A Bloody Mess

A caution to this tale: It does involve blood,  but nothing too gruesome.

I was that trainee. The one who could barely contain their excitement and ran to people like a puppy fresh off a leash. I'd get ahead of my trainer and say hi to anyone I could. That was all I basically knew how to say. I always did the opener, which was: "Hi! How are you? Do you know about Jesus?" And my trainer had to do the rest while I nodded along pretending I knew what was going on.

Then the excitement started to fade as I realized that all we did was walk the streets eight hours each day just to get rejected. Of course, the people were usually nice, although I didn't always understand what they said to us. The dread of contacting was slowly kicking in.

Also at this time I was having issues with my nose. It's like in the bible with the woman with the issue of blood. Mine was an issue of blood in my nose. It was awful. I'd have about two to three bloody noses a day.

I had spent most of my life with that problem. All of my siblings had. We have thin blood vessels in our nostrils that get easily agitated. I've had my fair share of the awful timing bloody noses can ever so gracefully bestow upon a person.

One cold December night my trainer and I were walking down a street that headed to our favorite stretch of the Volga. We took the back way. This one wrapped around a shopping center and a  recreational center. As we passed the center, I stopped dead in my tracks and muttered, "uh, oh."

I turned to look at my trainer with innocent eyes as two waterfalls came spurting out both nostrils. It was a doozy. It was coming out hard and fast. I'm talking about blood, in case you didn't catch that. It would've been weird if it was snot, although probably more manageable. I covered my nose with my bare hands and sent my helpless gaze to Sister T. "Help," I whispered.

She looked utterly frantic. She scrounged around in her bag for anything that could pass as a tissue. No such luck. I had none in mine. I really should've bought some on Monday, but I didn't. Money was tight and I thought I'd rather eat, but at that moment I thought I would rather not pass out from loss of blood.

We ran to a snow bank and I let myself bleed it out. It usually doesn't last too long, but this one was a gusher. I looked around and realized I only had one option. Snow. I ostrich dived my head into the fluffy pile of fresh snow and knelt bent over for a good 30 seconds just letting the snow freeze my face to hopefully slow the bleeding.

I heard a stifled gasp of laughter coming from Sister T. I twisted my head enough for one eye to poke out through the burrow I made for my face and said, "I look ridiculous don't I?" We both cackled about my predicament. I stood up sharply once I realized the cold was hurting more than helping. We looked down at the burrow that was now a pool of my nose blood.

"Wow, it looks like I committed murder! We should put up some crime tape." I was in shock from how much it truly looked like a homicide was committed in that once ostrich head burrow.
"Especially since you have blood all over your face and down your coat." Sister T was giving me an up-down, though from afar, refusing to get too close.

I grabbed a fist full of snow and thought, let's try again. The cold that seeped in to my face prickled my face like tiny darts of frozen shards. It hurt immensely. I'd let the snow melt and then I'd grab another holding it gently to my face just praying and hoping the bleeding would stop. We tried to stop strangers passing by to see if they had tissues, but if you remember from before, I looked like a murderer so they just scurried along leaving me helpless with my bloodied snow.

Finally. Finally, it stopped! We had been sitting there freezing, me even more so since my face was dosed with snow, for an entire hour! We walked slowly to the metro station. I was feeling faint and disoriented. Sister T had tried a little to get the blood of my coat with some snow, though it didn't help much. We hobbled through the heavy metro doors giggling since we could now see myself in better lighting. I looked terrible. Hilariously so.

I tried not to study the faces of passersby. I was worried they'd call for the police. I got a few stares from the security guards, though they let me through. I guess its not that strange to walk around with blood stains in Russia.  Crazy Russians.

The train made its way through the tunnel and slid to a halting stop. Its sliding doors guided us in.  I then heard over the intercom, "Остарожно! Дверь закрывается." I thought to myself instead of  saying: "careful, the doors are closing," it should announce, "Careful, a bloody girl, who looks like a murderer just entered."

I laughed at the thought and Sister T's eyes met mind. We did a glance over at the blood still on my hands and lost it. Oh what a night. I try to recall what my logic was for shoving my head in a hill of snow, but I have no idea why I thought it was a great idea, because it wasn't. It is hilarious to think of the memory now.

A few weeks later my mission president's wife made me go to a Russian hospital because the problem with my nose was getting worse. I understood nothing of what the doctor said to me. Instead she wrote down everything she said in crazy Russian cursive, which was so much better. Not it wasn't. Actually in the end it turned out being better because we had this awesome friend who spoke English fluently and who is a native Russian and he had the super power to read crazy doctor Russian cursive.

Anywho, the doctor ended up shoving a small sponge up my nose. She said it was supposed to be in there for six weeks, and to not touch it, and that it will help moisturize my nose so that the blood vessels wouldn't crack as much, or so she something like that. Like I said, I couldn't understand her.

Yeah, it only lasted a day. That thing was so irritating. Every time I breathed in I felt like I was going to sneeze. I have to say though that I was stubborn enough to leave it. The shower wasn't as kind as I was. Nor was fate. During the middle of my morning shower I felt it slide out of my nose, its head poking out a bit, as if a curious earthworm wanted to know what sunlight actually felt like. Then it was so excited to be out it just jumped to freedom and took a grand exit down the drain.

I was incredibly shocked. The first thing I thought to do was to yell: "SISTER!! It went down the drain!" And it was to be seen no more, as well as that doctor. I was glad to be free of it. I was okay with dealing with more almost murder scenes and make shift ostrich burrows made of snow if it meant I didn't have to have that awful sponge shoved up my nostril again.

Smelly Sister

I always found it interesting how Russian words could sound so similar to English words, but have a completely different meaning. In the MTC there was a district who called themselves "Smelly Whore" but in Russian that means Brave Choir.

This is when I first encountered the word smelly. Smelly means brave or courageous. As all immature 18 and 19 year olds would, we had an obsession with it. It was hilarious to us. In the MTC we were always looking for an excuse to laugh. I mean, nine weeks in an almost prison was pretty tiresome. It wasn't really a prison to us, though i've heard many return missionaries call it the Spirit Prison.

We definitely felt claustrophobic in there and our way of combating that was with humor. My district grew incredibly close because of this. Our poor teachers got frustrated with us because we were always laughing, though I remember getting a few laughs out of them from my energetic outbursts.

Once I got to the field, it was like the world was open up to me. Going from tiny living space to a vast country, and a mission that you would have to travel more than 24 hours to get from top to bottom was intimidating and freeing. But with that freeing feeling, all the Russian I learned just hopped away in my excitement.

By my fourth cycle I was finally feeling more proficient and my understanding was improving immensely. I was getting a little cocky, which we all know is danger. Also at this time I was trying to improve my piano skills. Our branch pianist, and my trainer,  had just been transferred away and they needed a new one. There was a sweet member who knew a couple of hymns, but she was the chorister and she didn't want to play. The APs were in this branch with me and my companion and one of them could play well, but refused to most of the time.

I had been teaching myself how to play the piano for almost two years with slow progression. I had memorized three hymns so that I could play if the need arose. By no means was I as proficient as I wanted to be. Not to mention that if I played in front of a single soul my hands would shake so badly that I couldn't read the sheet music and I would play everything wrong.

Well the day arrived when I was asked to play during sacrament meeting. My companion and I were greeting the members as they came in, this was my favorite part of Sunday. Those members in Avrora Branch were incredible. They were insanely sweet. Most of them were elderly, and most slurred so much that even if I understood Russian better I still wouldn't have been able to understand. There was this one dedushka (grandpa) who came in with a frayed brown blazer with a gaping smile revealing almost no teeth. The ones he had were brown little stubbles. He would take my hand in a handshake and consistently shake it as he slurred a story to me. I would smile and nod and laughed when he laughed. He was one of my favorites and I miss him dearly.

The sisters that would come in would greet us with a tight embrace and kiss on the cheek. If you know me, I hate being touched. I am not a touchy person, so this was hard for me at first. But I realized it's their culture and they are showing me love, so I ended up gladly accepting it. Maybe a little stiffly though.

Right before the meeting started one of the APs, the one that could play the piano well, approached me with a frazzled expression and asked me to play. I laughed. I thought it was a joke. He was serious. So I said no. He pleaded, then I refused. He ended up writing my name down on the program and stalking away. I ran after him and said, "Elder! I can't play! I can't play in front of these many people. I will cry." He chuckled, thinking I was over exaggerating. I wasn't. 

I was stuck. I had no choice. I just sat on a bench next to the chorister wringing my hands over and over again, praying for relief. The meeting started and my heart was beating so frantically that I was hopeful that I would have a heart attack and get out of playing. I could hear it thump thumping away. I am pretty sure that there were multiple people looking around the sacrament hall for the source of the annoying thumps. When they announced my name I felt the tears come. I walked up anyway and planted myself in front of the keyboard. I looked at the chorister and said, "no intro." I didn't even say it in Russian. She understood though. We went right into the hymn.

It was a disaster. It was like Hurricane Katrina blew in and was pressing the keys to a discordant tune that no one knew. I stumbled through trying to get my hands to stop shaking. Tears waterfalled down as I tried my best to play the right keys. Its not that I didn't know how to play. I did. It's not that I didn't know how to read music. I did. Though, I didn't know the hymns well enough and my nerves overtook my brain. I played until I fumbled with playing the ending note of the third verse.

I remember there was a point that I paused and I was sobbing. President Blinkov came to me and knelt in front of the piano and said, "You are doing great. I can't play, but you can. Keep going." His sweet smile was a bright beam into my gathering darkness of despair. I finished because of his encouragement. Luckily all the members knew the tune so they just sang loudly enough for me to able to figure out the right notes.

After that disaster I ran to my seat and I couldn't help but wrack with sobs as I tried to calm myself. All at once three babuskas (grandmas) rushed to me offering their handkerchiefs. They sat around me and placed arms around me and whispered loving words of encouragement. One even offered me chocolate. If this doesn't show you how charitable Russians are I don't know what will. This image of these lovely ladies surrounding me and offering comfort will always be imprinted on my mind, reminding me to always be kind, to be a comfort to someone.

Later when it was time for the sacrament hymn I started to tremble again. I had to go back up. I had to. I slowly walked forward and sat glaring at the keyboard, as if willing it to play for me. I nodded at the chorister and went right into it. I messed up the first chord. I felt the tears coming again. But I kept going. I changed to one hand, hoping to make it easier on myself. It went a lot better than the first attempt, though I still couldn't stop the tears. I went back to my circle of babuskas and let them envelope me when I got there.

I think the AP finally took pity on me and offered to play the closing hymn, which I was so grateful for. I was so relieved that I didn't have to relive that one more time. After the closing prayer swarms of members came to me and just said, "Smelly sister!" They patted my back and kept saying that. I just thought wow I'm having a breakdown and all you can say is that I smell?! Their faces reflected love and not judgement so I was confused and I just nodded and thanked them. All throughout that day members would give me a hug and repeat that.  I got so frustrated that they kept calling smelly. It didn't dawn on me what they were actually saying until the snowy haired first counselor came to me and said, "I can't believe you went back up. That was smelly of you sister." Of course all of this was in Russian, and when I had heard it in that context I laughed. I understood. They weren't saying I smelled. They were calling me brave. The first counselor and I just laughed and laughed when I explained why I was so confused.

I didn't know how much I was loved until this day. It is interesting that when your worst nightmares come true you find out how much people really do care. Russians are so incredibly charitable. They were so kind to me that day and telling me over and over again how loved I was. My tears turned from tears of despair to those of gratitude. They never mentioned that day again to me, which I was grateful, nor did they judge me. They just loved. This was just a glimpse into how much they can love.