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Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well I am writing this e-mail from Moscow which means that my transfer
went successful, even if my luggage almost got thrown off of a
speeding train from Smolensk do to an administrative error.
So I guess today is my birthday. I was not really even aware of this
until the late afternoon. I had taken a train from Smolensk and
arrived in Moscow with Elder Nalimov and Elder Lantukh. Shortly
afterwards we picked up two sister missionaries who are transferring
and got in the mission van to drive to our various locations. On the
way over we saw a car that had just crashed and was pretty messed up.
In my normal fashion I commented: "Wow what a dreadful day." to which
Sister Hansen responded: "You mean, dreadful for that guy, not for
you." This got my mind thinking: Was there any reason for me to
exclaim that this was a dreadful day? Is there anything special going
on or something terrible that would explain this Freudian slip? Then I
remembered that it was the 16th of April which meant that I was
officially out of teenage years and into my 20's. This was quite a
shock to me. For my birthday I decided to go the Russian Great
Patriotic War Museum, but it was closed because all the museums are
closed on Monday. So I just walked around the grounds and saw the
moments with some of the other missionaries and now I am back in the
mission office writing you and trying to figure out how to send
pictures since that is what I was planning on doing for this weeks
e-mail.
Due to the fact that I am devoting time and energy to figuring out the
complexities of this silicon based machine, I am afraid that my
remarks will be rather brief. I hope that the pictures I will send
will make up for my shortness of words! At any rate, I was sad to
leave Smolensk, but excited for something new. Smolensk was a real
trial by fire for me. It was not an easy city. But I think I came out
of it with alot of good experiences that helped me grow and become a
better person. I hope that everything goes well in that city in the
future and that things will start to turn around.
This morning at four o'clock I got on my sleeper train with my two
large suitcases. When I opened the door to my coupe I found that there
were two old grandma's sleeping there and they were not happy that I
woke them up. Also I found that there was absolutely no room for
luggage! As I was trying to figure this out the conductor came up to
me and told me that this was not a luggage train and my luggage would
have to be dropped off at the next city! I argued with her about that
idea. Finally she relented and said I could put my luggage on my bed
and just sit in the hallway. I was fine with that solution, but then
one of the old ladies started making a fuss about the possibility of
the suitcases falling on her. As this was happening one of the main
conductors came to figure out the problem. She started talking to me
with hand symbols and broken Russian and we had the following
conversation:
Conductor: "I am sorry I don't speak Polish!"
Me: "Oh good! Neither do I!"
Conductor: "Wow you speak Russian!!"
Me: "Of course, I live here."
Conductor: "What type of money do you have?"
Me: "Russian money... I live here."
Conductor: "You can pay me 300 rubles and we'll keep your luggage."
Me: "Like a bribe?"
Conductor: "No its our policy, 500 rubles and you keep your luggage."
Me: "500? You said 300 earlier!"
Conductor: "No, 500 is the price."
Me: "Ugh...."
That is the conversation we literately had. They were very nice and
accommodating though, even if my luggage did get hidden in a hot water
heater compartment and they wouldn't tell me where it was. I love my
night train adventures. Evidently I have a Polish accent when I speak
Russian!
Well that's about all for now, I'll send you some pictures hopefully in
the near future!

As Always,
Elder Zachery Brasier