Someday At Christmas.....

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well I am writing this on Christmas Eve here in Moscow Russia. I can not believe that it is Christmas time once again on my mission, last year seems like it was just a few months ago, but alas another year has passed away, almost completely imperceptibly it seems.

On Saturday we had our stake Christmas concert. Everybody told us that we sounded pretty good. Our last song of the night was "O Holy Night" which was sung by a combined missionary/stake choir with live string accompaniment. I wonder if the choir director knew that that was my very favorite Christmas song. It was such a thrill to sing with all of my friends, missionaries and Russians.
Christmas has taken on a somewhat different meaning for me this year. Last year I remember thinking a lot about how different it was from American Christmas and mostly my thoughts were centered upon the eventual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, this Christmas I have been thinking about what Christmas means to me. Maybe I'm getting older, but lately I've been looking for something of a deeper and more ecclesiastical meaning behind this season.

A few days ago I was reading in the Book of Mormon, in 3 Nephi to be precise. In the first chapter, as you probably remember, Nephi, the prophet was confronted by a huge problem. As all the faithful believers were waiting for the sign of Christ's birth, the wicked arranged a plan to kill all the believers if the sign did not come. Nephi goes into the woods to pray to find out what he needs to do. Now from the record:

12 And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:
  13 Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
  14 Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world,

I was really struck by the phrase: "Lift up your head and be of good cheer" and I kept thinking about it. Christmas for me this year has taken on a motif of hope and cheer. That is what Christ's birth is to me, it is the sign that the world has hope, that we can change and we can be perfected. Christmas is a time of joy and happiness, when we can meet with our family and friends and be happy, but ultimately, all of this comes from the bright hope that Christ lived, and still lives today, and through his life and his atonement we all have a chance. This life is not hopeless, there is a hope, and that hope is Christ. The world will become a better place and someday at Christmas we will all live in peace, without bitterness, anger, or desolation. All will be made right in Christ.
I was thinking about this as we sang in the choir on Saturday night and when we sung the line of 'O Holy Night' (in Russian): "... the weary world rejoices.." Although most people here really don't care about Christmas, I can see a certain light in the members, and in the people in the audience on Saturday. Although they are weary, they can rejoice, because they all know one thing for sure, that Christ came for them and thus they can life up their heads and rejoice.
This is what Christmas means to me this year. Outwardly, I can't tell that it is Christmas. There are no Christmas lights, a few Christmas trees, and my Christmas package from my family has yet to show up, but I think that for me, it is the hope of Christ that has made my season quite special.

Well, I hope you don't mind me rambling. This week was otherwise uneventful. The world didn't end on December 21st (or did it....) and the ward made each missionary a little Christmas gift bag (which for some reason seemed like one of the nicest things that a ward has done for me). Christmas is tomorrow, and I hope you all have a great holiday! Remember: "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear" (and as missionaries we've been going Christmas Carol/Contacting quite frequently this week). Have a good one!

С Рождеством от России!
Merry Christmas from Russia!
Elder Zachery Brasier

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

I'm sorry but this e-mail might be a little short since the computer that I am using right now seems to take a minute to think every time I complete a sentence or use the backspace button, which is problematic since I am quite mistake prone...
The temperature has dropped significantly over the past few days. Yesterday my companion and I went contacting in the park near our house and I thought that I was going to catch frost bite. I guess that I have not really adjusted to the winter just quite yet. Soon though, negative twenty degrees will seem like nothing. But frostbite aside, it was a good time contacting, and I met man who was probably from Ireland, although I can never really tell anymore.

Unfortunately with the weather dip and the holiday season, it has become increasingly more difficult to get lessons. Well, it is really easy to schedule lessons, it is just really hard to get people to show up for them. The thing is that people here take the winter much more seriously than the Elder's do. We are perfectly fine romping around the streets in extreme negative weather, but we are also somewhat insane. Some of our investigators, being sensible in an inconvenient way, don't want to go walk to our building to meet, or have us come to them. This combination of factors makes late December/early January not really a lot of fun when it comes to finding lessons.
At any rate, Christmas festivities are in the air. The choir sounds great, even though it is terrifying at times. Specifically, it is terrifying when the director acts for the baritones to sing their part (all four of us), furrows his brow and proclaims: "Somebody is not hitting those notes correctly, do it again." I decided to softly sing at this point and more or less lip sing (I never thought that there would be a moment in life when I wanted auto tune). This time the choir director says: "Yeah that sounds great, I don't know what I was hearing last time." But I do.... Dodged a bullet....

Well, our investigators are doing well. We are still trying to get Leonid to come to church so that he can be baptized, and we've been getting a good amount of referrals... From Pakistanis.... All in all the work is moving along and we gear up for Christmas and New Years Eve.
Everybody stay frosty (wow, that was too cheesy, even for me)

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

It's going to be a Cold December!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Christmas season is officially upon us, though you probably couldn't tell by being out on the streets. As I explained last year, Christmas is a secondary holiday for the Russians. They are far more interested in New Years than in Christmas, and thus there is not as much of an evident change in the scenery of Moscow. I am trying to spread the Christmas spirit as much as possible by reminding the people that I contact on the street that this is Christmas time, a time to focus on the Savior and to do good to those around us. Also, I remember the adage from the movie Elf: "The best way to spend Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Thus, I joined the choir! We will be performing at the Moscow Stake Christmas Concert. I laugh because our missionary choir is a bunch of American missionaries with our weird accents singing songs in Russian. I imagine that we sound like the Chinese Christmas carollers from "The Christmas Story"! But, people seem to be putting up with our funny accent, mostly because we actually don't sound half bad (even though last practice I spent half of the practice unable to find any of the correct notes.... Poor baritone section.)

Otherwise we are working hard to achieve the mission goal of 85 baptisms by the end of the year. Currently we have one baptismal date. His name is Leonid and Elder Turner passed him to us after he realized that Leonid lived in our area. Unfortunately he is quite hard to meet with. We also have four investigators whose names are Sergei. We usually have to attach some sort of descriptor to their name to tell them apart i.e. Sergei Rich Guy, Sergei FHE, Sergei Young Guy, and Sergei Mystery Referral. One of my favorite investigators is Ley, a student from Haiti. A few days ago we had a pretty cool lesson with him about baptism. It was way cool because as we were talking about covenants I realized that he had no clue what we were talking about, so I kept thinking: "What is the French word for covenants?" I felt like I should know it since I have a French Book of Mormon I keep around. Then out of no where I remembered that in French Doctrine and Covenants is "Les Doctrines et Alliances" so I figured that "alliances" must mean covenants. What do you know, I was right! So yeah, that was a pretty cool experience and the lesson went great. Now we just need to get Ley a Book of Mormon in Haitian Creole.

This week we had a stake conference. It was so cool to be at another stake conference, and this time the President of the Kiev Temple was the special guest and spoke incredibly well. The speakers talked a lot about getting a temple in Russia and all the prayers offered talked about it. It is so inspiring to see the faith of these members who are working so hard to get a temple in their native land. One day it will happen.

Being in Moscow has been strange because I keep running into people I know. I ran into Anatoly from Nizhniy Novgorod (I don't know if you remember him, he was the guy who went to the army in November and had long black hair), another member from Nizhniy, Angela from Ryazan who is on a mini-mission and most shockingly, my college roommate Ryan's cousin who I know from my BYU-I days. She is in Russia teaching English, and was at the stake conference yesterday. Yeah, that kind of tripped me out.

Anyways, things are going well. The work continues to move forward and especially during this time I have been looking for ways to serve other people, and the Lord seems to be blessing me with all sorts of opportunities. Everybody continue to have a great Christmas!

As Always,
Elder Zachery Brasier

Saying Goodbye to Elder Brasier

We received this e-mail the other day! 

Hello Sister Brasier,

I am going through pictures today. Here are a few I thought you might like. They are toasts (miscellaneous and weird) which is becoming a tradition I guess when a missionary leaves Ryazan. And some hugging pictures of Elder Ottley and Elder Brasier. We miss your son. He is a great missionary and we truly came to love him. Hopefully we will see him at conferences and such before he leaves Russia. But since we are friends on FB we don't have to lose contact. He has an open invitation to our home when we get one again!

Love, Sister and Elder Ottley

Sisters Hawkins and Carver, and our greenie, Elder Marx.

Elder Brasier giving a toast. I wish I could remember what he said. I am sure you will know that it was random. We were toasting with dessert dishes and different kinds of Russian sodas.

 It looks a little suspicious here but I guarantee we are legal. Elder Marx, Elder Hark, new District Leader, and Elder Ottley.

Elder Ottley says goodbye to Elder Brasier. Did Elder Brasier always have this aversion to hugs? So funny! See below.

 Priceless expression!

Gotta love this one!!



I'll take time to work inside of the city.

I finally made it to Moscow and my new area. I left Monday afternoon and didn't get to my area until Thursday night, due to some crazy and unexpected logistical problems. Also I was separated from my suitcases. Wearing the same clothes for four days is great. But in the end I made it to Sokolniki.

My new companion is Elder Steele. He is a nice Canadian kid from Calgary, Alberta. He is relatively young on the mission (although nowadays most people are relatively young to me) and came out with my greenie Elder Merrill.

Moscow is crazy. The wards here are big, with anywhere between 70-100 members coming to church per ward. I met the stake president and the bishop of the ward, and it was so cool to see all the organization already in place. It was a little bit overwhelming for me to see so many members in one building, but I really liked it. I just keep feeling like I've come back from some adventure in the far corners of the Earth when I tell people about the small branches I served in. Although it is a big adjustment, I still like it a lot, mostly because it is something different. I have been serving in the little branches since January, and now being in Moscow has forced me to adapt to a totally different situation.

What is really crazy about Moscow is being in a big city once again. There are really so many people here. Fortunately, I have always felt like a big city sort of person, so I can feel my inner Moscovite developing. For this past week I have been marveling at the sheer scale and immensity of this city. It honestly seems to stretch on forever. I have travelled the length of Ryazan three times over in the past week and have yet to see the end of Moscow.

I have really began to have an appreciation for the call as a missionary. We cross paths with so many people every day that it seems impossible to teach them all the gospel. I like to look at people on the Metro or on the big escalators leading to the surface of the city from and the underground and imagine how many of them would accept the gospel if they had the chance. It has strengthened my resolve to talk to as many people as I can, especially because we have only four missionaries covering one quarter of Moscow!

I haven't really met a whole lot of investigators, or I have and I just didn't know. I'm still trying to figure things out in the area. But, I just thought I'd share with you my initial reaction to Moscow. It certainly has been outstanding.

Well everybody, live long and prosper!

-Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Come on Snow! Come on Car!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

Well this is it, my last e-mail from Ryazan. My last few days have been great, and a great way to end a tour of duty in an area.

 

On Saturday we had the baptism of Anton! It went super well. The water was shockingly cold evidently, but we still got him under and everything is going well. He really enjoyed the baptism and his confirmation on Sunday, and it was a very spiritual experience. Anton's baptism was a great miracle. He just walked into the branch less than a month and decided to be baptized on our first lesson. All the lessons went through perfectly well and he had almost no concerns. It was a great teaching process. I believe that Anton truly was prepared by the Lord for his baptism because nobody I have ever taught was that easy to teach and so willing to do everything possible to be baptized. I know that it will really bless his life and he'll be a huge blessing for the church here in Ryazan. Also, it was great to have a baptism right before I left, because it was a great capstone on my work here. I feel as though I really saw the fruits of my labors here in Ryazan.

 

Sunday went by really well. I gave my final talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and it went really well. I was pretty emotional to leave Ryazan since I really loved serving in the city, and it was nice to say goodbye to all my friends and members that I met here in Ryazan. Then, on the way home from a lesson last night, we contacted these people on a trolleybus who were relatively drunk and decided to start singing Russian folk songs on the bus super loud. I was laughing so hard when people started putting in earplugs and earphones in order to drown out the sound. It was such a great way to end my last night in Ryazan. Then this morning I woke up to snow covered streets and housetops. It has been snowing all morning! Now the winter has finally come, just as I'm leaving the city.

 

Otherwise, I don't have a whole lot to write right now. I really feel as though I have grown a lot during my time in Ryazan. So many crazy things have happened and I feel that only in this city have I truly began to understand what missionary work really means. I have seen such great miracles here and have met so many great and wonderful people. I think that this is my first area that I truly feel quite sad to leave, and I think that is because I have really learned to love the people because of the trials and service that we had to render. However, the time has come to leave, and my "accidental transfer" has come to an end. Then again, accidental is such a misleading term, because I throughly believe that I was supposed to serve here, and the logistics, though seemingly accidental, came together to give me the oppurtunity to serve in Ryazan. Today I'll be on a train to Moscow to serve in my new area, and I'll be eternally grateful for the lessons that I have learned and the people I have met in Ryazan.

 

I'll let you know how things go in Moscow. Live long and prosper,

Elder Z. E. Brasier

Anton's Baptism

Family Home Evening

Elder Reshitnokov: far right, front row, with green and black tie

 

 

Is it strange that you perpetuate yourself?

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well to start I would like to wish you all a very happy and joyous Thanksgiving! However, I would also like to ask you all to take a moment of silence for the many turkeys who gave their lives to contribute to this splendid holiday. Without their sacrifice for the greater good we would not be able to correctly celebrate our thankfulness for all that we do have. Here's to you, random turkeys!

 

Life has been flowing along here in Ryazan. I will officially be going to Moscow on the 26th to meet my new companion, Elder Steele, from Canada. I've been really fortunate in that for more than half of my mission I have served with people who aren't American. I've served with a Swede, a German, a Russian, a Ukrainian and soon a Canadian! That is pretty cool in my opinion. Due to my transfer of the near future I have been saying goodbye to everybody here in Ryazan, which is pretty sad, but that is life, and so it goes...

 

Sunday was pretty interesting. We were fortunate to have a branch conference this week. That meant that President Sorenson came down to talk to the branch and also Anatoly K. Reshetnikov, an Area Seventy here in Russia come down with President Sorenson in order to do some branch business. It was pretty awesome. Elder Reshetnikov was a great guy, and really instilled some enthusiasm into our branch. I was also very touched by how interested he was in our missionary work and testified often that we were great missionaries and doing a good job in Ryazan. He even helped us on a lesson with Anton! It was the first missionary lesson I ever had with the help of a General Authority! (Also, later in the evening we had a dinner at the Ottly's and as I was doing the dishes he insisted on helping, so that was also the first time that I cleaned dishes with a General Authority).

Speaking of Anton, things are going quite well for him. We've taught him all of the lessons and he had a great baptismal interview. He will be baptized this Saturday. I am super excited for him and I am really amazed how this all happened. He investigated two years ago, never went anywhere with it, and decided to randomly walk into church a month ago, and now he will be baptized. It really is a miracle. One lesson that Anton's teaching has really taught me is that when we are in the line of duty and doing all that we can to continue the work of the Lord, God will bless us in ways that we don't really expect. We didn't contact Anton, we had absolutely no hand in finding him, but somehow, through God's will, he was able to motivate himself to come to our church meeting and eventually get baptized. We truly are blessed.

Well, I'm half in a food coma right now due to Thanksgiving so I hope that you don't mind that this is short. Anyways, I'll be sending another e-mail on Monday! I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Inoculation Nation

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

This week we finally went to Moscow!... On the 3.40 in the morning train....

Conference was really great. I really enjoyed seeing everybody once again. Every conference gets stranger and stranger however as more and more of my friends bear their final testimony's (also known as the Last Will and Testament of mission life.) This time Elder Barker and Elder Turner both gave their final testimonies, seeing as they will both be leaving the mission in the foreseeable future. It is always strange when your friends leave the mission, especially ones that you really got to know. Other than that conference was pretty uneventful. I was rather sick. Then again, I always feel rather sick at conference. Maybe I'm allergic to the Central Building. This might be a problem, because that will be my next building in my new transfer.

 

Speaking of new transfers, I got one. For the next two weeks I will be staying in Ryazan as Elder Hark and a greenie come. We will be in a threesome together to show them around the city, and help them get a hang of it. Also, with the baptism of Anton coming up, President Sorenson didn't want both Elders leaving the area and leaving an investigator with a baptismal date flat-footed. After those weeks, I'll be heading over to Moscow to serve with Elder Steele from Canada and serve as the district leader of the Sokolniki district (I'm not quite sure how to spell that.) Elder Jewkes was laughing at me because once again I got a logistically unusual transfer. He jokes that I never get a transfer where I just peacefully move to a new, already established area with a companion. Lets review shall we?

 

-Nizhiny Novgorod to Smolensk- "Elder Brasier, you and Elder Jewkes will be going to Smolensk to open up a new area. Both of you have never been there. You'll have no investigators and are responsible for building the area. Good luck.

 

-Smolensk to the Office- Half way through the transfer: "Elder Brasier you are coming to the office for a mid-transfer transfer. Say goodbye to everybody because you leave in three days." I pack and on the night before I leave President Woolley calls: "Actually Elder Brasier, stay in Smolensk for the next three weeks. We'll have you come in later..."

 

- Office to Ryazan- President: "We just need you to go down to Ryazan for one week, and then you'll be coming back to the office with Elder Anisiforov.." Six months later....

 

So yes, it is all good fun. I love all of these interesting transfers, it keeps my life interesting, which is always important. I have yet to tell anybody here about my transfer because I didn't want to overshadow Elder Merrill (who is leaving next week to Tver, to serve with Elder Hunt, my old companion) and get people to worked up. I'll be telling them in a week or two, so don't tell anybody, especially anybody from Ryazan who might end up reading this somehow! (Irina!)

 

Other than that, this week has been pretty much business as usual. Anton is doing really good. He keeps talking about his baptism and really liked church this week, mostly because Elder Merrill and I gave talks at church. We have been really working with him to develop his testimony of Joseph Smith, but he has such a strong testimony of the church and God's love for him. This week we introduced him to the Word of Wisdom, which is always a big concern for us because tea is such a big part of Russia culture, as well as alcohol for certain people. I was really praying that Anton would accept it well, and to my slight surprise he loved it! We introduced it by saying telling him how Joseph Smith received the revelation and once I said that it was a law of health he snatched the pamphlet out of my hand and said: "We're talking about health! Give me more!!" Yeah... he really like the precepts and committed to quite drinking black, green or oolong tea, and was quite relieved that herbal tea and mint tea was alright. And thus things are going really well with Anton. He's a great guy.

 

Well, that is all I've got. This was a business as usual week. Things are going well, and I'm exciting to see what the future brings during this next phase of my missionary service! Oh, also, we had to get flu shots at the zone conference. That was dreadful.

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Not for all my little words.

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

In a shocking turn of events, the weather has become significantly warmer, so it is probably going to be a little bit of time before the snow comes once again. I only tell you this because there always seems to be a bit of a morbid curiosity with the weather in Russia and thus I would like you all to know: I am not frozen just quite yet.

 

From an uneventful start, this week has become quite interesting. Last week we weren't able to go to the zone conference for our zone due to the untimely death of Sergei Markin, and thus our plan was to go to Moscow this week for the other zone conference Thursday. We bought bus tickets and were all ready to go, when I get a call from Elder Olsen in the middle of a lesson telling me that the zone conference doesn't start at ten o'clock like we had been told but actually at nine o'clock! Thus, we had to go buy train tickets last minute. With a few quick phone calls I cancelled all of our lessons and ran down to the train station hoping that tickets still existed for the 3:40 out of Ryazan the following morning. Fortunately, their was and all was good. On return home I settled back to enjoy some halvah and a successful last minute change of plans. Elder Merrill and I decided to go to bed early to get some extra sleep and right as we are turning off the lights I get a call from our zone leaders, Elder Jewkes and Palmer. "I have some bad news Elder Brasier," starts Elder Jewkes. Me, being fairly sick of getting bad news on Wednesday night, asks him to share. "There is going to be an anti-Mormon demonstration tomorrow in Moscow! Don't come into Moscow! And also, lay low tomorrow..." And so it was.

 

Instead of going to Moscow on Thursday we instead laid low in Ryazan while this demonstration worked itself out. Don't worry, we were completely safe, and for that matter everybody in Moscow was perfectly safe. This week, we should be going to Moscow on Thursday for zone conference, but seeing as twice in a row something extraordinary has come up, I'm not holding my breathe just quite yet.

 

Also this week, we had a Halloween party! It was quite fun. I think that my two Halloweens in Russia have been my favorite in my life. We of course bought tons of candy, lots of cake and just everything that contributes to cardio-vascular impairment. Lots of our investigators showed up as many of our members and it was a great night that gave people the opportunity to have some good clean fun and learn that the missionaries aren't just weird robot men from Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse (although I did wear my welding/viewing nuclear test detonation goggles, so I did look slightly strange. But honestly, is that different than any other day?) I really enjoyed myself and once again I realized how great it is to have all of these good friends here in Ryazan. I really have met some of the most interesting people in my tenure here, and I am quite grateful for that. The night rounded off with a little bit of smashing pumpkins (which we did a pretty bad job cleaning off of the sidewalk) and guitar serenades from a random guy who just showed up. Overall effective.

 

Sunday was a great day. Last Sunday, this man just randomly showed up to church named Anton. Conveniently enough, President Sorenson was speaking so it was an especially interesting Sunday, and he even told us that he wanted to be baptized. For whatever reason we couldn't meet with him during the week so we invited him to church. Our church starts at 11 and as soon as 10:55 rolls around you start getting a sinking feeling when your investigator doesn't show up. Some other investigators do come, but we really want Anton to come! All during the meeting I keep listening for steps in the hallway but every time, it is either my imagination or the girl who just went to the bathroom. Blasted bathroom breaks. Finally we get a text message from Anton and he apologizes because his alarm didn't go off but the fire alarm/sprinkler system did, so he had to evacuate the place he was staying in and save the documents. Well that's not a bad reason to miss church I guess. Disappointed, we plan to meet next week but suddenly an hour after the meeting is over he texts us and asks when we can be at the branch. Right now, of course. We end up meeting with him an hour and a half after church and it was a great lesson! Anton pretty much said all the right things and we just flew through it, until the end, when he asked us about baptism. We had mentioned it earlier, but now it was on the table! So, with a little bit of courage we asked him to be baptized on the November the 24th, and he accepted! Then he almost started crying. Then I almost started crying. Then Anton ended that by putting his hands up and saying: "No no, we all have to be men here!" Ok, good plan. We are meeting with him again today, and I am supper excited. Once again, the best investigator comes out of nowhere. The Lord truly does bless us.

 

Alright, well that's all I've got. I'll try to send some Halloween pictures to. Stay frosty my friends!

 

As Always,

 

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

 From left to right: Random guitar guy, Elder Merrill, Alex (one of my favorite people ever), Me, Anton (investigator who I talked about)

 Preparing for Halloween

 Sonya and Valentin (left to right)

 Alex, Alex and I

Me

Valentin and me

 Roman as King Soloman

  Vladimir as... a muppet?... the Joker?..... Donald Trump?.... himself?

 Alex apple eating

 Vladimir apple eating

 Roman bursting the bands of his mummy cloth.

Pumpkin carving

 Our pumpkin, entitled "Smoking Kills". Yeah, we were really political.

  Everybody minus some people

 

 

 

Jumped in the river what did I see?

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

It snowed in Moscow yesterday. It did not snow here. It did, however, rain an excessive amount. We are all eagerly waiting for the winter to come, some with slight dread and some with excitement. I for one am excited for the snow to come.

 

On the topic of our missionary work, things have been going along. A lot of our investigators have become less then interested or have inexplicably disappeared, thus we are now trying to find new investigators to teach. In a fortunate turn of events, this Sunday at church was good for both the sisters (our one companionship of sister missionaries) and us, seeing as we both got new investigators out of it. President Sorenson came down to visit with the branch members and to provide a little bit of instruction, and suddenly a ton of investigators showed up at the meeting. One man who we had never met before really loved the meeting and said that he would be interested in taking the lessons and considering baptism and another man showed up from a town 200 km outside of Ryazan. He was also interested in meeting with us (although I'm not quite sure how the logistics for that would work out.) Also, an older lady who we contacted outside of our branch on Tuesday showed up. We had given her a quick tour of our meeting house, and now the sisters and going to be teaching her. Thus, we now have some good new potential in our investigator pool. Otherwise things are business as usual. This transfer is coming closer and closer to its end and I can't believe that I have been in Ryazan for nearly 6 months! Time certainly does fly by.

 

Although the missionary work has been going well, this week we experienced what could be termed as a tragedy. Thursday was a scheduled zone conference for our zone, and Wednesday night Elder Merrill and I went to the bus station to buy tickets. While giving the sisters their tickets, Elder Ottley called us to tell us that one of our members, Sergei Markin, died Tuesday night from a brain aneurysm. I was completely shocked. He was in his forties and seemed to be in perfect health, but suddenly was gone. I was especially sad since he was one of my favorite members here in Ryazan, I felt like we had a really good relationship and were good friends. At first, it just seemed like some weird, dark joke, but that night the branch president, Vladimir, Elder Ottley, Elder Merrill and I went over to his house to talk about funeral arrangements with his mother, and sure enough, there he was, laying coldly and peaceful in a casket in his apartment building. The funeral was held on Thursday, so we didn't go to the zone conference, and we were able to give him full burial services according to our religious beliefs (after the Orthodox service, which his mother wanted). It was all a strange turn of events, almost an inverted world, since everything had happened so quickly. One day we are here, the next we are gone, or in the more ecclesiastical words of the Epistle of James: "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

Though Sergei's death was unexpected and sad, it gave me really time to think about the knowledge of the gospel. Death, it seems, brings everything into focus. You really have to ask yourself: "Do I really believe this? Do I really believe in life after death?" In the bleakness of the death of a friends, a person is backed up against the wall of faith, where, besides confronting their own mortality, they are confronted by a sudden need for the application of principles generally believed but rarely tested to such an extreme degree. Walking back from the funeral, and the cold burial spot where one of my friends now lays I could not help but think about every lesson I thought about the Plan of Salvation, and every investigator that I gave the promise of being able to see their friends and loved ones once again, and maybe it was the suddenness of the moment, or maybe the cold weather made me philosophical, but I had to ask myself: "Do you really believe that? Is their really a plan?" I would like to assert that I know that their is a plan. Death is not the end. All of our friends and family who have died have gone to another place, and we will see them again. Better yet, and most glorious, we will be able to all receive these bodies again, due to the infinite and wonderful resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the words of our prophet Thomas S. Monson: "My beloved brothers and sisters, in our hour of deepest sorrow, we can receive profound peace from the words of the angel that first Easter morning: “He is not here: for he is risen." He is risen! He is risen! Tell it out with joyful voice. He has burst his three days’ prison; Let the whole wide earth rejoice. Death is conquered; man is free. Christ has won the victory!" I know that Christ lives, and I know that we will all live. I know that God has a plan for us and that this Earth life is the time to prepare to meet them. Like the 2nd act of a three-act play, we have lived before, we live now and we will live again. This is my testimony.

 

It is an interesting juxtaposition comparing this weeks funeral to last weeks baptism, and that both were testimony building experiences, each in their own very different ways. What a strange time the mission can be. You can literally experience most of what can happen to a person in such a short time. I am glad as always to be a missionary and to have the opportunity to teach people this gospel and to give them hope for a better world or for life after this one.

Sorry if I got a little bleak, I would like to end on a happier note than reminiscing about a funeral. And thus, cue the happier note: Our member Vladimir is going to be going to America soon. We has begun making "west side" gang signs and calling himself a gangster (did I mention he is about 60 years old, short and wears thick coke-bottle glasses?). Our best quote from him is this period has been: "I'm a gangster, a gangster on pension!!" What a great guy!

Live long and prosper!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

 

Jackknifed a Juggernaut

Dear family and loyal blog readers,

 

Everybody is waiting for the snow here. It should be coming soon. I am getting my jackets out and finally got my boots repaired ( So that I don't get a case if trench foot again). I am more than prepared and ready for the winter.

 

The most exciting thing that happened this week was the baptism of Angela. Here in the outer cities of the mission we don't have a baptismal font so we really only have two options: baptism in the river or baptism in a sauna. Angela preferred the sauna so the sister missionaries searched and eventually found one in our price range. It must have been interesting to the owner of the Egyptian themed sauna for two sister missionaries to rent a sauna room for two hours and then have an eccentric group of Russians and Americans dressed in suits and ties, singing hymns about Jesus Christ and talking about baptism show up to use the sauna room. Really this shows me that the place of the baptism really isn't important as long as we can invite the spirit into the building. Any place can become a holy place with testimony, music and the right Spirit.

 

In itself the baptism was interesting. Nobody decided to check on the depth of the small "pool" in which we would be doing the baptism. I got in first to help Angela in. I climb down the ladder and expect to be at the bottom if the small pool, so I let go of the ladder and was suddenly up to my neck in water! The whole pool was nearly six feet deep! I was almost immersed in it! Angela is 5'2"! After thinking a little bit we just decided to have her hang onto the latter and essentially just let go and let herself fall until she was immersed completely and then I would just lift her out. Poor Angela was rather flustered, especially after the first attempt failed. On the second time we got her all the way under the water, and even though she came up sputtering it was still a great and spiritual experience. I really am amazed by Angela and her testimony. She is a orphan and really has nothing in life, however she accepted the gospel right off the bat. It really goes to show you that the gospel is for the humble and meek of the earth. I have taught so many Biblical scholars and engineers and professors who let all of their knowledge and so called sophistication get in the way of their conversion, but this young orphan girl was able to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ with all her heart and mind because she was humble enough to accept it. I wish that I could be that humble in my life.

 

Otherwise this has been a pretty normal week. We watched conference in church ( this time in Russian) and a few of our investigators who have never come to church before decided to come. Also Elder Turner and his companion came down for the baptism so I really enjoyed catching up with him, especially since he is going home in a month or two.

 

As always I want you to know that I love this work and this church. I am so grateful to be able to represent The Lord here in Russia and to preach and defend his gospel. I love these people even if they drive me crazy sometimes, but mostly I am glad to have the experience and opportunity to serve and help them.

 

As always

Elder Zachery E Brasier

 

Ps- Vitaliy now says that I am Angela's godfather because I sponsored her baptism. I hope I can fulfill my god fatherly responsibilities haha time we got her all the way

E-Mail From The Senior Couple In Zach's City

Hello! I was going through pictures and thought I would share a few with you of Elder Brasier. We think he is a great missionary and he is such a great help to us. He is funny and fun. We are so glad that we have been able to meet him and work with him. Probably never would have happened without our missions.

Hope you are well. Sister Ottley & Elder Ottley

 

Elder Hunt and Elder Brasier being Russian

When the Office Elders Came to Visit. The letter is to Mitt Romney from one of our members.

 

 

Lost in the cloud again...

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

A yes, the coldness increases degree by degree. Fog increases and the leaves are nearly gone from the trees. The winter is almost here, and I'm just waiting for the winter and the snow!

 

I didn't write on Monday because I was in Riga receiving a new visa. These trips are always a lot of fun because I get to see all of my old friends and catch up what is going on in far flung areas of the mission. I really like our visa group because we have all been on the mission for quite a bit and so we all have served in the same cities and all have the same outlook on the mission. It is a lot of fun to see all of these friends who I've known for awhile and have enjoyed being around. In Riga, we made a concerted effort to go to TGI Fridays and eat some good American food. We succeeded! I really enjoyed some real French fries, fried mozzarella, and Buffalo chicken wings. I was quite the happy man!

 

Otherwise, our investigators are going pretty well. We have been meeting a lot with Natalya lately. She has a lot of concerns about baptism and what that means for her, and she is really having a hard time developing a testimony of the Book of Mormon. We have been working really hard with her and have been trying to give her a lot of opportunities to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost and make a good decision and choose to follow Jesus Christ. The other day, she did say that she feels good when we were around, and Elder Merrill and I were able to strongly testify that this is the Holy Ghost telling her that we are bringing the truth, and that if she prayed about it with a sincere and humble heart, she would receive a testimony by the same power. I am always fascinated when people say that they can feel a difference when we meet with them. I honestly am pretty oblivious to this phenomena, but I think that we can really see how the Holy Ghost can start testifying to people just as we walk into their apartment or they walk into the church and before we even begin to teach. When are worthy for it, we will be able to have this blessing in every one of our meetings.

 

Last night we had a very cool lesson with an investigator, one of the most spiritual moments of my life, and afterwards as I was writing in my journal about it, I noticed a racket from outside. We had cracked our window open and thus the noise from a small square outside our apartment was floating into the house. A bunch of teenagers, obviously very drunk, were yelling, swearing, carrying on with all sorts of shenanigans and basically not obeying very many commandments. I became philosophical as I noticed the difference between the experience that I was currently writing and the activities and actions of this group of teenagers. They were complete polar opposites. The difference between the wonderfully peaceful and great experience with the Holy Ghost and the experience that those teenagers were experiencing at that moment really showed me the difference between us and the world. Often times we like to make reference to the scripture in the New Testament about being "in the world but not off the world." It is always interesting to me to notice what a difference the gospel has made in my life and the life of those people that I have taught, opposed to the people who have either rejected or never found it, trading happiness in the moment for eternal and perpetuating peace and security. I don't know why, but at that moment I was really struck by the difference.

 

This week we also had the opportunity to watch general conference. It was so good! Every conference just seems to be getting better and better, but I think that this might be because I am becoming more spiritually mature as my mission progresses. At any rate, I enjoyed all of the talks and was amazed by how much direct council that was given. I felt like many of the talks included very direct and concrete actions or commitments that we should be doing in our life, which I really enjoyed. I can't wait to get them on audio and in print so I can study them more thoroughly. On first impression my favorite talks where:

-All the talks from the 1st Presidency, especially Henry B. Eyring's Priesthood Session talk, Dieter F. Uchtdorf's Saturday talk, and President Monson's talk about appreciating the blessings in life.

- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, of course.

- M. Russell Ballard's talk, which was probably my favorite talk by him up to this point.

- D. Todd Christofferson's talk! That was a really great one, straight, direct and crystal clear. It made we want to be a much better person.

- Russel M. Nelson's talk. "Ask a missionary, they can help you!" Also, he gave the perfect outline for a 1st lesson discussion!

As always I am very thankful for living prophets who speak in the name of God on Earth today.

 

This week we have the baptism, Elder Turner comes down to see Ryazan one final time, which will be awesome, and hopefully everything goes well! Talk to you next week!

 

As Always,

 

Elder Zachery E Brasier

 

If anyone wants to listen to the talks Zachery is talking about, click HERE.

You and Your Autumn Sweater

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

Today we were talking in district meeting about what the church could do to hasten the work. We thought: Maybe the general authorities should change the mission age lower. Maybe one less year for Elders and maybe 19 or 20 for the Sisters. Maybe that would work, but we try to avoid all sorts of idle speculation and let the general authorities decide what they should do to make missionary work hastened. I just thought I'd let you know what we talk about it in our free time.

 

This week has been a bit of a slow week. We've been meeting with all of our old investigators and also found one new investigator. Well technically we didn't find her, the Elder's in Moscow found her, but now she has moved to Ryazan. Her name is Natalya Alexanderovna. Interestingly enough she has a son who is on a mission in Yekaterinburg who really wants us to teach her. I am really excited to help this Elder out and try our best to bring his mother to the truth that he is now spreading in another part of Russia. She is one of the few people that we meet with in their own homes, and her home is way out in the boondocks of Ryazan. We took a bus and kept getting farther and farther from the center of the city until we finally reached our stop. We were the last ones to get off the bus at the end of the city. After hiking through muddy and slippery dirt roads we finally found her house (actually due to a navigation error, we took a huge circular route to find it) and met her. The trek was forth it because she is a great lady.

 

In other news, the Sisters have committed Vitaliy's girlfriend Angela to baptism, and I did the interview yesterday. She is great, and I can really see how our friendship has payed off with Vitaliy. Sometimes it seemed that we were meeting with him for no real reason, but now I understand that it was at least partially to give Angela the opportunity to hear and accept the gospel. After the interview, she shocked me by asking me to baptize her! That was pretty novel, so I am really quite honored that she would want me to baptize her. I'm hoping things go through. The baptism should be in two Saturdays.

 

Unfortunately that is all I really have, so I am going to send you some pictures today! (Also I'm rather tired after writing a ton of letters today [incidentally, thanks everybody who wrote me letters, it was sure great to receive so much mail, I'll be responding to them all as soon as I have the time]). Also, I am aware now of the mission age change! (The little anecdote at the beginning was just my way of making a joke. Feel free to oblige me with a small chuckle to yourself at this point.) No, I haven't watched general conference yet. In fact, nobody in the mission has watched conference, but of course, that sort of news travels very quickly. I was blown away when I heard the news. I really felt a strong confirmation that this is what the Lord wants. We have all been talking about this new change and I can really see the wisdom that is behind this decision. It will be so great to see the increase of missionaries in the coming month, and is such a blessing that everybody can serve earlier now. My testimony has really grown that there indeed is a living prophet today who is authorized to make these changes and decisions based on guidance from God. I am of course jealous for all the young men who can now serve earlier. This is truly an historic time, and I'm happy that I am on my mission for this change. I am more thrilled for the prospective missionaries who will be able to tell all of their posterity that when the prophet made the change and made the call, they responded and rose to the challenge. The world will truly be blessed by this change in the missionary program and everybody who now steps up and serves at the earlier age will be blessed for heeding the prophetic call and truly showing that they are on the Lord's side!

 

Well that's all, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E Brasier

 Me pondering life on the banks of the river

 P-Day hike

Trying to find Natalya Alexanderovna

On the road

 Still trying to find Natalya Alexanderovna

Graffiti!

 Graffiti!

 A classic Russian tire garden

A street in fall

 A tree in fall

Street show on Victory Square

This crazy monument to Polish-Soviet cooperation. I'd rather think that it's a monument to Quidditch

A detail shot of the monument. Unfortunately they are riding machine guns, not broom sticks.

A tree

In the woods

Me, being whimsical

 Elder Merrill and I in a park

The forest

Me on the train tracks.

 The tracks

 

 

 

You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise...

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

I realize that because of unfortunate technical difficulties you were are unable to receive the promised pictures from last e-mail. And thus, because of that technical difficulty and the fact that not a lot happened between Wednesday and today, I will not be writing a super long letter, but I will be attempting to send those pictures, and that should make up for any perceived lack of length.

The weather has officially crossed the threshold. Summer is over. Fall is upon us. Winter will be coming shortly. I for one am happy that the weather has turned to a more dull and monotonous shade of gray and that the leafs have all started to fall from the trees. Soon we will have snow, and that will be perfect. As of now, I'm enjoying to reprieve from extreme weather conditions while simultaneously cursing the fact that when I wake up at 6:30 now, it is still dark outside which leads to a whole group of various illusions/dreams. Usually I wake up saying: "Did I just imagine that alarm... I hope so.... Oh no, it really is time to get up.."

As we have become more visible in the community more people are beginning to come to our activities i.e. English Club and Sports Day. I have a great English Club group filled with a bunch of college students that keep inviting their friends to come and study with us. I really love teaching English club, especially when the main participants are college students, because I am usually able to relate to them much better. Also, we have generated quite a bit of interest in Sports Day and now the neighborhood kids know that Americans come and play sports on a field at 18:00 every Saturday and everybody is invited. Thus, we get a lot of the neighborhood playing ultimate Frisbee and soccer with us. I have termed it the Russian YMCA. I really enjoy doing this because it gives these younger people something constructive to do with their time, and even though many of them are too young to be investigators, the good example we are setting right now will pay off later in their lives when they run into missionaries on the street and are ready to accept the Gospel.

We have also been making an increased effort to get acquainted with every member of the branch, and the Ottley's help us by providing their home for dinner. This week we got to have dinner with the Armenian part member family in our branch. The dad and one of the daughters aren't members but the mom and older daughter is. The dad is awesome though and he tells us that as soon as his other daughter gets baptized he will get baptized. I hope he gets baptized because he will be a future branch president (at least I hope so). I love meeting with all these people and really getting to know our members much better, especially the Armenian family because they have such a good spirit.

When we teach people we sometimes do what we call 50/50 lessons. This means that we will do half English practice and half spiritual thought in Russian. Often we do 50/50 lessons with our band member investigators Vova and Zhenya. This week we planned to do them back to back. Vova however came late and Zhenya came early, so we just decided to teach them together. What was funny is that as we are waiting (since we didn't know exactly when Vova would show up) the Sisters were doing another 50/50 lesson with the door open, and it was funny to hear what they talked about compared to what we talked about:

Sisters: Carpets, Ancestors, Weddings, Louis Armstrong
Elders: Water balloons, Square Water Melons, the meaning of various Ebonic phrases, and modernist ideas

I really laughed when I considered the difference between the two companionship's, but most importantly, we both had great spiritual thoughts at the end!

Well that is about all! I hope that things go well for all of you this week

As Always,

Elder Zachery Brasier

 Me at dinner, and a very close shot of my face

 Me, very tired

 The Ryazan branch!

 Dinner with the Armenian family