Rolling Toaster‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Sweaty... That is how I would describe this week. Sweaty. It isn't even June yet and it has already been in the 90s for a majority of this week. Oh how wonderful the summer will be! The buses are such wonderful places when it is hot outside. It's always at least 20 degrees hotter in those mobile toasters. At least my skin never dries out because I'm always soaking wet:) Great weather for ice cream though!

Sister Martinez and I saw SO many miracles this week! It was truely amazing! A few days ago we had a lesson with one of our investigators who is progressing beautifully, but she doesn't want to live the Law of Chastity so she has yet to be baptized. At the end of our lesson we asked her if she knew anybody who would be interested in hearing about the gospel and she said she would ask around among her group of friends. We met with her the next day and as Sister Martinez and I were approaching the branch building, we stopped and I said, "Wait... I think there's someone with our investigator right now waiting in front of the building." Sister Martinez said, "No way! She actually brought somebody!" and then I of little faith said, "Nah. She's probably just talking to someone on the street." Dead wrong. She brought a buddy! We ended up doing a church tour with her and she loved it! When we went up to the baptismal font, our INVESTIGATOR asked her friend, "So when you do want to get baptized." What??? That never happens. We wanted to throw the question back at her, but we waited. We taught them the Restoration and asked the friend if she would be baptized and she said yes! We asked our investigator if she would as well and she said, "In the summer." Good thing summer starts in pretty much a week:) So cool! Can you imagine how strong they will be if they get baptized together as friends??? Miracles everywhere! They both showed up to church the following day and they loved it. Our investigator helped out her friend so much and Sister Martinez and I couldn't help but feel like proud little mama birds watching our baby grow up and spread the gospel. So cool!

On a less spiritual note, Sister Martinez and I went over to a member's house for family night and we were fed a weird soup with fish and potatoes in it. We're not allowed to eat fish in Russia, but if it comes from a can we can eat it because the fish usually doesn't come from Russian waters. We ate it and it was good, but the next day Sister Martinez and I woke up with some pretty nasty food poisoning. We are pretty sure it came from that sketchy soup. All is well now, but it definitely wasn't a very fun experience.

Sister Martinez and I are packing our bags and heading over to a little town called Balakova today! We will be there for a few days for exchanges and I am so excited! It's about a 3 and a half hour bus ride to get there. I am praying that there will be some sort of air conditioning on the bus, otherwise we're going to look like we ran through a rain storm when we get off. 

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Celine Dion Concert‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Holy rain! So much precipitation! It has been really gray and stormy this week, which isn't the ideal weather for street contacting. Just as soon as the mud starts to dry up, another storm rolls though and makes everything all squishy again. I have already had an umbrella break in the wind and I am now on my third umbrella since I accidentally left my first one in the Avrora apartment. I might have to start a tally for how many umbrellas I go through during the spring and summer seasons. When it isn't rainy outside, it is super hot. Saratov is the area that gets the hottest in the mission, especially in the summer. Guess that means I'll have to buy more ice cream.

Man, I love my new companion so much! Her name is Sister Martinez and she is from good old Salt Lake City. Both of her parents were born in Mexico. Her family is super involved in Mexican Folk dancing, so it's really interesting to look at all of the pictures that she brought from home. She's just a spunky little ball of laughter. She makes me feel like a comedian because she laughs at pretty much everything I say. Love her! She has crazy naturally curly hair like me, so our apartment floor is covered in brown squiggley hairs. Our poor vacuum.

A lot of people have either been super busy or out of town, so me and Sister Martinez haven't had the chance to meet with very many of our investigators this past week. One of our investigators who was previously super interested in getting baptized has decided that she no longer has the desire because she doesn't want to like the Law of Chastity. We're planning on meeting with her every day this week and just doing a little spiritual thought with her. She feels the spirit so strong and we don't want her to forget about it. One of our other investigators is progressing really well and we are really excited to see what will happen with her in the near future. Keep praying for them!

Victory park that we went to last week was SO COOL! I have about a million pictures of different types of cannons, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, missiles, rocket launchers, memorials, etc. It was really interesting to see everything! On one half of the park is the war stuff and then on the other half there was an "international area." There are a bunch of houses and buildings constructed to represent different countries around the world. There was a National Ukrainian house, an Indian (not Native American) house, a Chinese house, a Russian house, etc. It was amazing! Sister Martinez really wants to go see it, so we'll probably be going back in the next week or two before it gets too hot outside. 

My companion and I discovered that our upstair neighbors really like Celine Dion. They play "My Heart Will Go On" on repeat for hours. We do our morning studies with "Neeeeaaar, faaaaar, whereeeeeeeeeever you aaaaaare!!!!" in the background. Super entertaining... really hard to not sing along. So funny!

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Go buy some umbrellas and sing Titanic music.

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Wagstaff

A Walk in the Park

Zdrastvuitye!

Hello everyone! So... I just barely Skyped home yesterday for Mother's Day and that was a much needed spiritual uplift, but now I have nothing to talk about...

Sister Wilson and I will be heading out to a super cool park today that takes a while to travel too, so this letter will be short nonetheless. The park that we are going to is called Victory Park or Парк Победы. There are a bunch of monuments, planes, armored trains, and tanks from WWII that are out for the public to view. Many pictures will be taken! I am really excited!

We got our tranfer calls a couple of days ago and I will be staying in Solnechney! I am so excited because I absolutely love this area! So many miracles are happening! My new companion's name is Sister Martinez and she is wonderful! I have been on a few exchanges with her and I can already tell that this is going to be a great cycle. 

Not a whole lot happened this last week actually. We had a really great lesson with an investigator and she actually started crying because the spirit was so strong. She agreed to come to church, but she didn't end up coming. We were pretty bummed by that. Our other investigator also didn't show up to church, so that was also sad. Every area has ups and downs I guess!

Well, sorry for the shortness of this letter, but that's all for this week! Take a stroll in the park and go to church!

Do Svidanya!

Love, 

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Fishes and Ferrets

Zdrastvuitye!

Such fun things happened this week! Including melting in the heat... I'm pretty sure Russia completely skips spring and jumps right into summer. Sister Wilson and I were boiling this week! The amount of miracles that we saw this week were just as high as the temperature!

One of our investigators got baptized!! Honestly, that was the biggest miracle ever because she has been such a tough nut to crack for these past few months. Her baptism was perfect and she was such a little ball of sunshine afterwards. The day before her baptism, she swore to us that she would not get baptized if the water in the font was cold, so we were mortified when we showed up to the church building on the day of her baptism and found that the water was freezing cold! The amazing Elders in my District spent the next hour filling up tea kettles and heating pots of water to dump into the font. Right before her baptism started, the water was still frigid. We were so nervous! When she stepped into the water, she didn't wince, she didn't make any sort of indication that the water was cold. When we asked her afterward how the water temperature was, she said, "It was warm! It wasn't cold at all." Miracle! The Elder who baptized her said that the water was ice cold! The Lord looks out for us! No doubt!

We have such a crazy investigator! She is so much fun! We did some service for her on our first visit and she had us plant some flowers in front of her ugly apartment building. The inside of her apartment is nuts! It literally looks like the fish department in Walmart. One of the rooms is full of about 20 huge fish tanks with different species of pet fish. Her front entry way has about 10 tanks full of little tiny fishies. Apparently she sells her fish to pet stores to make money. She also has a pet dog and a ferret named Benedict. She is very interested in talking to us about God and she told us that she spends at least an hour every morning discussing and debating with her husband about God while they drink tea. Who does that? She invited us to her дача (which is literally like a dog house for humans and they are usually in the woods) to talk about God. Her little dog house was actually pretty close to our apartment and the view was BEAUTIFUL! It was on a hillside and we could see all of Saratov! Such a pretty world we live in! I'm pretty sure we walked through some poisonous plants to get to her dog house, but thankfully nothing happened to us. Anyways, we taught her the Plan of Salvation and then we had a little barbeque. She cooked us some delicious meat over the fire and we ate a weird salad made out of radishes, cucumbers, and green onions. It was all so good!!! She'll get baptized soon, I know it!

On May 1st was a holiday called "Internation Hard Workers' Day." It's kind of like labor day, but it lasts for 4 days. A lot of buisness are closed because nobody is working and everyone goes to their дача's. Apparently that's also when all of the drunkies are out, so we had a lock-in on the night of May 1st. We just had to be inside by 6pm instead of 9pm. On Saturday is the Russian equivalent of the 4th of July, so we will be having another lock-in. Here, they call it "Victory Day" and I have heard that it is a mad house! Should be fun:)

Well, that's all for this week! Enjoy the spring weather and don't hang out in dog houses!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff