Dear Family,
Alright. It's been another week. Yes. I made the realization the other day that next week marks my 5 month mark of being out on a mission. That's so weird! I feel very young in the mission still, yet I'm in the swing of things here and I know how things run. It's a strange stage to be in on the mission. But, going with what Elder Bennett (I think it was..) said in Conference about when he was climbing a mountain, I decided to look back on the journey I've already traveled. I have definitely come a long ways. Further than I had thought.
I looked through some old Russian notes from my first days in the MTC yesterday. At times lately I've felt slightly incapable with my language capabilities, sometimes feeling like I have been stagnant in my learning. It was good to look back and laugh at how little I knew in the MTC. I realized that I have learned a ton of Russian- I just hadn't seen it in the progression of things. It's great to have the capability to look back on where I've been. Now I am reading Russian at a fairly consistent rate, which is awesome. Have you ever realized that when you read, you don't actually sound out each letter? As we read, we fill in our previous knowledge of the words we're reading. Usually people only read the first and last letter of a word and get a glimpse of the middle, from which you make the assumption of what the word actually is based on that information and context clues. That's all nice and everything, but when you're starting from scratch with a language, it goes very slowly as you painfully sound out each individual letter. Luckily I'm beyond that stage and I can read words like "свидетельство" at a glimpse. That's a good feeling.
Mom asked what I do on P-Days. Well, you're reading the bulk of my P-Day activities right now. Most P-Days revolve around our internet time, because hearing from home is the biggest thing on our mind usually. But besides that, let's see.. We window shop sometimes to see what fun stuff they have in downtown Lugansk. Each P-Day is based around some other activity that we want to do. Like one time we made pizza at the other elders' apartment (since we don't have an oven), sometimes we go to one of our apartments and just hang out and talk, playing guitar. That's most usual. Don't get too excited about the guitar, it's a terrible guitar that some missionary left here months ago. Still fun to play a guitar though! There isn't a whole lot else I can tell you about P-Days in general, since they're just chill time with other missionaries.. Today we're going to go make shaurmas, which are like Ukrainian burritos, full of vegetables, cheese and sausages. I love them. And they're actually Armenian, I think.. Ah, well. They're too good for me to care about their nationality.
The highlight of this week was a miracle that we had. We were doing studies in the evening when Antamanov suddenly felt like he should call the branch president. He called and found out that his son and his girlfriend were over there right then and wanted to hear a message. We had met with them just earlier that week, last Sunday, and had placed a KM (Book of Mormon.. in Russian) with the girlfriend, N. We came, expecting to just have a very basic lesson with them. We found out that N had read through 1 Nephi 17 and was enthralled with our message. R, branch president's son, has taken missionary discussions before and has been filling her in on some details. They were committed to baptism right then and there. They are so sincere in their desire to know more of the Gospel! We've met with them once since then. They're keeping all their reading commitments and actually coming up with spiritual insights of their own! Those of you who have taught anyone anything Gospel related know that that is very unusual. At least it is in my experience. So, they are progressing perfectly and should be baptized within a month or so. I'm so excited for them! They're great. And they told us about how they have a bunch of friends who are interested in our message! Referrals!! Missionary hey-day!
Not a whole lot else happened this week. I love you, family! For some reason, I've felt really good this week. Kind of buoyed. Thank you for your prayers and your thoughts. I'm doing my best out here, and hoping to have some great success soon! Thanks for all the news from back home, I love hearing it.
Anyways, til next week,
-Elder Brandon Porter
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