Mime Time‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Exchanges week!! Man, exchanges are always such an adventure! They are pretty stressful though because you want the Sister Training Leaders to think that your area is booming, so you schedule every meeting you can get for the two days that they are there and then you have nothing to do for the rest of the week. Good times. Sister Sotnikova and Sister Wilson from Samara came to Penza for exchanges. We saw some wonderful miracles while working with the sisters! Guess how many Book of Mormons we gave out in the two days that they were with us?? Guess. 20 Book of Mormons! It takes Sister Thomas and I at least two weeks to do that on a regular basis. Flood the earth with the book!

Sister Sotnikova (the Russian Sister) and I camped ourselves at a busstop one morning and ended up having some wonderful conversations with people. We even gave out a Book of Mormon! After about an hour and a half of hanging out there we had to split because there is a handicapped man that likes to harrass people on the streets. I honestly love watching him because he is literally hilarious. He only bugs the men, so we never have to worry, but it's usually good to leave when he comes around. He walks around the streets yelling gibberish into a dead walkie talkie and he always carries around a broken broom handle that's covered in colorful duct tape. He likes to pretend that his broom handle is a machine gun and he "shoots down" the pigeons on the sidewalks with it. He even does the sound effects. Sometimes he walks up to men standing at the busstops and whacks them on the butt with his broom stick. Literally so funny! He doesn't do it hard, but enough to startle them. Quite entertaining.

Sister Wilson and I had such a fun time serving together again. Just like old times. We visited a new convert named Lada and she is quite a character. She is a pretty old lady and she works as a model for the art school. Sometimes the students give her their reditions of her face and she hangs them up in her house. She has about 60 drawings, paintings, and sketches of her face on her walls. I was pretty much in shock when I walked into her apartment. So much Lada everywhere! She loves to show them off. After we were done ooing and awing over her face, we shared a spiritual thought and we were able to commit her to invite her son to have a lesson with us. He is an investigator, but we can only visit with him when he is at his mom's house. She is such a great missionary and she agreed to help us out. 

Sister Sotnikova and I had a pretty awful lesson with one of our investigators. The member who helped us out on the lesson literally did not help at all. She brought her very energetic baby with her, they were both starving when they came, and they only stayed for about 20 minutes. The member asked our investigator one question, didn't like her answer, and walked her kid around the park for the rest of the lesson. Before she left, she chewed out our investigator for the way that she lives and then she left. Neither of them are very fond of each other anymore. Our investigator was pretty offended, but she loves the missionaries, so not too much harm was done. Sister Sotnikova and I spent about an hour after the "lesson" cleaning up that mess. Members give me ulcers sometimes. I love them, but they give me stress.

After exchanges, as expected, we had nothing to do for the rest of the week. We did a lot of area exploring since I don't really know the area super well and transfers are coming up next week. We are fairly certain that Sister Thomas is going to be leaving since she has lived here for almost 7 months. We'll see though! President Schwab just informed us in his weekly letter that "in the coming transfers there may be significant changes in companionships and leadership", so we're all interested to see what is going to come to pass in the near future! I can't wait to see what happens! Last I heard, there are going to be 5 new Sisters coming in, so the likelihood of me being able to train is pretty high. Exciting!

Anyways, during our area exploration we were able to meet quite a few really cool people and we placed a couple Book of Mormons. We were able to find a Russian Cemetary as well, which is something I've wanted to visit on my mission bucket list. Russian Cemetaries are pretty weird because there are little baby fences surrounding the perimeter of the actual burial plot and the head stone. There are lots of idols and crosses in them. Pretty creepy. The cemetaries are always in the forest, so I got lots of bug bites as a souvineer. Side note, I'm pretty sure that I'm just straight up allergic to Russian mosquitoes. I have a few bites on my legs and they all look pretty poofy. The mosquitoes have been fond of biting my hands lately, so I have a beautiful Orian's Belt bite formation on my hand. So beautiful. We went over to our favorite less active witch the other day and she gave me some weird cream that actually really helped. Love them witch doctors! They always know what to do! At the end of our visit with her, she gave us a ginormous zucchini that's about a foot and a half long and six inches thick. Zucchini bread anyone?

The monkey dome that Sister Thomas and I went to last week wasn't much to talk about. We would have had to pay extra to see the reptiles, so we just opted to look at the primates. The monkeys there were really cool, but they all looked so sad. One of the monkeys was literally having a nervous breakdown in his little pen. So sad! We had to pay 2 dollars for every picture that we wanted to take (how they would have been able to keep track of that, I have no idea), so we don't have any photo evidence of our attendance in the tent. They had a few mokeys out that we could pet and this random lady threw a monkey at me and told me to hug it. Not going to lie, it was pretty cute. That's about as close as you can get to hugging a boy whilst on a mission. I let the monkey rummage through my purse and thankfully it didn't steal anything. Fun times. Now there is a huge circus tent set up next to the monkey one. Unfortunately none of the performances are on Monday, and I don't think we would have been able to get permission for that anyways. Trust me, getting permission to go to the circus has been attempted before... many times. Sister Thomas and I saw a car packed full of mimes on their way to the circus... that was a funny sight. How do they talk to each other?

Well, that's all for this week folks! Hang up your self portraits and give a monkey a hug!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Miracles and Milk‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week was interesting to say the least. Lots of great miracles and other wonderful random things happened. The only not so good thing that happened was that I had the stomach flu for a couple of days. Not the funnest, but thankfully it didn't last very long. It was pretty cloudy and rainy this week so thankfully there wasn't a ton of heat to contribute to the fever that I had. Phew! Other than that, all is well in Penza.

The biggest miracle that we saw this week happened at church yesterday. Guess how many random people showed up at church yesterday? 6 people! That is unheard of, especially since we only invited one of them! One of the ladies that showed up had been to church once a long time ago and decided to randomly show up. Another lady came with her son and they were invited by one of the members. A cute little family came and they were invited by another member. A crazy lady showed up, but she always shows up. One of our investigators showed up as well and that was such a massive miracle! Sister Thomas and I were so overwhelmed by the number of people that showed up, we didn't know who to talk to first! We ended up getting a lot of lessons set up and we're really excited to see what the Lord has in store for all of them!

Another wonderful miracle happened this week as well! Our investigator, Valentina, prayed for the first time in our lesson with her and it was one of the most tender prayers I have ever heard in my life. It made me tear up a little bit because I felt the spirit so strong. She asked Heavenly Father to help the missionaries not forget about her, she prayed that the work would be made lighter for us, she prayed for her family, and then she asked Heavenly Father for forgiveness for anything she might have said wrong in her first prayer. It was such a precious, humble prayer and I don't think I'll ever forget how much her sincerity impacted my testimony. It just amazes me how these people who know so little about prayer can give these amazing, life changing prayers and people who have prayed their whole lives take it for granted. I know I do. Valentina is such an example to me! Before our lesson, she asked us to forgive her for not reading the brochure that we gave her more than one time. She told us about how she read the Restoration brochure right after she got home from our last lesson and that she wanted to read it again one more time but that she didn't have time. It's usually like pulling teeth just to get people to skim the brochures! She testified to us about how everything just makes sense and she knows its true. Such a sweet spirit! She has definitely been prepared by the Lord and I have no doubt that she will be baptized in the near future!

On a less spiritual note, I have made some wonderful food/beverage discoveries in Russia! First off, beverage discovery. I pretty much never drink the milk in Russia because the way they pasturize it makes it taste really weird and I don't like it very much. BUT, the other day Sister Thomas and I found a place that sells milk basically straight from the cow. It isn't sketchy, I promise. You buy it from a kiosk that has pictures of grass and cows on it. It's legit. You bring up a bottle (or you can buy one) to the machine, stick in the money, and it fills up your bottle for you. Literally the most delicious milk I've ever had in my life. Tastes just like the stuff in America, but better! Love it! Yay, calcium! And it's cheaper than the stuff in the store, so that's a win. Okay, food discovery. Over the past month or so I kept seeing these little berry things that look just like grape-sized watermelons. They are either green or purple. The other day I finally got to try some and they are so good! Their texture is just like a grape but they taste like kiwis! Look like baby watermelons, taste like kiwis, what are they? I have no idea. I just eat them.

Sister Thomas and I went to a petting zoo this week! It had the most random selection of animals I have ever seen in my life, but it was still fun nonetheless. Here is a list of the animals that were there: bunnies, goats, a raccoon, meercats, piggies, a chinchilla, tiny monkies, two weird animals that looked like anteaters, a random assortment of birds, squirrels, a ferret, hamsters, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, and tiny turtles. It was probably the most exciting 30 minutes of my life (not really). It was fun to play with the little animals and track rabbit poop all over the place. A kid tried to pet the raccoon and it started growling and showing its teeth. All of the adults freaked out and ripped him away real quick. I died laughing in the background. Who thought that putting a raccoon in a petting zoo would be a good idea?? It made some great entertainment though. While I was looking at one of the tiny monkies, he lept over to me and tried to eat the camera strap around my wrist. That was pretty funny and super cute. Sister Thomas didn't catch it in time to take a picture. Good times. A big, orange, inflatable dome randomly appeared in one of the mall parking lots in our area and we later found out that it is full of monkies, 30 to be exact. I think there are reptiles in it too? Don't quote me on that. Sister Thomas and I are going to go by today and pet some monkies after we're finished writing home. Should be a fun time! Maybe I'll even get to hold some sort of scaley creature as well. We'll see!

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Invite some people to church and don't pet any raccoons!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Ocean Shoes‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Wow, this week was very moist. There were lots of thunderstorms and the rain was abundant. So far, my rainboots have been one of the smartest purchases that I have made on my mission. Note: They are only helpful if you remember to wear them when it is raining. Speaking of smart purchases, I have gotten into a terrible habit of dozing off during personal study from being so tired, so I was determined to find a solution this week. Sister Thomas and I have been doing a lot of contacting lately, so I have been going to bed exhausted and waking up exhausted. Not a great recipe when you have an hour of silence to study on your own every morning. So, to solve this problem, I bought an exercise ball. Not only have my morning workouts gotten a lot better (which unfortunately also makes me more tired), but I use it as my desk chair during studies. Number one: Having to balance myself on the ball keeps me awake and alert whilst I am studying. Number two: If I do fall asleep, I will come crashing to the ground which will wake me up. Win, win. So far it is working and I haven't had to crash to the ground to reap the benefits.

Anyways, Sister Thomas and I had a few interesting lessons this week. One of our new investigators, Valentina, can only meet with us in the wee hours of the night on the street on her way home from work. Apparently her husband is super controlling and he doesn't like her going anywhere without him knowing. She just meets with us after work so that he won't ask questions. Pretty weird. Valentina and the member that we had on the lesson with us became best friends and that made the lesson so wonderful. I think a little bit of Valentina's husband's personality rubbed off on her because she was super paranoid about every single thing that was going on around us during the lesson. She wouldn't let us pray on the street for like 10 minutes because she was afraid that someone would walk by, see her, and hunt her down while she was at work. She was so convinced that some random person was just going to walk up to us and kick us off of the bench that we were sitting on, which gave her so much stress for some reason. She was paranoid that someone in the building next to us would be peering out of their window and spying on us (which is valid because that usually does happen). She asked us if we knew every single person that walked by and what their relationship was to us. It was just really weird. Thankfully she moved past her paranoia after about 15 minutes and we were able to talk about the Restoration with her. It ended up being a really great lesson! The only issue with her is church attendance because her husband will question her about it and won't let her go. With time things will get better with her husband as she comes to learn and love the gospel.

We also had a lesson with another new investigator named Anya and it was literally insane. This was the first time that we had met with her before, so of course we wanted to start off with the Restoration. Little did we know that Anya loves studying about crazy religion theories and philosophies and stuff like that, so it was really hard to keep everything in focus. Unfortunately the lesson took a drastic turn to the Plan of Salvation, and the member that we had with us had just come out of inactivity, so she didn't understand the Plan of Salvation AT ALL. They both got in an argument about something to do with archangels and then they both turned on us and started arguing about reincarnation. Yeah, it is really difficult to tenderly answer the question: "Well, how come some people can remember their past lives before this one? Hmm???" It is especially difficult to answer that when your member has turned on you too. In the end, thankfully no one hated each other and only a little bit of false doctrine was taught by our member. 

On Saturday Sister Thomas and I had quite the adventure. It was raining and thunderstorming the entire day, so it's a good thing that all of our lessons fell through that day. Not. I have never been so soaking wet in my entire life. When we went outside in the afternoon the weather too bad. It sprinkled a little bit, but nothing too crazy. Contacting in this kind of weather is great because nobody is running away from storms or hiding inside from the lightning. Within the first 30 minutes of being outside Sister Thomas and I gave out 2 Book of Mormons! That is such a miracle! Lately we have just been praying to give out one Book of Mormon a day because no one has been taking them. We had to hurry home and grab some more books since we had given out our only ones. We live right across the street from a beautiful performance hall and I guess it was some sort of "Russian Pride Day" or something on Saturday so there were booths set up all over the performance hall grounds, there was a band, and a bunch of activities for kids. We decided to take a little bit of our meal time to look around after we grabbed some more books and at that point it started dumping rain. I am not exaggerating when I say dumping. The thunder was louder than I have ever heard it in my life, there was lightning flashing all around us, and there were baby oceans in my shoes. I absolutely love thunderstorms, but I love them a little bit less when I have to contact in them. Needless to say, nobody wanted to talk to us on the street. The storm didn't let up all day and Sister Thomas ended up forgetting her umbrella at a bus stop while she was fixing one of her shoes so we had to run around under my tiny umbrella. Such an adventure. We ended up resorting to bus contacting to get out of the rain and we got lost a few times. There were no people on the buses since there wasn't anybody on the streets. I thought it was pretty fun. The bus conductors don't like it very much when you don't get out though. 

Welp, that's all for this unusually entertaining week. Sit on exercise balls and wear your rain boots!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Watermelon Exercise‏

Zdrastvuitye!

This week was great! Sister Thomas and I did a lot of contacting, but we were still able to meet with quite a few people, which was wonderful. Thankfully the weather was on our side this week, so we weren't dying of heat stroke or anything. It was cloudy and pretty chilly this week. I had to grab a sweater for one of the days that we spent contacting because of the wind and rain. It has definitely heated up since then, but the clouds are rolling back in, so hopefully that will help. Russian weather is so unpredictable, but I love it!

God Bless America... My home sweet hooooome!!! Sister Thomas and I had a great Fourth of July! We wanted to keep the traditions alive that we were accustomed to in America (regarding the food... not regarding the fireworks), so we made preparations throughout the week to carry out our plan. On Friday morning we went to the sketchy Russian equivalent of a "farmer's market" and bought some delicious cherries, some strawberries, and a watermelon from these creepy Russian men who gave us a discount because they thought we were pretty. Whatever saves you money, I guess. Yeah... about the watermelon... It weighed about 16-18 pounds, and we live about a mile away from the farmer's market. Talk about a morning workout. Sister Thomas had to keep switching off heaving around the melon. It was not an easy task, but thankfully the watermelon ended up being super delicious, so it was worth it. On the Fourth of July, Sister Thomas and I made strawberry lemonade, ate a ton of watermelon, and roasted some creepy Russian hot dogs over a burner on our gas stove. So classy! It was really fun though. The Elders in our District sent us Patriotic scriptures that referred to freedom and America throughout the day. They think they are funny. Pretty entertaining. We didn't end up seeing any fireworks, but the Elders did. When people get married in Russia they always shoot off fireworks at night, so we had our fingers crossed that that would be the case, but we weren't so lucky. The Elders were shreiking with joy over the phone when they saw actual fireworks on the Fourth of July. Luckies. It was a pretty fun day!

Yesterday Sister Thomas and I went contacting in the forest again. This time there were actually people outside as opposed to last time when we only saw one lady. The weather was pretty nice yesterday, so there were lots of people out walking their dogs and such. We almost got knocked over by a big old husky that wanted to lick us to death, but other than that it was a safe trek. Sister Thomas and I almost walked into a campsite of men smoking pot that were hidden behind some trees, but thankfully Sister Thomas spotted them before we awkwardly bumped into them. Yikes. We found some cool places that could potentially be good contacting spots in the future. We found a big, new hockey arena pretty far down the road from the city, so that was pretty cool to see. Pretty sure we're not allowed to go to a hockey game, but at least we know were they'll be at. Also, there are some really nice paved paths in a certain area of the forest that are specifically for riding bikes and roller blading. There were a TON of people there when Sister Thomas and I discovered it. Unfortunately it was starting to get dark at that point, so we had to abort from our adventures in the forest. So peaceful and beautiful!

This week Sister Thomas and I met with a gypsy lady named Roobina. She goes out of town a lot to do her "gypsy things," which I'm not really sure what that entails, but it was great to meet with her while she was in town. The miraculous part of the visit was that one of her daughters was there and she seemed really interested in hearing about the gospel. She listened intently as we talked about what it means to have faith in Christ and she answered the questions that we asked almost as frequently as her mom. It was amazing! She ended up accepting a Book of Mormon and committed to start reading it. The only downside to the meeting was that Roobina's granddaughter was there and she is a little bundle off spaziness. She was literally jumping off the walls, doing parkour, shrieking, throwing things, and flailing her limbs at us during the entire lesson. Pretty distracting, to say the least. Thankfully everything turned out alright despite the crazy monkey pulling everyone's attention away.

We also had a couple last-minute lessons with some investigators that ended up turning out really well. Both of them gave me a lot of stress at the beginning of the lessons because all they wanted to talk about was American culture compared to Russian culture. One of them even lectured us for 10 minutes about how she thinks we are paying too much for our apartment. Such a struggle to get people to understand our purpose in meeting with them. Everything ended up working out though! By the end of the meetings, both of them accepted reading assignments from the Book of Mormon and agreed to meet with us again. So great! The church is true!

Well, that's pretty much all for this week! Don't walk your melons or let old ladies lecture you about housing. Have a great week!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff