Should We Run?

Oftentimes people assume that Russia is a harsh land full of harsh people. It's not true. Russia covers a vast amount of land. In my mission alone, the smallest mission in Russia had three time zones. With a vast amount of land, there are a variety of different climates. The winter can be harsh, but it is beautiful. I remember waking up one dreadful January day and when I went outside the entire city was blanketed in white. The trees and the light poles were dusted in frost. It was a gorgeous sight.

Beautiful, not harsh. That's how the people are too. They can come off cold, but once you befriend a Russian, they are loyal to the core and will stay your friend for life. They are a bunch of softies with tender hearts. They too are beloved children of our Heavenly Father. Unfortunately every where you go in the world there are those who make bad decisions, but that doesn't make them bad people.

In my fourth cycle I was with another Sister T and we were both pretty young at least in mission slang. I learned a lot from Sister T the Younger, that's what we called her to not get confused with the other Sister T. She taught me to just love the people and show love by service and by expressing it. She also taught me to work hard towards goals and to never give up. We had the goal to give out 60 Books of Mormon in one cycle (six weeks). That doesn't seem like much compared to some missions, but to us that seemed almost impossible. We could barely give out three on a good week. But we prayed with faith and worked our tails off and we accomplished that. One particular woman we gave a Book of Mormon to actually wanted to meet with us. That was also rare. We met with her at a cafe and had a great discussion about the Plan of Salvation and she wanted to learn more. Our second visit was on a Sunday night, in the same cafe we had met before. She didn't want to travel all the way to our church or let us in to her home, so this was the middle ground.

We had another meeting before hers and we were late coming back from it. We took the Metro to our station next to our apartment building which was only a few blocks away for the designated cafe. We fast-walked as fast as we could to pass the lollygaggers and through the heavy swinging doors, ran up the stairs and past some more heavy swinging doors and as soon as we made it out in the open Sister T the Younger took off in a sprint, not wanting to be late. I raced after her and we made it to the bus stop when we heard the sound of shattering glass. Sister T and I skidded into a stop and into each other as we turned to the left to see to masked figures jumping through the glass door of a jewelry shop they had just shattered. It was like a cartoon as I watched the masked figures carrying brown bags full of the goodies they just stole, with weapons in their other hand as they ran passed me and Sister T the Younger. They ran so close to us that I could feel the whoosh of the stir of air they caused, flinging my hair backwards. 

Sister T and I were in shock. We looked at each other and at the same time said, "Did we just witness a robbery?" We needed to go to our meeting, and we needed to run there, but we were afraid if we ran that we would look guilty of the crime. So we approached a babushka who had seen what we had seen and asked her, "Did you see that?" She nodded and started off on a rant and we were stuck listening to her rant, not wanting to be rude. We eventually made our way out and walked a couple of paces. I turned back to Sister T and asked, "So, should we run?" And we took off down the street with out a second glance behind us as we heard sirens wail. I was hoping that no one suspected us, the Americans volunteers, for the robbery, but we had no problems. Only a story to tell. People often asked me, "What was the scariest thing?" or "What was the craziest thing you saw?"

This wasn't the scariest thing because I was too distracted to be scared at that moment, and I had scarier moments later on. This is though probably one of the craziest things I witnessed. I usually nonchalantly answer their questions with, "Yeah, I witnessed a robbery, no big deal or anything." To them it seemed like a big deal, but like I said, I was too distracted at the moment to be even that remotely concerned that we witnessed a robbery, and that the robbers ran right past us with weapons in their hands. I say I was too distracted because my concerns at the moment were getting to the meeting on time and to try to not look guilty for a crime we didn't commit. It's silly really, but makes for a good story right?

That was one of a few instances were it made my heart sad that people make bad choices. Well I guess the instance would be when I pondered back on that moment. I think people think that those who make bad decisions are inherently bad, but they aren't. They are children of our Heavenly Father and are loved by him. If the world was full of love instead of hate, would stuff like that even happen? That's what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does for the world, including many other saving ordinances. But love is what can change people, and I do have to say that Russians have a lot of love to give, though it doesn't always seem visible. The lady we ended up meeting with didn't accept God's message, but she did accept us for who we were, which we were definitely a peculiar people to her. I wished and prayed for her to accept God's message, but even though she didn't, she still had a lot of good in her and that was visible in the way she treated us with love and respect.