Week #57

February 25, 2013

Hey familia!! 

So good to hear from you all. :) I love hearing from my family... it’s the best thing ever!! Can I get a pedigree chart emailed to me of 3 generations? I need it for our little one hour of service here on T2. We're starting to be able to do our family history which is really cool!! I'm way excited for it.

We had a really good week this week. It's been crazy, but good. We definitely don't have as much time to do missionary work as Zone Leaders, but it has been a really good learning experience for me and has helped me really concentrate and focus when I DO have time to do missionary work. It has also helped me become a better teacher. I still really lack on that part, but what is interesting is that when we got the numbers for our zone for this past week (We get our weekly total numbers to see what our zone needs to work on, where our strengths and weaknesses are, etc.), and we realized that our little zone struggles with teaching. We've decided to focus our zone meetings on teaching the sisters how to teach others. We had a really good zone meeting last week that Sister Marand and I were SOO nervous about (it was our first time being zone leaders so we had no idea what we were doing ha ha). It is hard to do something that you've NEVER done before, but it has also been incredible to see how much the Lord is directing us. We've been able to receive revelation for our zone. It's such a cool experience to have that!!! I'm sure it is the same experience both mom and dad have had when they've had callings in the church, and especially with raising us children. I feel like I've been able to get a glimpse of what it will be like to have children and how to receive revelation for them. Hope that makes sense... ha ha! I'm a little tired today. Pretty cool stuff though! 

I realize more than ever that this truly is just another assignment I've been given, and it doesn't make me any better than anyone else. We had to teach at the Leadership Training this week and I was SO nervous. It was hard to speak at it. We had an emergency transfer in our zone (yes, within the first week 2 sisters hated each other and refused to work with each other... so sad.) So, we have been dealing with WAY too much drama recently. I was already done with being a ZL ha ha! Some of the other ZL's in the mission judged a bit (I thought that was pretty fitting that dad and mom had talked about judging in their email this week ha!), but I remember doing the exact same thing when I saw other emergency transfers going on in the mission. I had to just swallow my pride and be okay with the fact that Sister Marand and I did all we could do to help those sisters out (exchanges, meetings with them, etc). I guess we all have our agency. I'm just glad our zone is back to normal for now! :)

But on a happier note...One cool thing we get to do is take VIP tours of Temple Square... can you say SCARY??!! Ha ha! Sis Marand has taken VIP tours before (in French) but this was my first time.  We took Dr. Frank Mora. He's from Washington DC and is a guest speaker at a college in Provo. The church actually has a calling for people to take these VIP guests around T2 with us so it is not just us sisters doing it, so guess who came with us??! Elder Richard Hinckley, son of Gordon B. Hinckley!! :) Ha ha! (his calling is Church Tour historian or something like that). It was so awesome! He is the nicest man you'll ever meet. It was so funny too...we took Dr. Mora to the Conference Center and Elder Hinckley showed him the picture of President Hinckley and says, "This is the man who actually thought of the design for this place. Very brilliant man, and I'm not just saying that because he's my father!" :) It was so funny. Anyway, I'm having quite the amazing experiences here on T2! 

I think I mentioned last week that we now have Relief Society on Thursday mornings for us sisters, and guess who spoke to us??!! Sister Carol Stevens, the 1st counselor in the Relief Society!! :) It was incredible! Her talk was amazing. She talked about the relief society, how it got started, but also about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the importance of missionary work. She told us her stories of how she got a phone call from Elder Nelson's secretary first to be in the Young Women General Presidency (I think? Can't remember..), and then how she years later got a call from President Eyring's secretary. She said both times she lied in bed the whole night praying and repenting of her sins, ha ha. It always feels good to know that even incredible ladies like her have to repent. :) We're getting excited for this week’s Relief Society meeting... we've all been given the talk "Beware of Pride" to study beforehand to prepare for the meeting. I LOVE that talk! It'll be so good for me to read it again. 

If any of the men in our family that have served missions have advice for me... I would seriously appreciate it, ha ha! I've never even been a DL before and have no idea how to do this. Anything you noticed that helped you on your missions would be great. We've done a Standard of Excellence for our little zone and are planning on going on exchanges soon, as well as doing zone meetings with a lot of roleplaying and them teaching each other, etc. 

One more thing... Birko was baptized yesterday!! (I thought she got baptized a month ago, but she changed the date... and now she's baptized!! :)) Really cool story about her that is almost EXACTLY like dad's story he told me a few weeks ago! Apparently, over there in bitter cold Germany, the water heater broke in the chapel she was getting baptized in, so the water in the font was FREEZING cold. The members tried to pour warmer water from elsewhere but it didn't work ha... She said the member that baptized her got in the water and was SOOO so cold, and apologized to her for how cold it was!! But then, she said she stepped into the water and felt nothing. She just felt a warm sensation all over her body. She didn't remember it being cold at all!! I shared with her Dad's experience on his mission and she just thought it was the COOLEST thing ever that my investigator had that same experience. Birko completely focused on the spirit and the Lord gave her that wonderful tender mercy. The gospel is DEFINITELY true!! 

I love you all so much. :) 

Love, 

Sister Natalie Savage