Well summer is officially over, so my long wait till fall has finally come to an end. What a relief it is to be heading into the bleak cold months of the year, something I have been waiting for ever since the end of May. Sweaters and jackets are the vogue now, and soon enough I'll break out my peacoat and give my best impersonation of a Danish fisherman while contacting the streets of Russia. But lets not get to far into the future shall we?
Things seem to be on an upward climb, the slope of missionary work would probably be positive (if we were to map it mathematically). In a fortunate turn of events, Felix returned after a long absence. I had been calling him for quite some time but unfortunately his phone was turned off. Instantly, the various reasons for this flashed through my head. Was he offended? Did he find anti-Mormon literature? Did the KGB get him? In fact, he was just in Moscow for a work program and returned just in time to come to church this Sunday. I was so glad to see him once again, since it had been quite a long time. We have also had some success recently finding new investigators. If you remember from a few months back, I mentioned that Elder Turner (one of the assistants to the president) and I had met some sort of famous chef while contacting. For the longest time he was completely unable to meet, but we finally were able to get an appointment with him and chat with him about the gospel. He is an awesome guy and asked all the right questions such as: "Do you have any literature specific to your church?" or "But how did you know that the Book of Mormon is true?" or "I don't think we should pray to icons, shouldn't we pray in our own words?" Yes, things went quite well. Also, we met with a guy who has known about the church for 16 years! I didn't even know that the church was here in Ryazan back in 1996, but evidently it was. We had a very good lesson with him and even challenged him to baptism, with a soft commitment (you know: If you come to know that these things are true, will you be baptized?") and he accepted! And, in one final note, the two rock band investigators finally became interested in the gospel, so that is really good news for us.
On a more humorous note, two interesting things happened to me this week.
Interesting thing #1 (or: How I have lost all ability to contact in English): While contacting on Victory Square a few days ago, I was able to contact some African students from Botswana, so they spoke English, and I realized very quickly that I have no clue how to contact somebody about the Book of Mormon in English. It was one of the worst contact approaches I have had for quite a while, and I even felt like I was a greenie once again, because I had no clue how to express myself to them in English. I actually found myself translating from Russian into English. In my mind I was thinking: "Это - летопись древних пророков" and I had no clue how to express that in English! I had to translate: "This is... a .... um... record (oh yes that's it).... old prophets, oh I mean OF old prophets.... (yeah, that's right)" I still got his contact, but it seems as though I am completely inept at contacting in the English language.
Interesting thing #2 (or: Why I should have taught my greenie how to get off a bus.): A few days ago we were returning home from an appointment at a members apartment. It was time for us to be home so we were kind of in a hurry, and didn't have time to do much else, so we got on a bus and started heading towards our bus stop on Lenin Square. As we approach the stop I yell to the driver to stop (this is what you have to do in Russia, or else the drivers keep going, so you have to know where you are and yell loud enough to make him stop) and started working my way to the door of the bus. Finally the bus stops and I begin to shove people out of the way in order to get through the door, seeing as the bus was exceptionally crowded, AND people were getting on at the same time. Finally I escape out into fresh air right as the bus starts driving forward and the doors close. Since the driver let us off in the middle of the street, I quickly ran to the sidewalk and turned around to make a joke to Elder Merrill about how many people were on the bus, only to find that Elder Merrill wasn't with me! I looked over to the bus and saw a white shirt and tie pressed up against a window as the bus sped away. I just stood there..... Oh no...... and started sprinting down the street to the next stop, hoping that he'll have to common sense to get off on the next stop...... Fortunately he did, and we reunited at the next stop. I was so glad that that situation worked out alright. Elder Merrill might have been a little shaken, seeing as that was the first time it had happened to him, but all worked out in the end.
End of interesting things.
In other news, things seem to be getting better in the branch. Elder Ottly (the senior couple missionary) and I have been working really hard in order to get the branch organized in the correct way and get the work moving. This means that I've really learned a lot about church organization and how to run things in a branch of the church. This has been a really valuable learning experience for me and has also sharpened up my translating skills. Speaking of translating, I just received an assignment from President Sorenson to translate for a two day wheel chair donation project that the mission is doing here in Ryazan. I am actually a little apprehensive of this, mostly because I have yet to study my "Technical Wheelchair and Accessories Vocabulary" from my Russian study manual (don't be fooled, that section obviously does not exist.) Hopefully though things will go well and I'll be able to effectively translate to help all these people in Ryazan learn how to use these wheelchairs that were so generously donated by affluent saints.
And so yes, that is all that is really going on right now. A few days ago I thought that Ryazan was under attack! As I was laying in my bed slowly falling to sleep, suddenly I heard explosions and blasts right above my head! I suddenly jumped out of my bed and remembering stories of early missionaries being shot at by anti-Mormon forces, ducked down as my room was filled with multi-color lights and flashes. Gaining courage, I tentatively lifted my eyes just above the window seal to look out the window. To my surprise, the explosions were just fireworks which were being launched so low that they were nearly level with my window. I guess that I survived the Battle of Ryazan.
Everybody have a great week!
As Always
Elder Z. E. Brasier
PS- Vitaliy quote of the week: "Physical elimination is my hobby!" Oh Vitaliy...
PPS- Here is a quote from one of our branch councilors, Gennadiy, who was a rather high ranking KGB commander, in the top ten of the the command. One day, while giving a talk, he said this: "We should spend our time developing Christ-like attributes. In my past work [KGB commander] I spent my time developing different..... attributes.... But now I develop Christ like ones!" I really liked that quote.
Moscow Time
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