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