Zdrastvuitye!
What a busy week this has been! I have never traveled so much in my entire life. Good thing I love car rides and airplanes! I got to go on my Visa trip this week which entailed a road trip to Samara!
The week started off pretty normally, aside from all of the packing that I had to do. On Monday, we said goodbye to one of our dear friends from the branch who was moving to America the next day to get married. Pretty weird story... ask me about it later. On Tuesday, we spent the entire day running around from place to place so that I could say goodbye to my branch buddies. I am really going to miss living in Solnechney. I made so many close friends and lots of memories. I'm sure I'll come back to Russia someday and I'll get to see them again!
Wednesday was the craziest of crazy days. I was picked up in the afternoon in a van and headed out for a 9 hour road trip to Samara! The mission mini-bus is nothing short of an adventure every time I have the opportunity to ride in it. This trip was no exception. As usual, there was more luggage in the vehicle than people, and not enough space for either. We picked up and dropped off about four different sets of missionaries on the way to Samara, and I somehow transitioned from riding shotgun to being smashed in the back of the van between a duffel bag, a suitcase, a random pillow (eww...), and the window. The suitcase was directly in front of me taking up all of my leg room, and the duffel bag was teetering precariously on top of it. I had to keep pushing it back up periodically throughout the trip to keep from being crushed. I had no circulation in my legs for a majority of the ride, but thankfully the view of the beautiful Russian countryside distracted me from the pain.
When we finally got to my home in Samara, it was about 9 at night. Everything turned into a big party from there. There were 8 Sisters sleeping in that apartment that night, one of which was my MTC companion, Sister McKell, whom I hadn't seen in almost 8 months. It was a glorious reunion. It was really weird being back in the apartment that I lived in for my first 4 months in Russia. I had forgotten how much I missed it. It felt nice to be back, even though it was only for a short period of time.
Visa trips never cease to give me excitement. President Schwab says that we're not allowed to like Visa trips, but you cannot take away my love for "airport atmosphere" and airplanes! This Visa trip was so great! Well, except for the fact that my seat was booked next to disgusting men on every flight. Did not enjoy that aspect. Our Visa trip was to Riga, Latvia like my last one. We flew to Moscow, had a short layover, flew to Riga, had another short layover, and then flew back the way we came. When we were in Moscow airport, we found a place that supposedly had the best frozen yogurt ever, so of course we ate there. Yes, it was delicious, but it was like $12 for a smallish bowl of yogurt. Worth it? Yeah. In the Samara airport I bought a tiny version of the fur hats that Russians wear in the winter. Best purchase of my life. It will make a great Christmas ornament. The rest of the trip wasn't much to talk about. On our first flight we were given sandwiches that gave me food poisoning. Yay. I didn't feel the effects of the food poisoning until our second plane was about to take off, so I had to sit in my seat suffering for about 20 minutes until the plane took off. Not pretty. Other than that, it was a great trip.
Oh man, I am obsessed with Penza! I literally love it so much! Sister Thomas is such a great companion and I love her with all of my heart. Penza is a pretty modern looking city and it has a lot of hipsters that live here. Outside of the city is a huge, lush forest. Sister Thomas and I went "contacting" (we pretty much went on a little hike) in it for a little bit because it was really hot and we wanted to see if it was cooler in the forest than being on the street. It was. I cannot even describe how breath taking it was. I felt like I was in a fairy land or something. A fairy land that still has mosquitoes though.
Yesterday there was a massive thunder storm!!! Thankfully we weren't on the street for very much of it, but guess who we were with? A witch. Not sure which option is worse. This isn't even a joke, she is literally a witch. She has certificates all of her house stating that she is a certified witch. I don't know what that entails, but I do know that she has some really disturbing stuff in her house. When she cracked open the door it was pitch black inside her apartment. She literally could not have opened the door in a creepier way than she did. She craned her neck out the door, opened her eyes really wide, and cocked her head all disturbing-like. Gave me the chills. She isn't even super old, but she has the face of a stereo-typical witch (minus the moles). The bulk of the storm started as we were sitting in her kitchen and she just sat there cackling and glaring at the lightning. She is a less active member who is obviously breaking the commandments by using black magic, she smokes, and she says that she can't come to church because her clients call her throughout the day so she can't leave. She is actually a super nice lady, she just has some not nice dealings with the "other side". I saw a little book of Tarat cards that she uses with her clients and she has told the Sisters before that she hears voices. Not good news. Sister Thomas and I left feeling really creepy and uncomfortable. There was not a very good spirit there at all. We had to just stand on the sidewalk for a few minutes and pull ourselves together after the lesson. Not an awesome experience.
We did see a miracle this week aside from the scary one! While Sister Thomas and I were contacting around Penza, I handed a little church invitation to a couple of girls that were walking by us. As we continued to make our way down the street, one of the girls turned around and starting calling after us. I got all scared thinking she was going to get mad at us, so we just kept walking. I had a feeling that we should turn around, so we walked back towards them. Turns out, one of them is an English teacher and the other girl is an English student and after hearing our American accents, they wanted to know more about why we were here. They agreed to come to English group and they want to know more about the church! The English teacher even said, "I'm not a very religious person, is it still okay if I visit your church if I'm not religious?" Um... yeah! Such a great experience!
Welp, that's all for this week folks! Don't eat creepy sandwiches or hang out with witches during storms!
Do Svidanya!
Love,
Sister Megan Wagstaff
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