Member Referrals are key.

Howsit going? Going pretty good here, it's been overcast and a little cooler these past two days, which is sweet! This week has been awesome with our investigators and with the food!

I bought a steamer from another elder and it's basically the best thing ever. I can't stand cooking rice... I'm terrible at it and you always have to make sure it doesn't burn, and it's just annoying.  But now I don't have to worry about it!  I just come in at night, put some veggies, potatoes, rice, and chicken in the steamer, go nightly plan, change, and then it's all done! Ah, it's the best!  I'll never go back to normal pots haha.

I also made german pancakes a couple of times this week which were awesome.  They remind me of Saturday mornings back home :) And this elder in the next flat over made chocolate chip cookies last night, they were bomb! Haven't had those in 5 months! It was good to get my fix haha.

They have this dessert here called milk tart.  It's basically a pie, except I don't really know what it's made of haha, but they're amazing. I ate one just now. I'll send you a pic of it next week! There's this Greek guy who has a bakery and he makes them. We just discovered him on Thursday and have already gone to him like 4 times hahaha... milk tarts for days.

But yeah, that's it for food! Our investigators have been doing awesome too! We had like 9 investigators at the North Cluster last week which was sweet! We've stopped tracting as much because the mission president is really focusing on getting member referrals, so that's what we've been working on. We've had more member lessons recently, which I used to think was dumb because they're already members, but when you go in their house and laugh with them and teach them, and show that you're willing to work, they want their friends to be taught as well! So we've been doing that and have already gotten success! We have 3 new investigators at the North Cluster, and 2 new ones at the East that are all member referrals! So the work is going forward, and we have 2 baptisms this Sunday! (Both of the ladies getting baptized were member referrals, so I'm definitely noticing a pattern! I realize why the leaders of the church are putting such a push on member referrals.)

Last night we had a lesson with a cool family that we've been teaching, but they haven't really been keeping any of the commitments. So I was planning on just being like "Hey, if we see you at church then we'll know you're serious." but in district meeting on Friday someone talked about how when you correct people you should be swift and sharp, but then afterwards show an increased love towards them, which goes along with something that Elder Uchtdorf said.  He said that if you have love, then you can be bold, and no matter how bold you are, it won't be overbearing. So that's what I tried to do.  I let the family know that they haven't kept any commitments and keeping commitments is the way they can show that they want to learn more about the gospel, and they got serious, and then I just said that we loved them and we cared about them, and we want what is best for them.  So we finished the lesson, and I could definitely feel that they were more sober, and they realized why we were there. So I'm hoping that they'll be able to pray this week so we can keep teaching them!

Anyway gotta go.  Talk to you all next week, love you! Thanks for everything you do!

Elder Savage

Elder Tye was playing chess in the background, I don't think you can see him though. We were in a mall and they have a giant chessboard so sometimes we do that to find people to teach haha.