Letter #12

March 26, 2012

Hi Family!!

Well, you are basically the greatest family EVER!! Thank you SO much for your package! It made me so happy. . . Wednesday was honestly one of the best birthdays I've ever had! We went to breakfast at the Lion House -- it is 50% off for missionaries and hosts. :) It was really good. And the sisters surprised me and all pitched in and bought me a new pair of earrings and a necklace!! It was seriously the nicest thing ever! I tried to ask them who all pitched in for it, but Sister Andrade told me that a lot of sisters pitched in... how sweet, huh?!  I felt so loved! :) We also went to Blue Lemon for lunch which was SO amazingly good and fun! And sadly enough, I forgot to get a picture of lunch. I did get pictures at breakfast though, so I'll email those next week.  :)

Also, our sweet aunt Peggy sent me a package for my birthday with a new journal that says, "Not ashamed of the gospel of Christ" (Romans 1:16), candy, tic tacs, and a letter with her conversion story!! It was SO much fun to read that. I can't even believe how sweet she is. Thank you SO much Aunt Peggy! I love you! You made my birthday that much better! I also got a package from Jordan complete with my very own pedicure set, nail polish, and the ugliest "moo-moo" you've ever seen. :) Ha ha. I laughed so hard when I opened it. Thank you SOOO much Jord!! You're amazing! I feel so lucky to have so much support from all of my friends and family. Oh, and thank you Mekenzi Cornwell for the sweet birthday letter!! I almost cried reading it! It made me so happy. :) And my dearest Becka Cox wrote me for my birthday too!! (She was one of my EFY girls the first week I worked at EFY during my first summer.) Can you now see how amazing my birthday was???  So, so great. I still can't get over how much support and love I have here. Thank you everyone that made my birthday special! :)

I definitely see people I know weekly or people that are looking for me. I received a note from Marene Ebert, mom's aunt! I guess she was on Temple Square.  I’m so sorry I missed her.  And another sister told me that Heidi Astle was looking for me. :) I wish I could've seen them both!  But I did see my dearest McCall!! (she was an EFY counselor with me this past summer.) LOVE her, and she just got her mission call to Tulsa, OKlahoma! So fun to have so many of my friends out serving with me!  We really are all in this together! (High School Musical song starts...) :)  I also saw Jordan's aunt, Kathryn Bishop! It was so fun to see her and her cute girls! They came for Young Women's conference this weekend. It was like a mini practice for General Conference, ha ha! It was a super fun weekend. But it made me miss my momma... I remember going to the Young Women's conferences with her at our stake building. It was always so much fun. I love you mom!

Thank you so much for all your wonderful emails! They lift my spirits up so high. :) I love reading them. They make me so happy. I honestly don't feel like I'm away from you when I read the emails. So much fun!

So the new mall, City Creek opened up this week. It's literally the Great and Spacious building across the street from Temple Square, lol! So funny. We love it though because all the people come walking through Temple Square after shopping there. :) Hooray for potentials! We had literally twice as many people come to Temple Square this weekend!  We're getting WAY excited for Conference too! We've been having meetings this whole week training us on how to uplift the members and have short contacts. The mission's goal is to get genuine referrals, and not treat the members like referral machines. :)  It's been really good and we've had some great practices so far. I love that the mission is more focused on helping the members spiritually than just getting referrals. I used to think that that is all they did was ask for people's names. Our Mission President is such a great guy! He really knows what he's doing on this mission.

I had some really cool spiritual learning this week. Today I was studying Mosiah 5, which is the chapter right after King Benjamin talks to the people. There are some incredibly beautiful verses in there! I went through the whole chapter just by itself, and suddenly realized what a HUGE comparison the chapter is to my purpose as a missionary, and what happens to our investigators when they get baptized. The second verse reads: "And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." I LOVE this verse! These children of God literally have a MIGHTY change of heart when they accept the gospel to be true. They start to realize how much giving into temptation and evil bring them down, and they desire to do good continually. Some of the best members of the church are converts-- they have such a strong desire to spread the word of the gospel to other people so that they can enjoy the blessings they've received in their life, and the change that goes on in their hearts. Verse 4 goes on to say, "And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy." Our investigators have to have faith in what us missionaries are saying. If they don't, they won't act upon it, which is what faith is! It's an action word. The people in Mosiah then make a covenant with God that they will "be obedient to his commandments in all things". Sound familiar? Its the covenant that we make at baptism-- to keep his commandments which he has given us, that we will always remember him. We say it in the Sacrament prayer every week. So cool, right? This church is so true.

And then I love what King Benjamin says afterward; "And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters." (Mosiah 5:7)

WOW. So incredibly cool!  Brad sent me an email a couple of weeks ago that was talking about this, how we take upon ourselves his name when we make that covenant with him at baptism. We literally become his children, and are spiritually begotten of him. I looked up the word begotten, and in the scripture guide on lds.org it says it means "To be born. To beget is to give birth, to procreate, or to call into being. In the scriptures, these words are often used to mean being born of God. Although Jesus Christ is the only child begotten of the Father in mortality, all people may be spiritually begotten of Christ by accepting him, obeying his commandments, and becoming new persons through the power of the Holy Ghost."

That is the key right there. . . We have to 1. Accept him as our Savior, 2. Obey his commandments and then we become new person through the power of the Holy Ghost, or the baptism by fire.

In verse 12 King Benjamin says this: "I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts, that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which he shall call you." Brad also said this in his email that we have to know the name by which he will call us! I love love love this verse! Remember to retain the name written ALWAYS in your hearts.

And then my very favorite part, verse 15:

 "Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all.  Amen."

What a beautiful phrase. When we do what he has asked of us, when we pray, study our scriptures, attend church weekly and partake of the sacrament, when we are kind to our neighbors and strive to have his image in our countenance, (Alma 5:14), he seals us to Him. He seals YOU to Him. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I love how much I feel his love for me, and for these investigators. It is such an amazing opportunity to be here on Temple Square. I literally can't think of anywhere else I would rather be! 

We took a few people to the Christus yesterday on a tour and I asked them what they thought about when they looked at this depiction of our Savior, and the (Catholic) lady said, "I feel a warm blanket of peace--it feels like its draped over me." The other man said, "He's very welcoming. It looks like He's actually looking down on all of us." I was able to share my testimony of the Savior, of his love and peace, and that he truly does live. I feel so lucky and blessed to have the knowledge I do of him and his life.

So, last but not least... I have a very big surprise for you, my dearest family. I emailed my Mission President (like I do every week), and asked him if there was any possible way that my companion and I could go to dinner with all of you on Friday night when you are here.

Guess what?

He said YES! :)

He's giving us one hour to go to dinner with all of you. HA HA!! Can you even believe this??! I almost cried. (Don't worry, I didn't) I'll probably just cry when I see you lol.  I still can't believe that I am actually going to dinner with you guys, ha ha ha. I promise I asked my Mission President and he was fine with it! We just have one hour because Sister Wilson and I have to be back on the square. :) I can't stop laughing about this. This is just too crazy. You all get to meet my companion too!!  She's way excited. ha ha.

Well, I love you all SO much. See you Friday night!! HA! :)

Love love love,

Sister Savage