I Dyed

Zdrastvuitye!

I would walk 500 miles... and I would walk 500 more. That about sums up the week. We've been in a finding stage for a while now, so most of our proselyting time consists of walking and trudging and slipping and sliding and jumping and shuffling. So much ice, so little pavement. It makes me feel a lot less uncoordinated when I see other Russians slip or fall on the ice. Is that a bad thing to say? If the natives fall... then it's okay that I do too. We've met lots of really cool people on the street, just not a lot that are interested.

We did see quite a few miracles this week though! Our investigator with the two daughters actually called us and asked if we could come over! That in itself if amazing because usually it's like pulling teeth to try and set up an appointment with her. When we went over to her apartment, everything was clean, she was dressed, she was in a good mood, and her children were all ready as well. I cannot accurately describe how amazing that is. The first time we visited with her, she and her apartment were both in shambles, she wasn't in a good mood, and her kids were fighting... as a whole, not a great atmosphere. It continued to be like that for a while. Seeing her in an orderly apartment and in a happy mood was such a huge deal! She was smiling and laughing even when one of her daughters was hooliganing, and SHE asked US if we could read the scriptures together. It's been an amazing blessing to see how much the gospel really changes people's lives. She just has a completely different light about her. She knows that baptism is the right path, and we know she's ready to make that step. The only problem is she won't come to church. Gotta keep praying and believing!!!

On a less spiritual note... Sister Jensen and I had a horrifying encounter with a bug in our apartment this morning that I hope does not exist in America. I'm positive that I have never seen it in America, nor do I ever want to see it there. Picture a daddy long leg spider with it's creepy long legs morphed with a centipede, and that's exactly what it looks like. I've only ever heard rumors about this bug, but today was the first time (and hopefully the last) I've actually seen it in person. One of the other Sisters in the mission had an unfortunate encounter with the little monster. She said that one crawled up in her bed at night and bit her on the face. She said that it was ridiculously painful and it looked like someone punched her in the cheek when she got up the next morning. It was swollen to the point that she couldn't open one of her eyes all the way. Gross! I saw the little devil parading around our bathroom when I got up and it's millions of creepy legs ran too fast for me to squish it. I heard a few squawks of fear come from the bathroom later that morning and I figured Sister Jensen had found it again. I definitely wasn't wrong. She smashed it with a shampoo bottle and left it in the middle of the floor. Classy. One of the legs fell off and kept twitching for a solid 30 seconds. I hope it was just a lone wolf and doesn't have a whole family hiding in our bathroom. Not down with that.

Sister Jensen and I decided that it would be fun to dye our hairs, so we did! On Saturday night we stopped by a little store that had lots of hair dye in it and spent probably too much time picking our colors. Thankfully they were all American brands and there wasn't anything sketchy. After our nightly planning session, we commenced with the hair dying! Sister Jensen literally died her hair the exact same color as her natural hair on accident. If I hadn't physically seen her dye her hair, I wouldn't have even known that she dyed it at all. Welp, now we know. I dyed my hair kind of a burgundy color. I really like it! I'll send a picture of it later. It must not look too different because only 1 person noticed at church.... and it was an Elder from my District. Awkward.

Welp, that's all for this week! Keep being squishing scary bugs with random household objects! Love you!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Dyslexic Dolphin‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week was pretty interesting to say the least. Let's start it off with a humorous experience.

Awkward moment! Sister Jensen and I were trying to visit a former investigator that I've only met with once before, so neither of us were really sure where the address was. We trekked around in the snow for a while and only got lost once. Yay! When we finally got in the general vicinity of the apartment building, good ole dyslexia kicked in and I took us to apartment 617 instead of 167. A pretty unfriendly voice answered the apartment phone, but she still let us in despite the fact that she couldn't understand us. The lady that we were expecting to see is super sweet and loving and always gives us candy. The lady who answered the door was confused, angry, and definitely didn't want to give us candy. We approached the door completely expecting the nice lady to answer. When it ended up being the scary one, I just stared at her for a solid 10 seconds and for some reason I was making a weird dolphin noise during all of that. Initially, I couldn't tell for sure whether or not it was her, but the angry door slam in the face confirmed her identity. I'm sure she'll get baptized someday.

Sister Jensen and I experienced quite a few miracles and also a couple heartbreaks. Kiera, our 17 year old married investigator who recently dropped us, appeared from out of the blue and has decided that she wants to meet with us again. We invited her to a baptism at a different Branch and she loved it! She even sang the hymns during the baptismal service which is a miracle in itself because she loathes singing! We're trying so hard to have sufficient faith so that she'll get baptized, but it's been difficult because of how many times she's dropped us in the past. We're going in a little leerier than before, but we're still praying that everything works out.

We were also able to set a baptismal date with our investigator who has severe depression and mood swings. She agreed to live the Word of Wisdom and wanted to pick a baptismal date sooner that the one we committed her to. She was in such a great mood this week and we thought things were finally going to start turning around for her. Unfortunately she went through another one of her "moods" and didn't want anything to do with us when we came over to pick her up for church. She said that she would come on her own and then never showed up. To say that we were discouraged is an understatement. Just need to keep having faith!!! Thankfully one of the less actives that we called earlier in the week did end up showing up to church, so that was a spirit-lifter.

There's definitely never a dull day in good ole Russia. So many great experiences! Welp, that's all folks! Keep making dolphin noises and singing hymns!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Cectpa Megan Wagstaff

Yeti Adventures

Zdrastvuitye!

This week was quite an adventure!

Oh Visa trip... SOOO tiring!!! I'm fairly certain I got a solid 4 hours of sleep between the night before and the night after. The trip was a solid 24 hours! We got up at 3 in the morning on Tuesday and got back at 3 in the morning on Wednesday. There were 6 Elders, 3 Sisters, and 2 Senior Couples on our trip. We flew on a total of 4 planes and had a combined air time of about 6ish hours. So many layovers... so much sitting... We didn't really do a whole lot in the airports. We didn't have a layover hardly at all once we got to Moscow the first time around, so we had to run like crazy people to get to our gate. We had 7 hours to kill when we were in the Riga, Latvia airport, so we ate a bunch of food despite the fact that we ate sandwiches on every single flight! There was a cool authentic Latvian café in the upstairs portion of the airport, so me and one of my travel buddies went up there to eat. There were all sorts of crazy juices, drinks, pancakes, soups, puddings and pies, and stuffed things to choose from. So good! 

We had some issues with switching passports when we got to Latvia, so that was an adventure, but everything was figured out by the time we left. For some reason, when our plane tickets were ordered, they put all of the missionaries except two on the same flight and then the senior couples on a different flight. Guess who was one of the two missionaries who got put in the senior couple group??? Meeeee! The other missionary was an Elder, so I had to be travel companions with and Elder!!! Dun dun DUUUUNNNN!!!! We had another long layover after we flew back to Moscow, so we did some more sitting. The Elders found a Burger King in the airport so of course they went there. The Sisters and I went to a pretty subpar pizza place that had cheesecake for some reason. Good stuff! One of the Elders on our flight back to Samara took NyQuil right when we got on the plane and he was literally acting high because he didn't want to let himself fall asleep until he got back to their apartment. His body was trying to sleep and he wouldn't let it so he basically acted like a drunk man. I shan't lie, it was very entertaining to watch.

Lots of craziness ensued this week. Here's a small list: One of the busses we were on got hit by a car (just ran into the bumper... hardly even made the bus shift), none of the busses we actually needed were running this week because of the weather, literally all of our plans fell through, and we got lost So. Many. Times. It was actually a really fun week because of how unpredictable it was, but it was also a very unusual one.

So far, this is the coldest week I've experienced on my mission. It was about -24C on Thursday, but with the wind chill it was -42C. That's real cold! It's definitely a struggle to talk to people when your face is covered in snow and you look like a yeti. Some people have sympathy for us and they listen for a little bit before they smirk and walk away. That's always nice!

We did see a miracle this week though! Since all of our plans fell through, we decided to call a former investigator. She sounded very excited to meet with us and we set up an appointment for the next day. I don't even know how to describe how the lesson went because I'm not even sure how the lesson went. She paused for a solid 45 seconds when we asked if we could start off with a prayer and then she went off about how badly she wanted to learn English...Then she talked about playing the piano...Then about her family... Then about us... and THEN we prayed. The rest of the lesson followed the same format. We only ended up talking about the Restoration for 10 percent of the lesson. We didn't feel like it was very successful when we left, but lo and behold, she came to church the next day! She bonded with lots of Sisters and asked a lot of great questions. Who knows... maybe she'll get baptized soon! We have faith!

Well, that's all folks! Make sure you stay warm and talk to yetis.

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Drinking Ashes

Zdrastvuitye!

First transfer!!!! Sister Johnson and I were informed on Friday that she would be transferred to Engels in Saratov and I would be staying in Avrora!!! I'm literally so excited! My new companion is named Sister Jensen and she is a gem! She came to Russia with Sister Johnson and they are pretty much twins. We're literally going to be the craziest companionship! Sister Johnson and I are the best of friends and I can't imagine it'll be any different with Sister Jensen. I have met her once and she is so great! This next cycle is going to be a fun time! This letter is short because Sister Johnson has to finish packing before tomorrow, so we're trying to hurry!

Tomorrow is also my first Visa trip! I'm so excited!!! I have to get up at 3am tomorrow and my flight leaves from Samara to Moscow at 7am. We're going to Latvia from there!!! We don't get to leave the airport or anything, but it's still cool. to say that I've been there. It'll be an adventure for sure!

Our New Years Eve Celebration was pretty fun! We had to be back at our apartment at 6pm that night instead of the usual 9pm, so we had lots of time to feast and study! There's a tradition in Russia where you're supposed to write down your desire for the following year on a piece of paper, burn it, and drink the ashes in champagne. Obviously we didn't drink the champagne but we bought nonalcoholic children's champagne which was pretty much just fizzy peach juice. Really good! Anyways, after Sister Johnson and I wrote down our desires and tried to burn them, I accidentally got mine wet on the bottom so it wouldn't burn all the way. There were huge burnt paper chunks floating in my baby juice that I had to choke down. Not even exaggerating when I say "choke down." It was a struggle. Not a fan of the taste. At least my desire will come true now!

We also had our Branch Christmas Choir program on Saturday! It was such a crazy experience! The senior couple in our area spent a significant amount of time putting together a video, decorations, volunteers... basically everything for this program! It was such a success! So many people from the community showed up to see the performance! Many tears were shed in the audience and it was so great to feel the spirit so strongly!

Welp... That's all folks! I hope you all had a great time celebrating the holidays! Time to get ready for Valentines Day I guess. Keep smiling and spreading the gospel!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Cectpa Megan Wagstaff