This week wasn't super eventful, but the weather has definitely kept things interesting. Whoever keeps praying for the cold weather, thank you again! All this week the temperature has been in the 30-40 range and, except for today, it has been snowing for the past few days. Needless to say, all of my winter garb has been broken out and I am sporting the snow boots once again! Yay! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! The snow is really wet, so pretty much none of it has stuck thusfar, but it's still fun to see! I keep hearing rumors that it will warm up again, but I hope that is a lie. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... except it's not even Halloween yet...
A few days ago, Sister Thomas and I decided that it would be fun to have a family night with one of the members in our branch named Vera. She is such a strong little lady! All of the members in her immediate family are members of the church, but all of them have since gone inactive and refuse contact from everyone. Vera and her husband got baptized together about 12 years ago, but her husband died and she is all alone. Since it was freezing cold outside and we had no plans ahead of us, Sister Thomas and I braved the cold and marched to her house. Having never been there before, I did know, nor could I have anticipated just how treacherous the journey would be. I knew that a portion of the trek would be up a hill, but I did not anticipate just how steep or how long it would be. Sister Thomas and I started on our adventure cheerfully and with energetic bounds in our steps. The first part of the hill is one that we walk multiple times a week, so we hardly batted an eye at that obstacle. However, upon further examination of the road ahead of us, we discovered that there was an even larger hill carefully hidden behind the slope of the hill that we had just journeyed, the pitch of which was exceedingly high. Sister Thomas and I cringed at the thought of having to hike up this steep street, but after much consideration and wrestling with the spirit, we carried on. Many times we almost turned back, but our love for our sweet Vera kept us pushing forward. After about 10 minutes of straight upward climbing, we took a break and discovered that yet another small hill was nestled a ways off on the top of this hill. After questioning whether or not our bodies could even physically handle another heck hill, we decided that we had come too far to give up, so we carried on once again. My shins burned with a pain that I had never before experienced, nor have I ever wanted to hike up a hill in the winter wearing just shorts and a tee shirt in my life. Fortunately, this was an uphill battle that we won. Vera was taught the sweet word of God, and we ended the night by merrily skipping down the hill that we had previously conquered. By the end of my mission, my legs are going to look like they were chiseled by the gods.
This week is going to be an adventurous one for sure! Elder Larry Kacher of the Seventy and Sister Carol McConkie of the Young Women General Presidency will both be visiting the Saratov Zone tomorrow. They will be doing some sort of devotional with the members there and then they will commence in a mission tour. When President and Sister Schwab visited last week, Sister Schwab told me that there will most likely be a stake formed in Saratov before the end of the year. That would be the first stake in our mission and just one stake closer to having a temple in Russia! Since the General Authorities have recently taken a lot of interest in Saratov, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if a stake was formed there in the near future. Anyways, whilst Elder Kacher and Sister McConkie are on the mission tour, they will be having short Zone Conferences with each of the zones, which means Sister Thomas and I get to take a train back to Samara again! Yay! I'm really excited to hear what these servants of the Lord have to share with us. Should be a great, spiritual experience!
Speaking of great, spiritual experience, we finally got to watch General Conference this weekend! It was so good! It takes a few days for the Russian translation of Conference to be available online, so we had to wait an extra week to watch it. The missionaries gather together with all of the members before the showing and then the missionaries go into a different room to watch the broadcast in English once everything gets up and running. Since Jack Frost came into town for a visit and the heaters weren't working in the church building, everyone looked like a bunch of bundled up Eskimos in the sacrament hall during the broadcast. Sister Thomas and I watched Conference in the computer room and it was freezing! We left on all of our winter gear and crouched over a heater the whole time. We sipped our hot chocolate and struggled to take notes with our frozen fingers. Good times. I learned a lot from Conference and I had a lot of questions answered by our beloved Prophets and Apostles. It made me sad to see how frigid and crinkly President Monson is looking, but his talk was just as powerful as always. Hearing the testimonies of the new apostles was both sad and uplifting. I know that all of the leaders of the church are chosen by the Lord, and it's always sad to see them depart this life, but the Lord knows what He's doing. The church is in good hands.
On a less spiritual note, Sister Thomas and I were finally able to meet with a less active who is literally never home when we stop by. She decided to come home early that day from gathering the last of her crops at her little garden outside of town, and we just so happened to stop by when she was home. The lesson wasn't terrible, but it was a tad strange. We read a scripture in Alma 5 about how Christ is calling after his sheep and if you do not answer his call (getting baptized, keeping the commandments, keeping covenants, etc) you are not of his flock, ie the flock of the devil. She readily and almost cheerfully admitted that she is in the flock of the devil and then spent the next 20 minutes telling us about how we need to improve our language. Thank you, lady. We are more aware than we'd like to be of how awful our Russian is. She kept telling us about how unsuccessful we'd be if it was just the two of us trying to find people on the street. I don't think she really understands how the Lord works. This is HIS work, not ours. Nobody would have any success if we were in charge of this work.
Welp, that's all for this week folks! Walk around hills and snuggle warmly whilst learning about the sweet word of God!
Do Svidanya!
Sister Megan Wagstaff
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