Letter #1

Hi Family!!

Well, here's the first of the emails! :) I can't believe still that this is actually happening. I'm actually a missionary in the MTC!! How crazy!

Well, I LOVE the MTC. It has been SO great. It's incredibly hard, but the spirit is so strong here all the day that it completely makes up for it!! I have already learned so much and truly feel like the Lord is blessing me already. Why didn't I make this decision earlier?? ;)

My companion is Sister Brickley. She is from Indiana, and is SUCH an awesome girl! I love her SOOOO much. I was so worried about my companion when I first got here, but she is seriously amazing! She has such a strong desire to do good and work hard. She's been a really good example to me of how I should be and how I should act. She's the only active member in her immediate family. How hard! I can't even imagine not having support out here like I do from you guys.. but Already since she's left her sister and mother have started coming to church. So awesome!! What a rock!

I love that I learn so much about how to teach here. I reread my patriarchal blessing yesterday and was reminded of my gift of teaching. This is definitely the place to develop that gift! I was also reminded that I would be called upon throughout my life to teach others the gospel, and that I would touch the hearts of youth, of children and adults. I never realized that my mission would be the place I would do that! I LOVE it here!!

The schedule was the hardest thing to adjust to for me. it was hard for me to not get any sleep the night before I got here and then have to wake up at 6:30 the next day. But we're so exhausted by the end of the day that i literally hit the sheets and am out cold! We are CONSTANTLY busy here too. It never stops! We're either studying, in class, eating, or sleeping. That's all I do here. But I love it! The gospel is so true!

We're already practicing on investigators, which has been surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. But our teachers act like investigators, and it's really intimidating teaching them.. Me and Sister Brickley feel like they're judging us or something, haha. But it's been really good to practice and it's taught me a lot. Cute Sis Brickley gets SO nervous to teach... I always have to tell her to breath and we always say a prayer before we go in the room. But she's doing so great and I'm so proud of her progress she's made since she's been here. Our roommates (and the girls in our district) is Sister Nixon (who our cousin's the Savages know! She's from Colorado too) and Sister Dieujuste (pronounced dee-eh-juice-t). Sister D. we call her, haha. She's from Haiti but grew up in Florida and has only been a member for a few years. Shes seriously the funniest black girl I have ever met in my life, haha! She makes us laugh constantly. It's so good to have humor in a place where you feel like you need to be seriously all the time!! Laughter is the best medicine! ;)

My district is AWESOME too. We have 6 elders and then its us 4 sisters. And guess where the elders are going on their missions? Richmond, Virgina. Yep. Daily reminder. Ha, what are the odds huh? But they're all such great guys. We sisters seriously love the elders. We're able to keep them in check a bit while they make us laugh! ;) I seriously can't even tell you how blessed I've been to have such great elders and sisters around me all day long. It's truly incredible.

We met our new Mission Pres yesterday! He's the nicest man I think I've ever met in my life, haha! and his wife is adorable. We're all SO excited to get to T-square! We leave Feb 1, so we do stay for 4 weeks. The last week is all visitor center training.

Well, my brain hurts all the time, and I've been tired since January 4th (that is the joke of us sisters) but I am truly loving it. It feels so right to be here serving. It honestly doesn't even feel like a sacrifice. Thank you mom and grandma for the letters. Time is short so I gotta go

Love you ALL!!!

Sister Savage