Ask for my Autograph

Zdrastvuitye!

Many adventures ensued this week! I can now say that I've survived my first cycle in Russia! Sister Johnson and I will still be together in Aurora for this next cycle, so that will be a huge blessing. Not very many people actually got transferred, but a few people headed back to good ole' America to continue their civilian lives. Sad days. On to the fun stuff!

The second exchange that I've been on thus far was in Kazan. Oh Kazan... my new favorite place on the planet. Not the best traveling experience, but it was worth it to get to that beautiful city. Lemme talk about the bus ride first. Sister Johnson and I woke up bright and early on Monday morning to pack our things and buy some food. And by "buy some food"... I mean, buy some chips and Russian chocolate. Super healthy. We headed over to the bus station and started our 8 hour journey to Kazan. I learned some interesting things about Russians and Russian culture on that bus ride. 1. They do not get comfy. Ever. Not one person took off a single glove,  a scarf, a coat... nothing... on the entire trip to Kazan. Sister Johnson and I were lounging like it was our job. We were sprawled out across our seats, had candy wrappers strewn across the aisle, all of our coats, hats, gloves, and boots were used as decorations. We were comfy. 2. The frequent smoking stops. Every hour or so. Consistently. The whole way there. 3. Nobody speaks. Dead silence. 4. You have to pay for a piece of toilet paper. In every bus stop bathroom, we had to pay like twenty cents for a little sheet of TP. Not my forte.

The bus ride wasn't that bad, but it was only supposed to take 8 hours. At about hour 4, we took a 2 hour pit stop in a cute little Russian town, so it ended up taking 10 hours. The town kind of freaked me out initially though because the outskirts looked similar to something you'd see in an apocalypse movie or after a world war. The center of the city was beautiful though. It had a nice combination of old and new buildings, which was nice to see. Russian architecture is so interesting. The rest of the bus ride was fine. Just lots of studying and being judged by Russians. Living the dream.

Initial shock and excitement hit me when we arrived in Kazan. Seriously so beautiful! It's like a Russian Vegas! The sun sets at around 3 in the afternoon in Kazan, so it was already dark when we got there. All of the buildings were lit up in extravagant colors and I was literally in awe. There is no way my descriptions could do it any justice, so just Google: Russia Kazan and enjoy the show. Kazan is one of the most modern cities in Russia, so it was very contrasting from Samara. Obsessed! There are temples and churches and huge buildings and hotels everywhere! When Sister Johnson and I first got there, we had about an hour to kill before we had to start our exchange, so we went down Kazan's "walking street" called Bauman and ran to the Matryoshky store! I bought a medium sized matryoshka doll and a smaller one. They are so beautiful and detailed. I haven't actually taken a picture of them yet, but I will! They're splendid. Before we headed over to the Kazan sisters, we stopped at McDonald's (of course). Russian McDonald's are so fancy!

I had an amazing experience in Kazan. I met so many wonderful people and helped teach a few amazing lessons. We were on exchanges with two sisters named Sister Leavitt and Sister Manley. I lived with Sister Leavitt in the MTC for about 2 weeks before she headed off to Russia, so it was great seeing her again! Sister Manley is just a gem. I had quite the interesting experience when I was with her. Soooo... the sisters were planning on helping out one of the members in their branch at a school that the member worked at. Since Sister Manley and I were together that day, it was our task. As far as we knew, we were just supposed to speak in English with these school children and teach them about geography. No big deal, just teaching the children how to speak English and how to look at a map. Easy peasy. Yeah..... That is NOT what ended up happening at all. We showed up at the school, talked to the Principal for like 45 minutes, and then got escorted into a giant Recreational Hall. We somehow ended up being part of the "jury" for this school's talent show. Literally the weirdest experience of my life. There were about 200 Russian kids ranging from ages 9-24 all in this room. They took this talent show very seriously. It was meant to be both educational and entertaining, so they would talk about a certain part of the world (this is where the geography part comes in I guess) and then follow it up with a performance that corresponds to that part of the world.  It was actually really amazing! At one point they talked about Texas a little bit and then followed it up by dancing to "Cotton-Eyed Joe." Typical. The acts were great! There was lots of singing and dancing and laughing. Definitely a cherished experience.

After the acts were over, we conversed with the other members of the jury, picked the winners, and then handed out the certificates on the stage. The principal had us talk about ourselves in English for like 2 minutes and that was that. For some reason there were some university students visiting, so they swarmed us like we were celebrities. They took a million pictures with us, asked us for our Facebook information, and escorted us everywhere. It was strangely very amusing. Apparently this school had a little historical museum in it, so the principal and the university students took us to look at it. I loved it! There were a few displays about some Russian pilots in WWII and lots of little plane models. We were literally in there for about 5 minutes, so I didn't have time to take pictures. It was very cool though!

Our last night in Kazan was very mellow because it was really cold and nobody was outside when we were contacting. There's a beautiful river that runs through the middle of Kazan, so Sister Manley and I walked down that for a while. At one end of the river is this BEAUTIFUL government building called the Kremlin. I always thought that people were saying gremlin, but alas, it is Kremlin. Seriously so amazing! It has these really tall, breathtaking spires and the building itself seems unreal. Lucky for me, my camera died right as I was about to take a pictures of it, so you'll have to Google that up. So amazing!

Thankfully I didn't have to miss out on Thanksgiving this year! Last night one of our senior couples hosted a Thanksgiving activity for the youth in our branch. Just about everything you would normally eat at Thanksgiving was there. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin casserole (apparently the yams here are kind of sketchy and hard to buy, so we ate pumpkin stuff), cranberry sauce, vegetable platters, pies, cinnamon rolls, gravy, a million different types of bread, and corn. I don't think this is a thing in America, but I tried chocolate butter for the first time. I don't know how to describe it... it's literally exactly what it sounds like. I ate way too much of that on some bread. So good!

Unfortunately I have picked up a case of the flu as of yesterday, so that's been fun. Just trucking through and trying not to cough on anyone. Good times!

Well... Keep being amazing and doing amazing things! Smile at everyone and everything!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Cectpa Megan Wagstaff

Joining the Baptists

Zdrastvuitye!

Hello everyone! These past couple of weeks have consisted of a lot of traveling and a lot of adventures! Due to the excessive amount of travel, I wasn't able to write on P-day and I now have a very limited amount of time to write about my weekly happenings. I will talk about the goings-on from last week in this letter so that my letter on Monday isn't two sentences long. Let us begin!
So.... Last P-day Sister Johnson and I rode on a bus for about 2 hours and arrived in the good ole city of Tolyatti. I seriously love Tolyatti! It's like a modernized version of Samara! So cool! On the first day, I went on exchanges with a Sister named Sister James. My first appointment with Sister James was with an eternal investigator who we met with at McDonald's. Let me just talk about the McDonald's for a second. In this beautiful McDonald's you had the option to order your food at the counter or at these super futuristic-looking kiosks that descended gracefully from the ceiling. Why is this not a thing in America??? Even the children's area was amazing! I totally would have played in it. There was a huge coloring table and a bunch of interactive decorations. It was nuts. I cannot even handle how classy these fast food restaurants are. Anyways, back to the appointment. The investigator that we met with was named Eegr (Egor) and he's been investigating the church for 6 years. Crazy because he's only like 25. Anyways, Sister James's birthday was the previous day, so he bought her a cake and we feasted! It was pretty interesting sitting in McDonald's eating a big old cake and sipping raspberry tea. There's a first for everything I suppose. Eegr was so great! He speaks nearly perfect English and understands sarcasm, which is basically unheard of for Russians.  We had a pretty good conversation with him about why active members of the church just decide to stop going. It was actually really interesting. I had a pretty intense pondering session to figure out how to answer this question. There are so many reasons why active members of the church stop going. There isn't one, universal answer. If there was, we'd be able to get all of the less-actives back to church. It was a very thought-provoking conversation indeed.

The second day in Tolyatti was equally as interesting. I was on exchanges with a native Sister named Sister Kozmenova (thankfully she speaks English). Our first appointment was with a lady named Svetlana. She was a gem! Svetlana basically force fed us apples and clementines as soon as we showed up at her apartment. We shared a message with her from "The Living Christ" and I felt the spirit so strong. Definitely a very inspired document. Read it! After we met with Svetlana, I got to try knocking for the first time. Let's just say I'm not a huge fan. Sister Kozmenova's family was found through knocking, so she utilizes every opportunity she can get. At the first door, a youngish man answered the door and took everything that we gave him, but he ended up declining a follow up visit and walked away to smoke a cigarette in the stairwell. Lovely. The second door went okay... sorta. A middle-aged woman answered and she agreed to take one of the pamphlets, but she clearly was not interested. She was literally shutting the door on Sister Kozmenova's back, but Sister K kept fighting. She testified and testified about how important this message is and how much it would bless her family, but the lady wouldn't budge. I pretty much had to pull Sister K away from the door to keep her from getting crushed. Good times.
We went back to the apartment afterwards to grab some grub. After watching Sister Kozmenova make food for herself, I've discovered that Russians are the strangest cooks. Sister K literally threw whatever she felt like into a pot, cooked it, and ate it. Some strange creations were concocted in front of my eyes. Glad I didn't have to eat it. One day she made this nasty pasta thing with old cheese, olives, and mayo that physically made her gag. Her favorite thing to do is throw a bunch of sliced potatoes into a pot and add basically everything in the fridge on top of it. Cheese, olives, beets, tomatoes, celery, pasta, bread, mayo, ketchup, anything and everything. Very... unique?
I did a lot of contacting with Sister Kozmenova and it was quite the adventure. We talked to a lot of little old ladies because they can't run away very fast. They were all so sweet! There was one man that we tried to talk to but he clearly did not speak Russian. He walked up really close to us, muttered something unintelligible in some strange language, and did the weird cross sign over Sister K. I had to muster every fiber of my being to keep from bursting into laughter. It was great.

The next day I was with Sister James again and we had an appointment with an investigator named Marina in a beautiful park. I think it was called the English equivalent of "Liberty Park." It was so amazing! There were a few tank replicas, a cannon replica, and some soldier headstone displays throughout the park. There was also this really cool monument called the "Eternal Flame" that is circular and shape and has some symbolic pictures on the inside. There was supposed to be a flame burning on the top, hence the name, but there definitely wasn't a flame of any sort, so that was a lie. Anyways, I guess the only investigators that I met with in Tolyatti spoke English because Marina also spoke English. Marina and I are basically besties now. She was so nice and wanted to know all about where I came from, my mission call, my thoughts on Russia, and how America is. She was fantastic! Marina is learning Japanese right now and she loves anime and British shows. I hope I get to see her again someday!

Sister Johnson and I witnessed a few miracles this week! Here's one! After one of our appointments with an investigator fell through, Sister Johnson and I were kind of at a loss with what we should do. We called pretty much everyone we could think of to try to set up an appointment with no luck. After contacting for a while without any luck, Sister Johnson and I pulled ourselves off of the main sidewalk for a minute and said a quick prayer asking for miracles. After we closed the prayer, the first person we came across was named Vera (Russian word for faith). Her name fit the bill perfectly. Vera was quite an interesting lady. She isn't a lawyer, but she works for some sort of lawyer information firm. She expressed to us how much she wanted to talk to us and about how her daughter's family would most likely be interested as well. She literally was a miracle.
So... for the past couple of weeks, my District Leaders have begged me to straighten my hair. Since last Friday was the last District Meeting of the cycle, I decided to humor them and straighten it while I exercised that morning. It took an hour and I'm not sure if it was worth it, but I did it. Let me tell you, it is not easy to do wall-sits and yoga while straightening one's hair. Not at all.
Sunday was a very... different day. One of the Sisters in our zone, Sister Coleman, called and asked us if we could go on an exchange so that she could go to a Baptist church service. Of course we said yes. President approved it, but he thought it would be best if Sister Coleman went with one of us and not her native companion. Sister Johnson had to give a talk in our branch, so lo and behold, I got to go. Apparently the Sisters have this potential couple who are Baptists. They agreed to come visit our church on the condition that we visit theirs'. The Sisters' branch and the Baptist church started at the same time, so we figured it would just have to be a righteous sacrifice to miss our church. It took about 30 minutes to travel to the Baptist church but we arrived about 15 minutes early, so Sister Coleman and I just chilled at the bus stop in front of the church. While we were sitting there, we received a phone call from President and he sounded pretty frantic. He told us that apparently there had been some sort of misunderstanding and that we wouldn't be able to attend the Baptist church since it is at the same time as ours. He reminded us that it is a commandment to take the sacrament and that it definitely wasn't okay to go to another church in place of taking the sacrament. Totally didn't even think about that, but it makes sense. I guess I won't be getting baptized into the Baptist religion this week. Oh well!
That's all folks! Keep being good people and doing good things! Have a fantastic week!

Do Svidanya!
Love,
Cectpa Megan Wagstaff

Gypsy Nuggets

Zdrastvuitye!

This week has been very interesting and kind of stressful. Still good, nonetheless! Sister Johnson and I will be going on exchanges in Tolyatti today, so lots of adventures will ensue in the near future.

Currently, Satan's been working really hard on our investigators with baptismal dates. Keira has expressed to one of the members that she no longer wants to come to church anymore. She's had many ups and down on her journey, and this happens to be one of the down times. We have confirmed that she is legally married since her husband is 18, but they recently got in a big fight. Keira is one of our most difficult investigators for sure. Tanya, another investigator with a baptismal date, has basically dropped off the face of the planet since our last lesson. She never answers our phone calls and is never home when we visit. I don't think she's having a faith crisis or anything, but she is certainly a lot busier than before. Our last investigator, Veeka, just agreed to be baptized on Monday. She came to institute on Tuesday and has thus far dropped off the face of the planet as well. We seriously have no idea what happened. She was so excited and enthusiastic about everything at institute; she even gave Sister Johnson and I excessive amounts of candy. I hope she's just been busy and isn't having second thoughts or anything. All we can do is pray for them at this point and try to get in contact with them. They're in the Lord's hands right now, I just hope they're doing alright and that they come back soon.

On a brighter note, Sister Johnson and I had the really amazing opportunity to watch a couple of the people that we teach receive blessings. The first one was Andrei, the witch doctor. We actually had a lesson in his apartment which was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Sister Johnson and I went over with one of the Senior Couples and a member from our branch, so there were 6 of us total, including Andrei. Not really sure why, but Andrei decided that we would all fit inside his tiny little bedroom. Yeah... we didn't. I wasn't lying when I said that the Spirit does not reside in his home. He had some janky stuff hanging up in there. Andrei had about 7... um... interesting-looking dream catchers hanging around his room. How I wish my glasses had a camera in them. One of them looked like a normal dream catcher, but the others made my skin crawl. There were some creepy looking symbols/idols hanging off of each of them. Oh yeah... and there was a box with a Hookah in it next to my feet. Lovely. He had a bowl with straight up garlic cloves in it. Who keeps fresh garlic cloves in a decorative bowl on the nightstand??? Not I. Perhaps he's afraid of vampires. Anyways, I have a sneaking suspicion that he's anticipating the apocalypse because he had about 7 jugs of water on the floor and three huge hiking backpacks thrown in the corner. At least he's prepared. Oh yeah... the blessing. So, before we taught the lesson, Andrei told us that he got beat up on his way home from church last week and the only other time that has happened to him was the week after he got baptized. We spent a lot of the lesson consoling him and trying to convince him that no, he did not need to carry a stabbing knife with him as he travels to and from church. He agreed to receive a blessing after that. He sat underneath a dream catcher with a dead bat hanging off it during the blessing and that, my friends, was weird. The blessing was really good though. Andrei was promised some really great things that I hopes he takes to heart.

The second blessing was for our investigator Deema. I haven't talked about Deema in a while. Right now he's working on applying for Oxford and he works as a navigator on a ship. He reads the Bible in Greek every day, he spends about 8 hours a day studying for absolutely nothing in the library, and he's just an all-around oober smart guy. When Deema has doubts about anything spiritual in nature, he turns to his intelligence rather than seeking inspiration from Heavenly Father. We've taught him every single lesson at least 3 times and his lack of faith has been such a major road block. Recently he's been struggling to know which job to take, as he now has two job offers, so we offered to have the Elders give him a blessing. He eventually agreed and it ended up being one of the most amazing blessings I've ever heard. Thankfully Sister Johnson was smart and wrote down what was said as the blessing was given. Deema was on cloud 9 after everything was said and done. I hope he remembers how he felt during and after the blessing and uses that experience to guide his decisions. He has so much potential and it's so hard for him to see it and believe it. I have faith that he will come around though. 

Today Sister Johnson and I went to good old McDonald's for lunch because... why not? Ain't nothin' wrong with McDonald's. This is the third time I've eaten at McDonald's whilst being in Russia. Pretty sure I've never eaten there this often in my entire life. Anyways... Tears of joy literally streamed down my face when I discovered that the cheeseburgers taste just like the American ones. Streamed. While we were eating our spoils, a little gypsy boy came over and started begging for food. Sister Johnson kept saying "NO!" to him all mean-like and that definitely threw me off. She said that gypsy kids always come into restaurants to beg for food and they will steal your food without a second thought unless you get angry with them. He was pretty convincing... not going to lie. Sister Johnson wasn't afraid to get stern with him because a gypsy kid straight up stole her companion's chicken nuggets once. Just walked away with the whole box. No more nuggies. Let's just say some unhappy feelings were released. Lesson learned.

Well, that's all folks! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep smiling and being happy! Be good examples!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Cectpa Megan Wagstaff

Spiritual Samara‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week has been a great adventure! Lots of fun stories to share!

First of all, we literally had a million Sister missionaries in our apartment from Tuesday to Thursday. You want to know how hard it is to journal with a million females lounging around in your space... eating your food... singing Babylonian music... talking to you... and being all nice and stuff?? Really hard, that's how. It actually wasn't that bad, but we did have 12 sisters in our apartment one night. That was cray. There were quite a few sisters that had to go on Visa trips, so their companions got to hang out with us for a little bit. We also had zone conference on Thursday and we had to combine with another zone, so that's why the number of people in our apartment was so excessive. It was a ton of fun though. Cectpa McKell's companion was one of the sisters that had to go on a Visa trip, so I got to see her again! I don't know how wise of a decision this was, but Sister McKell and I, the two sisters who had only been out two weeks and barely spoke any Russian, went on splits in my area. Let me tell you... greatest learning experience of my life. I honestly have no idea what I said most of the time. We probably taught some false doctrine on accident a few times, but we tried our best. I don't think I've ever learned so much in my entire life. We ended up giving away 3 Book of Mormons and received 3 peoples' telephone numbers, which is basically unheard of. We were exhausted that night, but it was so worth it. Being new missionaries, it's really easy to kind of sit back and let the senior companion take the reigns. It was really eye-opening to see that we really can make a difference even with our limited knowledge.

On Wednesday I went on splits with a sister named Cectpa James. For some reason it ended up turning into a mini P-day. Cectpa James has a lot of dietary restrictions and wasn't able to eat any of the food in our apartment, so we got to go to the mall in our area to buy her some num-nums. There is a grocery store in that mall that has a special "diet foods" section that she needed to pick apart, so lo and behold... we went. We aren't allowed to proselyte in malls and we're only allowed to go in malls if we get permission, so this was a first-time experience for me. I kid you not, this mall looked EXACTLY like the Boise Mall. Honestly freaked me out a little bit. Besides all of the Russian words everywhere, it was pretty spot on. Made me a tiny bit homesick but then I moved on with my life. After Cectpa James got her "special food," we went to McDonald's

and KFC and she proceeded to eat all of the things that she's not supposed to. Good times.

Last P-day we went to this market called the Reenok. Oh boy, was that an interesting experience. It was like a giant maze of booths and crazy people. Cectpa Johnson told me that the Reenok is the biggest street market in Europe, so that means it's legit. I learned how to bargain which was fun I guess. The key is... you have to pretend like you hate the thing that you love and then they will lower the price on the thing to make you love the thing that you already love but supposedly hate. Make sense? Anyways, I got a really nice navy blue coat with burgundy fur for way cheaper than it should have been. I love how all Russian coats have matching belts. Not going to lie... the style of the belt is totally what sold me on it. Belts are so classy! This coat is definitely warm enough. I literally get heat stroke just trying to put my arms into the sleeves when we're getting ready in the apartment. It takes a solid 30 minutes of being out in the cold to cool down from dressing up. I forgot to take pictures of the coat, but I'll work on that. It's great. I also bought a wallet at the Reenok that I'm obsessed with. It was super cheap and, again, it looks classy. It does the job. Cectpa Johnson needed... well... I don't know if needed is the right word. Cectpa Johnson wanted to get a fur hat, so we went on a little scavenger hunt for that. We went into this one booth with fur hats and the two men who owned the booth were hilarious! Every time Cectpa Johnson put on a hat, they "ooo"-ed and "aahh"-ed and said "soooper" in their goofy Russian accents. Super funny. One of the owners wanted to take a picture with us before we left which was a little bit strange... Good times. A cherished experience for sure.

That night we taught a member named Galeena about patriarchal blessings and it went pretty well. We all felt the spirit so strong and she committed to prepare herself to receive one. The hard thing about that is the Patriarch only comes once a year, so she will have to wait until like March or something. It's okay though. The Lord will help these people persevere. Galeena got kind of freaked out when we told her about the lineage/tribe aspect of the patriarchal blessings. She straight up said that she refuses to be from the line of Judah since he betrayed Jesus. That was fun trying to resolve. All is well though.

Speaking of freaking out... Andrei the witch doctor bore his testimony in church on Sunday. When he started walking towards the pulpit, there was an audible gasp from everyone in the congregation. We all assumed that he would start prophesying about his visions and about how Jesus isn't the Messiah (he mentioned that in Sunday School last week... that was fun). Honestly, his testimony was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. He bore simple testimony about how he knows that this church is true, how the Book of Mormon is true, and that he knows Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. He talked about how he remembers feeling the spirit when he got baptized and how those feelings are coming back as he meets with the missionaries now. Andrei's testimony was amazing. Granted, I didn't understand hardly any of it at the time, but I wanted to cry when Cectpa Johnson told me about it later. I've noticed that as he learns more about the truth, he lets go of his strange views and ideas about the church and the doctrine. The spirit has an amazing ability to teach in ways that we cannot. We are able to speak words, but the spirit is able to change hearts.

This past week we have discovered a couple "golden investigators." Nay... they are more than golden... They are platinum investigators. They are so prepared you guys!!!!! The first one is named Veeka. She is a gem. She is 19 years old, is shorter than me, she's studying to be a designer, has bright orange hair, and just got dreads as of two days ago. Seriously the coolest girl I've ever met. Cectpa Johnson and I met her briefly on the street last week. She agreed to read the Book of Mormon even with the minimal information that we gave her about about it, she agreed to come to an activity with the Branch that week, and she agreed to come to church. That never happens... ever. She's a miracle! When we saw her again a few days later, she had already read half of the Book of Mormon! Not even devout members do that! She's going to get baptized... period.

The other platinum investigator is named Tanya. She's amazing! She wants to learn everything as quickly as possible so that she can get baptized. Tanya got a baptismal date after the first lesson and she's still sticking with it! She literally snatches pamphlets and brochures from our hands so that she can read them and she always says, "What kind of question is that! Of course I will!" when we give her commitments. The Lord answers prayers, my friends. No doubt about it!

Remember the investigator that I talked about last week, Kiera? Yeah... she's got a baptismal date too! There was one particular day of the week where we only had lessons with active families and not with any investigators, so Cectpa Johnson and I prayed for us to be able to have a lesson with a nonmember. Completely out of the blue, Kiera called us and asked if she could meet. We ended up having a really deep conversation about repentance and I felt prompted to ask her to be baptized. She admitted that baptism was still something that she wanted and she agreed to be baptized! Yay! The spirit was so strong and I know it was because of this that she said yes! Again, the Lord answers prayers, my friends.

I didn't have to miss out on Halloween this year! Our Branch had a Halloween activity since the Senior Couple in our area is big into the holidays. It was SO much fun! There was a ton of really good food, really good people, and really good experiences. Veeka came to the activity and she even asked if she could stay to help us clean afterwards. I could tell that she was very comfortable with the atmosphere and genuinely enjoyed being there! She's the sweetest. Anyways, we had a bobbing for apples activity, a costume parade, and a fun group game that I'm pretty sure someone just made up on the spot. Such a good time!

Well, that's all for this week, folks! Keep being amazing and doing amazing things! I love you all!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Cectpa Megan Wagstaff