Week #37

September 26, 2012

Hey family!

You all sound like you are doing great. Thanks for being so wonderful to write me every week! I seriously appreciate it more than you know! Letters are SO huge here, ha ha! Speaking of which, Mekenzi Cornwell (my good friend from EFY) wrote me the other day and it was SO fun to get a letter from her!! I seriously loved it so much. So THANK YOU Mekenzi!! I also saw Michelle Romero from our ward back home that mom visit taught with!! It was SO fun to see her with her son's mother-in-law from Scotland. I REALLY wished I had been able to talk with them more.

I can't even tell you how great the mission is out here. We are doing SO good with our investigators right now!  I has been awesome to see how much they have progressed! Unfortunately, Debbie and her husband weren't able to be baptized this past weekend... they missed church. :(  But, the Elders there set a date with her for October 13th, in just a couple weeks, so we are really excited about that. We told Debbie we will be talking with her throughout these next few weeks to make sure her husband and her get to church together so they can receive those amazing blessings of baptism!

Well, we got a new investigator this week from mormon.org chat named Joy.  She is from Nigeria. :) I just love them Africans! She is SOOO incredibly amazing and SO prepared! Wow. She is seriously just ready for this gospel. She's been searching for the truth for YEARS and everything we have taught her so far, she has completely agreed with. She actually taught US the Great Apostasy today in our lesson. HA! It was so great. She agreed to meet with missionaries and to go to church this week which was great, of course. She's had a Book of Mormon for 4 years now that she said a "young lady" gave to her. Not sure who this young lady was... but Joy had no idea what this book was when she received it, and wasn't quite understanding it when we explained it to her, so we decided to read the introduction to her and break it down so she understood it okay. It took a long time, but she FINALLY gets it! We've committed her to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. We sent her information through to the local missionaries, so they (hopefully) will be contacting her immediately to teach her. We also committed her to baptism last week and she said YES to October 28th! :) We now have 2 on date for Oct 28th (Nick too) and 2 for October 13th!! Ha!  Everyone's getting baptized next month I guess.

I have been SO grateful to my Heavenly Father lately. I feel like Sister Nakaima and I have been incredibly blessed lately. I don't know if I really expressed this very much, but I've had a really hard time the past 2 transfers not seeing much progress in my investigators, and not really seeing any baptisms. (at least with people I taught personally). I feel like the Lord has really seen my effort lately, especially with Sister Nakaima, and that he is truly blessing us for it. It's kind of interesting. I didn't realize how much the mission really would teach me about being in a relationship. I literally couldn't do all these things without Sister Nakaima, Sister Albanes, Richardson, Crookston, etc. They have all taught me SO much, each one of them being SO completely different in temper. But I understand now why God has instituted marriage as a sacred thing. (Random thoughts there, ha!) Heavenly Father has seriously blessed us with some amazing investigators that are progressing SO well. Nick is actually meeting with the missionaries in Alabama!! (That's where he drove his aunt to.) So awesome. We're still teaching him the lessons, but the Elders are helping him keep his commitments, taking him to different firesides and activities, etc. They're REALLY helping him feel the spirit there which makes me SOOO incredibly happy!

We got to talk to Nick's aunt, Sister Gunter today though... Nick's situation back in Anderson is not looking so good. Sister Nakaima and Sister Gunter and I are really nervous about him going back home. He doesn't have a good, solid family support system. He has horrible friends who (several years ago) got him into drugs and alcohol and things like that, etc. We're really nervous he may go back to his old ways. We're going to have a fast this week for him to be able to stay in Alabama with his aunt. She has a room for him and everything.  All he would need is a job, which would be a LOT better for him to find than in Anderson I think!! Anyway, if you could all keep Nick in your prayers, it would be SO helpful. We just really care about him and want him to receive these blessings so badly.

I met a man named Tim Allen this week from Elk Grove, he said he used to be Jonny Pack's seminary teacher, ha ha! It was so fun to meet someone that knew my family. :) He was a super, super nice guy. I really liked him a lot. I thought I would mention that because I thought that was kind of fun.

We had an absolute MIRACLE day yesterday. . . Sister Nakaima and I.  It was so cool. We called Nick and Joy and were able to teach them, and WOW, that was so fun! We got three progressing investigators in a single day, three that went to Sacrament Meeting and two with a baptism date. It was sooo fun to see so much fruit from our labors!! We've really been working hard in the Beehive house, and it is starting to get a lot better. . . we feel like missionaries still. :) We also took an AWESOME investigator lesson last night, Sister Nakaima's first! :) She did an awesome job though. I'm so proud of her and SO proud of her progress. I love her so much. I definitely think I needed her at this time of my mission!

Well, I think that's all for this week. Thanks again for your emails!! I always love them. I'm sorry Christie that you lost your ring!! Such a sad thing ... I'll pray that the police can find it sometime soon!! :) And Brad, thanks so much for the email and reminder of repentance!! I learned a hard lesson this week about humility. I really needed some humility at the beginning of the week. I was doing my personal study and was studying recognizing the spirit, when I came across a scripture Preach my Gospel gives to study (page 97). It says, "Guides the words of humble teachers: D&C 100:5-8." So I read that scripture, and verse 7 COMPLETELY stood out to me, as if that verse was written for me!! It says this: 

 7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye ^adeclare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.

"In my name" was the part that I felt like completely hit me like a tow truck. I realized I hadn't been doing everything I do as a missionary in His name. I had been doing some things in mine! I had been taking the credit of our success, thinking I'm better than my companion or other sisters, etc. It was a hard lesson to learn, but its helped me truly become that consecrated missionary I need to become on my mission. (I still need to send you that talk... I will one day, promise!)

Love you all SO much! Thank you again for the prayers and love. :)

Sister Natalie Savage

PS. We took a motor coach on tour yesterday, and I introduced myself as, "Nata... uh, Sister Savage." AWKWARD! Ha ha. It was so funny. Everyone was so confused, including me! All of our different investigators call us different names so sometimes I just get confused with the guests on Temple Square, ha ha ha. Gotta love embarrassing moments. :)

Week #36

September 19, 2012

Hello my dearest family!!

I didn't even realize this, but some sisters that are in my class came up to me today to tell me that my half-way mark on my mission is TODAY!!! Can you believe that??! I've already been out here for almost 9 months. AH!  My mission has seriously been flying by recently!!! Each transfer gets faster than the one before. So much has happened since I've been out here, so crazy!! I've seen how much I've improved since then, especially recently. You know how I have that problem of not voicing myself and my problems? I’m pretty sure that I have fixed that now. :) I've learned SO much being with Sister Nakaima, having to correct her quite often to help become completely obedient (and correcting her English, ha!). It's been a HUGE lesson for me to learn, but so beneficial. I've really enjoyed being with her and learning from her. We had our weekly planning this week, and I'm so impressed with how hard she works! We didn't have time to have dinner yesterday, but she was fine with it; she didn't murmur a WORD of complaint. I'm very, very impressed with Nakaima Shimai. :) She's been wonderful to have around, and I am really looking forward to our next 3 weeks together! It's definitely challenging at times, especially with the language barrier, but it has been a great experience.

Nick is doing AWESOME. I didn't realize Anderson was that close to us!! How cool would that be if you got to attend one of my investigator's baptisms??!!! That would seriously be the best thing ever! Nick is so prepared. We taught him on Friday and again last night, and we've been steadily making progress with him. I'll tell you about Friday's conversation though...

We called Nick and had planned to read 2 Nephi 31 with him. We've been feeling lately that he doesn't quite have the faith in Jesus Christ that he needs to have in order for us to move forward with the other lessons. So, we started reading 2 Nephi 31 with him, and it went really well. He understood everything perfectly, especially the need to be baptized. So the first time we taught him, we committed him to be baptized, but he wouldn't commit to a date.  We were worried about it, which is why we decided to focus more on building his faith rather than moving on to the Plan of Salvation lesson. On Friday, he suddenly told us, "Sisters, I've been thinking a lot about the baptism date thing, and I think I've picked a date." We were thinking, YES!! This is amazing!!

But then... he said this: "I think I want to be baptized on July 24th, 2013." Silence. Complete and udder silence. Finally after what felt like 10 minutes, I said, "Uh Nick, you realize that's 10 months away, right?" Well of course he realized that.  :)  His reasoning behind the date: July 24th is his 21st birthday, the day he could legally go to a bar and drink all night long with his friends. His view on this whole thing was that if he got baptized on his 21st birthday, he wouldn't be tempted to drink alcohol with all of his buddies. Well that does make sense, but it was not exactly what we meant by setting a date, ha ha!

We were seriously worried. We realized that now, more than ever, we REALLY needed to focus on his faith in Jesus Christ and get that built up so he would start preparing NOW for baptism. He told us that he wants to be completely ready and know EVERYTHING about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before he joins it. Awww! He can't procrastinate the day of his repentance until next YEAR! So, we decided to role play talking to Nick in our companionship study so that the Spirit could help us know what he needed to hear in our next lesson on Tuesday. Nakaima Shimai, my wonderful, sweet, and very in-tune companion, thought of the story of Joseph Smith. He was only 14 years old when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. When we talked to him yesterday, Sister Nakaima asked him, (in somewhat broken English), "Nick, do you think Joseph Smith knew everything about the gospel at 14 years old?!" It was the PERFECT question.  Nick hesitated for a second and then said, "No... that's a good point." We then told him that he didn't need to worry about knowing EVERY single bit of information about the church before he joined. That's not what faith is! Faith is believing that something is true, and then applying it to your life to see if it actually works and is beneficial to you!! We asked him again why he was interested in learning more about this church, and he said that everyone seemed happy to him, because they were all living the gospel of Jesus Christ... and that seemed like the way to live to him!

So after we resolved this concern and helped him really see what faith is, (we talked a bit about repentance too, how we shouldn't want to delay repenting our sins if we truly accept Christ in our life) and then talked with him about his baptism date again. We told him that we KNEW Heavenly Father would help him to get baptized on October 28th, 2012, and he said YES! :)

It was such a HUGE tender mercy of the Lord, to see how a heart had changed because of our faith and prayers, and Sister Nakaima's sweet and simply outlook on the first vision. Dearest family and friends, THIS is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about. It's not about having all the lessons memorized perfectly. It's not about knowing every detail of the gospel. It's about taking these simple stories from the scriptures, from our prophets of old and of modern-day, and applying it to our lives. To us, personally! That is truly how we becoming converted to the gospel of Christ. When we can look at every story, at every scripture and ask ourselves, "Okay, how does this apply to me? What does Heavenly Father want me to get out of this story?", he opens our eyes and allows us to receive more understanding than we could possibly imagine. Awww. So great. I can't even tell you all how much I love  this gospel. I LOVE missionary work!! It truly is the best thing ever. I feel so thankful to my Heavenly Father for guiding me towards this path of a mission. I definitely needed it.

We're so excited to see this week if Debbie and her husband went to church so they could get baptized this Sunday!! We're really hoping and praying for it. Please pray with us!! And pray for Nick too!! He's already stopped drinking completely, he's accepted a baptism date; he just needs to find the faith to receive his answer from the Holy Ghost. :)

I love you all SOOO much. I'm so thankful for your prayers and love. Please keep it coming!! :) Tell Jeff and Emily that I miss hearing from them and would love to hear from them soon. :) I totally understand that they're busy... just love my family lots and need an update on my favorite nieces! :)

Love love love you all!!

Sister Savage

Week #35

September 12, 2012

Hey family!

Well this email will be short, but I had an awesome week this week!! Sister Nakaima and I committed Debbie and her husband from Arkansas (inbound call) to baptism on the 26th of May!! Soooo exciting!! :) All they need to do is go to church EVERY week until then. That's been one thing that has held them back from getting baptized. We're calling them every week until the baptism to make sure they make it to church!

Nick is AWESOME!! I don't remember if we told you about him, but we met him on the square last week with his aunt (who is a member). They are both from California, and we took them on a tour. Nick isn't a member of the church, but he's "looking for the true church." Boom. Who does that remind you of?? Joseph Smith? yes! We literally taught him the entire Restoration lesson on Temple Square with him. We took him to the Handcart monument first, told him all about the pioneers sacrifice, and then proceeded to explain why they gave up everything they knew and came out for the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! It was SUCH a powerful lesson on the square. He had already decided to meet with missionaries when he goes back to Anderson, CA, but he'll be on the road for the next few weeks, so we're literally teaching him until then.

He is seriously so golden. He does EVERYTHING we commit him to do. He's constantly focused on finding the truth and doing everything he can to find out if it is. He is absolutely wonderful.  He is only 20 years old too! He told us when he finds the truth, he will tell EVERYONE he knows, especially his family and friends!! We've taught him the Restoration lesson completely now, some of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we're teaching him on Friday the Plan of Salvation, tying into baptism. We committed him for baptism, and he said YES!! He won't commit to a date yet though... He doesn't feel like he's learned enough yet, which is very understandable, but we're going to extend the invitation again next time we talk with him (if the Spirit prompts us to). We're really excited to be able to teach him more. So fun to have a progressing investigator in a week!!

Nathaly also answered last week, and we had a really long talk. She has been meeting with missionaries, but it doesn't seem like the missionaries are being super straight with her... They haven't even taught her how to pray and it is her third lesson with them!! They have hardly touched on baptism, and that was what Sister Nakaima and I talked to her about for half of the conversation. She couldn't give us a straight answer when we extended the baptismal invitation, because she's been Catholic forever, and she just doesn't really see why she needs to change. She is kind of our other focus right now, because we REALLY want her to see why this gospel will help her have a better life and future. Our plan for our next lesson with her is to call her and teach her how to pray!

OK, I better get going... We're going to President Harman's house for P-day tonight in Park City. :) So excited!!! Should be really fun!

I love you all SOOO much. Thank you for the prayers, please keep them coming!! Sister Nakaima is doing great.  I just need more patience and love to teach her English! ) HA!  I love you all!

Sister Savage 

Week #34

September 5, 2012

Hi dearest family and friends!!

So good to hear from all of you!! I feel like I just e-mailed you yesterday... Crazy how fast time on the mission flies!! This week was a really good week. On Thursday Sister Nakaima was so cute!  We got our first referral (didn't agree to meet with missionaries, but said we could call them and teach them more) and she was SO excited! It was really cute. We also had our Explorer Days this week which were really good. We talked a lot about the different things we could use in our tours and role played the Seagull Monument, the Priesthood Statues, the John R Moyle story, etc. It was really good!! She really is the cutest little Japanese-ee you've ever seen. Very sweet, loving girl. I'm a very lucky companion right now. :) The language I think has been our biggest struggle. There are times when I literally don't know what she's saying or talking about, ha ha, and its the same for her! I think I'll be much better at teaching at the end of this transfer. :) I definitely think this was what my Patriarchal Blessing was talking about!!!

So, LOTS of learning experiences this week in the Beehive House. Wow. It is very easy to become wrote and give the same tour over and over again, which is definitely not spirit-lead! But it has been e a really good learning experience. We are trying hard to work on teaching more in the Beehive House about the Restoration, asking more questions, etc. It's going to be a really good transfer, definitely a lot of growth that will be happening!!

And of course, the best part of my WHOLE week, was seeing Grandma and Grandpa Orchard!!! :) I felt so bad that I got so emotional when I saw them because the only thing I could think of is how they are starting to pay for my mission right now... I just about lost it, ha! But I was so grateful I got to thank them and take them around Temple Square, and show them how amazing this place really is. I even took them through God's Plan. :) And then they came to the Beehive House later, and I got to take them on a tour there!! It was SOOOO much fun. Awww ... I am such a lucky girl! I have the greatest grandparents on both sides. So loving and caring. Thank you again Grandma and Grandpa Orchard for allowing me to have the best experiences of my life right now!! I am able to declare the truth to all who I come in contact with, whether they accept it or not. I love Alma 42: 31 for that reason: "And now, O my [daughter], ye are called of God to preach the word unto this people. And now, my [daughter] go they way, declare the word with truth and soberness, that thou mayest bring souls unto repentance, that the great plan of mercy may have claim upon them. And may God grant unto you even according to my words."

Ah, greatest scripture ever!!! I love the Book of Mormon so much. I literally can't get enough of it ... or anything on my mission!!

I'm sorry that I don't have time to write more, but I am short on time today. I will email you all a big, long email next week! I love you all!! Please stay strong.  Remember the worth of EVERY soul is great in the eyes of God. Treat each other with love and kindness. Be patient. Heavenly Father knows our struggles right now, and will bless us according to the way we handle our challenges. Remember D&C 122:7-8, and 121: 7-9. Your friends (and family) are constantly around you, bearing you up and aiding you in your afflictions ... like Grandma and Grandpa Orchard. :)

I love you all SOOO very much. Until next week!

Sister Savage (Nat :)) 

Week #33

Hello my dearest familia!!

 

Guess what?! My P-day is now on Wednesdays!! :) I bet you don't know what that means ... I've been assigned to be in the Cover Zone, which is the zone that is in the Beehive House. AH! I'm sooo nervous. I'll be in the Beehive House half the day everyday now. That's definitely going to be a bit of a challenge... I like the Beehive House a lot... it is just really hard to do missionary work in there. I also have a new companion which is way exciting!!! Her name is Siste Nakaima, and she is from Okinawa, Japan!!! I knew Dad would be excited about that. :) She is seriously the cutest thing ever!!! She speaks really good English, which I'm surprised about. She is brand new in the mission, so I'll be teaching her everything about the square, the Beehive house and the Teaching Center and everything. I'm super nervous, but really excited for this new assignment. I think its going to be a really good transfer!! Hard but good. :) Tell Grandma and Grandpa Orchard that I will either be in the Beehive House this weekend or on the square.  But again, I'm not allowed to tell where exactly I'll be at what time. We'll just pray really hard that we'll be able to run into each other!! :)

 

Sister Albanes is still in the office, of course, with a sister named Sister Gordon. She is absolutely adorable! Sis Albanes did great today with all the new sisters and everything. I helped her out a little bit this morning too so she wasn't completely on her own, ha. She's so cute. I'll miss her, but hopefully I'll be able to see her around the square often.

 

This week was a seriously crazy week, but it was so much fun too!! Sister Albanes and I got everything we needed to done in the office so we could prepare for transfers. It was really good. We only had crazy things happen last night when I was trying to move and get ready for today!! (I had to move to the other apartments, which i'm really sad about... I'll miss living right next to the AP's! :( but it will be good!) President Harman is the 1st counselor and he has a colored printer, so we were going to use that last night to print out the new sisters board cards, but his printer ran out of ink... AH! So we had to find another sister to buy that for us last night while I moved my stuff over to my new apartment. Then when we woke up this morning, Sister Albanes and Gordon had to greet the new sisters, so I had to go to the COB to see if our phone lists were done yet (the First Presidency printed off 17,000 copies of something there, so obviously, our job got pushed back til toay. ha ha!), so we waited for those, came to the square to have our meeting with the Zones, and then I had to put the new ink into the computer, print off the board cards, cut them out and put magnets on the back of them (for President's transfer board), and then give each zone their phone lists, get bread from Kneaders, and distrubute it to the different zones. Needless to say, it was an insane morning. Ha ha. But now I have P-day and a new companion and everything is great! :)

 

Well, some amazing miracles happened this week! First, Thabiso went to church on Sunday and he LOVED it!! He said he felt "blessed thereafter." ha ha... so adorable ... and he's progressing. :) So exciting! And Mark is still doing great. I feel bad that we have had a crazy week in the office so I haven't been able to talk to him for a few days. We'll get some time to talk to him tomorrow though, which is good. I still can't believe that I'm in my sixth transfer. This is the transfer when I'll be halfway through my mission!!! That is a very scary thought. We went to the Departing Sisters dinner last night and I felt so sad to see those other sisters leaving. They were such powerful missionaries, such a wonderful class. It is so cool to see how strong they are when they leave, and how much their testimonies grow. I just hope and pray that I can be like that at the end of my mission!!

 

Well family, I don't have much else to share with you. I love you all SOOO much. I'm so humbled and grateful for this opportunity to be with Sister Nakaima. I think it will be a great transfer! We are going to work hard this transfer so we can see miracles. :) Hopefully someone will come to Christ and follow his example by being baptized. Woot!

 

Have a wonderful week!! Transfer 6, week 1 has officially begun!!

 

Love,

 

Sister Savage