PoPo Date

Zdrastvuitye!

This has got to be one of the most exhausting weeks ever! This week was jam packed with waking up early, traveling, and stress. My favorite combination! I had a blast though. Lots of memories were made. 

Before all of the stress of the week happened, Sister Warnick and I had a lesson with a crazy investigator named Olga, with Baba Katia (the old lady who yelled at me for falling down the stairs) as our member help. Let's just say that there was a little bit too much crazy going on in the lesson. Baba Katia... bless her soul. I love that lady so much, but she is just so old, she doesn't really think straight anymore. Oh yeah, before I talk about the lesson... Sister Warnick and I went over to Baba Katia's house last night and she was straight up peeing in her bathroom with the door wide open when we came in her front door. She started laughing hysterically and told me to close the door. Yikes. Anyways... This investigator is known for being a tad on the looney side. She randomly gives out big hunks of cash to people like candy and always dies laughing at inappropriate times during church. Nice. She was actually the normal one on the lesson for once. We decided to teach Olga about the Restoration using a bunch of pictures that correspond with each part of the lesson. There are words written on the back of each picture as teaching helps and to help the investigator understand what is being taught. Every. single. time. we would discuss a part of the lesson and then hand Olga the corresponding cutout, Baba Katia would rip it out of her hand while Olga was reading the back and demand to look at the picture on the front. Olga literally almost jumped out of her seat from fear after Baba Katia snatched a picture from her fingers. *Face palm. Unfortunately, Olga has no desire to be baptized, but I think if we keep moving through the lessons really slowly, making sure that she understands everything, she'll come around.

Sooo... the Visa Trip to Kazakhstan. 'Twas an interesting one, that is for sure. Here's the rundown on what happened. Sister Warnick and I woke up at 4am on Tuesday morning and took a train to Samara. We did lots of contacting around Avrora that night. Around 7 in the morning on Wednesday, Sister Thomas (the older) and I got in a surprisingly fancy mini bus and started our 3 hour drive to Kazakhstan. Probably one of the most boring, dragged-on experiences of my life. I think I like flying to Latvia better than driving to Kazakhstan, but it was still a good adventure. Once we drove out of the city, literally all we saw was dirt, dirt, dirt, and, oh... I almost forgot... dirt. No buildings, no civilization, not a lot of cars, just Russian countryside. It was actually really pretty, but it looked very reminiscent of the drive from Boise to Logan... Not that cool. There were only 7 missionaries in the van, but it was a really fun group! The ride consisted of occasional sleeping, eating, and chatting, but not much else. There was some nice Russian folk music playing in the background which added some spice to the ride. Not. I am so grateful that I don't get carsick because I think I would have died! I couldn't even really study because it was too bumpy to read the words in my books. We got to the Kazakhstan border around 10 in the morning and had to go through a couple of Border Control stations before actually crossing into Kazakhstan. Nothing too scary. We were still in the middle of nowhere, so I don't actually know what Kazakhstan looks like. After finally entering Kazakhstan, we turned the van right back around, and crossed the border again. This is where things got a little hairy. After we had our Passports stamped and received our migration cards, a couple of Elders decided that they were going to go search for a bathroom in a restricted building, so we all got pulled in to the coppers office after they got caught. Great. Thank you Elders. We were all pretty terrified at first, but it just turned into a big joke after that. Then it got scary again when the police pulled each of us individually into their office to be questioned. I was shaking a little bit when they called me in, but "flirt to convert" is a real phrase, my friends. They asked me questions like where I was living in Russia, why I was here, where I live in America (so sorry family if you get a pleasant visit from the Russian Mafia), what my phone number is, etc. I tried to play it as cool as possible and by the end we were all laughing and joking about iPhones and politics. Living the dream. Unfortunately no baptismal dates were set, but one of the police men wanted to set up a dinner date. Hard pass on that one. By the end of all of that, we had spent about 4 hours total at the Kazakhstan border. Fun. The ride back to Samara was about as eventful as the ride to Kazakhstan, except that there was a huge car accident on a very congested bridge, so we got home about 2 hours later than expected. We didn't make it back in time for the train that Sister Warnick and I were supposed to take back to Penza, but it all worked out okay. 

The next morning Sister Warnick and I had to get up at 4am to get to the train station on time. Everything went smoothly and we were both exhausted by the time we got settled in our coupe. About 2 hours in to our 7 hour train ride, a random lady showed up at our door and said that we had ordered food along with our tickets. Cool. Then she said some confusing things that I didn't understand and then she left. A couple hours later, I was literally starving and I was determined to figure out where to get this promised food. I kept getting whiffs of food from the hallway, so I was under the impression that I would have to get my food somewhere out there. I grabbed my comp and we started down the hall. Not looking where I was going (as usual) my foot got caught in the cord of an extension cord that was sicking out of the wall and everything that was attached to it came plummeting towards my body. I got karate-chopped in the ankle by two charging cellphones and a speaker that was playing music until I tripped on it... I was so terrified that I had just broken everything since the annyoing music that was coming from the speaker stopped as soon as it hit me. The owners poked their heads out of their coupes and just beckoned us to go away. Super embarassing. Thankfully we heard the irritating music turn back on after about 15 minutes, so we know that the speaker resurrected. After all of that happened and we still didn't have any food, I thought that maybe we'd physically have to go to the restaraunt car to get our food. Don't ever to that. It was super sketchy getting over the platforms connecting one train car to the next and the train conductor gave me a very confuzed, dirty look when we came back into our car. At that point, Sister Warnick and I came to the conclusion that we just weren't going to get our food and we moved on. Yeah, later on our food was delivered to us about 10 minutes before we got to Penza, so there was definitely some sort of miscommunication there. Oh well, we got our food and no one died, so all is well!

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Make sure you flirt with Government Officials if there is a possibility that you could be thrown in jail! Have a great week!

Do Svidanya!

Love, 

Sister Megan Wagstaff