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