Come on Snow! Come on Car!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

Well this is it, my last e-mail from Ryazan. My last few days have been great, and a great way to end a tour of duty in an area.

 

On Saturday we had the baptism of Anton! It went super well. The water was shockingly cold evidently, but we still got him under and everything is going well. He really enjoyed the baptism and his confirmation on Sunday, and it was a very spiritual experience. Anton's baptism was a great miracle. He just walked into the branch less than a month and decided to be baptized on our first lesson. All the lessons went through perfectly well and he had almost no concerns. It was a great teaching process. I believe that Anton truly was prepared by the Lord for his baptism because nobody I have ever taught was that easy to teach and so willing to do everything possible to be baptized. I know that it will really bless his life and he'll be a huge blessing for the church here in Ryazan. Also, it was great to have a baptism right before I left, because it was a great capstone on my work here. I feel as though I really saw the fruits of my labors here in Ryazan.

 

Sunday went by really well. I gave my final talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and it went really well. I was pretty emotional to leave Ryazan since I really loved serving in the city, and it was nice to say goodbye to all my friends and members that I met here in Ryazan. Then, on the way home from a lesson last night, we contacted these people on a trolleybus who were relatively drunk and decided to start singing Russian folk songs on the bus super loud. I was laughing so hard when people started putting in earplugs and earphones in order to drown out the sound. It was such a great way to end my last night in Ryazan. Then this morning I woke up to snow covered streets and housetops. It has been snowing all morning! Now the winter has finally come, just as I'm leaving the city.

 

Otherwise, I don't have a whole lot to write right now. I really feel as though I have grown a lot during my time in Ryazan. So many crazy things have happened and I feel that only in this city have I truly began to understand what missionary work really means. I have seen such great miracles here and have met so many great and wonderful people. I think that this is my first area that I truly feel quite sad to leave, and I think that is because I have really learned to love the people because of the trials and service that we had to render. However, the time has come to leave, and my "accidental transfer" has come to an end. Then again, accidental is such a misleading term, because I throughly believe that I was supposed to serve here, and the logistics, though seemingly accidental, came together to give me the oppurtunity to serve in Ryazan. Today I'll be on a train to Moscow to serve in my new area, and I'll be eternally grateful for the lessons that I have learned and the people I have met in Ryazan.

 

I'll let you know how things go in Moscow. Live long and prosper,

Elder Z. E. Brasier

Anton's Baptism

Family Home Evening

Elder Reshitnokov: far right, front row, with green and black tie

 

 

Is it strange that you perpetuate yourself?

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well to start I would like to wish you all a very happy and joyous Thanksgiving! However, I would also like to ask you all to take a moment of silence for the many turkeys who gave their lives to contribute to this splendid holiday. Without their sacrifice for the greater good we would not be able to correctly celebrate our thankfulness for all that we do have. Here's to you, random turkeys!

 

Life has been flowing along here in Ryazan. I will officially be going to Moscow on the 26th to meet my new companion, Elder Steele, from Canada. I've been really fortunate in that for more than half of my mission I have served with people who aren't American. I've served with a Swede, a German, a Russian, a Ukrainian and soon a Canadian! That is pretty cool in my opinion. Due to my transfer of the near future I have been saying goodbye to everybody here in Ryazan, which is pretty sad, but that is life, and so it goes...

 

Sunday was pretty interesting. We were fortunate to have a branch conference this week. That meant that President Sorenson came down to talk to the branch and also Anatoly K. Reshetnikov, an Area Seventy here in Russia come down with President Sorenson in order to do some branch business. It was pretty awesome. Elder Reshetnikov was a great guy, and really instilled some enthusiasm into our branch. I was also very touched by how interested he was in our missionary work and testified often that we were great missionaries and doing a good job in Ryazan. He even helped us on a lesson with Anton! It was the first missionary lesson I ever had with the help of a General Authority! (Also, later in the evening we had a dinner at the Ottly's and as I was doing the dishes he insisted on helping, so that was also the first time that I cleaned dishes with a General Authority).

Speaking of Anton, things are going quite well for him. We've taught him all of the lessons and he had a great baptismal interview. He will be baptized this Saturday. I am super excited for him and I am really amazed how this all happened. He investigated two years ago, never went anywhere with it, and decided to randomly walk into church a month ago, and now he will be baptized. It really is a miracle. One lesson that Anton's teaching has really taught me is that when we are in the line of duty and doing all that we can to continue the work of the Lord, God will bless us in ways that we don't really expect. We didn't contact Anton, we had absolutely no hand in finding him, but somehow, through God's will, he was able to motivate himself to come to our church meeting and eventually get baptized. We truly are blessed.

Well, I'm half in a food coma right now due to Thanksgiving so I hope that you don't mind that this is short. Anyways, I'll be sending another e-mail on Monday! I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Inoculation Nation

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

This week we finally went to Moscow!... On the 3.40 in the morning train....

Conference was really great. I really enjoyed seeing everybody once again. Every conference gets stranger and stranger however as more and more of my friends bear their final testimony's (also known as the Last Will and Testament of mission life.) This time Elder Barker and Elder Turner both gave their final testimonies, seeing as they will both be leaving the mission in the foreseeable future. It is always strange when your friends leave the mission, especially ones that you really got to know. Other than that conference was pretty uneventful. I was rather sick. Then again, I always feel rather sick at conference. Maybe I'm allergic to the Central Building. This might be a problem, because that will be my next building in my new transfer.

 

Speaking of new transfers, I got one. For the next two weeks I will be staying in Ryazan as Elder Hark and a greenie come. We will be in a threesome together to show them around the city, and help them get a hang of it. Also, with the baptism of Anton coming up, President Sorenson didn't want both Elders leaving the area and leaving an investigator with a baptismal date flat-footed. After those weeks, I'll be heading over to Moscow to serve with Elder Steele from Canada and serve as the district leader of the Sokolniki district (I'm not quite sure how to spell that.) Elder Jewkes was laughing at me because once again I got a logistically unusual transfer. He jokes that I never get a transfer where I just peacefully move to a new, already established area with a companion. Lets review shall we?

 

-Nizhiny Novgorod to Smolensk- "Elder Brasier, you and Elder Jewkes will be going to Smolensk to open up a new area. Both of you have never been there. You'll have no investigators and are responsible for building the area. Good luck.

 

-Smolensk to the Office- Half way through the transfer: "Elder Brasier you are coming to the office for a mid-transfer transfer. Say goodbye to everybody because you leave in three days." I pack and on the night before I leave President Woolley calls: "Actually Elder Brasier, stay in Smolensk for the next three weeks. We'll have you come in later..."

 

- Office to Ryazan- President: "We just need you to go down to Ryazan for one week, and then you'll be coming back to the office with Elder Anisiforov.." Six months later....

 

So yes, it is all good fun. I love all of these interesting transfers, it keeps my life interesting, which is always important. I have yet to tell anybody here about my transfer because I didn't want to overshadow Elder Merrill (who is leaving next week to Tver, to serve with Elder Hunt, my old companion) and get people to worked up. I'll be telling them in a week or two, so don't tell anybody, especially anybody from Ryazan who might end up reading this somehow! (Irina!)

 

Other than that, this week has been pretty much business as usual. Anton is doing really good. He keeps talking about his baptism and really liked church this week, mostly because Elder Merrill and I gave talks at church. We have been really working with him to develop his testimony of Joseph Smith, but he has such a strong testimony of the church and God's love for him. This week we introduced him to the Word of Wisdom, which is always a big concern for us because tea is such a big part of Russia culture, as well as alcohol for certain people. I was really praying that Anton would accept it well, and to my slight surprise he loved it! We introduced it by saying telling him how Joseph Smith received the revelation and once I said that it was a law of health he snatched the pamphlet out of my hand and said: "We're talking about health! Give me more!!" Yeah... he really like the precepts and committed to quite drinking black, green or oolong tea, and was quite relieved that herbal tea and mint tea was alright. And thus things are going really well with Anton. He's a great guy.

 

Well, that is all I've got. This was a business as usual week. Things are going well, and I'm exciting to see what the future brings during this next phase of my missionary service! Oh, also, we had to get flu shots at the zone conference. That was dreadful.

 

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

Not for all my little words.

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

 

In a shocking turn of events, the weather has become significantly warmer, so it is probably going to be a little bit of time before the snow comes once again. I only tell you this because there always seems to be a bit of a morbid curiosity with the weather in Russia and thus I would like you all to know: I am not frozen just quite yet.

 

From an uneventful start, this week has become quite interesting. Last week we weren't able to go to the zone conference for our zone due to the untimely death of Sergei Markin, and thus our plan was to go to Moscow this week for the other zone conference Thursday. We bought bus tickets and were all ready to go, when I get a call from Elder Olsen in the middle of a lesson telling me that the zone conference doesn't start at ten o'clock like we had been told but actually at nine o'clock! Thus, we had to go buy train tickets last minute. With a few quick phone calls I cancelled all of our lessons and ran down to the train station hoping that tickets still existed for the 3:40 out of Ryazan the following morning. Fortunately, their was and all was good. On return home I settled back to enjoy some halvah and a successful last minute change of plans. Elder Merrill and I decided to go to bed early to get some extra sleep and right as we are turning off the lights I get a call from our zone leaders, Elder Jewkes and Palmer. "I have some bad news Elder Brasier," starts Elder Jewkes. Me, being fairly sick of getting bad news on Wednesday night, asks him to share. "There is going to be an anti-Mormon demonstration tomorrow in Moscow! Don't come into Moscow! And also, lay low tomorrow..." And so it was.

 

Instead of going to Moscow on Thursday we instead laid low in Ryazan while this demonstration worked itself out. Don't worry, we were completely safe, and for that matter everybody in Moscow was perfectly safe. This week, we should be going to Moscow on Thursday for zone conference, but seeing as twice in a row something extraordinary has come up, I'm not holding my breathe just quite yet.

 

Also this week, we had a Halloween party! It was quite fun. I think that my two Halloweens in Russia have been my favorite in my life. We of course bought tons of candy, lots of cake and just everything that contributes to cardio-vascular impairment. Lots of our investigators showed up as many of our members and it was a great night that gave people the opportunity to have some good clean fun and learn that the missionaries aren't just weird robot men from Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse (although I did wear my welding/viewing nuclear test detonation goggles, so I did look slightly strange. But honestly, is that different than any other day?) I really enjoyed myself and once again I realized how great it is to have all of these good friends here in Ryazan. I really have met some of the most interesting people in my tenure here, and I am quite grateful for that. The night rounded off with a little bit of smashing pumpkins (which we did a pretty bad job cleaning off of the sidewalk) and guitar serenades from a random guy who just showed up. Overall effective.

 

Sunday was a great day. Last Sunday, this man just randomly showed up to church named Anton. Conveniently enough, President Sorenson was speaking so it was an especially interesting Sunday, and he even told us that he wanted to be baptized. For whatever reason we couldn't meet with him during the week so we invited him to church. Our church starts at 11 and as soon as 10:55 rolls around you start getting a sinking feeling when your investigator doesn't show up. Some other investigators do come, but we really want Anton to come! All during the meeting I keep listening for steps in the hallway but every time, it is either my imagination or the girl who just went to the bathroom. Blasted bathroom breaks. Finally we get a text message from Anton and he apologizes because his alarm didn't go off but the fire alarm/sprinkler system did, so he had to evacuate the place he was staying in and save the documents. Well that's not a bad reason to miss church I guess. Disappointed, we plan to meet next week but suddenly an hour after the meeting is over he texts us and asks when we can be at the branch. Right now, of course. We end up meeting with him an hour and a half after church and it was a great lesson! Anton pretty much said all the right things and we just flew through it, until the end, when he asked us about baptism. We had mentioned it earlier, but now it was on the table! So, with a little bit of courage we asked him to be baptized on the November the 24th, and he accepted! Then he almost started crying. Then I almost started crying. Then Anton ended that by putting his hands up and saying: "No no, we all have to be men here!" Ok, good plan. We are meeting with him again today, and I am supper excited. Once again, the best investigator comes out of nowhere. The Lord truly does bless us.

 

Alright, well that's all I've got. I'll try to send some Halloween pictures to. Stay frosty my friends!

 

As Always,

 

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

 From left to right: Random guitar guy, Elder Merrill, Alex (one of my favorite people ever), Me, Anton (investigator who I talked about)

 Preparing for Halloween

 Sonya and Valentin (left to right)

 Alex, Alex and I

Me

Valentin and me

 Roman as King Soloman

  Vladimir as... a muppet?... the Joker?..... Donald Trump?.... himself?

 Alex apple eating

 Vladimir apple eating

 Roman bursting the bands of his mummy cloth.

Pumpkin carving

 Our pumpkin, entitled "Smoking Kills". Yeah, we were really political.

  Everybody minus some people