From Russia With Love

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Happy New Years! It has sure been a crazy holiday here in Russia, for nearly two nights straight now that skies have been filled with fireworks and the constant sounds of explosions. Russian's truly love New Years, and celebrating New Years in Russia is certainly a blast. For New Years, we had a zone party of sorts with all of the missionaries in Nizhny Novgorod and also the Assistants to the Mission President. After a few very intense games of Pit and Uno we were able to watch a movie, since in our mission we can watch approved movies on New Years. Thus, we decided to watch the Pixar film Up, which was great, but so weird at the same time. I could feel my movie analytical part of my brain starting to work and I was shocked by how fast moving movie are. At any rate, we left the Senior Couples apartment at 11:00 and went to other Elder's apartment. On our arrival we realized that a problem had occurred. All of the windows in that apartment are blocked by trees! So, being ingenious Elders, we decided to climb up onto the roof of the apartment building. Unfortunately only three of us (Elder Hoffman, Elder Hasbuilin and I) got on the roof before some drunk guy started to harass the other Elders and almost violently forced them out onto the street. However, I was able to get on the roof, which was sweet because we could see the whole city and all the fireworks going off around us. I took the time to briefly reflect on the year. 2011 began as I was sitting in Yukon, Idaho waiting for Freshmen orientation to start at BYU-I and ended with me standing on top of a Russian apartment complex in Nizhny Novgorod while my friends were being yelled at by a random drunk guy. What a year it has been! Our celebrations ended with a wonderful viewing of The Fantastic Mr. Fox and copious amounts of soda and chips. Needless to say, going to bed at 3:30 in the morning really made me tired the next day.

On an unfortunate note, Olga did not get baptized this week. We had set up the baptismal interview but she called and cancelled on us the day of. She told us that she did not feel like she was prepared to be baptized and no longer had the desire for baptism. Also, her health had been bad so she felt like she could not handle a baptism at the time. I was incredibly disappointed to say the least. Never fear, Elder Melor and I are extremely persistent missionaries and we are going to make absolutely sure that see is able to get baptized, because we know that it is the path that will truly make her happy and eventually give her an eternal family. We both care too much about Olga to give her anything less than eternal happiness so our resolve is set and we will be working as hard as we can these coming weeks with her!

Wednesday night starts our trip to Moscow for the branch Christmas party. I am concerned that I won't be getting much sleep that night because it will be all four Elders in one room on the train, and we tend to not sleep much when we all get together. I'll have to let you know how the Moscow trip goes. Moscow is a sweet city, and I love every opportunity I have to go the city. Moscow is more or less the Russian version of New York city, except it only has seven sky scrappers. The city itself is huge, and holds a large portion of Russia's population. The city uses an extensive and complex Metro system with outstandingly artistic stations. Moscow is also one of the most Western European cities in Russia, and thus Moscow looks a lot more of what people traditionally think of when they think of Russia. I really just love the energy and excitement of Moscow and the complexity of the whole infrastructure.

Well I really don't know what more I can report at this time. This week has been hard to work because everybody says to call them after the New Years and we were confined to our apartments for most of yesterday and the day before, because lots of drunk people can get a little dangerous for twenty year old Americans. But, it really has been a great holiday season and as I was standing on top of a Russian apartment in Nizhny Novgorod I had one of those moments were I really realized and understood how outstanding a mission is. I realized that at that time I was experiencing something unique and unreal in a way, something I would never have the opportunity to do again. Being on a mission really is a great blessing and adventure, one which I am so happy to be a part of. I truly love being here among these people and I am glad to have a new year to rededicate myself and try to do better.

I hope you all have a great New Years and a nice winter. Thank you for all the support and love you give me. Also, your Christmas cards are starting to come in, I just received the Doxey's card, which was awesome. It seems like Matt is doing great in South Africa and I am way excited for when I can see all my old friends again and swap crazy mission stories. That is going to be a blast!

From Russia with Love,

Elder Zachery Brasier