Derek opens his mission call

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Excited for Christmas

priviet y'all

sounded like the funeral was really good, i wish i could have been there. it sounded really nice. it must be nice to have it all finished.

happy six month mark on a mission to me, by the way. well a few days ago. how weird is that, i don't even believe it. i remember thinking when i went into the mtc that the next time i would talk to my family, i would be able to speak Russian. i mean, a half a year complete immersion in any language is enough right? ha, ha, ha. no. i guess there is a good reason my mission goes for another three of those. maybe by may when i talk to you next? man. but yeah! we get to talk on Christmas! call at 12:30 your time, 9:30 my time. no earlier, please, as my companion will be on the phone right then. don't forget!

so it wasn't the greatest work week, unfortunately. Calvert got sick on Monday night, so we didn't leave the apartment until Thursday, and even then he didn't feel good enough to party too hard. though it gave me a lot of time for studying- i finished my first grammar book, and know, in principle at least, all the useful words therein. steep, in general! that is what Russians say, instead of cool. steep, in general. i read my first Chekhov short story! in Russian. another milestone... so now i am in a review stage, to make sure i actually know my flashcards, and can call them to memory quickly. that is the challenge. i also memorized a short Pushkin poem. i promise i studied hard.

other than that, we had a funny night Thursday. it is less active night, and we were meeting a crazy red head named lilia at the branch building. she got there first, and was waiting outside (i have the keys) when some guy came up and talked to her. then we got there. he kind of looked like Robert downey jr. well only kind of. he said he had some questions, so we let him in, didn't want to waste an opportunity, even if the guy seemed a little eccentric. well we sit down and start talking, and he says he has a question. here is his question: 'why did god create man?' but later, my companion said that what he was really asking was 'why did god WANT to create man?' but in Russian, apparently you don't have to say that. anyways, that doesn't matter, because the guy was fairly drunk, and a moron. so he rambles on, blah blah blah, i try to answer him, talk to him, but i soon realize, the guy is a moron. i got tired of it, and my comp wasn't saying anything (He said, 'I lost the ability to speak Russian because the spirit wasn't present'), so i stepped in. I was a little shocked that i could say this in Russian: 'listen. we have answered your question. but you are drunk and don't understand. maybe if you are sober, we will talk later. exit the building.' and so he did. sometimes you just have to take control. drunks... gotta love 'em. can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

this lady randomly walked into church yesterday, said she had a Mormon friend and she would be coming every week. said she didn't really want to meet with us, but that she really liked our church meeting. you should have seen the members, they were all over her (and she had a little baby boy). she made a lot of new friends and felt really welcome, it seemed. we think we are going to try to get the bogmets to invite her over for a family night with us, maybe she would be more willing. posmotrime. we shall see.

nothing too special other than that the last few days. well we went over to that lady who broke her arm, and gave her a blessing. babooshki getting hurt stinks. they just aren't healthy. and now I'm feeling kind of sick, don't really feel like eating. nothing bad, just some pinoose, you know? it will be gone soon, i hope.

the weather here has really stunk. it snowed a lot, but then rained. so there is a lot of really wet, slick snow, lots of huge puddles of water, and black ice. to me the weather is not pleasing. also, it seems the colder it gets, the drunker everybody gets. there were a few people this week we saw that were soo drunk. like that I'm pretty sure passed out in the snow and froze to death in the middle of the night.

speaking of dead bodies, whenever anyone dies, they all just kind of solemnly crowd around the body. I've seen a couple of them right outside our building, it is always a little creepy. i like our funerals better.

hey, how many generations do we go back in the church? like who was baptized first and stuff? I've had several people ask me that, I've been meaning to ask.

yes, i love the packages! yeah, I'm sharing. made the cookies yesterday and brought them to a couple inactives and then to lena. lena said: you can't possibly understand how much i love you. she really likes cookies.

and I'm not too worried about our neighbors. you should see our doors locking system. there are like ten bolt locks on it, plus it is like pure titanium or something like that.

good to hear that you are doing cool stuff with the Young Single Adults (we took them to a Jazz game), that is fun. i want to work with youth when i get back. there is just so darned much of it in Utah. oh man, camp outs sound like so much fun. probably because what I remember is much cleaner/ classier than all of Ukraine.

I AM SO EXCITED TO TALK TO YOU. or, in Russian, ya ochen...oh you can't say that in Russian. "phone calls to me are very pleasing." should have a good week, lots of fun mission stuff.

I'm rambling again. я знаю церковь- истинна! oh man typing is hard. well thanks for everything! i gotta go. I'll talk to some of you on Saturday YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
HH

love, elder brimley.

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