Someday At Christmas.....

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well I am writing this on Christmas Eve here in Moscow Russia. I can not believe that it is Christmas time once again on my mission, last year seems like it was just a few months ago, but alas another year has passed away, almost completely imperceptibly it seems.

On Saturday we had our stake Christmas concert. Everybody told us that we sounded pretty good. Our last song of the night was "O Holy Night" which was sung by a combined missionary/stake choir with live string accompaniment. I wonder if the choir director knew that that was my very favorite Christmas song. It was such a thrill to sing with all of my friends, missionaries and Russians.
Christmas has taken on a somewhat different meaning for me this year. Last year I remember thinking a lot about how different it was from American Christmas and mostly my thoughts were centered upon the eventual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, this Christmas I have been thinking about what Christmas means to me. Maybe I'm getting older, but lately I've been looking for something of a deeper and more ecclesiastical meaning behind this season.

A few days ago I was reading in the Book of Mormon, in 3 Nephi to be precise. In the first chapter, as you probably remember, Nephi, the prophet was confronted by a huge problem. As all the faithful believers were waiting for the sign of Christ's birth, the wicked arranged a plan to kill all the believers if the sign did not come. Nephi goes into the woods to pray to find out what he needs to do. Now from the record:

12 And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:
  13 Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
  14 Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world,

I was really struck by the phrase: "Lift up your head and be of good cheer" and I kept thinking about it. Christmas for me this year has taken on a motif of hope and cheer. That is what Christ's birth is to me, it is the sign that the world has hope, that we can change and we can be perfected. Christmas is a time of joy and happiness, when we can meet with our family and friends and be happy, but ultimately, all of this comes from the bright hope that Christ lived, and still lives today, and through his life and his atonement we all have a chance. This life is not hopeless, there is a hope, and that hope is Christ. The world will become a better place and someday at Christmas we will all live in peace, without bitterness, anger, or desolation. All will be made right in Christ.
I was thinking about this as we sang in the choir on Saturday night and when we sung the line of 'O Holy Night' (in Russian): "... the weary world rejoices.." Although most people here really don't care about Christmas, I can see a certain light in the members, and in the people in the audience on Saturday. Although they are weary, they can rejoice, because they all know one thing for sure, that Christ came for them and thus they can life up their heads and rejoice.
This is what Christmas means to me this year. Outwardly, I can't tell that it is Christmas. There are no Christmas lights, a few Christmas trees, and my Christmas package from my family has yet to show up, but I think that for me, it is the hope of Christ that has made my season quite special.

Well, I hope you don't mind me rambling. This week was otherwise uneventful. The world didn't end on December 21st (or did it....) and the ward made each missionary a little Christmas gift bag (which for some reason seemed like one of the nicest things that a ward has done for me). Christmas is tomorrow, and I hope you all have a great holiday! Remember: "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear" (and as missionaries we've been going Christmas Carol/Contacting quite frequently this week). Have a good one!

С Рождеством от России!
Merry Christmas from Russia!
Elder Zachery Brasier

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

I'm sorry but this e-mail might be a little short since the computer that I am using right now seems to take a minute to think every time I complete a sentence or use the backspace button, which is problematic since I am quite mistake prone...
The temperature has dropped significantly over the past few days. Yesterday my companion and I went contacting in the park near our house and I thought that I was going to catch frost bite. I guess that I have not really adjusted to the winter just quite yet. Soon though, negative twenty degrees will seem like nothing. But frostbite aside, it was a good time contacting, and I met man who was probably from Ireland, although I can never really tell anymore.

Unfortunately with the weather dip and the holiday season, it has become increasingly more difficult to get lessons. Well, it is really easy to schedule lessons, it is just really hard to get people to show up for them. The thing is that people here take the winter much more seriously than the Elder's do. We are perfectly fine romping around the streets in extreme negative weather, but we are also somewhat insane. Some of our investigators, being sensible in an inconvenient way, don't want to go walk to our building to meet, or have us come to them. This combination of factors makes late December/early January not really a lot of fun when it comes to finding lessons.
At any rate, Christmas festivities are in the air. The choir sounds great, even though it is terrifying at times. Specifically, it is terrifying when the director acts for the baritones to sing their part (all four of us), furrows his brow and proclaims: "Somebody is not hitting those notes correctly, do it again." I decided to softly sing at this point and more or less lip sing (I never thought that there would be a moment in life when I wanted auto tune). This time the choir director says: "Yeah that sounds great, I don't know what I was hearing last time." But I do.... Dodged a bullet....

Well, our investigators are doing well. We are still trying to get Leonid to come to church so that he can be baptized, and we've been getting a good amount of referrals... From Pakistanis.... All in all the work is moving along and we gear up for Christmas and New Years Eve.
Everybody stay frosty (wow, that was too cheesy, even for me)

As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier

It's going to be a Cold December!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Christmas season is officially upon us, though you probably couldn't tell by being out on the streets. As I explained last year, Christmas is a secondary holiday for the Russians. They are far more interested in New Years than in Christmas, and thus there is not as much of an evident change in the scenery of Moscow. I am trying to spread the Christmas spirit as much as possible by reminding the people that I contact on the street that this is Christmas time, a time to focus on the Savior and to do good to those around us. Also, I remember the adage from the movie Elf: "The best way to spend Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Thus, I joined the choir! We will be performing at the Moscow Stake Christmas Concert. I laugh because our missionary choir is a bunch of American missionaries with our weird accents singing songs in Russian. I imagine that we sound like the Chinese Christmas carollers from "The Christmas Story"! But, people seem to be putting up with our funny accent, mostly because we actually don't sound half bad (even though last practice I spent half of the practice unable to find any of the correct notes.... Poor baritone section.)

Otherwise we are working hard to achieve the mission goal of 85 baptisms by the end of the year. Currently we have one baptismal date. His name is Leonid and Elder Turner passed him to us after he realized that Leonid lived in our area. Unfortunately he is quite hard to meet with. We also have four investigators whose names are Sergei. We usually have to attach some sort of descriptor to their name to tell them apart i.e. Sergei Rich Guy, Sergei FHE, Sergei Young Guy, and Sergei Mystery Referral. One of my favorite investigators is Ley, a student from Haiti. A few days ago we had a pretty cool lesson with him about baptism. It was way cool because as we were talking about covenants I realized that he had no clue what we were talking about, so I kept thinking: "What is the French word for covenants?" I felt like I should know it since I have a French Book of Mormon I keep around. Then out of no where I remembered that in French Doctrine and Covenants is "Les Doctrines et Alliances" so I figured that "alliances" must mean covenants. What do you know, I was right! So yeah, that was a pretty cool experience and the lesson went great. Now we just need to get Ley a Book of Mormon in Haitian Creole.

This week we had a stake conference. It was so cool to be at another stake conference, and this time the President of the Kiev Temple was the special guest and spoke incredibly well. The speakers talked a lot about getting a temple in Russia and all the prayers offered talked about it. It is so inspiring to see the faith of these members who are working so hard to get a temple in their native land. One day it will happen.

Being in Moscow has been strange because I keep running into people I know. I ran into Anatoly from Nizhniy Novgorod (I don't know if you remember him, he was the guy who went to the army in November and had long black hair), another member from Nizhniy, Angela from Ryazan who is on a mini-mission and most shockingly, my college roommate Ryan's cousin who I know from my BYU-I days. She is in Russia teaching English, and was at the stake conference yesterday. Yeah, that kind of tripped me out.

Anyways, things are going well. The work continues to move forward and especially during this time I have been looking for ways to serve other people, and the Lord seems to be blessing me with all sorts of opportunities. Everybody continue to have a great Christmas!

As Always,
Elder Zachery Brasier

Saying Goodbye to Elder Brasier

We received this e-mail the other day! 

Hello Sister Brasier,

I am going through pictures today. Here are a few I thought you might like. They are toasts (miscellaneous and weird) which is becoming a tradition I guess when a missionary leaves Ryazan. And some hugging pictures of Elder Ottley and Elder Brasier. We miss your son. He is a great missionary and we truly came to love him. Hopefully we will see him at conferences and such before he leaves Russia. But since we are friends on FB we don't have to lose contact. He has an open invitation to our home when we get one again!

Love, Sister and Elder Ottley

Sisters Hawkins and Carver, and our greenie, Elder Marx.

Elder Brasier giving a toast. I wish I could remember what he said. I am sure you will know that it was random. We were toasting with dessert dishes and different kinds of Russian sodas.

 It looks a little suspicious here but I guarantee we are legal. Elder Marx, Elder Hark, new District Leader, and Elder Ottley.

Elder Ottley says goodbye to Elder Brasier. Did Elder Brasier always have this aversion to hugs? So funny! See below.

 Priceless expression!

Gotta love this one!!



I'll take time to work inside of the city.

I finally made it to Moscow and my new area. I left Monday afternoon and didn't get to my area until Thursday night, due to some crazy and unexpected logistical problems. Also I was separated from my suitcases. Wearing the same clothes for four days is great. But in the end I made it to Sokolniki.

My new companion is Elder Steele. He is a nice Canadian kid from Calgary, Alberta. He is relatively young on the mission (although nowadays most people are relatively young to me) and came out with my greenie Elder Merrill.

Moscow is crazy. The wards here are big, with anywhere between 70-100 members coming to church per ward. I met the stake president and the bishop of the ward, and it was so cool to see all the organization already in place. It was a little bit overwhelming for me to see so many members in one building, but I really liked it. I just keep feeling like I've come back from some adventure in the far corners of the Earth when I tell people about the small branches I served in. Although it is a big adjustment, I still like it a lot, mostly because it is something different. I have been serving in the little branches since January, and now being in Moscow has forced me to adapt to a totally different situation.

What is really crazy about Moscow is being in a big city once again. There are really so many people here. Fortunately, I have always felt like a big city sort of person, so I can feel my inner Moscovite developing. For this past week I have been marveling at the sheer scale and immensity of this city. It honestly seems to stretch on forever. I have travelled the length of Ryazan three times over in the past week and have yet to see the end of Moscow.

I have really began to have an appreciation for the call as a missionary. We cross paths with so many people every day that it seems impossible to teach them all the gospel. I like to look at people on the Metro or on the big escalators leading to the surface of the city from and the underground and imagine how many of them would accept the gospel if they had the chance. It has strengthened my resolve to talk to as many people as I can, especially because we have only four missionaries covering one quarter of Moscow!

I haven't really met a whole lot of investigators, or I have and I just didn't know. I'm still trying to figure things out in the area. But, I just thought I'd share with you my initial reaction to Moscow. It certainly has been outstanding.

Well everybody, live long and prosper!

-Elder Zachery E. Brasier