Zdrastvuitye!
Sweaty week! This week has consisted of a lot of perspiration regarding the weather and stress. In terms of the weather, for some reason, summer has decided to peek it's big ole sunny head through the clouds once again and it has been in the 80s-90s all week long. Literally two weeks ago we were digging through our winter suitcases to find sweaters thick enough to suppress the cold. Now we're sweating to death in our flowiest of dresses due to the temperature. Oh well. Pray for snow in Russia. I'm done with the heat.
So, this week we had Zone Training in my home town, Avrora. Every time I go back there, my heart aches to serve there again. I spent the first 4 and a half months of my mission there and I want to go back there more than anything! Especially since I'll actually be able to communicate with the members now instead of staring at them like a frightened deer fresh from the womb every time someone wanted to talk to me. Anyways... The train station experience on the way to Avrora was ridiculously stressful and resulted in perspiration equivalent to the mists of Niagara Falls. Stressful. When we showed up to the train station, we were informed by the Assistants to the President that ALL of our tickets (Mine, Sister Thomas's, and the Penza Elders' tickets) would print off using just one of our Passport numbers and one Order Code. Yep... Didn't work. It was great at printing off the Elder's tickets, but it didn't do squat for mine or Sister Thomas's tickets. We had to wait around for a while whilst the Assistants sent us our Order Code. Once we finally got it, of course it didn't work. I tried it a few times in the kiosk with no luck. I called over one of the staff members and showed her what was up. She ran to her office in the back for a few minutes and came back with a somewhat official looking piece of paper that had our train information on it. We took the piece of paper and went on our way. After finding the train that we thought was ours, the conductor ushered us on and took us to our coupe. I had a little heart attack when I saw a suit jacket already hanging up inside the door. There was very clearly a man inside. The conductor was like: "Sir, sir, I have some good, nice girls for you. They will be joining you in here." At that point I was freaking out, but she kept insisting that I shouldn't be afraid and that everything would be fine. Upon examining our tickets, we discovered that we were on the wrong train. PHEW! But the stress didn't end there. After we got settled in in the correct train about 20 minutes later, a sweaty conductor-lady busted into our coupe 10 minutes before the train was supposed to leave and told us that we had to run back into the station to print off the actual tickets from our bum piece of paper. I have never run so fast in my entire life. If any of you reading this are preparing to go on a mission, I highly advise that you do not get shoes with Velcro straps. Number one, you are not four years old. Yes, they are convenient, but that's about the only perk. When your shoes get dirty, which is every day, the velcro will come undone every 25 seconds. Number two, you cannot run to your departing train like a majestic gazelle when your shoe straps are flying around threatening to send your shoe skyward from lack of support. Not worth it. We had about 4 minutes to spare by the time we threw ourselves back on the train. Sister Thomas and I slept for 3 hours after that from the stress and exhaustion. Never again will I go through that. Thankfully our train ride home went as smooth as butter, so no unnecessary perspiration was produced.
So anyways, Zone Training was really good. It was a few hours longer than usual, but I'm still not really sure why President wanted us to come in for this training instead of just Skyping in. That's okay though. It was a lot of fun! We were all tense in our chairs the entire time thinking that President was going to present a new rule or make some substantial changes to the mission, but none of that transpired. It was a very peaceful, revelatory training that I'm grateful that we got to experience in person. One of the biggest things that I learned from that training is the importance of making our prayers more meaningful. We are literally coming before the throne of our Heavenly Father when we pray. Every detail down to our posture should be consistent with the sacredness of this gift. I had definitely been taking prayer for granted and I have seen such a major difference in my life by changing my attitude on prayer. Try changing your prayers to make them more meaningful. Tell Heavenly Father how you felt throughout the day, express gratitude more, pray out loud, speak from your heart and don't repeat phrases, pray for other people, or just make your prayers a couple minutes longer. Heavenly Father will notice any sacrifice that you make with your prayers, and he is willing and ready to bless you. Make a little change and you will notice a difference in your life.
This weekend we had a Branch Activity! It was a ton of fun! We had a couple of investigators show up, so Sister Thomas and I got permission to go! Our branch took a sketchy old Russian School Bus into the middle of nowhere and had a picnic. It was great! It took about 45 minutes to get there and Sister Thomas was downright carsick by the time we got there. The scenery was so beautiful in this little slice of nature! We were nestled in a little grove of trees in a Russian forest and there was a little lake a little ways off. We played lots of games, ate some sandwiches, roasted hot dogs and bread (I guess roasting bread over an open fire is a thing in Russia), and then the members swam in the muddy lake. I have never seen so many speedos on grown men in my entire life. Scarred for life. I felt uncomfortable shaking some of their hands on Sunday. As a whole, the activity was really fun and it was a great opportunity to get to know the members a little bit more and have our investigators get to know them too. Our branch is going to be having a Halloween activity soon that the missionaries will have a pretty big part in planning. Should be a blast as well!
My Russian skills were tested once again this week. Sister Thomas's knees have been causing her a lot of pain for the past couple of months, to the point where they get all swollen and she can barely walk sometimes. Clearly that is a problem, so the mission doctor told us to go meet with a Russian doctor to get things figured out. I had a little anxiety attack just thinking about all of the crazy, random words like "swollen", "tendons", "inflammation", "anterior", and "exterior" that I would have to memorize to prepare for this momentous event. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard for the gift of tongues in my entire life. I didn't want to misunderstand something and accidentally agree to have Sister Thomas's legs amputated. I may or may not have learned that word just in case. In the end, everything turned out just fine. Well, sort of. One of the medications he prescribed is an injection... so we'll be calling the mission doctor about that shortly.
Well, that's all for this week folks! Roast some bread over an open flame and don't ride trains with strangers!
Do Svidanya!
Love,
Sister Megan Wagstaff