In A Deep Deep Sleep

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well friends, sorry I didn't write on Monday. Truth be told I picked up some sort of intestinal virus that knocked me out for a few days, so today was the first day that I have been able to leave my apartment. Don't worry though, I'm perfectly fine, just a passing thing really. I'm just excited to finally be able to eat again. At any rate, being sick on the mission isn't nearly as fun as being sick at home. No movies to watch (besides church released videos and Preach My Gospel training DVDs [which all recently Returned Missionaries probably remember, especially for their groundbreaking quotes such as: "If you don't understand the Area Book.... you don't understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ". Thanks Preach My Gospel....]) and not a whole lot of musical options as well. Sleeping was nice though... kind of.... Anyways, I'm back in action.

This past week and a half have been pretty exciting. On Thursday I went to Riga, Latvia for my final visa trip. They finally gave me a 3 year multiple re-entry humanitarian visa, which to me sounds like a cross between a legal document and something that NASA developed during the Cold War. I was honestly kind of tripping out to be on my final visa trip. And then when I get back to the office President Sorenson jokingly calls me one of the old, soon to die missionaries. Thanks President...

Our visa trip this time was pretty uneventful. Our plane got delayed due to weather. Then we sat on it for an hour waiting for them to die-ice the wings with what looked like cream of tomato soup. But before that, Elder Eliason and I made a goal to explore the extent of the airport. We ate at a great Latvian restaurant that was serving a fruit drink from heaven, found my favorite Norwegian salted black licorices, a book about existentialism making the case that existentialism and religion can work together, a pizza place that had a passport control booth guarding the entrance, and a 400 Euro John Lennon special edition fountain pen. These were indeed good times, and I looked out my window a little wistfully to be leaving Riga behind for what will probably be the last time.

On the missionary work side of things this week was pretty good. We taught the most amount of lessons that Elder Steele and I have taught together during our time together and had a ton of people at church. I had to play piano because the pianist got sick (I have about 3 hymns I can play without practice, and they have gotten really good use on my mission). This week we also had the privilege of teaching two great new investigators: Anton, who has an uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter and grasped the Great Apostasy shockingly well; and Wahid, this really cool guy from Pakistan who found our website and requested a lesson with the missionaries. We gave him a Book of Mormon (and he gave us a Koran as a present) and we had a great discussion. He even wants us to come over to his house and meet his young family. While we were talking he told us that his brothers and sisters are spread out all over the globe and his sister met our missionaries in Los Angeles. She was very complementary of us and told Wahid that we are humble, honest people who genuinely want to do good. I think that her analysis really helped comfort Wahid and we had a great discussion. I mention this because I highly doubt that those missionaries in America realized that their demeanor and I assume general spirituality and Christlike example was able to influence to course of a lesson half the world away. It just is a testimony to me that our actions on the mission have such a wide spread effect that we often never know the extent of our effect for good in this life.

Well that is about all I've got. I'm hoping to feel 100% in the very near future. Until next week, live long and prosper.

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier

PS- OK grammar Nazis, tell me if I used the semi-colon correctly in paragraph 4! I'm trying to integrate it more into my writing, although Kurt Vonnegut will be rolling in his grave.