Mustard Water Spa‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Wow! What a crazy week this has been! Both spiritually and physically. First of all, the weather is insane. After the snow storm on Monday it was pretty warm outside, nothing to complain about. It was also considerably warm on Tuesday. We looked out the window on Wednesday morning and it was blizzarding again, only worse than on Monday!!! Instead of snowing a couple of inches, it snowed like 4 or 5 inches. Later in the day there was a big rain storm due to the warmness of the weather and everything turned into a big, flooded swamp. Huge chunks of snow were plummeting off of trees and buildings all around us and splashing waves of water on us. I have never been so wet in my entire life aside from going swimming. I was on an exchange with another Sister and we were on our way to an investigator's house when all of this was happening. Her boots definitely weren't waterproof and her feet were soaked! When the investigator's grandma saw my companion's feet, she freaked out and demanded that she take off her socks. She made her granddaughter fill up a bucket with hot water and then she sprinkled some mustard powder into it. My companion literally soaked her feet in hot mustard water. Yum.

Man, Sister Wilson and I saw so many amazing miracles this week! I can't even begin to describe how blessed we've been. The Lord is keeping his eye on this part of the vineyard, that's for sure. Here are some examples:

One of our investigators has been a great cause of concern this week. She has been investigating the church for about 4 months and has received numerous baptismal dates. For one reason or another, they never ended up working out. The last baptismal date was rejected because she was still waiting for an answer to know whether or not this church is true. A little while after that she ended up dropping us; our perfect investigator dropped us. We were devestated! After giving her some time to sort things out, we began meeting with her again. On Friday she is going to be visiting Balakova, a city where her parents live, for a couple of weeks. Last time she went to Balakova, it was almost impossible for the other Sisters to get a hold of her and she kind of fell off of the face of the planet for a while. Her parents are very against the church and they had some harsh words for her when they found out that she was investigating the church. It took her a while before she decided to meet with the missionaries again. Sister Wilson and I were terrified that this would happen again, so we asked for some advice from President Schwab. He was quiet for a little bit and he told us that he felt very prompted by the Spirit that she needs to get baptized before she leaves. So that's exactly what we told her. That meant that she would be getting baptized 5 days from that point. She looked a little bit shocked, but agreed with the proposition. The next day, people were congratulating her right and left after her baptism was anounced in both branches, but she shyed away from everyone's words of encouragement. Whenever someone would ask her "Are you getting baptized?" she would say, "I guess so," or "Probably, yes." We could tell that she was feeling pretty shakey about it all. She was still worried that she didn't know whether or not the church was true, and she wasn't completely sold on getting baptized, but she hadn't cancelled the baptism or anything. Sister Wilson and I were so nervous that we were pushing her too fast and that maybe she wasn't ready yet. We had our zone leader call around and have all of the members and missionaries in our zone pray for her. Before this was even put into effect, we got a call from her! Sister Wilson and I were terrified! She said "Hey, so I've been thinking a lot about baptism lately"... *pause* At this point we were expecting the worst because her voice sounded a little bit shakey... we thought she was crying or something. Anyways... then she said, "I've been thinking about the questions that you asked and I've decided that I really want to get baptized." Sister Wilson and I said, "What?" out of shock, and she said again, "I really want to get baptized." We were laughing and shrieking into the phone out of excitement and probably scared the living daylights out of her. She told us that she layed down for a nap and had a dream, and when she woke up, she just knew that she needed to get baptized. Miracle!!!! The Lord is really looking out for His children! She finally got her answer and it took that tiny step of faith of accepting a baptismal date for her to receive it. I am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for her. She's such a miracle!

We saw a bright new face at our English group on Friday. A sweet lady showed up and she is the definition of a golden investigator. Nobody invited her to church, nobody told her about English group beforehand, she wasn't referred to us by anyone, she just showed up on her own. She doesn't live too far away from the church, so she frequently rode her bike past the church building. After a while of riding by, she decided to come inside and see what goes on here. Amazingly, that was the same night as English group, so she stuck around. Also, she speaks perfect English and absolutely LOVED English group. She is the friendliest person I've ever met and she became best friends with us and everyone else right away. She participated at the activity, agreed to meet with us, and came to church on Sunday! The members fell in love with her and we didn't even have to escort her around because she made so many friends. When she heard that there was going to be a branch service activity cleaning the branch building, she was pumped and wants to come so bad! Man, she is so prepared! The Lord loves these people so much and He's making sure that we find them!

Oh yeah... speaking of English group. Sister Wilson and I were in charge of teaching the group The Word of Wisdom, and we wanted to start off with an object lesson. We put a bunch of trash like wrappers, used napkins, soggy bags, old food, etc on a plate and said, "Hey everyone! So, we didn't have time to go to the store and get some refreshments, but we found this bag of trash on the side of the road that had some food in it, so we brought that instead. Eat up!" It was supposed to be symbolic of how you would never put garbage in your mouth like tobacco, drugs, alcohol, etc, but when we walked around with the plate, some of the people literally started eating the trash! There was a bag of old cookies on the plate and a few of them actually ate them!!!! So gross!!!! Super funny, but really nasty.

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Don't eat food from the garbage or soak your feet in mustard water.

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

"Cringe!" said the Sewage Stream‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week has been amazing! Amazing spiritual experiences, and amazingly crazy weather. It is finally getting warm in good old Saratov and I finally got to wear normal shoes! Well... 'normal shoes' meaning ugly missionary shoes, but at least I don't have to wear my winter boots any more! It was even warm enough to go outside without leggings! *Gasp!* Sister Wilson and I were judged by a lot of old ladies who were still wearing their winter hats outside. As a whole, the weather has been great (around 13-18 degrees Celcius), but this morning the weather was nuts! When I woke up today, it was literally blizzarding outside! Big sheets of snow were falling from the sky! It snowed about two or three inches that night and by the time Sister Wilson and I left the apartment, it was sunny and warm enough to wear a light jacket. We waded through a lot of deep puddles and splashed through some sidewalk rivers. Love Russian weather!

For some reason, there's been an excessive amount of road and building construction going on in my neck of the woods. Somebody made a big boo boo in the sewage system down the street from our apartment and for the past week there has been sewage pouring into the streets. Thankfully it is downhill from where we live, but it is horrifying when we walk in that direction!!! It smells SO BAD!!! Nightmare! Be grateful for the decent plumbing that you have! I get so scared when we walk on the road with the poopy waterfall because there are a ton of potholes that the pee water collects in on that street and the cars don't take very much care when driving over them. I literally think I would shrivel up and die if one of those sewage puddles got splashed on me. *Shiver and cringe*... Yuck!!!!!

Anyways... On a more spiritual note... Sister Wilson and I saw some really cool miracles this week! Here's one that happened to me: I've never been very good at bus contacting, but I decided to rely on the Lord and just talk to somebody. I complemented an old lady on her fuzzy, bright pink, camoflage hat and she completely opened up to me! We ended up smiling and laughing together and then she started speaking to me in English! I've always gotten pretty self-conscious whenever I speak to a Russian without my companion, worrying that I would make a big mistake or misunderstand something important, but the Lord was looking out for me! Apparently she is an English teacher and she was so intrigued to talk to someone from America. She told me about how she is an atheist and about how she met with the Sisters about a year ago. She wasn't really interested in anything they or I had to say about the gospel. At that point, she had forgotten what my name was and asked for it again. My weird last name intrigued her and she asked me a bunch of questions about my 'roots.' I told her about how my family came to America from Whales and that my last name is probably Welsh. When I asked her about her roots, she went into detail about her father and mother's history, but admitted that she didn't know very much beyond the 1800s. I asked her if she'd be interested in finding out more about her family and she expressed to me that it is either very hard or very expensive to collect family records in Russia. When I told her about our free family history center and all of the help that she could receive there, she was ecstatic! That was the first time I've ever used Family History Work to get someone interested in the gospel. The Lord was definitely on my side, because there's no way I would have been able to come up with that on my own. We had a great conversation and she was overjoyed when I told her that we could come and visit her another time. The Lord helps his servants, but only when they're willing to receive it!

Welp. That's all for this week folks! Hug your toilets and talk to goofy old ladies. Have a wonderful week!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

No Easter Bunny‏

Zdrastvuitye!

I love Solnechney! I can never say that enough times. The ghetto-ness is growing on me! There is an amazing grocery store here called Lenta that we buy all of our food from. It is HUGE! If Costco and HomeDepot had a baby, that is what the interior of Lenta looks like. It literally has everything! Even brown sugar, which is surprisingly hard to find in Russia. I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but there was an IKEA about 40 minutes outside of my area when I lived in Avrora. The Russians pronounce it like Ee-kay-yuh. Weird. One of the members in my branch worked there and gave the senior couples bags of Swedish meatballs and gravy frequently. Did we eat them at Branch parties? Yes. Were they delicious? Yes. None of the missionaries ever went to IKEA because it is kind of out of the way on the outskirts of town, and it would have taken up a lot of P-day time. Not worth it. Probably.

Yesterday was Easter in good old Russia and it was definitely a lot different than in America. People walk around the streets saying, "Christ is Ressurrected!" And then you reply by saying, "Truly Ressurrected!" Why? I don't know. Provaslavic thing. Don't say it to Muslims though... they don't believe in Christ and they get really uncomfortably... trust me. The members got to watch the Russian translation of General Conference this past weekend, so the missionaries watched it in a separate room in English. Loved it! On Easter Sunday, I recieved so much candy and 4 decorated eggs from the members. A lot of them give out these plain brownish-red colored eggs that I guess are dyed using some sort of onion? They're not the most beautiful thing, but it's a Russian thing. There's also a special cake that people make/ you can buy for Easter. I think it's pretty good! It looks like a big cupcake, but it's actually a type of sweet bread with raisins in it and frosting and sprinkles on the top. Really good! Also, the Easter Bunny isn't a thing here as far as I know. They take their religious holidays seriously here... except for the fact that they all get hammered on every holiday. The Russian equivalent of the 4th of July is on May 9th, so we'll be having a lock-in that night to stay safe from all of the drunkies. 

The members in Solnechney are the best!!! Just before I moved here, the Sisters who were serving here baptized one of the most amazing women I've ever met. Her son got baptized a few months ago and that sparked her interest in hearing about the gospel, thus leading her to be baptized. The other day, we went over to her house to have a new-convert lesson with her and she informed us that she had invited 3 people over for us to teach!!! That is unheard of! She loves this gospel so much and she has become the greatest little missionary because of her faith! We are in the process of getting her youngest son baptized, and we know great things are going to come from this wonderful family! I love them with all my heart! Even if I can't understand them all of the time or vice versa, my love for them and their love for the gospel is never lost in translation. The church is true!

There is still a pretty prominent language barrier between me and the Russian people. I speak and understand a lot better than I did when I was in the MTC, but I still make a lot of mistakes; a lot of little ones, a few serious ones. The other day this kid ran up to Sister Wilson and I and asked, "Why are you (Americans) making war with us?" after hearing our American accents. I, thinking he was just asking why we were here, said, "Why not?" Definitely not the right answer. Sister Wilson tried to mop up that mess and I didn't really understand what was going on. She asked me afterwards if I understood what he asked and I said no. She then explained what had just happened and I was mortified. Thankfully he was only like 16 and I'm pretty sure he was high. He ran away laughing, so I hardly think he was impacted by any of it. Yikes.

So many miracles are about to happen here, I can feel it! I feel so "at home" in this area, despite how dirty and run-down it is. There are lots of people waiting to hear the gospel! We just have to find them!

Welp, that's all for this week, folks. Eat lots of big cupcakes and remember the Savior!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Satan Chocolate‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week was lots of fun! Sister Wilson is still helping me learn the area and get acquainted with all of the people here. I love it so much! We worked hard this week!

Everytime my companion and I go knocking, without fail, we run into some interesting characters. In America, at least from what I've seen, people don't typically answer their door unless they have some sort of clothing on or look somewhat decent. People don't have that kind of concern here. They answer the door whether or not they're wearing anything. Sister Wilson and I taught a kid hiding behind a door wearing nothing but a tee shirt and underwear. It wasn't a short lesson either, they just felt no shame standing there in basically nothing. Super uncomfortable. Knocking is always an adventure.

Solnechney is such a wonderful area, but Satan is working so hard on these people right now. We have an investigator who is so strong, but she is terrified of her husband. She knows the church is true, gets along with all of the members, and wants to be baptized, but her husband is not supportive at all. We went over to her house to have a lesson with her and it was a disaster! Ususally her husband is at work during the day, so we go over when he isn't around. For some reason he happened to be home that day and our investigator wouldn't even come into the same room as us. When she and her husband were in the kitchen, Sister Wilson and I pounced and we asked her if she was wanted to talk to us. She said, "Why would I want to talk to you? I'm against you. I have my own church that I need to be a part of." Then her husband got all mad and told us to leave. It's so hard to know what to do in these types of situations! Free agency is wonderful and terrible at the same time! All we can do is pray, I guess.

I love my new District! They are such a fun bunch! We have a tripanionship of Elders and another companionship of Elders, each with a new baby fresh from the MTC! So fun! Sometimes it's nice to hear the new missionaries speak Russian so that I can remind myself that I don't speak as badly as I used to. Anyways, after English group this week, one of the members handed out some candy to the people that were hanging around. I was super pumped because it was one of those chocolate covered cherry things that has the stuff inside. I snarfed mine down in like 2 seconds and then took down Sister Wilson's because she doesn't like cherry. After I'd already eaten mine, the member standing next to me started freaking out because apparently the inside had alcohol in it... umm... whoops. I honestly couldn't even tell. Satan's a tricky one. 

I've had a the stomach flu for the past couple of days (not attributed to the chocolate:), so Sister Wilson and I were inside for a little bit this weekend. Also, the water in our building was conveniently turned off on those particular days, so that was a grand adventure. Stomach flu + no running water in the sink or toilet = nightmare. I'm still not feeling super great, but hopefully it'll go away soon. Thankfully the water is back on... for now.

That's all for now! Don't get drunk on chocolate or answer the door without wearing any clothes!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff