Goodbye Russia‏, I'm Dying‏

I celebrated my "10 Days Left" mark by getting a sugar high. Living the dream. Hope your week is as sweet as these goodies were.

Zdrastvuitye!

Well, this may very well be the last email that I send from Mother Russia. I will be setting foot in America in about 8 days, and I don't really know what to do with myself at the moment. I'm experiencing pretty much every emotion you could possible think of, and it feels weird. That's literally the only way I can describe it; weird. This next week is going to fly, and before I even realize it I'll be back in the states. Weird. If kind of feels like I'm "leaving Eden" and heading into a world of unknowns, but it will be an adventure!

This email is going to be kept on the shorter side because I have some last minute shopping to attend to and some pre-packing to get started on. Here's a brief summary of the week!

So, the lock-in that we had for "Defenders of the Fatherland Day" was pretty lame. Super lame, in fact. Usually, we would have come up with some sort of fun activity or something to occupy our time, but for some reason we didn't. We just spent the 3 hour period studying. 

The activity that the Ward held for that holiday was a blast though! The women in our Ward organized this huge event for the men and it was hilarious! There were a bunch of competitive games, some singing, some Just Dance, and some food. Thankfully there was a less active and an investigator there, otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed to stick around for the festivities. It was honestly the most enjoyable activity I've ever been to. Of course the missionaries couldn't participate in anything besides the consumption of food, but it was a great celebration to be a spectator at.

We had some pretty sweet and sour moments with a couple of less actives this week. Our less active Tatiana (the one who took us on the pumpkin adventure last week) taught us the Plan of Salvation in our last meeting and the lesson was amazing! I wish I could have called up church headquarters and had them send a camera crew to capture this lesson, because I don't think I've ever had a meeting turn out as perfectly as this one did. It was pretty much the definition of a Preach my Gospel lesson. The Spirit was strong, there was unity in our teaching, inspired questions were asked, scriptures were used, the works. The Holy Ghost was definitely the orchestrator of everything that happened. There was such a sweet spirit in the room as she taught us about how we can return to Heavenly Father and I will never forget that feeling. I'm just going to forget about the little tantrum that she threw last week because she is totally different now. Throughout my mission, it's been really interesting to physically see how the gospel changes people and it is very evident in her.

The "sour" moment that I was referring to came from a less active named Antonina. We usually meet with her about once a week and are slowly making our way through the missionary lessons to refresh her memory. She's got a pretty "sassy" "princessy" personality, which is really annoying sometimes, but for some reason she was way over the top on this last lesson that we had with her. The lesson that we were planning on teaching her was the Plan of Salvation, but we wanted her to teach it to us since we'd already gone over it a handful of times and we figured she had a pretty good grasp on the doctrine. When we showed up she absolutely refused to teach us and she straight up fought with us about almost every single step in the plan. Even when we showed her solid evidence in the scriptures, she would attempt to shut it down and change the subject. Grr... but that's not the worst part. So, part of the reason that Antonina is less active because she is old and she really struggles with getting out of bed on time. Out of the goodness of my heart, I decided that I'd give her a friendly wake up call on Sunday morning to help her get to church. As soon as she answered the phone she full on YELLED at me, saying that I called way too late and that it was my fault that she's less active because I call too late in the morning. She still had over an hour and a half to get to church. Oi. We spent the next few minutes in a heated argument before I said, "You're welcome for the wake-up call!!!" and hung up. I'm getting really sick of all of the screaming fights I've had with MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH over the past couple of weeks. Patience and tolerance aren't Christ-like qualities that I've mastered on my mission. That, my friends, is why we have the atonement.

Anyways, Sister Warnick and I had some pretty noteworthy occasions to celebrate this week, so we went to our favorite cake shop to celebrate! Sister Warnick hit her "6 month" mark and I hit my "10 days left" mark. Pretty strange, but we had a lot of fun!

The weather in Russia is pretty outragious. Everything is melting! While Sister Warnick and I were on our way to a lesson a few days ago, we were walking down the side of the road when a car drove by and absolutely DRENCHED us with mud. I've gotten splashed by cars more times than I can count, but I've never gotten so covered in mud that I had to wipe my entire body down with a dry mitten whilst standing on the side of the road. Mud in my hair, mud on my glasses, mud from head to toe. Yay! Guess what? That happened TWICE this week! Sister Warnick and I had a couple of hours of contacting ahead of us, so we picked a road to walk down and went on our way. As we made our way down this road, a huge bus came barreling past us and, again, soaked us in mud. This time we just called Sister Schwab and got permission to go home and get cleaned up. There was no hope of getting sufficiently "mitten dried" on the side of the freeway. Sister Warnick and I busted up laughing after both of those "showering" experiences. Those were some of the funniest moments I've had in a long time. 

Welp, that's all, folks! I cannot describe with words how grateful I am that I've had this opportunity to serve a mission. I've learned so much on this great Russian journey and I can honestly say that my testimony is the most valuable "souvineer" I could have ever received from this experience. I know that this church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. If you don't already know that these things are true for yourselves, find out. Because I did, and my life is changed because of this knowledge and this gospel. I love you all and I'll see you on the flip side!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Poopy Pumpkins‏

Zdravstvuitye!

This week went by really fast! A little too fast, I might say.

At the beginning of the week we had Zone Conference in Samara. My last Zone Conference. This was the first and last conference that my MTC companion, Sister McKell, and I got to spend together. It was actually a pretty emotional one. I thought I'd be able to hold myself together, but by the end of the meeting Sister McKell and I broke down. I can't even describe how surreal it felt to say goodbye to everyone knowing that it was an actual "goodbye" and not just a friendly parting until the next conference or training. So strange. It was a very memorable conference, that's for sure. 

Our train ride home was nuts. We had to be at the train station at 5 in the morning, which means we had to get up at like 2 in order to get there on time. Almost the entire 7 hour ride consisted of sleeping, so that was nice. Lucky for us, our train had the nastiest bathroom that I've ever come across on any form of transportation in my life, so that was a really nice discovery. There was some kind of brown residue that was settled on pretty much every surface on the bottom half of the bathroom. I'm not going to try to guess what it consisted of. If you weren't completely awake before walking into the stall, the fumes coming from that tiny room would have woken you up quicker than a cup of coffee. Health hazard? I think so.

Tonight and tomorrow night all of the missions in Russia are being "locked in" from 6-9, thanks to a Russian holiday called "Defenders of the Homeland Day." It's basically just Veteran's Day, but on steroids since it's in Russia. The Russians are already prepping early for it though. Yesterday when Sister Warnick and I were on our way home from church, we saw/smelled at least a handful of hammered men sitting around us. Yeah, there are lots of drunk people around on the daily, but not quite like there were on Sunday. It'll be a holiday that not very many people remember celebrating when it's over.

Besides Zone Conference, there isn't really a lot else that I have to report on. Oh! One of our less actives named Tatiana (the one that just barely moved) threw the biggest old lady tantrum that I have ever seen in my life! We were just chilling in her kitchen one day waiting to start the lesson when her brother (another less active) walked in and started talking about the Plan of Salvation brochure that we were holding. Tatiana busted into the room and went off on a 15 minute bash-fest about how all we ever do is talk about Salvation, how we are just a bunch of pamphlet-reading monkeys that can't do anything else, how you can only be saved by people not Christ, and about how she's never coming back to church again because she doesn't feel like it's a sacrifice she needs to make. Sister Warnick and I just sat there stunned at what had just transpired. Her little whiner fest literally came out of nowhere and we didn't know how to handle it. Just when we thought things were settled down, she went off again about how we never help her and that she shouldn't have to ask us to help her because it's our calling to serve. I got a little defensive and we yelled back and forth for a while about how we literally ask her after every single lesson how we can help her and she always answers by saying, "How can you help me? You are just young, weak girls. You can't help me with anything." Great. In the middle of the argument we just looked her straight in the face and asked, "How can we help you?" Well, she took that question and ran with it. We signed ourselves up to help her carry some huge pumpkins across town the next day. She doesn't hate us anymore, but I'm starting to question whether or not she has bipolar disorder.

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Clean your bathrooms and watch out for cranky old ladies.

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Sweet and Sour‏

Zdravstvuitye!

Hey, everybody! This week was quite the adventure, so I have a lot of stuff to talk about with not a lot of time to do it in. I'm just going to get started and ditch the quirky intro.

First of all, we now have a new missionary schedule. A little over a year ago the Europe East Area instituted a new schedule called "The Morning Schedule" which consisted of going contacting right after we wake up, doing a little bit of studies after that, going out contacting again around lunch time, and then concluding the day as usual. This schedule was created in order to catch the "higher class" citizens that were on their way to work and then coming out again for their lunch break. After trying it out for a year, that schedule has been trashed. I don't particularly like the new schedule that has been created, but I'm leaving soon, so I don't really care that much. The biggest change between the two schedules is that we no longer go contacting in the mornings as we previously did. I'll just list the new schedule for you to see:

6:30-7:00 Get up, pray, work out

7:00-8:00 Get ready

8:00-9:00 Language Study (Pretty random... This is the part that I honestly dislike the most)

9:00-11:00 Contacting

11:00-12:00 Lunch

12:00-3:00 Contacting

3:00-4:00 Personal Study (Why the crap would I want to do personal study at the end of the day???)

4:00-5:00 Companion Study (Sure... let's plan and study together now that the day is pretty much done)

5:00-6:00 Dinner

6:00-9:00 Contacting

Not a fan. We have Zone Conference this week, so this new schedule is going to be a pretty hot topic, I think. We'll see what happens.

Anyways... exchanges! The highlight of the week! I honestly had such a blast this week in Saratov. I am so grateful that I was given stewardship over the Saratov Sisters! I learned so much on all of the exchanges and I got to visit the places that I served when I lived there a year ago. Sister Warnick and I hopped on a bus last Monday and rode a pretty uncomfortable minibus to Saratov. I was expecting a nice, big chartered bus to roll up when we were waiting to board, so I was pretty surprised when a dinky little minibus pulled up. Sister Warnick and I were seated towards the front of the bus in a row of seats that were facing the seats in front of us; kind of like sitting at a dinner table without a table. It was a pretty squishy ride. Thankfully the people that were facing us ended up being some girls that were about our age, so I didn't have to awkwardly avoid eye contact with any creepy men. I felt a little bad for them though, because I kept unintentionally playing footsies with the chick sitting across from me everytime I shifted positions in my seat since we were all so close to each other! 

We started off our Saratov adventure in an area called Zavodskoi. This is the newest area to be opened to Sisters. I've heard rumors that Zavodskoi is the city where "The Saratov Approach" took place, and I don't doubt that for a second. The Sisters have a section in their area labeled "THE DANGER ZONE" and they are NEVER allowed to go into it. I don't think the Elders are even allowed to go there. Pretty shady area. Even contacting at night got a little sketchy at times. You'd think the Sisters' apartment would be pretty crappy then, wouldn't you? Nope. It was the biggest, most beautiful apartment I've ever been in! It was literally massive and I almost forgot that I was in Russia when we were staying there because of how modern it looked inside. Super cool! 

Anyways, I had a fun time working with the sisters there. We had some great lessons and did a good amount of contacting. One of the lessons that we had ended up lasting about 3 and a half hours and consisted of eating a lot of Russian pancakes and talking about America, but we don't need to talk about that. 

Solnechney!!!! The last area that we got to do exchanges in was my beloved Solnechney! Man, talk about a nostalgic exchange. Just the drive to Solnechney made me miss that area so bad. I am so grateful that I got to go back before I go home!

I cannot even describe how excited I was to go back and work in Solnechney, but Solnechney wanted to kick me out as quickly and painfully as possible. Let me give you a little background. This next part might seem completely unrelated, but I promise that it is, so just bear with me. So, about 3 or 4 weeks ago I ditched my last pair of ratchet boots and bought some new ones. No, they weren't the best quality because I only needed them to last for the next month and a half or so. Immediately after I bought them, I noticed that the traction on the bottom was pretty much nonexistant. It was hard for me to not slip all the time, but I got used to it since Penza's sidewalks are shoveled pretty well. Fast forward to Solnechney... Solnechney is a pretty hilly area. Saratov as a whole isn't a super "up-kept" area, so no, nothing was shoveled. Within the first 30 minutes of being in Solnechney I fell... hard. Like... everyone around me turned to see what kind of catastrophe had just occurred that would produce the horrendous noise that my body made when I hit the ground. Ouch. Very bruisy. Very sore immediately after the fall. Fast forward to the next day, one of the sisters and I were out contacting when we came across a super iced-over section on the road. I had just barely survived a trek over another icy patch, so I didn't think too much of it. I pranced right onto that ice slide and immediately flew onto my back. Again... ouch. Fast forward about 4 hours when we were heading home from a lesson... I had a cake in my hand that we were planning on consuming to celebrate one sister's 4 month mark on the mission, my companion's almost 4 month mark in Russia, another sister's 11 month mark on the mission, and my 18 month mark. Yeah... We were making our way down an icy path when I fell harder than any of the previous falls combine. The cake went flying, my limbs went flying, and I walked away feeling like I had been backed over by a truck about 5 times. The cake looked worse than I did after the fall though. By the end of the day I had to take an Advil PM in order to fall asleep because of how much pain I was in. The following day I was popping pain pills pretty much the entire day in order to walk like a human being. I fell, hard, 3 times in less than a 24 hour period. Thankfully, one of the sisters in Solnechney was nice enough to give me a pair of boots that didn't fit her, so now I'm on my 5th pair of boots since starting my mission. What an accomplishment. I haven't fallen since then though, so that's a blessing. I have more bruises on my body than I can count and I cannot tell you the location of most of them because this is supposed to be a "family friendly" letter.

The biggest blessing from Saratov was the fact that I got to meet with one of the converts that I baptized when I lived in Solnechney. Her name is Natasha and I freaking love her to death! She has changed so much since the last time I saw her and it brought tears to my eyes seeing how much she's progressed. We had a great lesson about faith and I was on cloud 9 getting to catch up with her. The little nugget refused to take a picture with me though, which was super irritating, but I'm just grateful that I got to see her and see how much she's grown.

It was a pretty bittersweet moment saying goodbye to Saratov for the last time in a while. I made so many memories when I served there and more memories were added as we were there for exchanges. I already miss the mission like crazy, and I'm still here. These next few weeks are going to be an emotional rollercoaster, that's for sure.

As soon as we got back to Penza from Saratov, Sister Warnick got sick, so we've been inside since then. But tomorrow our traveling adventures will resume once again as we head to Samara for Zone Conference. 

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Don't play footsies with stranges and buy some shoes with reliable traction.

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Travel Time‏

Zdrastvuitye!

Well, this week was another long one, but not a lot of "noteworthy" things happened that I can report on. A set of Sisters from an area in Saratov called Volzhki came over on Tuesday and we got to do exchanges with them for a couple of days. I worked with a Russian Sister named Sister Mateikina on the first day and nothing super exciting happened. We met with a less active member and an active member; both lessons ended up being pretty normal. On the second day of exchanges, I worked with the other Sister in their companionship, Sister Howe, and all of our lessons ended up falling through so we did a lot of walking that day. As a whole, I had a lot of fun working with the Sisters, but I feel bad because they were probably bored out of their minds. It's alright though, Penza is a great place to be bored in.

After the Sisters left I had a meeting with the Mission Leadership Council via Skype, and then everything went back to normal from there. During MLC, I texted one of the Elders that was in the office for the meeting and told him to sneak a peek at my travel plans while he was in there. He pulled through on my request and this is what I found out about everything. I will be leaving Russia on March 8th (because of the time difference that is March 7th in America), I will fly from Samara to Moscow, Moscow to New York, New York to LA, and LA to Boise. Lots of flying. I will get to Boise around 10:20ish at night on the 8th. It's pretty weird that I will go back in time once I get to America, but it's cool, I guess. Hopefully I will get to sleep on the plane rides, because I have a feeling that I'm going to be exhausted once I get home. I'm going to be a zombie for the first few days after I get home.

This week (starting today) is going to be an adventure! Sister Warnick and I are hopping on a bus in a couple of hours and heading down to good old Saratov! We weren't planning on doing exchanges in Saratov for another couple of weeks, but the date that was scheduled for Zone Conference ended up getting moved, so alas, we leave today! We will be doing exchanges with 2 different sets of Sisters down there (2 days with each companionship), so we won't be getting back to Penza until Saturday evening. We will be in Zavodskoi (the sketchy area that was just opened to Sisters) tomorrow and Wednesday, and then we'll travel over to my favorite area, Solnechney, for exchanges on Thursday and Friday. I cannot even describe how pumped I am to go to Solnechney! I have been thinking about it all week long and I'm so giddy to just get there! Zavodskoi will be great, no doubt, but Solnechney is what I'm pining for! This week is going to be a blast!

Next week is also going to be fun. Sister Warnick and I will be in Penza on Saturday night, work all day Sunday and all day Monday, and then on Tuesday we will be taking a train to Samara for Zone Conference. Traveling, traveling, and... traveling. Good thing I am a travel junkie!

Well, sorry that this email is so short, but we have to go soon! That's all for this week folks! Do something noteworthy and get some sleep!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Fur Felony

Zdrastvuitye!

I'm not going to sugar coat it, guys. This week was pretty atrocious; dare I say the worst week I've had yet on my mission. I'm going to keep this letter on the shorter side because I'm still, in this very moment, pretty peeved by just about everything that has transpired and I don't want this to turn into a big old ranting session that you didn't sign up for. 

Let's cover the basics here. Every. single. lesson. that we planned on having this week fell through. Every one. We had at least 3 or 4 pretty solid back ups set up for each of those plans and every one of those fell through as well. Every one! At the beginning of the week, it was pretty discouraging when all of our lessons started to fall through. We bought Snickers bars and various treats on the daily to fill up the cracks of our hearts so that we could go back to work. By about day 4 or 5 of having no lessons, Sister Warnick and I started getting straight-up hysterical. I realize that there are countless areas around the world where all missionaries do is contact, but that is super unusual for Penza. At about day 6, we started getting desperate and we got a few lessons set up that ended up being less than effective. One lady sewed Sister Warnick and I some thermal underwear and some slippers, so that was kinda weird. We stopped by Baba Katia one night and she talked to us for a while about how she didn't get accepted into a sanatorium and about how much she and her roommate don't get along. Wonderful. 

Then, just as I finished up getting all of the travel plans for exchanges and upcoming meetings figured out for the rest of the cycle, I opened up an email today saying that Zone Conference is being moved a week out from when it was originally scheduled to happen. Throw that travel schedule out the window! It wouldn't have been that big of a deal had I not just barely put together the finishing touches on all of the impending plans. It's really not that big of a tragedy, more-so an inconvenience than anything. Back to the drawing board!

This week I did my first "practice pack." I wanted to see how much all of the stuff that I've accumulated over the course of my mission weighs, so I spent an afternoon during weekly planning packing up my luggage and getting all of that figured out. It was the weirdest feeling I've ever experienced knowing that I'm far enough along on my mission to be doing "practice packs." The rest of this cycle is going to be crazy busy, so the "practice pack" needed to happen this week, otherwise it wouldn't have happened at all. Thankfully, unless I buy some sort of baby elephant, everything should get home just nicely. 

So, for the past couple of weeks there has been a felony (of sorts) committed in our church building. Every time Sister Warnick and I get ready to head home, I'll throw on my coat and notice a pretty strong cologne smell coming from the fur on my hood. It's always on the part of the fur that is right next to my face, so it's not like I can get away from it. There's no way that it is just cologne being rubbed off from the coats next to mine, because for the past couple weeks there have only been female coats around mine. Sister Warnick and I have concluded that it's definitely being sprayed intentionally, we just can't figure out who is the one doing it. There is no one in our branch that's even close to my age, so that makes me uncomfortable. We'll keep you posted if we catch the culprit. 

We did see a huge miracle at church despite the shenanigans. There is a less active family in our ward that hasn't been coming to church for about the past 4 years. On Sunday, Sister Warnick and I walked into the chapel, and lo and behold, there they were! They were all talking with everyone and smiling and laughing as if nothing had happened. Hopefully they will keep coming back!

Tonight we have a set of Sisters coming up from Saratov for exchanges, so that should be a nice change of pace. I apologize for the general negativity in this letter. Weeks like this happen on a mission, and it's always a battle to stay positive when everything's fighting against you. That, my friends, is why we have prayer!

Welp, that's all for this week, folks! Buy a Snickers and protect your furs!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Adventure Train‏

Zdravstvuitye!

Hello, friends! I hope that you are all enjoying the weather wherever you are in the world, because we are freezing our buns off in Russia! Yesterday, it was about -22 degrees Celcius all day long (almost -8 degrees F). Today, it's about -18 degrees Celcius. Nice and toasty! In the summertime, you can hardly see out the bus windows because of all of the sweaty condensation that collects on the glass. In the wintertime, you can't see out the windows because the condensation freezes to the window panes and it's almost impossible to get off. Yesterday I had to use a hardback copy of the Book of Mormon to chisel a little hole through the window ice so that I could see where we were. Great fun!

Well, we were hardly in Penza at all this week since Sister Warnick had a Visa Trip. We got up at a ridiculously early hour on Tuesday morning and headed out on a train to Samara. We didn't get back into our area until Thursday night, so we really only spent 3 full days in Penza this week. I had a really good time in Avrora though! I got to see my other baby, Sister Thomas, which is always an adventure. It was fun getting to catch up with her and talk to her about how the work is going in her area. I can't believe that she's been in Russia for more than 6 months! It feels like just yesterday I picked her up from the office on her first day in Russia! How time flies! This was the last time that I will get to see her until she gets home from her mission, so we had a pretty emotional parting. She's going to be an amazing missionary, she already is! Mommy raised her well. Anyways, while I was in Avrora, I had a full day of working with the sisters there since Sister Warnick was on a bus to Kazakhstan. I got to work in a tri-panionship with one of the sisters that came in with Sister Thomas's group and a sister that has been out for about a month and a half. We spent a majority of our time contacting, so that was wonderful... my sarcasm hand is raised. I can't decide if I like contacting in a tri-panionship or not. It's kinda nice because you can tag-team it and everyone takes turns, but it usually just ends up being an overwhelming situation for both the missionaries and the victim on the street. A good learning experience for sure. I was relieved to be back as a normal companionship after that... we'll just put it that way. On Thursday afternoon, Sister Warnick and I waved goodbye to Samara for the hundredth time and left on our train. The good thing about our trip back home is that we got first class tickets, which means we got fed! We had the option of choosing between chicken curry or some kind of beef stew, so we both chose the the chicken curry. I was super pumped about eating it until it was physically set in front of me. There wasn't a hint of curry, or anything exotic for that matter, in it at all. It consisted of a few chunks of chicken covered in rice and topped with a sauce that I'm pretty sure was just the water that they cooked the rice with. Mmm. Savory. It definitely could have been worse though. Train food is typically pretty sketchy anyways, so I'll take my bland chicken rice over stomach worms any day.

The train ride back to Penza was pretty interesting. We received quite a few pretty serious phone calls over the course of that 7 hour trip that probably should have been saved for a stationary location with better signal. Anyways, the first phone call had to do with my assignment as Sister Training Leader. None of the Sister Training Leaders changed, but all three of us are serving in the Samara Zone now, so they had to make some changes to our area assignments. Instead of having stewardship over Toliatti and Bezi like I did last cycle, I have been given 3 out of the 4 areas in Saratov to be in charge of. My last cycle is literally going to fly because of how many exchanges we are going to be going on! I have never been so excited to receive a phone call in my entire life because one of the areas that I am over now is Solnechney!!!! Not only do I love the sisters that are serving there, but Solnechney was my favorite area besides Penza. Also, when we go there for exchanges, I will get to meet with one of the converts that I baptized and see her for the first time since June! Literally so pumped! The same week that we will be doing exchanges with Solnechney, we will also be going on exchanges with another area. I have actually never been to this area in the mission before because it just barely got opened up to sisters about 2 cycles ago. It hasn't been open to sisters because it is the sketchiest area in the mission for both Elders and Sisters. They haven't had any incidents there in a while, so that's good news. This area is called Zavodskoi and apparently the Sister's apartment is the nicest one in the mission, so I'm interested to see what it's like. The last area that I have stewardship over is right between Solnechney and Zavodskoi and it's called Volzhski. We are going to have the Volzhski sisters come to us in Penza though so that we aren't out of our area for a solid 2 weeks. I'm excited to go back to Saratov, even if it's just for a short time.

The second phone call that we received on the train was super confusing at first. Literally our District Leader said, "Tomorrow morning we are having Zone Conference so you need to be ready by 9:00. *Click*" Ummm... Let's examine the situation for a sec. We are sitting on a train going AWAY from Samara, we just barely had Zone Training 2 weeks earlier, and there's just a lot of information missing from that statement in general. I called the Zone Leaders shortly after and they clarified that there would, indeed, be Zone Conference the following day, but that it was going to be via Skype as a mission-wide broadcast of sorts. We've never had a mission-wide anything before, so that was super cool to hear. Thank you, district leader, for your clear instructions and wisdom.

So, here's a little background as to why we had a last-minute Zone Conference that gave everyone ulcers. Here it is: Since there aren't any Stakes in Russia besides in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Saratov, that means there isn't a Patriarch in any of the other territories in Russia besides those three. Since there are obviously strong members of the church in other parts of Russia besides those three that want Patriarchal Blessings, the church has a "traveling Patriarch" that visits certain areas of Eastern Europe at certain times of the year. Now that there is a Patriarch in Saratov, the "traveling Patriarch" (his name is Patriarch Moenschwander) was in town so that he could train the new one. Since he was in town, we all Skyped in to hear his words of wisdom. He definitely had lots of wise words to bestow upon us. I'm not going to go into detail about everything that he talked about because I don't have enough time. He went over a list of about 5 things that he's noticed in successful missionaries. Some of them are very much mission-related, but one of them was, "having a genuine enthusiasm and gratitute to the Lord for their calling (or insert whatever you want in place of "calling"). That one is actually really easy to neglect. Sometimes it's easier to switch into "robot mode" and just go through the motions instead of taking the time to put thought and meaning into what you're doing. It really does take a different mindset. Definitely changed my perspective, that's for sure.

On Wednesday, the Church held a World Wide Missionary Broadcast that us missionaries in Russia didn't get to watch until Friday because of transfers and the time difference and such. It lasted a couple of hours and went over a plethora of topics. The broadcast was fine. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Sunday was a day of miracles, to say the least. We called a lot of less actives on Sunday morning to invite them to church and only 2 of them said that they would for sure be coming. With the weather being as brisk as it is, it's really hard to even get active members to come to church sometimes. Anyways, by the time that Sacrament Meeting started, there were 6 less actives in the chapel and almost all of the seats were filled by members! I have never seen the chapel so full in my life! It was such an amazing experience!

Welp, that's all for this week, folks! Eat some exotic food and hug a Patriarch.

So Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Sleepy Sisters‏

Zdravstvuitye!

Man, this has definitely been one of the longest weeks of my life. As soon as Preparation Day ended last week, Sister Warnick and I started making preparations for our trip to Samara for Zone Training. We woke up at 4 in the morning the following day and hopped on a fast train to Avrora. We spent the rest of the day in Samara and had Zone Training the next day. We hopped back on another train as soon as Zone Training was finished and returned to Penza that same night. 2 trains in a 36 hour time span takes a lot out of you, I'll tell you that much. We left Penza on Tuesday morning and came back on Wednesday night. Even though we were only out of our area for 2 days, it felt like we had been gone for the whole week. It threw both of us off that it was only Thursday by the time we started working again. Sister Warnick and I are slowly making up the lost sleep, but starting tomorrow, the battle begins once again.

On Saturday, I got the last transfer call that I will ever receive on my mission. Sister Warnick and I were freaking out because at Zone Training the Assistants to the President were talking about how President had all of the transfers figured out, and then he changed everything at the last second. We were so nervous that we were going to get split up! I told the Assistants on multiple occassions that my only dying wish is that I stay in Penza with Sister Warnick. President, for the most part, is pretty good about granting people's dying wishes, so I wasn't too worried about it being fulfilled until the AP's started flipping nuggets about all the changes that were made. Anyways... President pulled through and I will, indeed, be dying in Penza with Sister Warnick as my last companion. 11 cycles (17 months) in the bag, 1 more cycle to go, 9 companions and 4 areas total, check.

Fortunately, neither of us are leaving, but Sister Warnick is going on her first Visa Trip to Kazakhstan on Wednesday, so we get to wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning and take yet another train to Samara. Thankfully we should have some time to reboot after this train ride since we won't be coming back to Samara until Thursday night instead of the very next day. Should be a lot of fun, but you know you're getting old on the mission (and in life) when it takes all of the energy that you have to stay awake during the day after one of those trips. I definitely fit in that category. I'm still suffering from the lack of sleep from last week's adventure.

Zone Training was and always is a blast! It was a really strange experience for me when I came to the realization that this would be the last Zone Training that I would ever attend for the rest of my mission. Yikes. Anyways, Sister Thomas (the older) and I were given a chunk of time to fill at the Training, so we decided to talk about contacting, or tracting, as some people call it. Neither of us can say that we are necessarily good at contacting, but compared to the contacting methods I've seen other sisters do on exchanges, it needed to be addressed. We only had to fill a 30-45 minute slot, but it ended up going for over an hour. We had a lot of great discussions with the missionaries about why and how we should contact. Overall, I think it went pretty well. President Schwab and the Zone Leaders talked about love and happiness for the rest of the training, so that added a nice balance to everything that was said. 

Aside from all of the traveling, this week has been very successful in terms of the missionary work. One of our less active, Tatiana (the one that just moved), has been making HUGE progress over these past couple of weeks. One of the first lessons that Sister Warnick and I ever had with her was in the beginning of November. At the end of that lesson she told us not to come back until December. Great. Going a month without seeing someone is usually pretty catastrophic when you're just barely starting to make progress with them. Anyways, fast forward to where we stand now; she is a completely different person! She is actually laughing and smiling and she is putting in a genuine effort to learn the doctrine. She asks lots of questions, is a HUGE giver of referrals, and she has started coming back to church! Such a gem. There are a handful of other less actives that are making some good progress as well that I would love to talk about, but I'm a little crunched for time today since we have to get ready for our train tomorrow. 

Welp, that's all for this week, folks! Get a good sleep in and work on your contacting methods!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Wagstaff

Miracle Madness

Zdrastvuitye!

Phew! This week was a pretty stressful one. I'm honestly glad that it's over. We had the Sisters over from Bezi (the area next to Avrora) for exchanges and it was quite the whirlwind to say the least. I had a blast working with them, but there were quite a lot of issues with that companionship that contributed to the growth of many ulcers inside my body. After they went back to their area, Sister Warnick and I had a nice long weekend to get back into the swing of things. Then, we got an unexpected text on Wednesday from one of the Assistants to the President giving us our plans for the unannounced Zone Training in Samara that is in two days. That means Sister Warnick and I get to wake up nice and early tomorrow morning and ride a train to Samara once again. Yay! I love last minute adventures, but we also just barely found out that the Sister Training Leaders will be given a slot to fill in the upcoming Zone Training. We literally have one day to plan it. Thank you, Elders, for your consistent wisdom and good decision-making skills. Not.

Anyways, exchanges with the Bezi Sisters were actually super fun! I love the Bezi Sisters so much! One of them is Russian, and her name is Sister Greshina. The other one's name is Sister Graham (not Russian). They are both pretty young in the mission, so it made sense that they were having some struggles. I worked with Sister Greshina the first day, and we had a blast! Our Ward put together a big New Years Party for the children that we ended up going to and there was a huge turnout of less actives at the activity! Some of these less actives hadn't come to church in years, but the non-threatening atmosphere of a New Years Party was enough to get them to come back! And.... all of them came to church the following Sunday! It was one of the most amazing miracles I've seen in a long time. Another interesting thing happened at that activity, but it surprisingly had to do with the Sister that I was on exchanges with. Sister Greshina is from Saint Petersburg and there are a few members in our ward that served there 15+ years ago that met her when she was a toddler. It was an interesting experience seeing her reconnect with these missionaries that taught her family when she was little. It just goes to show that you never know how big of an impact your missionary service will have/has had on people and their families until later down the road, or more likely until the afterlife.

My day on exchanges with Sister Graham wasn't any less miraculous than the one with Sister Greshina. We were planning on meeting with one of our less actives named Tatiana who just barely moved into a new apartment, but it ended up turning into quite the party. We showed up at Tatiana's house pretty early in the afternoon and we had planned on starting the Restoration over with her since she doesn't really remember anything about the missionary lessons. After sitting in her kitchen for about 5 minutes, Tatiana's brother and his wife (both less actives) showed up out of nowhere! We taught all three of them the beginning of the Restoration and committed them to come to church! And... guess who came to church that Sunday?? They did! 

As a whole, this weekend has just been packed full of crazy miracles! Usually when we go out contacting, only a handful of people will take a brochure or stop to talk to us. This weekend was the complete opposite! There were only a handful of people that DIDN'T want to talk to us! We had so many solid conversations on the streets and it was so fun to see the Lord's hand in our area. Also, at church on Sunday, 6 less actives showed up to church. 6! We consider ourselves lucky when one less active a month comes to church! There were 6! And the craziest part was that only 2 of them received a formal invitation. The Lord is blessing this area, for sure!

Of course, there is opposition in all things, so I experienced a few embarrassing moments to keep my pride from developing. First off... my boots are destroyed. That isn't the embarrassing moment, but the physical state of my boots led to some public humiliation. So, Sister Warnick and I were making our way down the street on our way to a lesson when we came across a small, awkward hill. This awkward, small hill is pretty annoying to hike over, so we usually just walk around it. Thankfully the edges were covered with snow and ice, so I couldn't see a tree branch hiding underneath a snowdrift that I was about to walk in to. That little branch there hooked itself into one of the gashes in the side of my boot and sent me plummetting to the ground. I full-on faceplanted in the snow. Usually when I fall, I land on my butt or on my knees. Never have I ever fallen as stiff as a tree, face-first into a massive snowdrift. Sister Warnick and I got a good laugh out of it, as did all of the people around me. No shame.

Welp, that's all for this week folks! Have a last-minute adventure and buy some new shoes!

Do Svidanya!

Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff

Whooters

Zdrastvuitye!

Happy New Year!!! I hope you all had a great New Year's Celebration and that you're ready to make this the best year of your lives! In good old Penza, we've started off the New Year by freezing to death. Not even joking. On Monday through Wednesday, it was about -10 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit), and Thursday through Sunday it fluctuated between -14 and -21 degrees Celsius (about 7 to -6 degrees Fahrenheit). Today it is a nice and toasty -16 degrees Celsius outside (about 3 degrees F). The good news is, I never have to worry about my nose dripping from being so cold because literally everything in my face is frozen solid. Yay! We have to chew gum while we're on the streets because our jaws get too stiff to talk if we don't keep them moving. Living the dream!
So, I've talked about English Club a handful of times in my previous letters, but nothing has happened in a while that was worth mentioning. This week was the exception. Usually, only about 3 old fogies that can't speak English at all show up to English Club on a weekly basis. It's always fun, but not exactly the desired turnout. This week as we were about to begin the class, this guy walks into the room (total bro) with his Beats, fancy SmartPhone, and some Air Jordan Kicks, and says in perfect English, "Hey guys, sorry I'm late. I didn't mean to keep you all waiting." Umm... what? That's a rare site. His name is Islam, he was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in Egypt, and he knows English, Arabic, and a little bit of Russian (emphasis on the 'little bit'). Also, turns out, he is the karate champion of Saudi Arabia. No big. He told us a story about how he was humiliated in front of a crowd of 20,000 people at one of his matches, and then he competed with that same component that beat him about a year later and he made him cry. Literally, who is this guy? Anyways, at the end of English Club we decided to play charades. The word that I was given was 'turtle'. I just want all of you to ponder for a minute how you would approach that situation had you been given that word. Pretty hard, huh? Yeah... I resorted to putting a trash can on my back and crawling around the floor really slow-like. Obviously nobody could figure out what I was, so I pretended to eat a little towel that fell off of the chalkboard as if it were a piece of lettuce. Good. Thankfully one of the Zone Leaders was in town for exchanges, so he got lots of pictures on his phone. Great. My pride is about the size of a baby fruit fly at this point in my mission.
Sister Warnick and I had an interesting encounter with a lady on the streets the other day while we were contacting. We were casually making our way down the sidewalk on the way to a less active's house when I handed this lady a brochure about the Plan of Salvation. I was a little hesitant to give it to her at first because (I won't lie) she looked pretty angry. I decided to cast away my doubts and fears, and lo and behold, she took it. Not only did she take it, but she opened her eyes and her mouth as big as they could possible go as she gazed at the brochure and she thanked me a million times. It doesn't end there. She started moving closer to me so I thought she was going to come in for a hug. That happens sometimes, so I just let it be. At the last second she grabbed me by the back of my head and kissed me right between the jawline and my neck..... way too sensual for a casual street contacting sesh. At that point the smell of alcohol permeated my nostrils and we moved on real swift-like.
We had another unintentionally awkward encounter with a less active. It wasn't quite as dramatic as the one mentioned above, but some startling definitely occurred. For the past 2 months, Sister Warnick and I have been searching for the home of a less active who just barely moved. After trekking around in the middle of nowhere this week, we FINALLY found her house! She lives in a new building, so it wasn't written on any maps. We were both just relieved that we found the building. When we finally got inside, Sister Warnick and I hiked up and down a bunch of stairs before we realized that the apartment we were looking for was on the first floor. Thankfully the hallway that we were looking for was pitch black, so I had to turn on the flashlight on our phone. I shined the light on every door looking for an apartment number, and right as I shined the light on this less active's door, she opened it up and the light shined right in her face! She was taken a little bit off guard and she asked us why we didn't just ring the doorbell. She probably thought we were trying to peer into her peephole with our flashlight or something. Yikes. We ended up having a great lesson with her, so that was awesome.

Sister Warnick and I literally had the most fun New Years Celebration ever! It is too dangerous for us to be on the streets on New Years Eve because we are Americans and there are a lot of drunks outside, so we had to be inside by 5 instead of 9 (last year we had to be inside by 6, but the Area Presidency decided that we needed to be inside a little earlier this year). Sister Warnick and I have been planning out our celebration for about the past month, so we were super pumped! First of all, we named the event "Who Spice" because we thought it would be funny to do our hair like Whos from the Grinch, so that kind of set the theme for the rest of the evening. So anyways, Who Spice commenced with us doing our hair all crazy. I had to use a teacup and many hair elastics and bobby pins to get my mane of hair to do what it did, but I think it turned out super funny. Sister Warnick used a tall plastic cup to accomplish her hair look. When we were finished with our hair creations, we both just looked in the mirror and laughed for a solid 5 minutes. Lots of pictures were taken, as you do.

Supposedly there's a tradition in Russia where you're supposed to write down your desire for the following year on a piece of paper, burn it, and drink the ashes in champagne. I've asked a few Russians about this "tradition" and some of them sort of know what I'm talking about and others just think I'm crazy. Not sure if it's legit or not. I did it last year with my trainer Sister Johnson, so we did it again this year. Obviously we didn't drink champagne but we bought nonalcoholic children's champagne which was actually super disgusting. The bottle said "cream soda" on it, so I thought it would be good. Nope. Nonetheless my desire was consumed. Not all of the paper burned, so I kind of had to choke down some of it, but it's fine. All is well! After that, Sister Warnick and I ate some shrimp (bringing back some traditions from home!) and watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration to end the night. It was one of the most peculiar but most entertaining New Year's celebrations I've ever experienced in my life. I had a blast and I'm super excited to see what surprises this New Year brings:)
Welp, that's all for this week folks! Don't tote around trash cans on your backs and don't let drunk people of your same gender take things too quickly on the first encounter.

Do Svidanya!
Love,

Sister Megan Wagstaff