News and Noobs‏

Zdrastvuitye!

I have some super big news that's going to blow your mind!!! Are you ready??? THERE IS GOING TO BE A STAKE IN SARATOV!!!!!! We got the call yesterday morning that the first Stake in our mission and the third stake in Russia is going to be formed next Sunday in Saratov!! I cannot even describe how excited I am for this! President Porter of the 70 will be heading down to Saratov on Sunday with President Schwab to create the Saratov Russia Stake!! What a great blessing that is, and it is something which has been worked on for many years by missionaries and members. We are all so grateful to the Lord for this and I know it will be such a huge blessing for the whole area. I have my fingers crossed that the construction of the first Temple in Russia will be announced in the coming sessions of General Conference. I'm not exactly sure if I will get to be at the actual Conference where the Stake is being created, but I'll get to watch it via Skype if we don't get to go to Saratov. Penza is in the Saratov Zone, so we'll get to see it one way or another. My excitement cannot be contained!!!

We had an interesting lesson last night with our investigators who agreed to be baptized last week. Everything lesson-wise went great. The weird parts were what was happening around me. First of all, they have these two creepy little dogs that smell like booty and they are always trying to manipulate you into petting them. Nast. We did a short Plan of Salvation review with our investigators at the beginning of the lesson using these little cutouts that help you explain the Plan step by step. There wasn't a table or anything in the front room, so I opted to setting up the cutout map on the floor. The little butt dogs were all over me as I sat on the ground and I almost threw in the towel on the map idea. After about 5 minutes, one of the dogs moved on to bugging my companion and the other one was just chilling next to me. Before I knew it, an overwhelming smell of bad tacos filled my nostrils and I looked down to find the dog that was sitting next to me chomping down on a brown log that previously was not there. Yep, I got up real swift-like and remained on the couch for the rest of the lesson. Yikes. Anyways, our investigators have decided to become noncommittal on the baptismal date, so we are focusing on helping them understand the basics like prayer to give them that desire to be baptized. We keep hoping and praying for them! I have no doubt that they will get baptized in the next month or so. The daughter of our main investigator is obsessed with OneRepublic, so she made us listen to "All the Right Moves" on their computer. It has been ages since I've heard that song, and it kind of freaked me out that I remembered all of the lyrics. I can barely tell my companions what my favorite movies are and what kind of music I like because it's so hard to remember all of that stuff when you've been away from the world for so long. It's a strain in the brain, that's for sure. 

The other day, Sister Warnick and I went on a hunt for less actives and it was REAL cold outside. After walking around for about an hour and a half, we decided to meet with one of the members that lived close by since we could barely feel our appendages from the cold. We stopped by a member named Baba Katia. I talked about Baba Katia in my letter about a month ago. She's the crazy old lady who told everyone at church a story about how she lectured someone for shooing away a dog. She is cray. Anyways, Baba Katia has one of the most hilarious singing voices I have ever heard in my life and we always start off our lessons with her with a song. This being Sister Warnick's first time experiencing the singing of Baba Katia, she was trying so hard not to hyperventilate from laughing so hard. Seeing the hysteria of my companion's laughter made me start laughing during the Hymn as well. Every once in a while Baba Katia would smack me on the arm with her wrinkly hand, but I just couldn't hold it in. After the conclusion of the Hymn, Baba Katia looked me dead in the eyes, well, in the eye since she only has one eye, and said "Why were you laughing during this holy Hymn?" Not wanting to hurt her feelings by telling her that we were laughing at her singing, I made up some excuse about how I was feeling overwhelmed by the Spirit and the joy made me laugh. She then spent the next 5 minutes throwing down about how laughing during Hymns is the work of the Devil and that I needed to repent if we wanted to find success in the work. She continuously referenced this incident throughout the lesson and Sister Warnick and I left feeling thoroughly chastised. Lesson learned. Don't laugh at one-eyed old ladies. 

I had another interesting experience on the streets the other night. Sister Warnick and I were making our way home from a long day of contacting when we saw two drunk 15 year olds goofing around on the sidewalk. As we were just about to pass them, one of them waltzed in front of me and tried to grab me by my shoulders. As he was raising his arms to block me, he told me to stop walking and then went in for a smooch. My companion doesn't understand squat in Russian, so she just said "no" in English and shuffled to the side of the sidewalk opposite from where I was being facially attacked. Thankfully he didn't have time to plant one on me before I scurried around him, but he did manage to get a hold of a big chunk of hair as I was running away. I got a nice, painful yank from that. I was terrified that they would try to chase us down, but fortunately they were too wasted to even figure out where we went. No fear!!

Since our Branch in Penza celebrated Halloween a week early, Sister Warnick and I decided to officially celebrate Halloween a week late! That was mostly due to the fact that we could never find time to buy pumpkins until a couple of days ago. We spent a dinner hour carving pumpkins and drinking apple cider. Good fun! I attempted to carve the Hymn Book organ logo on my pumpkin. Didn't turn out too well, but it could have been worse. It didn't really help that we only had large kitchen knives to carve the pumpkins with. It was still fun, nonetheless. 

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Don't sit by poopy small dogs and never laugh at other people's singing. 

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff