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
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