"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