From Russia With Love

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been getting cold here in Nizhny Novgorod! Not cold enough to freeze the inside of bones, but still chilly enough that your skin is numb after a few hours outside. Interestingly enough I get a forwarded e-mail from my friend serving in a part of Siberia and for some reason it is colder here than it is in his city. I am still trying to figure out how that works out. I am happy that it is winter, since I like the cold and snow, and I also like that I've finally had to break out the winter jackets and scarfs. Unfortunately that also means breaking out the hats (which is unfortunate because I don't like wearing hats), because if I don't then Russian people yell at me for not wearing a hat. They take the winter very seriously here.

This has been a great week for our investigators though. Tonight we are meeting with Natalya and are going to answer all of her questions about LIFE and also talk to her about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. Since our lessons with her are in English I had to go back and re-memorize Joseph Smith's account of his First Vision in English, which was weird because I've been doing it pretty consistently in Russian. I am hoping our lesson with her goes well. We have also been meeting a lot with Olga, who is the relative of one of our branch members. She seems to be taking the lessons very well, she takes notes and also writes down every scripture we use so she can study them later. So we taught her two lessons which went great and we were going to commit her to be baptized, but she called us before the meeting and told us her husband was going to be on the lesson! We decided to go back and reteach the first lesson and talk about Joseph Smith so he would know. It was an awesome lesson because he committed to keep meeting with us and Olga was pretty much teaching him the doctrine for us. Then at the end we asked Olga's husband if he wanted to pray. He said no, but then Olga was like "Here, I'll teach you how to pray!" So she taught her husband how to pray and told him that they were going to pray together at night and read the Book of Mormon. It was a great lesson and I am excited for Olga and her husband, because I have very high hopes for the both of them. That same day we had a lesson with a guy who wants us to help him stop using drugs. I am a little nervous about that one because narcotics is quite a serious problem and I am going to need a lot of divine help to help this man with his problems.

Otherwise I have not a whole lot to report from this week. I am trying to work as hard as possible lately because I have a feeling that this might be my last transfer here in Nizhny Novgorod, mostly because Elder Kvasnitsky told me that it probably was my last transfer, and since he worked in the office I am more inclined to believe him. At any rate, I have been really trying to put in my very best effort, more than usually. A great thing is that my Russian skills have been improving quite a bit. For the most part I can understand people, and can hold pretty good conversations with them. The problem is that my vocabulary is still incredibly limited, so I can't fully express myself and end up repeating myself quite a bit. Fortunately though my grammar is improving and I am starting to pick of simple idiomatic expressions so that I can better relate to the Russian people.

The next few weeks are going to be fun. Next P-Day we are going to a factory where they make the Russian nesting egg dolls. I have been there before on my second P-Day in Russia, but unfortunately my camera wasn't charged, so I didn't take any pictures! It is a little weird though because when I think back to that P-Day I realize that everybody who went with me last time is gone to other cities and in some cases other countries. I am officially the missionary (besides one of the senior couples) who has been in Nizhny Novgorod the longest. Also next week we are going to be celebrating Thanksgiving with a dinner for us and our investigators. The condition is that to come to the dinner you have to bring an investigator, so I am probably going to invite our investigator Viktor, who loves America and will love celebrating an American holiday! Hopefully he can get off work. Then the next day President Woolley comes to Nizhny for a zone conference, which means that next week I will be eating very well.

So that is about it, I have really nothing else to report for the week. I am still trying incredibly hard to work with my companion. I have officially decided that patience is one of the hardest and most painful Christ-like attributes to work on. I am trying really hard to get along with him because we need to at least have a nice relationship in order to teach and we need to be able to teach with all these important investigators we have. I am just hoping that my next companion will be someone who I can easily be friends with.

Well have an excellent week my friends and compatriots. I pray for all of you often!

Elder Zachery Brasier