Family!
Okay, so here goes the marathon typing.. phew.. K ready!
First off, something cool; I got my first baptismal commitment the other day! His name is M, and his date is for Aug 27. We are very excited here that we have someone on track for baptism. And I was the one to extend the commitment in Russian, so I get to count it as my own. Yay! We have another investigator, J, who speaks pretty good English and he is ALMOST there on the baptism. He has taken all the discussions and believes it's all true, he just feels that "It's not quite time yet". Don't know why, but hopefully that time is soon.
The best way I can describe the Russian language right now is.. slippery. It's like my Russian retention is about a shot glass and they just pour water into it from the hose. I get the gist of what's being said usually. But sometimes I just get a massive headache from trying to think too much in Russian. Just last night we were at an FHE kind of thing with the Branch President, some members and Igor (our investigator). We talked about blessings that come from this gospel. I understood most of it, but then at the end Igor asked us a completely off-topic question and everyone started going off random tangents that I couldn't follow. All that I caught about the question was the words for "candy" and "communist". Needless to say, I was very confused. At the end of the lesson, the Branch President's wife came up to me and said "Всё будет.. okay" Basically meaning, everything's going to be okay. I guess I looked as hopelessly lost as I felt. Awesome.
There is a lot going on here. I understand what people mean when they say that every day of their mission was an adventure. It's all so different, even compared to the previous days. We don't do a whole lot of tracting here, though we do more than many missionaries. We're in a city center and we can only proselyte in so many different areas. Mostly we do calls to people who we already have contact numbers. That works pretty good, surprisingly. I wouldn't think that I would be too keen on setting up an appointment with random men on the phone, but I guess the Spirit can work across telephone lines too.
Also, Lugansk is apparently a big center for education. There are a lot of people here that are from other countries, here for medical school. Most of them are Africans. Africans are so nice! And it's always a plus that they speak English. At first it surprises them that men in white shirts are speaking English to them, and then they're usually pretty receptive to the message. It's pretty cool.
We have one guy who is from Nigeria. He speaks great Russian and English, as well as Arabic and any other language he may know. He is very intelligent, and can talk about nearly everything. Sadly, he's not too open to the message and mostly wants to discuss problems with the Bible (he's Muslim) and why it can't possibly be translated totally correctly. He's an awesome guy, though.
Almost everyone here speaks a little bit of English.. but usually it's about as much as people in America speak Spanish. People will use basic words with me like "okay" and "where do you live?" and then they'll look all pleased with themselves, but not understand my response. It leads to some interesting logos around the city. Like one in particular: There's this really popular teen shirt that just says "Say Me Yes". It makes no sense, unless you realize that it was translated directly from Russian. They mostly just think that English looks pretty cool.
A lot of people want to talk to us since we speak good English. We actually had someone call us the other day to ask if we still have an English club. That was discontinued a few months ago, but it might be reintroduced because of all the excitement it generates from people.
Since it's a branch here and not a stake, the missionaries are involved in pretty much everything church related. That's weird to me, since back home we hardly ever see the missionaries doing anything. They were always eating with members and contacting people. But here, we are in charge of Family night, as well as Sports night and any other youth function. It's pretty cool. It's a big deal for these people to have good missionaries around.
So, school is starting soon, right? That's cool! I don't remember if it's already started or not, but I'm excited for you guys. Is Bailey excited for Skyview? She should be. Also, she starts seminary this year, right? That's so awesome! My missionary advice: take the Scripture Mastery seriously. It has helped me so much to have memorized a bunch of scriptures. It helps me to know what to say in response to questions, and it also helps me understand the verses in Russian faster since I know the meaning. Not to say that I still can quote verbatim each of the verses. But they are all familiar, which is awesome. Also, I would suggest reading the chapter that the Scripture Masteries come from to better understand the context. Anyways, that's my obligatory missionary advice. Take it or leave it.
Oh, and how is Taylor doing in the MTC? He's got an experience ahead of him. Hehe.
So I'm doing well. Still adjusting, but I will be doing that my entire mission. I love you all! I love seeing what you've been up to, thanks for the pictures. And I bet Aubrey was amazing as a bird girl. She looked very convincing in the pictures! And Joseph.. I love that kid. Just tell him that.
Anyways, til next week!
Love,
Elder Brandon Porter
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