Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Things are going good this week. In order to clear up any concerns about the craziness connected with the Russian elections, it didn't really effect us at all. The only thing that really happened is that the police were patrolling the streets a lot more and fewer people were at sacrament meeting. Otherwise, it was pretty much normal. We didn't have to stay in or anything and there was no political unrest in Smolensk. I actually wasn't even aware that there were problems in Moscow, we have been hearing more about Mitt Romney then Vladimir Putin lately. So don't worry, we were pretty safe!
The end of this week was a vacation week for Russia. On the 8th was Women's Day and then after that everybody was off from work and school for three days, which meant a lot of people were less willing to meet with us. However, Elder Mitchell and I have continued to work rather hard. I forgot to mention, but he is originally from California but was living in Kirtland, Ohio before he went on his mission. We have been working to increase our investigator pool and work towards some baptisms here. Right now our best investigator is this Indian guy named Gokul who randomly called us one day and wanted to meet. He speaks English, Hindi, Russian, and some other language I didn't recognize, so we teach him in English and he teaches us how to spell our names and say phrases in Hindi. Currently his religion is Krishnaism (Taylor Jensen, I thought you might find that interesting) so it has been a very interesting experience for us. We essentially have to give him the Christian background that most Russians grow up with and teach him about God and Jesus Christ. The cool thing is that we inexplicably had two Hindi Book of Mormons in our branch. For the longest time I was so confused as to why we had these books, but I guess one of them was meant for Gokul. Our other solid investigator is a man named Daniil. He is a great guy but kind of a Bible Basher. When we teach he likes to play the "devil's advocate" role and tear down our doctrine, but he does it in order to see how we can explain things from his viewpoint. I love lessons with him because I have to keep on my toes and really use the Bible to teach. Investigators like Daniil are always interesting because they force me to really figure out where the doctrine comes from. We always tell people that there was an apostasy from the truth and thus a restoration was restored. Most people don't ask a whole lot about that, but Daniil does, so it forces me to go back and look in the scriptures for the scriptural proof. Teaching him has been fascinating and I recently drew what I called the "Super Plan of Salvation" detailing God's plan for us and listing nearly a hundred scriptural references to back everything up. I became so grateful for modern day restoration and the understanding that comes from having a prophet of God right now on the Earth. Sometimes though, I get frustrated though while teaching him. However, the other day we got done with a lesson and Daniil said: "I'm sorry I am so hard to teach and I argue so much, but I am just like Joseph Smith, I need to know the truth." That really made my day.
Speaking of Bible Bashers, we seemed to have run into a ton of them lately! It seems like nearly every lesson we have had has been with a Bible Basher for the past few days. We have had people come with Lingustics arguments about the language of the Book of Mormon, mathematics arguments concerning the weight of the Golden Plates, scriptural arguements (the prophetic test in Deuteronomy 18: 20-22) and so on. It has been a really test of strength on my testimony to be confronted with all this stuff. We have been running into anti-Mormon arguments since Day 1 in Smolensk and I am grateful that my testimony of the church has not been shaken much by what people have thrown at us. However, let this be a warning to all prospective missionaries! Make sure you have a solid testimony when you get in the field, because out in the mission field people shoot to kill! In the midst of all this though, I find comfort in the fact that as missionaries we don't have to get worried about what other people might say, because we know the truth, and we have the Word of God to back us up, and I have been strengthened time and time again but being able to find the answers to all this opposition quite easily by researching and praying about the truth. Every time we run into somebody adverse to our cause, it ultimately strengthens my testimony.
I recently had a bit of a self searching moment. It has been interesting for me to be serving with somebody who is the same age on the mission as me. Probably for the rest of my mission now, I will no longer be the junior companion, or if I am, not by much. Thus, it really is up to Elder Mitchell and I to figure out how to work best. It is crazy to me to step back from the missionary program for a little bit and just look at it from an outsiders view. Two 19 year old young men, not even graduated from college go on the streets every day and try to bring people to word of God. We spend our whole day worrying and working towards other people's eternal salvation. The salvation of some random 45 year old man on the street in essence lies on the shoulders of two young people who can barely hack their way through the Russian language. People who say that God no longer performs miracles need only look at the missionary program to see a miracle in progress. Sometimes I don't like to think about how much pressure is on us but sometimes it is cool to realize that the growth of the church essentially relies on the efforts of 19-26 year old young men and women. Today during scriptures study I read this verse, Doctrine and Covenants 133:58-59 (emphasis added): "... for the Lord's errand in the day when the weak shall confound the wise and the little ones become a strong nation and the two shall put their tens of thousands to flight. And by the weak things of the earth the Lord shall thrash the nations by the power of his Spirit." So yes, I just thought I would share that moment of introspection with you all. I am just so thankful to be on a mission (even though sometimes I feel so much significantly older than I really am!)
Well that is about all that happened this week. I am really excited because next Wednesday we have a Zone Conference in Moscow and my trainer Elder Dannenberg just got transferred to Tver, which is in our zone, so I get to see him again (he has been in Kazakhstan for the past six months)! I'm excited to show him my significantly improved Russian skills! Also tomorrow is Pi Day (3/14) and following that is Saint Patricks Day (3/17). I have got to figure out some great ways to celebrate this two days.
On a cool note, one of our regular English club goers Igor (who is a big fan of Radiohead, Pixies, a bunch of trippy weird movies and such. Essentially he is the only person in Smolensk I can talk to about stuff like that) told me that on the outskirts of the city is a Nazi bunker complex that people can go and see. He suggested I wait till the snow melts because it would be hard to hike through the forest right now, but come April our district will be making it a priority to go out and tour the bunker complex. So I am pretty excited about that!
Come on snow... melt, melt, melt, melt......
As Always,
Elder Zachery Brasier
Moscow Time
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