Welp... After almost two full days of travel, I'm finally in Mother Russia!!! Such an adventure! I actually didn't have have very many opportunities to proselyte on the journey because I sat by my travel group literally on every single flight. That usually doesn't happen... like ever... but for some reason it did! Also, we're not allowed to proselyte in airports, so that was like half of our travel time. Anyways, we began our journey bright and early at 3:30 in the morning. We got on a big chartered bus and rode over to the Front-Runner station. On our way to the airport on the Front-Runner, we had an amazing opportunity to sit by a man who works in the media department for the Liahona magazines. He shared so many inspiring stories with us and it was a great way to start off our journey with a spiritual experience. His last name is Migy or something, so you might be able to see his name in the back of the magazine. Anyways, we had quite a few hours to kill when we got to the airport after we checked all of our bags and stuff, so my travel group and I went and got some Cafe Rio for breakfast at like 6:30 in the morning. So good! We had to say goodbye to our MTC District shortly after that and it was a lot more sad than I thought it would be. Such a bitter-sweet moment. Three of them are headed to Moldova and the other is going to Rostov. They are going to do great things over there!
The first plane ride was so fun! I sat by Elder Peterson who is also serving in Samara and he had never been on a plane before. Let's just say it was highly entertaining to watch how he reacted to everything! I'm just glad he didn't throw up. We sat by a wonderful lady whose name has escaped me right now. She was so nice! We got to talk to her a little bit about what a mission is and how the leaders of our church issue our callings. It was a strange experience teaching in English. Still great nonetheless. We didn't commit her to baptism or anything, but it was a really cool learning experience. I can now say that I have seen the Statue of Liberty... barely... but I have seen it! I saw it very far off in the distance when we landed at JFK in New York. Our flight was a little bit late leaving SLC and we only had an hour layover in NYC, so we literally had to charge through the airport. I have never run so fast in my entire life. That's actually a lie... but you get my point. When we got to the gate, everyone in our group decided that they needed to use the bathroom... terrible idea. The people at the gate started yelling at us and said that plane was leaving. We basically had to scramble for our lives. Thankfully, we made it on time. This plane was SOOOO nice. There were two huge seats per section and there were little TVs on the backs of the seats in front of us. We couldn't watch the movies or anything, but we could play the little crossword puzzles and there was a Russian language game on there that was kind of fun. There wasn't anyone sitting in the section next to me, so I couldn't really attempt to talk to them in Russian. My seating assignment was next to Elder Peterson again, so we did a lot of crossword puzzles and stared at the map on our screens for a majority of the trip. This flight was 9 hours so it consisted of a lot of sleeping.
We were all exhausted when we got to Moscow because it was kind of hard to sleep for more than an hour at a time on the flight. While we were in the airport we had our passports checked in this really beautiful room and then we had to sign a bunch of documents. We headed to the Embassy after that. The drivers in Russia are literally all crazy. I cannot express to you how many times I thought I was going to die just on our 45 minute drive from the airport to the Embassy. People park on sidewalks when they want, people cut you off when they want, people DRIVE on the sidewalk when they want, and I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a speed limit. There are so many potholes in Russian roads that it feels like we are doing an off-road excursion all the time. Anyways, the Embassy was super boring because we were all falling asleep the whole time. It took a couple of hours because all of the employees were on a lunch break. We turned in our passports, payed for another passport, and sat around for an unnecessary long time. So great. We said goodbye to the rest of our travel buddies and Sister McKell, Elder Peterson, and I hung out in the airport for like 9 hours. Elder Peterson wasn't feeling well so he was basically just a lump that we dragged around everywhere. There were a couple of times that we got to talk to Russian people, but they couldn't understand anything that we said, so that was swell. After a lot of walking around, sleeping, and being bored, we finally got to go on our last flight. Thankfully this flight was only about 2 hours and the plane wasn't even bad. I, again, was by Elder Peterson and we were sitting by a man named Roman... he didn't want to talk very much. We basically just slept the whole way to Samara.
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It was about 2:30 in the morning when we got from the airport to the apartment that we were staying at, Sister McKell and I spent the night with two sisters who were serving close to the Mission Office, They were so great! They were up and waiting for us when we got there. Cectpa McKell wanted to sleep on the floor, so I got to sleep on the bed. Their apartment has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitched, and a fairly large entryway. The only thing that was weird about it was the bathroom. The bathtub faucet was directed into the sink for some reason and the shower curtain went straight across the bathroom... not even covering the back end of the tub. Strange. The next morning the two sisters dropped us off at the Mission President's apartment and we got to eat breakfast with them. Their apartment was seriously so nice! It looked very American and had lots of decorations. We ate pancakes, eggs, bacon, and juice with the Mission President, his wife, Elder Peterson, Cectpa McKell, and the PAs. Russian juice is the best thing on the planet. It's legitimate, straight-up juice. Not filtered... not artificially flavored, not all diluted. Just juice. So good. Everything that we had was delicious! After that, we had an orientation where we talked about all of the legal stuff and what we should and shouldn't do in Russia. President Schwab briefly interviewed all of us and then we got to meet our new companions! My companion is so amazing! Her name is Cectpa Johnson and we have so much in common. She is really short, she went to Utah State, and we both like a lot of the same things. After the initial hello, we got to eat some KFC. It doesn't taste a whole lot like the American kind, but it's still good! We got our area assignments and said our goodbyes one last time. Elder Peterson and Sister McKell are serving in different areas in Saratov. Sister Johnson and I are serving in an area in Samara called Aurora (Аврора).
Our apartment is seriously so nice! All of the sisters who come back from Visa trips, are here for Zone meetings, leadership conferences, or exchanges stay in our apartment which is why it is so big. I have been told that we have one of the nicest apartments in our mission. Our bedroom is bigger than it looks in the picture. The big curtain is just covering the back half of the room because that's where we store our suitcases and stuff.
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I've had the opportunity to experience many different types of Russian transportation. The Metro is my favorite! The picture of the blue tile wall with the columns is what the Metro station looks like. It's so cool! The Russian buses are pretty normal, but they have these van things that are literally death traps. Everyone crams into this little van and we hold on for dear life as the driver whips through traffic as if no one else is in the vehicle. Scary! Most of our transportation is walking though, so we don't get to experience that too often.
We teach at least one lesson every day with our investigators. The first night I was there I got to help teach a lesson to an investigator named Deema. He speaks English and usually takes the lessons in English, but since I was there they decided it would be best to do it in Russian. Great. We taught him about Joseph Smith since he's been having some doubts on whether or not he was actually a prophet. The lesson went well, I thought. It's hard for me to understand everything that people are saying because they talk so fast and he uses words that I'm not familiar with. Anyways, Deema is a great guy. He is very nerdy and intelligent which hasn't helped him at all in his conversion process. He turns to his intelligence and not Heavenly Father when he has doubts, which creates even more doubt. Not good. We're working on it though... he's getting close.
A majority of our day consists of contacting. I'm not so good at contacting yet because I have no idea what people are saying. We mostly just walk around a lot and avoid the drunk people. We did have a cool experience when we were contacting the other day though! We met a wonderful woman named Natalia and she was a miracle. Natalia was standing outside of a shop with one of her friends and it was obvious that her friend wasn't interested in the least. Natalia put up a cold wall at first, buit that broke down really fast. Sister Johnson and I taught this lady on the sidewalk for literally an hour. Natalia's friend got tired of standing there, but Natalia just waved her off instead of following, which was definitely a miracle. The light that I saw in her eyes was indescribable. I felt the spirit so strong even though I could barely understand what was going on. Her personality and her likeness took such a profound switch when we started talking to her. There's no doubt in my mind that the Lord had prepared her for this moment. She agreed to come to a baptism that was being held the following day after we basically taught her the entire first lesson. I had lots of other cool experiences too, but I've already made Sister Johnson sit here for like 2 hours, so I should probably go soon!
I haven't eaten any super crazy Russian food yet. I did get some McDonalds the other day and Sister Johnson bought me a canoli which was really good! Nothing too exotic though! I will try to catch you up on all of the cultural stuff later. Russia is an amazing place and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to serve the people here! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Do Svidanya!
Love,
Cectpa Megan Wagstaff
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