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
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