It's Happened Before...

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Well this has certainly been a fun week. The problem with this week is that I can't exactly remember if things that I think happened this week actually happened this week or if they actually occurred in the previous week. Honestly this wouldn't be a problem if my journal wasn't so darn non-linear all the time, jumping back in forth between different times and events in a completely random fashion...
I do know that the Zone Leaders came this week, which was quite fun, since I got to work with my good friend Elder Jewkes, who I served with back in the Smolensk days. He's a really good guy and we had a lot of fun. Half of the day was spent on a contacting activity on Victory Square. We recently received a new box of Books of Mormon and so we made a goal to give the whole box out as a district... and we succeeded! For our past few contacting activities we have been running into this 16 year old kid who is incredibly kind and straight forward, but hangs out with a bunch of plastered and high druggies. Every time we see him we want to talk to this kid and invite him to English Club and our activities, but our conversations always get ruined by his friends. Well, this time when we were contacting he ran into us again, but this time with out his druggie friends. In fact, he had been planning to meet them but for some reason they all didn't show up, and thus I got to have a good conversation with him, invite him to English Club and basically get to know him. Honestly, it was a great conversation. Afterwards I was talking about it, and Sister Hawkins (one of our sister missionaries) freaked out! I was shocked that she was so excited about this simple conversation I had had. As I sat there with a quizzical look on my face she explained that that morning she had been praying so that we would meet this 16 year old kid today without any of his druggie friends and thus we would just be able to talk to him. I was absolutely amazed that her prayer had been answered in such an overt and somewhat miraculous way. It really showed me that prayers do get answered.
The next day was VDV Day. VDV is the Russian paratroopers, and Ryazan is the capital of the VDV. The main training school is about 400 meters away from my apartment as a matter of fact. For the past few weeks people have been asking us if we are scared for VDV day. I honestly didn't know it was that big of a deal, but evidently the holiday is well known for violence and terribleness for foreigners. Mostly the problem is the drinking and a main feature of VDV Day is paratroopers attempting to break glass bottles on their own heads (or other peoples heads at times). Thus, we went into spy mode, with no missionary tags and no street contacting all day, for our safety. It was kind of a boring day because we just sat in the branch building and I spent a lot of time playing piano. As I was playing piano I heard a strange roaring sound that sounded a lot like jet engines. I stopped playing and started listening and I realized that it was getting closer and closer and louder and louder. Quickly I sprinted through the branch building, kicked open the door to see the Su-27's of the Russian Air Force Knights fly a few hundred feet overhead! I was blown away, and was even more blown away as they circled around for another low level pass! So yeah, that was pretty exciting, now I can say that I've the seen the Russian Air Force Demonstration Team.
Other than those two things, our week has gone by quite swimmingly. Supposedly this is the last week of summer, so I am just enduring through this last shuttering breathe of the season. By the end of the month fall should be starting, and that is my favorite time in Russia. Our investigators are doing quite well. We've met a ton of people lately and our English Club is getting way awesome. Last time we played a game in conversational group called "Presidential Elections" where one person is pretending to be a politician, and the rest of the class gets to ask him any question, and he has to answer by saying "You are absolutely right.." and then twisting the answer to make him look good. This was probably the funniest game I have ever played on my mission. It was awesome!
Interestingly enough the people we are teaching now fall into three categories: People in rock bands, people not from Russia, and people from Russia who speak English. We have also made a ton of Muslim friends, including Sasha who I've mentioned before and is literally the nicest, most Christ-like person I've ever met in my life. We also found a ton of people from Turkmenistan who just moved to Russia and have been coming to our activities lately. They are way awesome. Last week we started teaching English/Gospel to a guy who plays bass in a rock band, and he liked it so much he is getting his friends interested, so we are spending time with all these 20 year old Russian guys who play in metal bands and have crazy hair and stuff. It really is quite fun. Also Felix came to church yesterday and loved it. It was testimony meeting so whoever wanted to could talk, and at the very end one of our Senior Missionaries got up and bore an awesome testimony, and it really touched Felix's heart. Felix is such a great guy, and is such a great example to me.
Basically that is all that has been going on. I am really loving my life here in Ryazan. The people here are awesome and I'm amazed at all the great people that we have met! Hopefully I'll stay here for awhile!
Well have a great week everybody. Those in warmer climates, remember to hydrate and eat your carrots.

From Russia With Love,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Our awesome member Vladimir

 Me cooking (in my sweet USSR t-shirt)

 Elder Hunt and I

  Me+ a tank