Zdrastvuitye!
This week has been a pretty crazy one, that's for sure! Lots of traveling, cooking, and illnesses have ensued over these past 7 days. The weather has certainly jumped on board with the craziness. It has been blizzarding pretty much all week long and we had about 6 inches of snow on the ground for a while. As of two days ago, we've been hit by a pretty big rainstorm, so all the snow is gone now. Sad, but fortunately Russia is known for it's snowy winters, so it'll be back before we know it!
On Thursday, our Zone had Zone Training! Woop, woop! Which means that Sister Warnick and I got to hop on a train and head to good old Samara on Wednesday. The 7 hour train ride was actually really great. I usually just sleep for half of the ride and then stare out the window for the other half. Occasionally I'll whip out my scriptures to seem like I'm being productive, but this last train ride was a pretty intense study sesh. I got a lot done and I learned a lot from them Holy Scriptures. Zone Training was great as well! President Schwab talked a lot about casting out discouragement and the Zone Leaders talked about confidence; two considerably conflicting topics, but they merged together really well. Spiritual upliftment was attained. That same day, Sister Warnick and I hopped on another train and went back to good old Penza. Before going into the train station, we decided to stop by a KFC that was adjacent to the station and pick up some lunch. So good! There was some kind of scary evacuation thing going down at the train station, so Sister Warnick and I just hung out in KFC for a while. I have no idea what was going on but there were policemen everywhere, all of the people inside the building were being ushered to stand behind a barrier of policemen, and there were some firetrucks as well. Pretty weird. Everything was cleared up by the time we finished eating, so I don't think it was anything too serious. Strange, that's for sure.
I'm not really sure why, but our Ward has a knack for celebrating holidays a week earlier than they're supposed to be celebrated. Which means, Thanksgiving is already said and done in Penza. Our Ward had a Thanksgiving Party on Friday, and I placed upon myself the responsibility of making as many dishes as humanly possible in a space of 3 hours. There is one day set aside each week where we have 3 hours to plan for and discuss all of our investigators, less actives, members, and potential investigators. During that three hour period, we did all of the items listed above, with the addition of me cooking like a frantic caterer. My companion can't cook squat, so I was running around like a turkey with my head cut off trying to get everything ready. Three hours is not enough time to make Thanksgiving dinner, my friends. Not enough. I did manage to make a big old pot of mashed potatoes (the biggest hit with the crowd), some apple crisp, and a pan of banana bread (also a huge hit). My companion was great at encouraging me and testing the food. The activity ended up being super fun! There was a cute skit about gratitute, a few talks about Thanksgiving, and karaoke of course. I'm glad that we decided to bring food, because there wouldn't have been a lot of options without our addition. The Elders tried, but they made some bread sticks that tasted pretty reminiscent of glue. They did their best!
This weekend has been one of the strangest ones that I've had on my mission. I woke up on Saturday morning with a pretty intense pain in my stomach. Sister Warnick and I went out and contacted in the morning, as usual, but it didn't go away. I ate a little bit for breakfast hoping that it would clear up, but it didn't. We ended up having to spend the day inside because I felt like a moldy sack of potatoes for the remainder of the day. Fast forward to the next day, I woke up feeling fine, still a little weird, but great as a whole. I looked over at Sister Warnick after waking up and she was clutching her stomach. Uh oh. She was feeling worse than I did the day before, so she just went back to sleep. We had to miss church because she could barely move. A few hours later she got up to try and eat some food, and ended up throwing up a few times before she could even get settled at the table. Yikes. Thankfully the Elders were able to give us blessings last night and now we are doing great! We think the KFC came back around to kick us in the butt. Who knows!
It is great that we are doing great now because... guess what??... we are FLYING to Kazan for exchanges today! Yay! I went to Kazan a little over a year ago (what?) with Sister Johnson for exchanges when I was still being trained, so I am beyond excited to go back! I cannot even describe how beautiful Kazan is, so just Google it and you'll understand. Kazan is super far away from Penza; I'm talking a 12 hour bus ride away from Penza. We were originally going to have to take 2 buses to get there, total travel time equaling about 12-13 hours, but we got a call from the Assistants a few days ago saying that we would be flying instead! The flight will only be about an hour and a half long, but I'm interested to see what kind of tiny Russian plane we will be flying in to get there... Shall be interesting... I am literally so PUMPED to see Sister Thomas in Kazan! I miss my old baby so much! It will be a grand reunion for sure!
So... the extension news! This is President Schwab's response to my extension request: "Regarding your question about an extension, 18 months from your MTC entry date of August 13, 2014 would be February 13, 2016. Your current release date is March 1, 2016, which is already 16 days past the 18 month mark. Because of that, I don't think we will be able to extend. I compliment you on wanting to serve longer. However, as the Brethren have said, we should have as much faith in accepting our release date as we do in accepting our beginning date. We love you and appreciate all you are doing. Work your hardest and spring to the finish!" I kind of had a feeling that this is how it would turn out, but I am not sad about it! I already get an extra two weeks on my mission, so I'll take that as my "extension" and run with it. Since my release day is March 1st, I celebrated my "100 Days Left" mark a bit too early. Whoops! As of today, I have 99 days left, so it should have been celebrated yesterday, but considering the condition of our stomaches, Sister Warnick and I will not be recelebrating it today... or ever.
Welp, that's all for this week folks! Make lots of food for Thanksgiving and don't eat any Russian KFC.
Do Svidanya!
Love,
Sister Megan Wagstaff
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