Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Imagine to yourself a train sitting on a platform in Nizhny Novgorod. It is midnight and the train is about to leave to Moscow when suddenly two young men in black jackets come running out of the station frantically looking for a train conductor to talk to. They finally find a young train conductor and hand her a large package and explain to her in thick American and German accents that this package needs to be delivered to Moscow. They explain that in the morning, an Ukranian and an American will meet her at Moscow station and she needs to give the package to them. She is given strict instructions not to open the package because it contains important documents, but the American and the German promise her that she will be payed for her trouble in Moscow. After all of this is said, the American and the German leave the station and mysteriously disappear into the night. Sounds like a spy movie right? Well actually that was Dannenberg and I, last night.

Our little spy adventure was the cumulation of the events that started when Elder Dannenberg got a transfer call. Next Thursday he will be leaving to Astana, Kazakhstan and I will be getting a new companion, who I don't know yet. Due to the fact that the mission office didn't have his passport though, Dannenberg and I needed to send his passport to Moscow as soon as possible to secure his Kazakhstani Visa. President Woolley likes things done quickly, so we were instructed to find a train conductor on the Night Train to Moscow and pay him or her to courier Dannenberg's Visa. So as you read above, we completed that transfer, and I felt very much like a spy, and thus I am calling our little adventure Dannenberg and Brasier and The Night Train to Moscow. Sometimes things can be pretty crazy in Russia.

Another interesting thing that happened yesterday is that Dannenberg and I met with business men who tried to get us into the Amway pyramid scheme. We had met a young guy on the street who told us he was really interested in what we were doing and told us that we could meet. Of course we were excited so we met with him last night. We got even more excited when he brought friends with him! However, they soon brought us into a room and began giving us the presentation about how Amway was going to make us rich. It was quite funny because they asked us what we liked and I told them I like mathematics. They got really happy and said: "Splendid! Then you see that this business will make you rich!" Of course, I kept my silence but was laughing because in actuality I could see how I would loose a ton of money through this business! One cool thing that happened is we ended up being able to testify about our message and it was crazy how quickly the Spirit entered the room. Suddenly everything got calm and quiet as Dannenberg and I solemnly testified about the truthfulness of our message. They weren't extremely interested and neither were we in their business so we left on affable terms. I made sure though to get a picture of the time we were recruited for a pyramid scheme!

Otherwise things have been going really normally. We have got some great new investigators and we are going to ask Mikhail to be baptized next time we meet with him. We are hoping that with Dannenberg leaving it will change something for him, since it usually tends to happen that way with investigators. When the missionary they first met leaves, they suddenly start to really consider making changes in their life. So I'm hoping that things go well with that. Unfortunately I have nothing else new to report, since for the most part this week tended to be relatively uneventful. OH I ALMOST FORGOT! We had a sweet "African Party" on Saturday where we had our African friends come and talk about their countries and invite all of their friends. It was sweet because I got to talk with people from Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Cameroon, Zaire and much more. I really love African people, they are way awesome. It was also funny to see how the somewhat racist Russians handled everything. It was pretty funny, and a good experience for all who participated.

Well have a great week!

As Always,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Pictures!!!!

Working hard and drinking a delicious "Chuda"

Me and Elder Lantuk calling people.

Me and a La-7 (a fighter plane from World War II)

From Left to right: Elder Bressler, Me, Elder Wadsworth and Elder Olsen (background) in front of the bridge for the C-13 submarine

Me and Elder Bressler: Just another day at work in Russia!

 World War II memorial in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

  My "O Nizhny" picture....

Me and Elder Wadsworth in front of a T-34 tank. Almost all Russian moments involve World War II equipment.

Nizhny Novogorod from the Kremlin.

 Nizhny at night from the Avtozavodskaya apartment. Black and White with 8 second shutter delay. Probably my favorite picture of the city I have taken so far.

 Me and Lantuk with babushka Irena, an awesome babushka who always feeds us a ton of food!

 

Some explanation is required here. In the Park of Culture near the Avtozavodskaya apartment there is this rock.

It is not very big, but it is in the middle of this huge sandpit, and although you can't see in the picture it is surrounded by floodlights

All of this is for one solitary rock. I was pretty baffled by what was so important about this rock, so I sat on it and took this picture.

Zone Conference last week. From left to right. Front Row: Sister Cianflon, President Woolley, Sister Woolley, Elder Fautz,

Sister Fautz, Sister Tagart. Middle Row: Sister Lovett, Sister Gay.

Back Row: Elder Hoffman, Elder Wadsworth, Elder Dannenberg, Me, Elder Lantuk, Elder Olsen, Elder Bressler, Elder Lovett and Elder Gay

First snow in Nizhny! Me and Elder Hoffman on companionship exchanges.

One of my favorite families in the branch, the Berdnikov family. Left To Right. Foreground: Me, Elder Dannenberg, Ilya Berdnikov.

Back ground: Brother Berdnikov, Elder Gay, Sister Gay, Sister Berdnikov, and Natasha Berdnikov (their young daughter) in the far background.

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

It is always interesting for me to write these letters, because things that seem like they are old news are actually new for you, considering the week delay that we have. The reason I start this blog post with this observation is because right after I wrote last weeks letter, I got transferred back with Dannenberg because Lantuk and Wadsworth got their Visa's and headed off to Kazakhstan. I just think its funny that for a whole week you have thought that Lantuk has been my companion, when in actuality it has been Dannenberg. So maybe it is not that funny for you, but I just thought I would make that comment.

Basically me and Dannenberg are working together again, which has been nice. Unfortunately I had to leave my really nice apartment in the Avtozavodskaya region of Nizhny Novogorod and move back to the somewhat tiny Leninskaya apartment, but I am really happy to be working with Dannenberg again. The really good thing that happened is that now we have more people interested in learning the gospel then before due to the work that both companionships were able to accomplish. Me and Dannenberg are currently working still with Mikhail (I don't know if you remember him, he was the one dissecting the Book of Mormon) who still has a major concern with us observing the Sabbath Day on Sunday, since he believes it is on Saturday and always unloads a menagerie of Biblical scriptures whenever we bring it up. We are also working with a man named Viktor who absolutely loves America, a man named Alexander who broke his leg and is in the hospital, a woman named Stalina who has a huge fear of being underwater (a problem for missionaries who teach baptism by immersion) and a really nice family that we met tracting. When we don't have appointments, of course we are talking with a ton of people out on the street.

Halloween is coming up and it should be a lot of fun. The branch puts on a Halloween party which the missionaries help set up and run. Rumor has it that this party is always a lot of fun. Unfortunately my Visa expires on October 31st so I hope I'm not in Ukraine when it happens. Me and Dannenberg have been getting ready for Halloween too. Next week we are going to buy pumpkin juice (like Harry Potter) and Dannenberg has been carving out apples since we don't have any pumpkins and putting them on our flashlight. Its like a Jack-O-Lantern, but with an apple.

One thing I can't believe I never mentioned is the crazy lady me and Dannenberg met one day. It happened about a few weeks ago but has become something of a legend in Nizhny Novgorod. One day we were talking to this man who wasn't very interested and this lady came up from behind him and exclaimed "I am here to save your soul!" After he promptly ran away the lady started talking to us by stating how much she loved everything. To quote: "I love the sky! I love the cars! I love the roof on the houses! I love that man! I love this speck on the ground!" The list gets exhaustive. To stop the list from continuing we asked her what her name was. She responded: "People call me Elena, but my real name is:" and she started to sing a song about how the galaxy was a giant pearl. And then she grabbed my hand and started singing a song about how much she loved me. It was really quite odd and I just wanted her to stop holding my hand. Finally we told her we had to leave and she gave us a really interesting pamphlet that would "save our soul." I spent a week of language study trying to translate it and I'm still quite unsure what was going on. It was a weird contact but the story has become something of a legend in Nizhny.

So that's about all I've got for now. Stay excellent my friends.

As Always,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well this was a pretty good week for us, mostly because it started out with General Conference! For missionaries, General Conference is akin to the Superbowl. We all got together on Saturday and Sunday, bought a ton of chips, cookies and soda and spent a combined time of 10 hours in front of a TV. It was really funny for me to see everybody get so excited when speakers were announced, like when Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was announced as the first speaker for Priesthood session. I thought we were all going to explode because of how excited we were. And what a great talk he gave, it fired me up a ton to go out and work. I hope all prospective missionaries watch that talk again and again to get ready for the work. Also Russia got mentioned twice, and both times we were super excited, to the point of standing up and cheering!! What a great General Conference. We are so blessed to have living apostles and a prophet on this Earth today who give us such wonderful direction and council. I took so many notes from their talks, I think I understand now when the scriptures say "Feasting on the word of God," because I was definitely feasting. I think my favorite talks where Jeffrey R. Holland's in Priesthood Session, President Uchtdorf's in Relief Society Session (yes we watched that too), President Monson's in Priesthood Session and President Eyring's talk on Sunday. I also really liked Elder Bednar's call for the youth to become involved in Family History work. If I was home right now I would be all over that, but I hope that all the youth heed that prophetic call.

After Conference on Sunday, we had a great contacting activity on the Nizhny Novgorod Walking Street, which is basically like an outdoor shopping mall. We set up a table with a big piece of paper and had a large sign that said "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" and then people could write it on the paper. It was a huge success, unfortunately me and Lantuk showed up late because we had an appointment (that was incredibly unsuccessful) but for the 3 hours that the other missionaries manned the table they gave out 50+ Book's of Mormon and had 27 people give their phone numbers for more information. That is a huge success for Russia! I was a little disappointed though because I got absolutely no success in the hour I talked to people, but as I was walking home depressed, we ran into a group of people performing Hare Krishna, which was incredibly awesome, so it cheered me up substantially!

For the rest of the week it was pretty normal missionary work. I've been a little sick recently because I drank some bad water. I distinctly remember the moment too. I drank some water and thought "Hmm... that water tasted like rust, I hope it wasn't TOO dirty..." Yeah, I guess it was pretty dirty. So I was sick from Tuesday to today, and now I'm feeling a little better. Unfortunately I haven't been able to work too hard, and I really was only able to work really effectively yesterday where I concluded the day with a three hour door tracting session where a white supremacist (not sure on the spelling there) threatened to break my nose because I was American. It was pretty awesome. Also me and Lantuk are getting more people interested in the gospel so that has been really nice to start really teaching again. Our relationship is getting better, but still struggles. I am trying the best I can but he can be really tough to work with. It's been making me really miss working with Dannenberg! But alas, I still have to push onward because the work is more important than petty differences.

Anyways, that's about all I've got for now. I hope everything is going delectably wherever you are when you read this blog post. Keep doing what you are doing and remember that God loves you and cares about you individually!

From Russia with Love,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well this has kind of been an up and down week for me. The beginning of the week was great because we had two baptisms, Anton and Fidel, one of the African students here in Nizhny Novgorod. It was a really good double baptism and we are excited to have both of them in our church. I'm pretty excited because the African students will be putting on some sort of African cultural night soon, which sounds pretty awesome and I'm way pumped to learn about some African culture from my African brethren. I was also really honored on Sunday because Anton asked me to help give him the gift of the Holy Ghost in church meeting, which was such a great experience for me. Doing that really helped me increase my testimoney of the work and the importance of what we are doing here in Russia. Anton is going to be a great church member and future leader of the growing church in Russia.

Unfortunately I had a little bit of companionship troubles this week. On Tuesday Elder Lantuk decided to unleash a relatively hypocritical speech of hatred against me. Basically it was this long rant about how I am a terrible person and an even worse missionary. I was of course relatively shocked since I thought we were getting along pretty well. And then I got angry when he told me he had been texting the mission president about how terrible of a missionary I was almost every night, instead of actually bringing his concerns up with me and letting me fix them. Yes, I was filled with lividity. But I remembered a story that my MTC branch president told me that I will tell you now:

" One day there was a donkey, which fell into a deep well. When the owner of the donkey came and found the donkey in the well, he decided that the time and the money it would take to get the donkey out of the well was far too great, and it was better to cut his loses and just buy a new donkey. So him and his friends got some dirt and shovels and elected to bury the donkey alive in the well. As they started shoveling the donkey got annoyed because dirt was falling on him, and kept shaking it off his back. Eventually the dirt built up around his feet, so being a smart donkey, he stepped up on the growing pile of dirt. He kept doing this until eventually the pile of dirt grew to the point that he made it out of the well." THE END

I decided that I needed to take the oppurtunity and step above the dirt. Some of the stuff he said was valid criticism so I took that and have decided to work on it, and otherwise just shake off the hatred. After a very tense Tuesday and most of Wednesday I just started to talk to him about himself, because I figured everybody likes talking about themselves right? Eventually we were joking and happy again, and even though I don't trust him at all anymore, we are working together again and today the sun came out for the first time in two weeks on Nizhny Novgorod. Once again, the mission teaches me an important life lesson.

Otherwise the work is going well. We have some new investigators that we are working with and have been doing a ton of street contacting and door contacting. Also my Russian is actually getting quite a bit better, even though I still have a pretty thick American accent and for some reason a lot of Russian's think I'm a Jew because of my accent (or Armenian, which I don't get at all because I definitely do not have an even vaguely Armenian accent). At any rate, thats pretty much been my week. I hope all is going well and I'm pumped to here General Conference in a few days!

From Russia With Love,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well its been a pretty uneventful week this week. Me and Elder Lantuk are still together while we wait for him and Elder Wadsworth to get their Kazakhstani Visa's. The reason that this week has been relatively uneventful is because unfortunately me and Lantuk inherited an area that hadn't been worked for almost two months due to an unfortunate logistics nightmare involving Elder Erikson. So that basically means that we have no investigators and no clue where to start working the area, especially because we know that our time together is really only temporary until Lantuk moves to Kazakhstan, so any work we end up doing will be kind of pointless. With that situation me and Lantuk have just been doing a ton of door knocking and street contacting.

That being said, I am having a great time with Elder Lantuk. It is interesting for me to see the difference of style between Lantuk and Dannenberg when it comes to work. Lantuk is much more relaxed so its been kind of nice to work with him. Plus he is one of the weirdest persons I have ever met, so I never know exactly what he is going to do from time to time. We have been having quite a bit of fun though. It has also been fun to have Elder Olsen and Elder Wadsworth in Nizhny (even though Wadsworth will just be temporary). Those two were a lot of fun in the MTC and are a lot of fun here in Nizhny, especially because we all like the same movies and same music so we end up talking about that a ton. Also this week we had a baptism so Elder Erikson returned from Kaluga because the baptism was one of his old investigators. I was way happy to see him and it was a blast having him back in Nizhny for a day. On Saturday we have a double baptism for two investigators (one of them an African student) so Elder Bitner (with his companion Elder Winters) and Elder Beck (with his Ukranian companion who doesn't really like me all that much) will be coming to Nizhny that day. I am excited to see them and their companions.

One fun thing about having Lantuk as a companion is that I've been eating a lot more Russian food (and junk food) than I had with Dannenberg. My Russian culinary knowledge has been expanded and I've got to eat some of the more interesting foods of Russia. What has been blowing my mind recently has been Russian Lays Potato Chips. You would think that they would be the same flavors as in America right? Wrong! Of the choices of Lay's chips in Russia you have the following flavors: Onion and Sour Cream, Mushrooms and Sour Cream, Red Caviar, Pickle, Crab, Green Seasonings, and just cheese. I am very partial to the Mushrooms and Sour Cream flavor and am trying to get used to the Red Caviar one (it is very strange).

Well that's all I've got for now! Stay excellent my friends.

From Russian with Love,

(Dr.) Elder Zachery Brasier (Esq.)

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Unfortunately it took a while to send the pictures on from my camera so this is going to be kind of short, but I hope you enjoy the pictures that I sent and enjoy seeing some of the cool sights of Russia and some pictures of my friends and my companion.

So basically here is what happened this week.  I have a new companion for two weeks because his Visa to Kazakhstan didn't go through.  His name is Elder Lantook and he is from Vladivostok, Russia, which is way cool because now on my mission I have served with a Swede, a German, and a Russian, making me one of the most ethnically diverse missionaries in the field.  I just need to serve with a Ukrainian and an American now and I'll have served with every possible nationality in our mission.

The cool thing is that we moved to the other Lower Area apartment, which is the second biggest in the mission (after the Smolensk apartment which has cathedral ceilings).  What is interesting though, is that our apartment is directly across the street from an extremely low security women's prison.  It's very interesting and we see them do roll call and other such prison related activities every morning.  The bad news is that we have almost no investigators to work with so, we have just been doing a ton of street contacting and visiting inactive members.

So that's about it, I'm running short of time so I'll answer some questions,  First of all I've got a question about if there are any Russian desserts that are like American desserts.  The closest one is these waffle cookies that are pretty much the same as the ones you can find in America.  Otherwise they are pretty different and mostly based on bread and fruit.  Also to answer the question about if Mikhail likes the Book of Mormon: He does, to a degree.  He is an extremely intelligent man so is super-analyzing it.  He has made about six pages of questions for us to handle.  We have our hands full!

Sincerely,
Elder Zachery Brasier

Pictures From Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod

Red Square on my first day in Russia.

Me and Anatoly

Elder Dannenberg my companion

Nizhniy from my window.

Nizhniy Novgorod

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well, it's been an interesting week here in Russia.  Transfers are this week, which means that missionaries are being moved around to different cities and a fresh batch of missionaries come in from the MTC, which means I am no longer the youngest missionary in the field!  It was kind of sad though because Elder Harrison is leaving for Minsk, Belarus and Elder Erikson is leaving for Kaluga, Russia.  Fortunately though I'll be able to see them again most likely.  On the same day we found out that Erikson is leaving we found out that Anatoly, one of our really good friends in the branch is leaving next month for his mandatory year of army service, so we are really going to miss him a lot.  Hopefully though he'll be sent somewhere with missionaries so that he can continue to learn about the gospel. 

Tuesday this week was on of those days that was just ridiculous.  In the morning one of our investigators  Зух (pronounced Zookh, but the  transliteration looks really stupid so I'll just go with the Russian) called us to see if we could visit him in the hospital , so of course we said yes.  However, we had the most difficult time finding the hospital, and actually ended up in an old train museum that we had never seen before.  It was quite strange.  The day got more weird when we met with out investigator and found out why he was in the hospital.  Evidently he was walking along, late at night, in a dark park (a triple combination of things never to do in Russia) and got stabbed.  Don't worry though he's going to be alright because I guess his abs were rock solid from karate training, so the knife didn't go that far in.  He'll be out of the hospital on Friday.  As we were walking outside the hospital with him, we heard a lady screaming that she wanted to die.  We looked over at her as she was screaming and sitting in front of a bar and then she just collapsed and lay unconscious.  Me and Dannenberg thought her wish had come true.  So we called the paramedics and they revived her which we thought was pretty good.....Until the lady started yelling at us for calling  the paramedics.  I guess she was really angry about that.  Sometimes in Russia everything is ridiculous.

Otherwise, it was a somewhat uneventful week.  One of our investigators Mikhail (the former Seven Day Adventist) is reading the Book of Mormon and seems really interested in our church, so we are hoping that he eventually wants to be baptized.  He really is a great guy, and I love meeting with him, even though sometimes I have a hard time understanding him because he uses way big words.

This week, I have officially decided to coin the term "The Curse of Russian Desserts".  I'm going to explain this briefly, because I haven't really talked about Russian food on this blog.  Russian Desserts always look excessively delicious but never are.  Russian's just aren't big on sweet desserts so they tend to be pretty bland but always look way delicious.  It's really quite unfortunate.  But the Russian's make up for it with really good meat and fruit juice.  Mmmmm....Russian fruit juice.  It's probably the best fruit based drink ever.  Maybe next blog post I'll discuss some more Russian food, if the week is overall uneventful.

Anyways that's about it.  If you have any questions, post a comment on the blog post and my mother will forward it too me.  I would love to answer any questions to help people better understand Russia and Russian culture.

 Remain excellent as always,

 Elder Zachery Brasier

P.S.- Congratulations to Riley Creer and Bryce LeFevre on their mission calls!!!  They will both do awesome in their respective fields of service!!!!

Another Week!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

This has been a bit of an interesting week because we had one great
baptism and mission conference in Moscow.

On Saturday, our African friend Stanaslaus got baptized which was
awesome, it was such a great baptism and I have really enjoyed seeing
him change as he tries to live his life correctly and enjoys all the
friendship of the church members here in Nizhny. The missionaries love
the African students so much because the original two that got
baptized, Joseph and Kenneth are awesome at giving us people to teach,
unfortunately though the people they give us aren't in my area so I
never directly teach them. However, we do so much things with the
other missionaries in Nizhny that the people that we end up caring a
ton about the people they teach, which is why it has been so great to
see Stanaslaus get baptized. Also Joseph and Kenneth brought another
friend to the baptism who is from Namibia so we are hoping he'll be
our next African friend to join the church.

The rest of the week was shockingly uneventful though until Tuesday
when we all went to mission conference in Moscow on an early morning
high speed train. Moscow is a way cool city. It is a lot like a
European version of New York City, except that instead of growing up
with tall buildings it grows outwards. I really enjoy being in the
huge city though and it was a ton of fun to be in Moscow. It was
really cool to see all the other missionaries in our mission
(excluding the Kazakhstan missionaries cause they are too far away)
and I got to see my old friends from the MTC Elder Mitchell and Elder
Stegeby, which I really enjoyed catching up with.

The Nizhny people were lucky because we all got to stay an extra day
for the new missionary training, which I had to attend with all the
other missionaries who have only been here for 1-3 months. Most other
missionaries had to leave Moscow on Tuesday but we got to stay
overnight in the office Elder's apartment. It was certainly
interesting to have 14 Elder's in one apartment, we didn't get to
sleep for quite a while, and then in the morning we spent most of the
time throwing paper airplanes out the window of the office Elder's
apartment since it was on the 17th story of their building. Also, I
had a significantly more successful McDonald's trip in the morning,
but mostly because Elder Bressler helped me out with the Russian. I
still am not very good at McDonalds vocabulary.

Really that's about it though, it was a pretty uneventful week. I was
super excited to be in Moscow, but we didn't really do a whole lot of
noteworthy things! Next week, we get new missionaries from the MTC,
and my good friend Elder Olsen is coming to Nizhny, which I am pumped
about.

And to answer a question from Austin Brasier: The weather here is
getting a little chilly, its been overcast for quite a while and
really wet, which has kind of been nice for me because I was getting
sick of the heat. Basically Russia is just like most European climates
(especially my part) just colder. Nizhny is actually colder though
than Moscow most of the time. Also we've been getting some sweet
sunset because of the cloud cover. Russia really is quite a beautiful
place.

Yeah so that's about it for now!

Wearing Hipster Glasses in Russia,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Another Week in Nizhny Novgorod

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well its been another interesting week here in Nizhny Novgorod. As of
today all of the Russian schools start which actually made last week
quite a pain, because everybody we meet with decided to take last
minute vacations before school started so we had almost no
appointments and spent a ridiculous amount of time street contacting
and knocking doors, which is always an interesting experience.

On a plus side we met with Mikhail twice and talked to him a lot about
the prophet Joseph Smith. We had him read the Joseph Smith history and
I could see him began to gain a testimony of the prophet. After we
got done he said that he thinks that it is real because according to
him the Bible says that a story like Joseph Smith is possible. He is
still hung up though about how we worship the Sabbath on Sunday and
not Saturday so we just need to work with him through that concern. I
think he is progressing a lot and he loves meeting with us, he even
made us borscht!

In an unfortunate turn of events Zhenna is not going to be able to get
baptized soon. She is only 15 and her mother did not give permission,
and even threw out her Book of Mormon. Her older sister Asya will be
baptized though because she is 18, but its was very sad to hear that
they couldn't be getting baptized together.

We have an exciting month coming up though with baptisms ever week! On
Saturday Stanaslaus (the African man) is getting baptized and I am so
pumped for that. Then a bunch of other people are getting baptized,
but unfortunately none of our investigators! However we think that
Mikhail might want to get baptized soon and a guy we met on the
street, Andrei seems incredibly interested in the church, so we have
hope things will work up.

To explain why I was in the woods. We had a picnic for all the church
members in Nizhny Novgorod out in the woods outside of the city. It
was so much fun, and I had a blast with all the word members. The
youth here are really amazing and all have incredibly strong
testimonies. Plus our non-member friends Sasha and his girlfriend came
so that was quite a bit of fun. As with every Russian activity, we had
a ton of  watermelon, because Russian love watermelon! They eat it all
the time, I have only been offered a meal three times were watermelon
wasn't involved.

We liked going out in the woods so much we did it for P-Day today. The
Assistants to the Mission President are in Nizhny and all the
missionaries in Nizhny went out to the forest again in the morning. We
spent the whole morning in this huge sand pit  that had been dug out
jumping off the dirt cliffs into the sand. It was a blast, but then it
started raining! So we ran and tried to hide in the forest, but the
trees weren't blocking too much rain, so Elder Bressler tried to build
a shelter. It didn't work so we just sat there and ate sandwiches in
the rain. Also the Russian army was doing some sort of exercise out in
the woods so we could here machine gun fire in the distance!!! Finally
the rain stopped and on our way out I looked up and a MiG-29 (a
Russian jet fighter) flew over doing airelon rolls! It certain was an
eventful P-Day.

So that's about all I've got for now. I'm working on getting pictures
to you guys, but me and Elder Erikson are still trying to figure out
the computers. At any rate, keep being awesome everybody and enjoy the
start of school!

As Always,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Everytime I Sit At A Computer I Can Never Come Up With A Good Title For An E-Mail!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers!

Well its been a pretty good week in Russia. I can't say that things are actually starting to look up with the people we are teaching because they all seem to be so busy all the time that we can never actually meet with them, which can get pretty frustrating. I think the amount of irregularity is really getting to Dannenberg because he gets so frustrated but as he has told me many times it is because he is German and needs order in his life, so haphazard meetings without a regular schedule drives him nuts.

But there has been some pretty good things in the past week. First of all, we have been teaching Mikhail and Nadya (the break off group from their church) on Saturdays and Mikhail came to church on Sunday. He had quite a bit of questions because the man knows the Bible so well and likes to check everything through the Bible, which is perfect for us because we get to use the scriptures alot when we talk to him. The problem is that his questions are incredibly deep and specific so I don't know the Russian words to explain or even understand what he is talking about. Even Dannenberg struggles so last time we brought a member Nikoli on the lesson and he helped a ton. During that lesson we had a really cool experience. We were talking about how the Priesthood or authority to work on God's behalf is passed down to people and Nikoli had his line of authority, or how the Priesthood has been passed down for generations and we were able to explain it. What was interesting is that Nikoli got the Priesthood by the means of an Elder Abel back in 1995. When we mentioned his name Mikhail pulled out an old Book of Mormon that he had got in 1996 from the missionaries, and guess who's name was in the front? Elder Abel. It really was cool to me to see how so many years down the line Elder Abel's work has influenced these two lives for the better and he probably doesn't even know it.

On Tuesday two girls in our branch announced that they wanted to get baptized and will get baptized on September 13. They have been coming to our activities for awhile now and finally have decided to commit to baptism and I'm pretty sure that their parents will allow them too, which is awesome because then we won't have to worry about any complications with the parents. I am so excited to them to be baptized and its been amazing to see their lives change. Me and Dannenberg haven't officially taught them because they are our age and we try not to teach girls our age, but we have worked with them a little and I count them as my friends, so its great to see them get baptized.

So I want to explain for just a little Russian public transit in Nizhny Novgorod. Missionaries don't have cars or use bikes in Russia for a variety of reasons so we use public transit. Nizhny has a Metro system that connects the districts of the Lower City and is quite convenient. Nizhny also uses a trolly car system that we don't use that often since it really doesn't have a lot of stops. What me and Elder Dannenberg use the most is the bus system. Now there are two types of buses: Normal buses that you are probably familiar with because we use the same ones in America and the Marshuka (I think that is how it is spelt in English). The Marshuka is... interesting. They are more or less mini buses with incredibly high centers of gravity that go almost everywhere in the city. We use them quite often but they are incredibly sketchy because the drivers are insane and the buses have almost no suspension and an extremely high center of gravity. Pretty much riding a Marshuka is like riding the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland, in a bus, standing, and blasting electronic music. Yesterday we were riding one and the driver almost hit a car and started weaving in and out of traffic. The conductor apologized by saying: "I'm sorry, the driver doesn't have a drivers license." Dead serious.

Yep so things are going pretty well in Russia right now. Thanks for all your support and care! One word of note really quick. If you wrote me in July and early August, unfortunately I lost all of your letters in the transit from America to Russia so I have no clue who wrote me and I have no clue who to reply to. So if you sent a letter in those times and haven't received a reply, just resend another one and I'll reply to that. Sorry!!

From Russia with Love,

Elder Zachery Brasier

Having A Lack Of A Title For E-Mails Sometimes Makes Me Angry!

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,

Well its been another good week in Russia. Me and Elder Dannenberg are
teaching quite a bit of people since we have been really trying to get
appointments. We have a pretty big pool of people whom we can meet
with, but unfortunately they all have incredibly busy schedules or go
out of town every week to their summer Dasha, which is like a summer
home in the middle of nowhere that a lot of Russians have. So it gets
incredibly frustrating when we know that there are people that we can
be teaching but they just won't meet with us!

But we have had a few interesting meetings. Last Saturday we taught a
group of people who held their own Bible study club because they had
left the Seven Day Adventist church due to some doctrinal issues. What
was awesome is that they were concerned about doctrinal issues that we
had the answers too. We talked for almost three hours with them (we
had no other appointments that day) and are going back Saturday. Me
and Dannenberg were blown away how prepared those people were.

In contrast, the next day we went to a lesson that ended up being in
another Protestant church. We meet a German and a Swiss there, and it
was funny to see Dannenberg speak and teach in German a little, since
he only speaks English and Russian with me. So we talked to those two
guys and ended up setting up a return appointment at the local
McDonalds. It was a very frustrating lesson since they basically came
to argue with us about doctrinal points. I was getting frustrated
since they just wouldn't listen and ended up completely shooting us
down. I wasn't particularly happy, especially since I was teaching in
English so I knew exactly what was going on.

Otherwise we have been doing some good lessons and trying to get
people progressing by keeping commitments and learning about the
Gospel.

Monday was the weirdest day I've had on my mission. It started out
normal, and we had a nice lesson with one of our investigators,
Mikhail. Then we needed to get to the other side of the city so he
offered us a ride. This is where things start going weird. Mikhail's
car is a 1971 bright red Soviet era car with no seatbelts and no
airconditioning. But it had a good sound system as we found out as he
blasted music on our ride. It was strange to hear "Sweet Dreams" by
the Eurythmatics on my mission! So after that strange car ride we got
dropped off in the Upper part of the city, our lesson cancelled on us
so we went street contacting where we ran into a former investigator.
He wanted to go to McDonalds, which we did, but then he ditched us
when we were in line ordering food. I completely messed up my order
and ended up with a single kids size hamburger instead of a double
cheeseburger and we ended up catching up with our investigator in a
park were we sat down. Right when we sat down a man dressed up as
Superman came and offered us a chance to test drive a Suzuki and I
realized I had sat in a huge pile of gum. Then as we were talking to
our investigator four other people just ended up randomly jumping  in
on the conversation. It was a weird day, but I've come to realize that
sometimes in Russia, everything is just ridiculous.

Anyways, that's pretty much all I've got for the week, its been pretty
exciting, but I feel bad because I experience so much everyday that I
can't even write a fraction of it. I guess this will just have to
suffice.

Also, for anybody wanting to write me, please send everything to the
mission office in Moscow (mom, if you could put that address on this).
Its safer and more dependable and I'll probably get it faster since
there are always people coming from Moscow to Ninzhy and vice versa.

You all rock!

Indubitably,
Старейшина Зак Брэйжер
Elder Zachery Brasier
Muravskaya Street, Bldg. 1, Floor 3
Moscow 125310
Russia

(No Subject) 1st Week In Nizhny Novgorod

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Well my first full week in Russia has been going pretty good. Me and Elder Dannenberg have been working pretty hard in the area and we have been having some success, its just hard to meet with people right now because most of the Russian people take off the summer to go to summer homes. This means that for the most part, they aren't in the city for most of the time so we have a hard time consistently meeting with the new people we talk to. However, this will change come next month when the summer starts to end and people have to come back to Nizhny Novgorod and start working or going to school again. Plus it will be too cold for them to go on the spontaneous walks that the Russian people love to do so much.

One thing I have come to love here in the city is the Church members. We have a little group of them known as a branch, and they make the missionaries feel right at home. Everybody is so kind and wants to know all about my family and my friends and what I did before the mission, and I'm usually able to explain it to them in my very very limited Russian. It makes me laugh though because they always try to speak English when I can't understand, and I always tell them how much I appreciate that they do that but I need to practice my Russian! But at any rate, the branch here is amazing and they are so strong and helpful for the missionaries. I don't know what we would do without them.

So I've met a ton of interesting people here so far just talking to people on the street and teaching. I meet a guy who tried to convince us that he was God, it was really weird. We've also met quite a few people of different ethnicity's and such, which is pretty amazing. Some of my favorite are these two Muslim boys who we invited to branch sports day on Saturday. They are both a lot of fun and try to help me with my Russian. Also one of them looks like the Muslim Russian version of Ringo Starr. It's actually pretty shocking how close the resemblance is. Also, I've got to sit in on two lessons with one of the other investigators for the other Elders (we have three companionships of Elders here and one companionship of Sisters). I can't pronounce his name, because he is an African and he speaks English and French and very bad Russian, so we teach him in English. I did not expect to be teaching an African man in English when I came to Russia, but its been nice to teach him.

Well I really don't have a whole lot of time so I just would like to say how much I am loving Russia. It is really a great place and the people here are great, even though a lot of the time they like to ignore us on the street and even sometimes run away.It really doesn't matter though because I truly love it here in Russia, and especially Nizhny Novgorod. I'll try to get some pictures out as soon as I can, but I can't really download them onto these computers.

From Russia with Love

Старейшина Зак Брэйжер

Welcome To Russia

Dear Family and Loyal Blog Readers,
Well I made it, today is my first time that I am actually writing from the country of Russia, after a somewhat long and confusing flight, I was dropped off in Moscow at the mission home and as of yesterday was assigned to my first area, the city of Nizhny Novgorod (or something like that, I'm not sure exactly how it works out in English). In Moscow I was able to see a few of the sites, mainly the Kremlin and Red Square as well as some old Eastern Orthodox churches. I was pretty jet lagged at the time so the whole day seems like a bit of a blur, but I really enjoyed seeing those sites and acting like a tourist for a few hours. The only really intimidating part was that pretty much everybody was speaking Russian, the language I theoretically learned in the MTC. At any rate, it is a pretty exciting place and I'm pretty excited to be out of the MTC and into the actual mission field.

Nizhny is a pretty large city due East of Moscow. It is the fourth largest city in Russia and the used to be a Soviet manufacturing facility for all sorts of munitions during World War II. In fact, it was quite impossible for anybody non-Russian to get into the city during that time and on a lot of old maps it doesn't even show up, despite being such a big city. Now though, it is a thriving commercial center and its nice to be in a big city.

My companion right now is Elder Dannenberg from Hamburg, Germany. He has been out on his mission for 11 months now and I am the first missionary he has trained. Dannenberg is a bit of vetern in this city, he has been here for the longest part of his mission but usually has worked the upper part of the city so he's new to the lower part. Perhaps I should explain a little bit of city geography: Nizhny is divided in half by two rivers, the Volga and another one that starts with an R. The western part is known as the lower city, and the Eastern as the upper city. So we are serving in the western part of the city. From what I've seen in the area book, we have a lot of people that we can teach and a lot of less active ward members that we need to work with, so it looks like I am going to be pretty busy here for a while.

Besides all of that technical stuff, my first few days in Russia have been pretty interesting. I've already got to experience some Russian food, which for the most part has been pretty delicious. The best Russian food I've had so far is the fruit juice. Russian fruit juice is delicious, it is almost like drinking directly from the fruit. This is specifically true for apple juice which is unlike Mott's or other apple juice brand tastes exactly like an apple. It doesn't have a whole lot of sugar or stuff in it, just straight juice. It is very very delicious. Also they have this yogurt drink called Чудо which is pretty good too, its pretty much just yogurt and fruit in a bottle.

I wish I had more to report right now from Russia, but I haven't seen or done a whole lot just yet. Me and Elder Dannenberg will be going up to the Upper Part of the city tonight to get some of his clothes and toiletries and while we are there we will be going to a game night with the Upper Branch church members, which should be fun, even though I am well aware that I will probably not understand a whole lot of what they are saying. I am excited though to meet some of church members and possibly see one of my MTC friends Elder Harrison again.

Overall, Russia has been pretty cool for these first few days. I've enjoyed seeing and being in a new country, and also have been enjoying the weather, which has been quite nice compared to the desert conditions of Las Vegas and to a certain degree Provo. I can't wait to meet some of the investigators and start teaching very simple in Russian. I'll let you know how that goes. Everybody have a great week and I'll let you know how my first full week in Russia goes!

From Russia with Love

Старейшина Зак Брэйжер

P.S- I also had my first run in with a Russian police officer yesterday, for some reason I looked really foreign so he demanded my passport before I got on a subway to get to the train station. Ironically though he didn't ask Elder Dannenberg, I guess German's look less foreign than Americans!

Last Pictures From The MTC.

Elder Patterson, Zach, Elder Hughes, Elder Dougherty, Elder Larsen

Russian standard works.  Hymn Book, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, Book of Mormon, Bible, and Preach My Gospel

Sister Sanford and Zach

Sister Sanford, Zach, Sister Denning

Zach and Elder Prestwich

Brother Porter (His teacher)

Zach and Sister Tenney

Back Row Left to Right.  Elder Stegeby, Elder Christensen, Elder Porter, Elder Yefoshkin, Elder Harris, Elder Mitchell, Elder Beam

Front Row. Elder Tantkus, Zach

Elder Bodily, Zach, Elder Lassen

Zach, Sister Chang, Elder Stegeby, Elder Porter, ?, Elder Harris

Zach and Elder Lythagoe

Elder Been, Zach, Elder Silver

Zach and Elder Hill

Elder Harris, Tantkus, Porter, and Zach

Zach and Elder Hills (District Leader of District B)

Elder Elwood, Zach, Elder Dougherty, Elder Glad

Zach and Elder Patterson (My old District Leader.)

Elder Porter, Sister Tenney, Zach, Sister Paletta