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Arrives in NJ

Dear Family and Friends,

After leaving the NJ terminal at the airport we were warmly greeted by 3 APs and the mission president and his wife (which I really like everyone here) They were very nice and excited to see us. We were taken to downtown Newark to a pretty scary part of town. We were the only white people I around. We then were greeted by 19 experienced missionaries who became our companions. We got in a circle in the middle of downtown (right by the Ghostbusters building) and the President gave us one rule “Don’t leave your companion”. We then started singing Called to Serve and when we got to the part where it says” King of...all the older companions ran away as fast as they could and then we started contacting for 1/2 an hour. Super crazy. But it really did help got the nerves out. Things go really great here I am super happy and really ready to work hard.

Seriously dad, you need to send me some of this smoked meat! put it in a bag and I'll warm it up here. Thanks for the letter. Members are seriously SUPER awesome. We've had two dinner appointments. They LOVE to feed us, which is a little bit scary, but mostly (because I am getting fat) really awesome. We had 20 lessons in the past 5 days—so lots of lessons, yes.

The language is...coming. It's incredibly tiring to be translating all day, but that's okay, because at least I'm understanding lot's of it, almost the most of it. We'll see this week if it is most of it. Me and my comp made a goal to only speak Spanish except for p-days, so yeah, Spanish is everywhere and basically everyone speaks Spanish, and there are a few that know English and Spanish, but mostly Spanish. Brother Oler news is so sad! but, not altogether unexpected. I bet he was sad/happy about it, though. That's an awesome new calling for him. 

So it turns out that we have 1 1/2 hours to write emails, so we have tons of time! Our president is super cool about this stuff!

Love you all. I'll work hard. That's one of my goals, in fact. No regrets. 

Love,

Elder Brimley

Okay, madness.

Okay, madness. 

Thank you for all of the letters! I really doubt that I have time to answer all of them, so please forgive me!

Okay, I literally have no idea where to begin. So, let's start right at the beginning.

We flew in and were warmly greeted by president and sister jeppson who are ridiculously nice and the 3 awesome assistants. Then they took us to the middle of downtown Newark, which, for your information, is literally the craziest city I have ever seen in my life. We were then greeted by 19 "experienced missionaries" who then became our temporary companions. We got in a circle on the sidewalk and everyone started singing called to serve and in the middle of the song all of the sudden everyone ran away as fast as they could, forcing us all into contacting as many people as we could for 30 minutes. This is humbly called the "fear buster". Crazy people. CRAZY. 

anyway, we then went to the mission home where we had possibly the most amazing dinner of my entire life. Quizas it's because I've been eating cafeteria food for the past 2 months, but mostly because it was amazing. We then went to bed, woke up, had some devotionals, went to transfer conference, eventually met my new companion, and then eventually went to our area. 

Elder Jake Packer is my companion. He's super duper awesome. Seriously. He's the best companion. I assume he will be assistant within 2 or three transfers. But we will see. He's from Gilbert Arizona. We are exactly the same height, which was rather unexpected. 

I live in New Brunswick. It's a crazy town filled with hispanics from every single country. To go you an idea, to me it is now very surprising to see a white person who is not my companion. I don't think I'm exaggerating. OH. My address. 314 Woodnor Ct #314 New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901. You should send me stuff, filled with food! Please! Love you! http://njmm.org/ You can check out the mission blog there if you'd like. 

The city is fairly trashy. filled with noise, people, spanish, and smoking various things. 

Daily schedule: wake up at six thirty, run and excersize till seven, personal study for an hour, comp study for 2 hours, language study for an hour, lunch in there somewhere. Then go out and teach people and if we don't have people to teach, find them. but we always have people to teach.

I've committed three people to be baptized this week, and one of them has a date for this sunday! yeah! crazy stuff. 

OH. so we were in the park one day, about ready to go to a lesson, when this guy stopped us and asked us to give him a blessing. We asked if he wanted to go to his house, but he wanted to do it in his van. So...we went to his van with his family standing outside, and my comp annointed and he asked me to give the actual blessing. So in broken spanish I stumbled along his 5 names and tried to say each of the parts and then gave him a blessing, with motorcycles raging in the background and people at the park yelling. Crazy stuff. 

Then, that night we go to these people, a woman with a 6 month old baby and her mom, and we taught them a small pre lesson 1 lesson. In the middle of the lesson, however, the woman with the baby (who by the way, was pretty much coming out of her shirt already) took one out and the baby latched on! Yep. Right there in the middle of the lesson, was a woman completely revealed to us. Luckily, they were pretty open to the idea of the restoration. so.

okay. I don't know what else to say. Oh! Nikky's parents. Where do they live? actually probably not in our area. ha. I'll try and send some pictures! yeah, you can know what people look like!

Okay, love you guys! This place is crazy! But maravilloso. you guys are seriously the best. 

the church is true and the gospel is restored! yeah!

Love,

Elder Brimley

Scott left the MTC today

(Scott left the MTC today. This is his first note from New Jersey that we got tonight)

you should probably tell mom that I'm alive and well. I placed my first book of mormon today. I'll have to tell you guys the story later. Crazy stuff here in the field. Love you guys!

(Letter from the MTC Saturday)

father, I met a man here that knows you. he worked in the barbershop. his name is nuel jay cordon or something like that. he knew you growing up from mesa. He really seemed to like the Brimleys. so that was cool. Know him?

HHHHHEEEEEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

family! como estan ustedes!

this is my final email from the MTC. Holy cow. Things just got real.

anywho, first of all, the biggest thanks ever to all the aunts and uncles that sent me packages this week!! Namely, Bradshaws, Davidsons, and Groesbecks! you guys are the absolute best family ever! My district believes I have the coolest family ever. Which is true.

Okay, thank you mom, for writing me!

I´ll start the questions:

1. Yes, it has gone incredibly fast for me. Up till the last week. This week has been unholily slow. But a good slow. I'm excited to leave. but it's a nervous excited. That's why I'm singing a song called "nervous but excited".

2. My suitcases are underweight. probably due to the fact that we packed it the morning of leaving to the mtc, but I'm pretty sure I have everything. If I don't, it's not like I'm in some foreign waste land, where I can't buy anything. Like southern New Jersey.

3. I do need a backpack. I'm going to buy one when I get to NJ, though. Older missionaries left a ripped sidepack that I'm going to use as my carry-on though, so there's no problem there.

4. I don't think I'm going to need a bike...there's a teacher here that went to NJ and she said that there's few areas that don't have cars. So that's awesome. My goodness I'm excited. TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT.

5. I really don't see what was wrong with my old video.

6. I recieved no gift from Derek. I guess I can wait another 2 years. No biggy.

7. I hear nate likes to murder people out on the lacrosse field! boom baby. I wish I were there to see that! Also, to eat some smoked pork sounds just fine, too!

8. Dad, completely random interjection: my one-way flight to Newark from Salt Lake departs at 9:57, flying on Delta.

9. Tell me how Derek's talk goes! I want to here all the gritty details! Oh, speaking of...

10. DEREK'S HOME, and he may or may not have accidentally put some other people on speaker phone...also I GOT TO TALK TO YOU GUYS, which may or may not have made me super happy! holy cow! He looks pretty much the same except he was wearing my shoes, had a cute new shirt on, thank you mom, and is apparently doing all the things I enjoy (aka inception, portal, being with my family and friends...). Is it like having a Ukraine-hardened me back? Derek, is it like having a cedar hills-softened family back? My oh my, was it strange to see anyone from family, and derek was even crazier.

11. I'll probs call you guys from the airport sometime before 10:00 ish. so. if you guys want to...we'll talk. I got a phone card, so no need there.

12. funness can be a word, if you want it, mom.

13. iperfect spanish, madre!

14. que mas...I saw stephanie, and she said that she's doing great. She looks great too! It's too bad she didn't come in earlier...we could have been more of MTC buddies.

15. I feel like I'm rambling.

16. I had in field orientation yesterday, which is why I'm writing today. That was pretty fun. It was a ton of workshops the whole day, and 2 hour lunch and 2 hour dinner. So it did get pretty old. but that's okay, because I learned a lot and I'm just one step closer to leaving.

17. this is it!

18. Well, that was it, so I should probably go soon. If you dear elder me, I won't get it, so you'll have to email me, or send a physical letter to new jersey. speaking of, could one of you guys, post on facebook or something my new new jersey address, so if friends or people want to write me, or send me things, they can? thank you! you're the best family in the whole entire world!! srsly great. love all of you! See you in 22 fast sundays!

October 18, 2010

ahoy mateys

from the emails it sounds like everyone likes my emails, which is good. i was thinking i was being a little "too honest". but i guess I'll keep that up. i would never want to be that guy.

Nicole: i forgot to answer a couple questions from your last email. no, i don't think many people know my first name. and yeah! get Garrett to come to Ukraine, it is great here. but no, don't expect what you saw in that special. Kiev looked really really nice (though we didn't see an hour long thing on Ukraine, just the "news around the world" thing). on second thought, you probably shouldn't come. 5 years would be a long time here. and sorry, i can't remember anything about Metaphors: Russian has taken over the whole of my brain. and pictures take a long time to send on this slow computer, and i don't have time to waste. no, i don't really miss school, i still feel like I'm in it. i study 3 hours a day, 1 hour being Russian, then study whenever else i can Russian as well. sorry, no Halloween here. in fact, no youth activities. i don't know if we are allowed to go to branch activities, but so far we've had none.

that's one of the special rules of the mission. president has really cracked down on stupid stuff that used to happen here, and has banned a lot of things, like youth nights, sports nights. no card playing, no cultural events (unless approved by the Fry's). service activities also must be approved by the ap's. people complain a lot about the rules, but whatever. it sounded like something had to be done, and i fully support my leaders here.  oh, we are supposed to be home by 9, 9:30, but it gets pretty dark by 6, and getting worse.

so the week was pretty interesting. actually i consider it easily the best week so far of my mission. Monday i dropped off Mueller at the office, for Bulgaria, and met my zl's. (side note: Bulgaria sounded like the greatest thing ever. they ate at subway 3 times, pizza hut, Chinese food, lots of junk food, burger king, that's all they did is eat the whole time. one more year...) but my split with clarkstone and Richardson was awesome. the days went really fast. we taught a lot, they let (made?) me talk a lot. we got to be pretty good friends. like, we made some American brownies and gave them to people (everyone was amazed and asked for the recipe). it was just fun, i felt like a missionary, making people happy. we met with this babooshka member and in the middle of the lesson, Richardson says something like "as we all know, sooner or later, the earth will transmorph into a urim and thummim and become the celestial kingdom." it was funny, we had been talking before about stuff you don't say during lessons, stuff that is too deep. right after he said it he freaked out laughing, we all did, we were so surprised. the babooshka was like, da, da kaneshna. i think it flew over her head. just really fun guys, really good lessons, we have become pretty good friends, which is nice. it was an awesome week.

then Friday was crazy. we went and picked up Mueller, came home and packed, then transfer meeting. it was a big one. oh i saw elder Hansen, he is in gorlovka now. elder Mueller is now in loogansk. which is meaningless to both you and i.

my new companion is elder prince. we get along fine, i can get along with anyone. he is...I'd say an improvement. it's interesting, his last companion was elder Mendoza (Derek's MTC companion), it is nice hearing stories about him.

its cool, since i know the area and people a little bit, I'm kind of in charge. so we've done a lot of stuff "my way", we had a real planning session, made some real goals, used the area book for the first time, figured out the kind of companionship it is going to be. i think i have become a more controlling person since I've been here. there are just too many people unwilling to make a decision and do something. and it isn't that hard to get stuff done, it just takes doing it. so I'm going to get stuff done, work hard, tagdally.

he keeps telling me i have really good Russian (for my second transfer) and good study habits in general. though this is after he was companions with Mendoza. but I'm proud, i use my time wisely, no matter the companion. he is the type of person who will study if his comp is studying, and with Mendoza he didn't. so it should be good. and I'm proud of my Russian slash study skills.

some general stuff: the weather actually warmed up a bit this week. though from what everyone says, this is supposed to be "the coldest winter in 100 years." so that is exciting. luckily the heat in our apartment is turned on finally. mom asked when and where i shop. there is a store called objhora (=glutton) right next to my dome, we go there once a week or so, or when we want fresh bread. there is a store here called AMCTOP, which is awesome, almost as good as our walmart. we got some better milk, though it is still pretty bad. but i finally had some chocolate pillows (its a cereal, mmm delicious.)

my weekly language update- its still hard, obviously. understanding is easier than speaking, though when they speak fast it is still impossible. sometimes. i can read the ensign and have a good idea of what is going on. but when they speak, i can't remember words fast enough to produce a meaningful idea in my head. i study hard every day, try to understand really hard, and say what i can. I'm eventually going to dominate this language. but that day is not this day.

i love personal study still. you'd think I'd get bored. I'm half way through Jesus the Christ, and I'm in the acts in the new testament. the books are incredible. after 4 months (oh yeah, 1/6th done) i still learn every day.

I've made friends! lena is really awesome. have i talked about her? she is kind of a babooshka, technically, but she looks... not like a babooshka. she is serving a mission soon, and is very fun to talk to (or try to talk to). i forgot to mention i gave my first blessing to her a few weeks ago. well i read the russian on the paper, to give the first part of the blessing. it was a cool experience. my other friend is jhenya, though she is younger so talks super fast. it is good to have friends, i can't wait until i can communicate with them!

mcdonalds is weird, their whole menu is secretly in english, just with russian (well ukrainian) lettering. so ordering things, i usually just say stuff in english, because i feel retarded using some weird accent, but then they don't understand. its pretty funny. and of course, delicious.

sad again to hear about grandma brimley, i have definitely kept her in my prayers this week. i don't know if she reads these, so i'll send an email to her this week. and i was sad to hear about sister wicks! that was shocking, i had no idea.

oh by the way mom, don't worry, the coffee and tea are mojhna. we drink them all the time here, i'm actually a really big fan. there is this one mint tea that is mmmm soo good. and the coffee has grown on me.

about the christmas package... a lot of the things i really would like are unsendable, like lettuce. one thing i thought of was more pictures of the fam. maybe baby pictures of everyone? i think that would be fun to show people. especially the sumo anna picture! prince has a cd player and some cd's, so we are good on that front. i think some of those christmas cookies, the ones you get out of a like cylinder thing, they are really good, you know the ones. that could be cool. i like the idea of getting stuff to give the kids here, but i can't think of anything. mueller had some jelly bellies that kids loved, but i don't want jelly bellies. so yeah, i don't know what i want for christmas as usual. the stuff i wrote last time i still would like. i dunno.

ok i'm done, thanks for everything, thanks for that last package, the emails and stuff, church is true, ukraine is awesome, i've got to write my email to my president, so goodbye!

c yprojhneniem? sic? elder brimley

1st

First posting. Enjoy.