Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
The adventures continue here in Moscow. As I approach the end of my mission we are continuing to face the weather, sometimes hostile people, and off the wall investigator questions with the same tenacity that has graced the past few weeks.
Easter is coming up. Actually a lot of holidays are coming up. On the 1st is International Labor Day, then Easter then on the 9th Victory Day. May is a holiday season here in Russia.
Our investigators are doing pretty good. Not much to report. We will be moving back the baptismal date for Wu-Tao just a little bit, but just enough that I won't be able to see it happen. Oh well. The most important thing is that he gets baptized, and whether or not I am there isn't important, as long as it happens. For the most part, our investigators probably won't be baptized any time in the near future, but they are all on the path. I'm alright with that, because I still love teaching them and seeing their faith grow step by step. A big breakthrough this week was that Vladimir finally came to our church building. We had been trying to get him to come to church for weeks and felt like if we could just get him to come to the building, not even on Sunday, it would make a big difference. So we convinced him to come. I wasn't at the lesson, because I was on splits, but evidently it went really good. The missionaries watched the church produced movie "Finding Faith and Christ" and said that he cried the whole time. Vladimir has so much faith in Jesus Christ, and it is really evident in the way he lives his life. I wish I could have as much faith as he has.
Speaking of splits, they happened. This week I went on splits with the Mitishi elders. As I might have mentioned before, they live in the suburbs of Moscow, and are responsible for a few rad little towns like Pushkino and Voronok. That means a lot of train riding on the intercity "elektrichka" trains, which I rather like, because I have become quite fond of rail transportation. So, I spent the weekend out their, working with those Elders, which was a lot of fun, even though we got caught in the rain on Saturday and had to seek shelter in a shopping mall.
On Sunday I had a pleasant surprise. Some members from Nizhniy were coming back from the temple in Kiev. I was really excited to find out that it was some of my favorite members, and we got to catch up and talk for awhile. It was great to see them again, and even better that they still remembered me, because I left the city almost one and a half years ago! I also forgot to mention that last week some members from Smolensk came to our sacrament meeting, so I have been blessed to seat a lot of my old friends from my old areas.
Well I must apologize that this letter might not be super interesting. I feel bad that as I near the end of my mission, these letters aren't providing some sort of climax to a resounding resolution. Maybe I have just trained myself to think in terms of climax and rising action from my love of literature and film, but the idea of climax on a mission is inherently flawed, for it presupposes eventual falling action. For a disciple of Jesus Christ there is no falling action. As Neal A Maxwell once said, discipleship is meant to be lived in crescendo and that means a steady upward course, and that is how I feel about my mission. Sure there have been low moments or momentary decreases of resolve but overall I feel satisfied in saying (and not meaning to be prideful) that I have lived my mission in crescendo. I am just hoping to carry this upward course that I have been blessed with on through life and continue to progress in the ways that only my Heavenly Father can plan for me.
I hope you all are enjoying the spring and the nice weather it provides. Have a nice week, and live long and prosper.
As Always,
Elder Zachery E. Brasier
Moscow Time
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