"It's already shaping up to be a great transfer"

Family,

You will never guess where I was just assigned to.  Go ahead, guess ...  Nope!  I'm assigned to the Mission Office.  Did you know that was even possible as a missionary?  I sure didn't.  Weird.  It means that I now have a desk and am in charge of a bunch of random odds and ends in the Office so that President doesn't go insane and so that Salt Lake doesn't tear my head off for filing bad records or whatever.  I never ever expected that I'd be sent here.  So weird!

But, that being said, it's already shaping up to be a great transfer.  We only have to be in the office for three days in the week, T-Th, and beyond that we are in charge of a small area concentrated right in the center of Donetsk.  It's great!  We already have a few progressing investigators, which is hard to keep up as an office Elder, but we have it!  Elder Smith says that it's a two front battle, being assigned to the Office and an area. Because President wants us to do good missionary work in our area. . . but he also wants to throw random projects at us that eat into our time.  We call this his "Tetris mode".  It's where he throws half baked, oddly shaped projects out and expects them to be done, and we are left to do the impossible.  I am so up for this!  It's already pretty fun.

My companion is amazing.  Elder J. Smith and I hit it off right away.  We have similar attitudes, as well as taste in movies (which is very important when you're street contacting in cold weather and no one is around. Gives us something to talk about and keeps us sane.)  So that's going great.  Not to mention that my new district includes some of my best friends in the mission already- Antamanov (my trainer) and Arrington!  It's nice to come and already know some people. 

The branch is great.  They actually have a building!!  I was blown away by that.  Which made me realize that I will probably go into cardiac arrest when I get home and things are so.... not Ukrainian.  That'll be so weird.  Like having showers that you don't hold up and things like that.  The little things are amazing.  But I love it here, so it's all good.

Exciting news here in the mission!  A new translation has been made for the Book of Mormon in Russian!  The old one that we've been handing out is fantastic and still the word of God, but there are words and phrases that are slightly less understandable to Russian speakers.  But it's finally out, and missionaries are going to be issued triple combinations this month!  Woot!

By the way, so I hadn't been using the Yak Trax things all winter (attachment for shoes which help you walk on the ice without falling).  I don't fall easily and I have a good sense of balance.  Elder Groothuysen in Lugansk falls a lot, so I gave them to him.  The day after I handed those off was the iciest (is that how you spell it?) I've ever seen in my life.  Everything looked like a sea of glass.  And reading Revelations, I got really scared for a bit as to whether the Celestial Kingdom will be like that.  Come to really think of it, a sea of glass doesn't sound all that fun.  I sure hope God has a different idea for that than I do.

Anyways, I will now be in the office for at least 3 months.  That's the long and short of it.  I'm excited for a change in pace!  It'll be great.  I get to work really closely with President Campero and the APs, so that's cool.  Til next week, you know where I am!

Love,

Elder Brandon Porter