Last week in Lugansk?

Family!

Alright.  Yes.  Mhm.  Missionary work.  Yes.

It's been a pretty good week.  A bit strange, though.  For me, at least.  A few weeks ago, President Campero visited our branch, and realized that none of the members know what they're doing in regards to the leadership of the church.  Campero set out to fix that.  How can he fix it?  Through the missionaries, of course!  So he called my companion to be the branch secretary.  Now he has a bunch of branch leadership meetings to go to where he essentially is establishing a standard for the functioning of the Church out here in Lugansk.  He knows how to go about all that, since he's served in branch presidencies back home and he's Russian and all.  But it's not my calling, and I can't contribute a whole lot.  So I have had a lot of alone time in the freezing cold church building to read or play piano.  That's been a good chunk of my week.  Not that I'm complaining-  I do love having time to read the scriptures and everything.  And I've been re-reading Jesus the Christ, so that's all good.

Oh, I think it was Bailey that mentioned President Uchtdorf's talk a few weeks ago where he was called to be the Elder's Quorum Teacher in Texas.  Funny enough, we have a situation here that is very similar to that one.  We have a Canadian named Lance in our branch who speaks essentially no Russian.  And he was just called to be the Elder's Quorum Teacher.  It's very interesting having a teacher that is trying to speak in Russian to a room full of Ukrainians and missionaries.  We missionaries are the only ones that actually understand everything that goes on in those lessons, between Lance's broken Russian and the quorum members' comments.  It's very interesting.

Lance is actually kind of a mission mystery.  No one really knows why a Canadian self-proclaimed cowboy is out here in the boonies of Ukraine.  He doesn't even seem to know.  We have a lot of interesting exchanges with him.  I'm sorry, but no amount of writing will do the situation justice.  It's just interesting.

R and N are doing very well (that's the branch president's son).  They've been through essentially every lesson that they need to hear before baptism and they are still very accepting and open.  It's so refreshing teaching someone progressing so well!  Every other one of our investigators is stuck in a point where we can't really help them a whole lot to do what they need to do.  There's a point where the missionary lessons aren't enough to motivate further growth and the investigator has to take steps of his own.  People we are teaching are having a hard time with this, in many different ways.  We can only pray for them and continue meeting with them.

This Friday is Transfer Calls.  That's when the AP's (Assistants to the President) call everyone that will be transferred to a new area and tell them they need to pack up and get ready to go to Transfer Meeting.  We have been very interested in discussing possibilities of what will change.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be leaving Lugansk this transfer.  I'll know next week!  Oh, the anticipation.

Hmmm...  I can't think of a whole lot else that I can share right now.  My current district of missionaries is awesome.  We have all become pretty close friends, and we have very good times together.  I'm enjoying my mission, and consistently trying to make every minute count.  I'm satisfied thus far- and it's already been 5 months!  Since entering the MTC, at least.  That is so weird to think about!  Time flies when you're having fun.. or when you're working like crazy to bring about the kingdom of God on earth!  Oh, missionary life.

Thanks for telling me all the news from back home!  I really appreciate that more than I can say.  I love having a picture in my mind of the goings on back home.  It actually really helps me to focus on the work at hand, and not wonder about home life. 

I love you!  Love you, Dad!  Love you, Mom!  Love you, Bailey!  Love you, Aubrey!  Love you, Joseph!  And if anyone else is reading this, I probably love you too.  Just in a slightly different way.  Короче, I love you, family!

Til next week!

Elder Brandon Porter