So. This week. Basically amazing. I hope that doesn't mean that it went terribly for you all, but I guess even if it did I won't find out until next week. Just know that the church is growing, even in Russia.
Most exciting news (for me at any rate): One of our investigators was baptized this week. (!) He'd been an eternal investigator for almost two years - showed up to church every Sunday for about 6 months before he agreed to meet with the missionaries. They worked with him for another very long period of time, but he didn't have much interest in getting baptized, even if he was more active in the church than some of the long-standing, active members. I honestly have no idea what changed this time around, but we set a baptismal date with him and he accepted it. And of course, given that he knows everybody and everybody knows him, about half the branch showed up to his baptism, even though he'd specifically requested that it be on a Thursday morning, as inconveniently placed as we could possibly make it. And then when he was confirmed yesterday (most stressful time in my life, for the record, that period between baptism and confirmation. I had no idea missionaries experienced anything like it) my week was officially complete.
In other exciting news, I had my first ride in an ambulance on Saturday, although it wasn't actually for me. We got a call that morning from our babushka who really really really loves the elders. She told us that she'd been trying to hang her curtains in her room and she'd fallen and hit her head. But no, thank you, we didn't need to call an ambulance for her, just stop by and take a look at her head, would we? We left the apartment and got on the bus as quickly as we could, but it was still another 20 minutes before we got there. Of course, babushka being babushka, she'd used this time to wrap her head in a bandage and start some pasta on the stove, because heaven forbid missionaries should come to her house and not have something to eat! Sister Kovalevskaya gets nauseous at the sight of blood, so I agreed to poke around babushka's head wound and try to determine how serious it was, and Sister Kovalevskaya got the job of grating carrots and slicing onions and making sure the pasta didn't burn on the stove. We told her we'd take a look at her head, but only if she agreed to go to the hospital if we thought it necessary, fully intending to call the paramedics regardless. "Well fine. But I don't need to go anywhere! I'm just a little nauseous, that's all! Just a little blood, that's all! Call the doctor then!" When the paramedics showed up she put up another fight ("What is this, students? Doctors you say? They look like students! Go to the hospital? What hospital? That isn't my hospital!"), but eventually agreed to go, on the condition that we rode with her, and that the paramedics took some apples and mandarins for lunch. Then as we were walking out the door she realized that she hadn't told her daughter that she'd fallen and insisted that she needed to call. The phone call went something like this: "Lillia! I'm going to the hospital! Fell, that's why! Missionaries are here! They're going too! Good bye!" We figured that wasn't exactly the most comforting way of informing one's daughter of an injury, so we made a few more phone calls while we waited for her in the frightening walls of the hospital (really. I have no idea how they do it - the green they painted the walls with is just about the same green as the ceiling in my room, but somehow they just radiated STRESS. I have no intention of going to a Russian hospital ever again). Long story short (too late, of course) they looked her over, stitched her up, did a few x-rays and sent her home with us, with the instructions to head to her usual doctor if she continued to feel bad. Well then.
But I'm all story-ed out now. Those may be the last you get for a while. Or maybe not. Who knows? In any case, I hope you all had a safe week, tell Marie happy birthday, enjoy yourselves, and I love you.
-Sister Read
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