Hey!
So, yeah, nothing big happened this week. Just a BAPTISM is all. Y'know. The usual.
But really, it's so awesome! You were talking about your 11/11/11 party? Well I had a BAPTISM on that day. How's that for special? And guess what time the baptism started? That's right, 11 AM. So there you go.
Yeah, my first baptism here in Ukraine! It went well. We missionaries were pretty much in charge of every aspect of it, including renting a pool and spa place to do the ordinance. I included pictures of how it all looked. The baptism was done in that little pool thing. I could talk about this baptism from a lot of different angles and I could go on for a long time about it, but the long and the short of it was that it was awesome. R, the one being baptized, was absolutely beaming throughout the whole time. There were lots of little issues with the program, like the fact that the font wasn't full enough when we needed it to be, or that a certain member kept trying to steal the floor and talk about random stuff as if she was the branch president, or even that one of the people that we asked to speak went off on a tangent about how the Nephites were so violent and doing horrible things at the end of the Book of Mormon (and there were non-members there, too. . . Oh well). But absolutely nothing could dampen R's smile. He genuinely felt the Spirit of the occasion, and I could see it in his eyes.
On a sadder note, N came to the baptism too. To recap, N was the one we met with along with R. She was supposed to get baptized on the same day as him. But we lost contact with her and couldn't get a hold of her for the last two weeks, so she wasn't able to be interviewed for the baptism. The interview is really all that she needs in order to be baptized, actually. It was really sad. She came in crying, and came to me, pleading my forgiveness for not being able to meet with us the last weeks. She had been in the hospital.. She was absolutely devastated. We need to get her baptized. But since I was the only one that knew her there, it was up to me to comfort her through the whole service. In Russian. I had a weird out of body kind of experience there where I realized that I am no longer a greenie here. I can actually communicate what I need when I need it. I was so grateful in that moment that I was able to speak Russian for N's sake. Good stuff.
The rest of the week has been fine. I've taken to reading everything that I can in Russian recently. My thought is that if I can read through the Book of Mormon and various other books and understand them well, then I'll be able to expand my vocabulary and understand people more fully here. I'm very excited with that progress. You have no idea how annoying it is to want to share something with someone, or desperately want to understand someone else, and just not have the words be there. It's especially sad when the topics are religious that you're trying to communicate. But, I've improved a whole lot, and I continue to improve!
So, that's most everything I wanted to share specifically this week. My companion, Elder Solin.. I can't remember, did I mention him last week? Well, in case I didn't, he is a Russian from St. Petersburg. He's learned all of his English while on the mission, and he's been out for a year and a half. He speaks very good English, but he doesn't believe it. We have many differing views on how things should be run, and he's slightly strogie (strict) with certain things that I feel no need to be strict about, but he's a cool guy. You can see him in the baptismal picture that I sent to you. Yeah, I can't think of much else to add to that at the moment. We're working well.
I guess that's all for this week. Tune in next week for more daring adventures in the wild Ukraine. It's a good mission. I like it. I'm learning tons- and I'm not just talking about Russian. About life skills, interpersonal relationships, personal development, religious knowledge, etc. It's crazy how much there is to learn in life. Wow. Taking it one day at a time is the only way to do it.
Love you! Talk to you next week,
Elder Brandon Porter
No comments:
Post a Comment