What's Left of the Flag!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Because I wasn't able to wish you it on the day that it happened, I am now taking the time to officially wish you a happy Saint Patrick's Day. I hope that you had a day filled with great Irish fun. Also happy Pi day (3/14). I hope that the diameter of your life is always unevenly divided by a circumference of happiness. Ok, enough of that.

The weather here is schizophrenic. Here is what has been happening. Things were good through Tuesday, which caused me to have a heart attack. Wednesday brought the cold, and it snowed from Thursday to Friday. The winter strikes back. Saturday brought a thick fog and we were lost in the cloud, once again. Sunday was nice, and today it snowed. Oh how I wish that the spring would just come. Even though I love the winter, enough is enough.

Our investigators are doing good through all of this. Wu-Tao had to go back to China in order to renew his visa and we tried to find a church branch in his hometown for him to attend. Unfortunately the only branch was an English speaking foreigner branch, which he can't go to due to certain religious laws in place in China right now. He'll be back in a week or two. Then on Saturday we set a baptismal date with our investigator Sasha! He is great and such strong faith, but we found out that he lives in a different area and is zoned for a different ward! No.....

Transfers are soon and I'll be getting a new companion. His name is Elder Edwards. I don't know him at all because he has spent his whole mission (all two transfers of it) in the isolated island of the mission known as Voronezh. The next transfer is a half formed midget of a transfer that will only last for two weeks. Then after that we have a normal six week transfer and than that is it...

This week we had a pretty cool English Club. Our topic was leaders and we had everybody discuss the positive and negative leadership qualities of various world and historical leaders, such as George W. Bush, Elizabeth II, John Lennon, Beckham, Ivan the Terrible, Stalin and many others. I really enjoyed our discussion and I realized that I rather like teaching people about these topics. It is quite fun.

And now it is time for some thoughts from the week. Buckle up.

I don't think that I ever told you about how Sasha found out about the church. A while ago he had a good coworker who he was very close to, who died. After this man's death, Sasha found out that he was Mormon. The man had lived such an inspiring life that Sasha vowed to find out more about the church he had joined. Thus, he found us. I am so thankful for the silent example of a man who without fanfare lived the Christan life that we are all trying to live. His example made a profound influence on Sasha's life, even though at his death, this man probably did not even know it. Once again, this is a testimony to me that we never know how much good the little things we do in life bring about. I am convinced that after we pass to the next sphere, we will only then realize the impact that our life had on the people around us.

Good luck and enjoy this unfortunately holiday deprived week!

As Always,

Elder Zachery E. Brasier