Well this has been a busy and somewhat exhausting week! We have had two Thanksgiving Dinners, a two day Zone Conference and a lot of lessons and all sorts of other missionary work.
On Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving the first time. What we decided to do as a Zone is have a big American-style dinner at one of the Senior Missionary Couple's house and each companionship would have to invite one investigator or else they could not come. So of course I made an effort to find somebody to come, and ended up inviting one of our investigators Viktor who is a great friend, loves America and also 60's Rock, so we talk all the time about classic rock bands. It was a quite nice Thanksgiving dinner, I prepared carrots and corns and we had a huge attendance that night! We got to spend a lot of time talking to our investigators and having a great time as friends. I was really happy to see that the Sister missionaries brought a girl named Anna to the dinner. Dannenberg and I had contacted her aunt Elza and invited her to the German Club we were running, and when Elza came, Anna came too. Not much ever came of Elza since she is so busy, but Anna is a great investigator and is really interested in the gospel. I also enjoy talking to her about medicine since she is studying to become a doctor and speaks English, so I spent a good portion of my Thanksgiving talking about the endocrine and lymphatic systems of the human body. It is crazy how that one contact that I got months ago turned into nothing but opened the pathway for somebody else to know the gospel.
The next night we had the branch Thanksgiving party, which was fun, although not nearly as delicious. Viktor came to that party too since I think Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday now. Also President Woolley was in Nizhny at the time and came to the party. And thus, I had two Thanksgiving's in a row and spent a lot of time talking about what I was thankful for, so I am very comfortable now talking about blessings in Russian.
President was scheduled to be in Nizhny from Saturday until Tuesday, which meant the Assistants to the President where also in town. I was excited because on Saturday I was able to work with Elder Hassbuilan, who is a really funny guy from Rostov-au-Daru, which is a city in Southern Russia. Then on Sunday I had to translate for President which was tough because I had to translate a meeting about preparing branch histories, a topic I had never studied in Russian. Somehow I was able to effectively translate (probably with some divine help) but I was completely wiped out for the rest of Sunday. For the next two days we had training meetings, which I don't really like because I just don't really like meetings in general, and I'd much rather be out on the streets than in a two day long meeting. At any rate, I ate some good food and Elder Olsen and I developed some pretty good jokes out of the meetings. Then to finish off a busy week, today we went to a factory that makes Russian nesting dolls and other Russian traditional wood work. I will have to send some pictures to you possibly next week. An unexpected source of entertainment was all of the old style Soviet machinery and electrical equipment, so I have a lot of pictures of Elder Olsen and I pretending to flip huge electrical switches and levers (secretly). I was also able to purchase a sweet Russian traditional plate that I was very pleased with. It might be my first non-Cold War related purchase of souvenir in Russia.
In other news, our investigators are doing decently. Olga is preparing herself for her baptism on December 17th which is so close that we have been frantically trying to teach her and get her to come to church more often. I am really hoping that things go well for her and her family will not keep her from being a great church member! And of course we have found some promising new investigators and continue to work with our old investigators, but Olga has been the forefront of my thoughts lately.
And also, check out this article on LDS news! I don't know how many of you have seen this but our zone is now famous for a contacting activity we did in October. Read all about it (even though my name has been terrible butchered)! http://lds.org/church/news/unique-missionary-approach-prompts-questions-for-god-in-russia?lang=eng
Well my friends, keep up the great work. As the Russian's say "Продолждай!"
Sincerely,
Elder Zachery Brasier
PS- Thanks for the mail that you have been sending. I am replying as fast as I can, and I know for sure that there are letters in the mail, the mail is just slow. Specifically, Taylor Jensen, I have gotten all three letters, yours is en route. Rachel and Anne Marie, yours are also en route.
Moscow Time
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