and exclaimed "I am here to save your soul!" After he promptly ran away the lady started talking to us by stating how much she loved everything. To quote: "I love the sky! I love the cars! I love the roof on the houses! I love that man! I love this speck on the ground!" The list gets exhaustive. To stop the list from continuing we asked her what her name was. She responded: "People call me Elena, but my real name is:" and she started to sing a song about how the galaxy was a giant pearl. And then she grabbed my hand and started singing a song about how much she loved me. It was really quite odd and I just wanted her to stop holding my hand. Finally we told her we had to leave and she gave us a really interesting pamphlet that would "save our soul." I spent a week of language study trying to translate it and I'm still quite unsure what was going on. It was a weird contact but the story has become something of a legend in Nizhny.

So that's about all I've got for now. Stay excellent my friends.

As Always,

Elder Zachery Brasier