"Not a lot has happened in the last . . . hour since I talked to you."

We were lucky to have a Skype call with Brandon on the evening of Christmas (which was Monday in Ukraine, P-day for the Ukrainian missionaries).  We took video of the conversation so we could refer to it later!  Right after the call Brandon and his companion headed to the internet cafe, where he sent this short message.

Thank you, Mom and Family!!

I had a great Christmas.  It was amazing to talk to you all!  That totally made my day!  You all look great, by the way.  Don't change!  Well, only change a little bit, okay?

Not a lot has happened in the last.. hour since I talked to you.  Just checking up and saying I'm doing great over here!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  Remember that I love you.  Doesn't matter what language I'm speaking or where on the planet.  The Church is true, and I've got an amazing family.  Two consistent facts!

Anyways, there's not a whole lot of content here, but you video taped that video conversation, so I guess it's all good.  I love you all!  Have a safe trip home and a happy rest of your holiday season! 

Love,

Elder Brandon Porter

"Merry Christmas to me!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I GOT MY CHRISTMAS PACKAGES!!!  I have the best family ever!!  I actually got the second one first with the no-bake cookies supplies in it.  That was perfect, just what I needed!  I made them up for my district immediately, which was the night before transfers so it was amazing.  Then with transfers came my other package- unopened!!  (by the way, I loved all the stickers all over the box :P)  Every bit of it was exactly what I needed/wanted.  I have had the hardest time sharing the Milky Ways, they're so good!  And the C.S. Lewis book of selected works is amazing!  But by far my favorite part was the "С Рождеством Христом" banner.  I was beyond surprised to see all those faces holding Russian letters!  That was my absolute favorite!  Seeing family, extended family, Lauren, and everyone.  What surprised me the most was definitely seeing Wistrand!  Great job, Mom!  Those packages turned an okay holiday season into a fantastically awesome one!  Oh, and tell Bailey that I wear the Santa hat whenever possible.

So, I sent you the information on the Skype call.  Hope everything works out well!  By the way, we're supposed to keep the calls around 40 minutes.  I don't want to surprise you with that on the day of.

Well, most of what I absolutely had to tell you was about the packages.  I was very very excited to have those!  In other news this week, we spent most of our weekend at a college for disabled people.  The Humanitarian department of the Church over the Europe East area has been setting up this thing for months where they provide standardized wheelchairs for those who couldn't otherwise afford them, and this was the culmination of it with the handing out of the wheelchairs to a bunch of people.  We as missionaries were just asked to be there so that the people could associate the Church with the donation.  But we met some awesome people there, volunteers and wheelchair recipients alike.  And at the end of it we got to see a play put on by the school!  Good stuff.

Also, with the Branch Christmas Party coming up on Saturday, Solin and I have been preparing a musical number, that has eaten up just a little bit of time.  We're doing "Silent Night" in multiple languages, including German, Spanish, English, Ukrainian and Russian.  I'm soloing on German and Ukrainian, so we'll see how that goes!  The best part about it is that I got to borrow a guitar to practice on!  It feels so amazing to have a guitar in my hands again, you have no idea.  And music makes everything better, just in general, so it's pretty awesome. 

We have a couple exciting things going on, actually.  The Christmas Party is one, and then there's the ongoing Scripture Study group that we set up.  We've gotten some great gospel discussion going on in there, even without us having to "preach" the messages.  We just discuss scripture passages and the people there offer up their own insights, which almost always ties into a gospel truth!  I'm really glad that this group is having some success.  And with Elder Nielson gone, I am now the "oldest" American missionary in the district, so I am in charge of leading the discussions!  The people come partly for English practice with native speakers, so I provide that service.  The interesting thing is that most of what is said is actually spoken in Russian.  That means that often I am the only one speaking English, responding to a lot of Russian.  Funny enough, the Russian isn't actually hard to follow any more.  I guess that means that I'm improving, huh?  Weird.

Oh, I mentioned that I'm the "oldest" American missionary here.  The guy that got transferred in is Elder Groothausen, who just got finished being trained.  He's awesome, but has a bit less time in country than me, so he's still getting a grasp on the language more than I am.  It's amazing- being around someone who has less experience, suddenly my comprehension and everything skyrockets!  Or maybe it was better than I thought before and I just hadn't noticed it..  Nah, that isn't it.  Whatever the case, I can follow very nearly any conversation in Russian now.  It doesn't sound like mud anymore!  Yes!  I mean, before I could understand well enough to get by, but it was very taxing on my brain to focus on the language.  Much easier now.  Woot!  Merry Christmas to me!

Well, I hope that you all are having a fantastic Christmas in Utah!  I'm definitely missing you guys this time of year, but it makes it so much better to know that you're out having fun!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Brandon Porter

Staying in Lugansk

Family,

Hey, so first off, I am staying in Lugansk this transfer.  That means that I will have stayed here for at least 6 months when I leave.  It's a bit weird, but I like it here and it is apparently where the Lord will have me, so I'll keep on doing as usual.

We have two actual progressing investigators, G and A (I think I told you a bit about them already).  We're hoping to get G to commit to a baptismal date this coming week!  And A may take more time, but I think that her heart is in the right place, so I'm not worried about her.  Our area here is strange in that we have at least three investigators that have heard everything and know that it's true, but won't get baptized for one reason or another.  We recently fasted with one, N, that her parents will be less obstinate and that she can have their approval to be baptized.  Immediately after that they completely exploded at her over the whole church thing.  We're still hoping that her problem there can be solved soon.  Things are always hardest just before you're about to do something really good, like get baptized.  I've seen that a lot already here, and I know that's a fact.

Not a whole lot has happened this week.  We celebrated my district leader's birthday, Elder Nielson, which was pretty cool.  I love doing things for other people to make their day a little brighter.  It was a fun time.  But he's leaving this transfer, which is a little sad.  He has become a good friend to me here (this will probably be a running theme about every time transfers come around, so watch out!).  But it's nice to have people that you can relate to out here in the field.  Especially someone American.  Sometimes it's needed.

Sorry that this letter is pretty short, but I don't have a whole lot of time.  We're a little overscheduled today.  Remember that I love you all and, um... read your scriptures!  I have to fit in something spiritual and missionary-like, right?  Right.

Love you and talk to you soon!

Elder Brandon Porter

"The Gospel is just true."

 

 

 

Hey!

Alright.  It has been a week.  Awesome.  What new profound missionary insights do I have for you this week... Ah, I don't know.  The Gospel is just true. 

So, this week I learned something significant in the Russian language.  There are two words, ясно (yah-snah) and  я знаю (ya znay-yoo).  They mean "clear/understandable" and "I know", respectively.  But when spoken by a Russian, they sound almost exactly the same.  So, when I talk, a lot of times Russians (including my current and previous companion) would repeat "ясно" the whole time I was speaking.  I always thought that was really rude to be saying "I know!  I know!  I know!" when I'm explaining something.  But Russians aren't that rude, thankfully.

A lot of Russian just naturally sounds really rude to Americans.  Like, instead of saying to your bus driver "Here, sir, here's the money for my fare" they say "MAN!  Take the money!!"  That's an exaggeration, but still, they use the command form a lot.  Took some getting used to.  Like when you're knocking on doors, they don't say something like "Of course I'd be interested in your lessons!  Baptize me!"  More often the response is "Stupid Jehovah's Witnesses, I'm calling the police!"  I don't really like Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) very much, by the way.  They make my life just that much harder.  Ah well.

In recent news, we have two new investigators, a mother and daughter named G and A.  They are great.  G has been visiting the JWs for two years, but has refused to get baptized there.  She says that lots of them are good people, but their teachings are generally kind of stupid.  Yes!  Score for the Gospel!  They are very appreciative of the message, and they actively participate in discussion over the gospel principles.  We've only had two lessons with them, but I think that they will come a long ways.  Plus they fed us!  They are awesome.

Oh, and I met my first legitimately crazy guy here. This guy named S who lives about 2 hours away has been calling us a billion times, wanting to meet with us, so we finally did this week.  I wasn't quite sure what to think of it.  He had a definite appreciation for the scriptures, and had an impressive library of Church literature.  But he would argue with himself over random points of the discussion, and he just very plainly wasn't all there.  Good for him focusing on the gospel, though!  We left him with some words of encouragement, took pictures with him and left.  It's hard to know what to do with people like that.  Especially since he lives way away from us.  Oh, and on the way there some old babushka tried to pawn off her granddaughter to Elder Solin.  She got particularly interested when she realized that this Russian young man was hanging around an American (that's me, btw).  We almost had a blind date set up for Solin.  Maybe next time.

Hey, have I told you about our English Scripture Study group?  We aren't currently allowed to have English Class in our mission, but we worked out a deal with President Campero to start this group where we study the scriptures in English with people.  It has raised a lot of interest, and I think that it will be successful as a finding tool.  An awesome couple comes every week, primarily for the English practice, but they always leave with some kind of church literature because they get interested in the topics we discuss.  Success!  It's kind of funny, doing this English thing with a bunch of people, yet only me and Elder Nielson are native speakers, but it works out well enough.  Our Russian companions speak English well enough.

Well, what else can I tell you?  Ukraine is still here.  Still half a world away from Washington.  Whenever Solin references my home, he points directly down to the ground.  I obviously assume he's referencing somewhere else a lot of the time, which is pretty cool, I guess.  Warmer weather would be nice.  Here it's been pretty warm recently, just about at freezing or just above!  Good stuff.

Well, I love you!  Enjoy your holiday season, and don't let that elf see you doing anything bad.  Give each other a hug for me, and bye til next week!

Love,

Elder Brandon Porter