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