January Baptism and Ice Skating!

This week was sweet! All the other missionaries were busy doing stuff on Monday so we went ice skating.  It kind of weird, but the good news is that I didn't die! By the end of the 2 hours I was skating all around the rink like 3 times, no wall no falls, so it felt pretty good. And that night we got fed waffles and ice cream by a member.  So yeah, P-day is always baller.

Sorry, I think my emails are progressively getting shorter. I'm just not as sure what to write anymore because most of the experiences that happen are so normal to me now, so it's hard to think of unique things.  Just know that I'm trying my best! :)

There was one unique thing that happened with an investigator, Tanya, who's on date to be baptized this month. As we were teaching her last week she brought up that she's going to be baptized in January now, and we were kind of skeptical, but she said that that is when she is supposed to get baptized. We weren't really convinced, so two days later we saw her again, and we talked about it.  We were trying to just listen, and not jump in since she's pretty quiet. She explained that she's been having a dream for a little while now about her baptism and it's always the same dream… she is in white and a man is in white about to baptize her, and she talks to someone in the dream who lets her know that the month is January. So after her story we asked her if it is a good dream or more like a nightmare.  She said it's good and she feels good about it, and we asked if she's prayed about it and she said she did pray about it and then she had the same dream again.  So we were just like okay, we'll respect that decision.  Maybe there's wisdom in it that we don't understand. So we'll continue to meet with her until then, which will probably be good because she's from Zimbabwe and her English isn't the best.  Maybe it'll be an opportunity for her to understand the doctrine more before her baptism.

Then on Saturday we went to an investigator’s house, but he wasn't there.  I had a prompting to speak to a guy but he looked a little drunk so I just shrugged it off, but a feeling of guilt swept over me so I though we should go back to that guy, and my comp said he felt the same way. So we went and spoke with him and it turns out he is a former investigator! He was actually progressing very well with missionaries in another area but then something happened and he moved here.  He has hardened his heart a little, but we talked with his friend that he lives with and we're going to see them next Tuesday. We're still not sure what will come out of it, but we both know that we need to go there for whatever reason, so we'll see the fruits in a while I'm sure!

Anyway, it was a great week.  Gotta go.  Talk to you soon!

Elder Savage

This picture is from the beginning of the session.  If I weren’t holding on to my companion, I would have fallen down haha.

Me & Natalie’s friend from her Salt Lake City Temple Square mission, Sister Rakotovao from Madagascar.

I made cookies.  :)

Sugar canes and scripture study!

Hey what's up family! This week was pretty good, super hot, but it's alright. We went miniature golfing, and then later that day a member took us out to a restaurant, which was rad! So it was a regular P-day, and today I guess we're going ice skating.  You will not be getting any pictures because they would just be of me falling down haha. Remember that one time we went ice skating? That one time? Haha. Yes, I've tried to forget. So we'll see how it goes.

It was an interesting week though. I went on exchanges, so I was back in a township! Not gonna lie, it's pretty nice to be in a town for a little. I mean I love townships and the people, but I was getting tired of people answering all of my questions with "Okay, alright,” haha.  They're great though. One guy after teaching a lesson went in his yard and cut down like a 5 foot sugarcane and handed it to us. I was thinking, “What are we supposed to do with this?” Haha. . . we could've just taken a little bag of sugar, but it was funny.

We had some good lessons with an investigator named Matias.  He’s from Zambia and he is awesome! His wife and kid were members but they died in a fire a year ago, so he's trying to find some direction in his life. The cool thing is that it has really brought him closer to God, and he really does believe that the Book of Mormon is true.  He came to church for the first time.  He loves watching movies, so every church video we give him he watches right away.  So overall, he's just a cool guy. And we're focusing on befriending him with other members, so it's going well!

The three boys who were baptized last week were confirmed on Sunday! Pretty cool stuff.

Dad, I’ve been thinking about doing personal scripture study when I’m at home, and it’s definitely something I always want to do after my mission.  I was talking to a RM and I asked what he misses most about his mission.  He said the full hour of personal study every morning, because now he is married and working, he rarely gets a full hour of study in.  I remember you telling me once that members need scripture study, prayer and church.  Without one of those, your testimony will fall, and it’s so true.  Every less active member I speak with tell me how they were offended or whatever, and I ask them if they study from their scriptures every day, and they always say no.  If they did, then it would invite the Spirit into their life, which brings long suffering, so they probably wouldn’t have even been offended in the first place. 

So yeah, pretty awesome week. I’m still getting fed (still not fat yet), but that's okay.  It will come.  Love you all! Talk to you soon!

Elder Savage

Trampolines and good food!

Hey! This week was sweet.

So last Monday for P-day we went to this trampoline place called Bounce and it was awesome! Funnest P-day ever!  It's just a place with a bunch of trampolines and you can jump into a sort of foam pit and play basketball and dodgeball! I felt like a kid again haha being able to do spins and double front flips! It was so sick. If I go there again I'll take pictures/videos, for sure.

And then that night we went to a member's house for a DA but they had an emergency so they left before we got there.  They told us to still eat in their house, so we did.  It was kind of weird haha.  It was just my companion and I sitting in this huge house, but it was cool, I guess.

And on Tuesday we had interviews at the mission home which is always awesome. While missionaries were with President, Sister Dunn made us homemade bread with honey butter. Best thing ever!  I had like 4 huge slices. And we watched Meet the Mormons. So it was the coolest morning I've ever had on my mission haha.

This week we had sushi again.  A member took us to a sushi place, and we also found a sweet Philly Cheese steak place. We eat pretty well in Randburg haha.

We have some new investigators we're working with right now.  One has been taught for months and finally came to church on Sunday! Normally he goes to Zambia on the weekends but he's not doing that anymore. And there's this cute old English lady in the ward who tried to tell us that she wasn't coming to church anymore because she didn't like certain things about how the church runs.  She is about 80 years old and has been a member since long before I was born. We had a nice lesson with her and read the Book of Mormon with her and I guess it sort of reminded her of her testimony.  Sure enough, she was at church on Sunday! And we also had 3 baptisms on Sunday! Two young brothers whose father is less-active, and a 16 year old kid whose mom and sister were recently baptized. So overall, a pretty awesome Sunday!  The ward is super great and the members are the best.

That's about it for this week.  Talk to you soon!

Elder Savage

The Lord of the Swords.

At the old folks home that we sing at on Wednesdays they have a lot of animals and there are these weird monkey things-- not sure what they are, but they're dope.

I put a stick in there and they jumped on it.

So Oarabile (oar-oh-bee-lay) is on the left, my comp to his right, and then kabello and kamohelo mosoeunanye and their father. I also took a picture with them but the person taking the picture didn't actually take it.  Soooo yeah, that's alright though.  I'm over it :)

Soweto Towers, Phantom of the Opera, and Chocolate chip cookies!

Crazy week!  Well, it just went by super fast. And good news ... I have a lot of pictures to send! 

Last p-day we went to what is called the Soweto Towers.  It is an abandoned nuclear power plant in Soweto (the biggest township in the world) and they've retrofitted it to be a bungee jumping place. Unfortunately, we couldn't jump off, but we still took a lift to the top and took some sick pictures!  That night we ate dinner with another American family, which was cool. When we first walked in they had just gotten their son from soccer so they still had to prepare a lot of the food, and they said we could chill in their living room.  And, like most families in our area, they had a piano!  So I was looking through their sheet music and they had Phantom of the Opera. I just stared at it for like a minute and then asked, “Can I play?" They said sure so I just sat and played through the entire book haha. I haven't played it in 11 months (crazy that I've been out that long) so it was sweet.  It felt so good to play again haha.

On Wednesday we did service for this kid Orobile, who is 16 and his mom and his sister are already members. (And, by the way, he passed his baptismal interview so he'll get baptized next Sunday!)  He made us waffles and we helped him clean up his yard.  It was fun.

On Thursday we ate dinner at this part-member family’s house.  The mom is a member but her daughter and husband are not.  She is inactive, and they were a sweet family! It was fun being there, but kind of sad, because she basically feels that Heavenly Father is pleased with her, even though she's not keeping the Word of Wisdom and like 12 other commandments.  So we're trying our best to work with them and get one of them interested in church, so the others can also tag along. But anyway, they fed us an awesome dinner, and right after that we went to another member’s house who also fed us dinner!  Basically, I felt like I was going to explode, and I didn't even eat breakfast the next morning because I was still full from the night before haha.

And then Friday was cool.  We were able to go to the temple, and then I went on exchanges afterwards with a zone leader. We ate dinner at a member's house and they had a ping pong table, so it was tight.

Saturday was conference! This was definitely my favorite General Conference I've ever listened to! I got a lot more out of it then before. It was the first time that I really took notes, which is awesome, because previously I would just remember a story or two, but now I can look back at all the cool things I liked in all of the talks. I'm not sure what my favorites were, but I definitely loved Elder Holland's talk about mothers, and how he referenced our Heavenly Mother as well. Pretty sweet. I also really liked the lady from the South and someone else who challenged us all to ask "What lack I yet?" in our prayers. Overall, I just got a lot out of it and saw ways to change myself more, which is really the reason for General Conference. Anyway, it was just awesome.

Then on Satuday we got 2 dinners in a row...again. Can't wait till I get fat! (Speaking of getting fat … on Sunday morning I didn't make breakfast because we had to hustle to the chapel.  The American family that we ate with on Monday sat next to us at church and were like “Elders, we made you some chocolate chip cookies!" And so I ate 4 in about 10 seconds.  I was about to eat the other 5 cookies, but I was like, no, I should probably share with my companion. :)  But it was the first time I've had chocolate chip cooks in months so I was going hard hahaha).

So yeah, that was the week.  Because of conference and my companion being sick, we didn't teach as much, just a lot of member lessons, which are still cool. And one of our recent converts brought a friend to conference and she loved it! The members are super good about giving referrals here, which is the best way for missionary work to be done. So I'm loving it here in Randburg.  This is definitely the place I need to be.  The Church is true!

Thanks for everything.  Talk to you all soon!

Elder Savage

Soweto Towers.

Inside the dome.

The lift going up was scary. It was basically a rollercoaster, except the floor was just plywood and I honestly thought we were gonna die haha.

Lessons with Lana and Matthew!

Hey family! Howzit! It's going super well here!

On Monday we had family home evening with an American family.  The husband works for the church and does a lot of training here for the church buildings, so that was kind of weird. It was my first time being around Americans that aren't missionaries. There's a few Americans in our ward which is cool. Anyway, they made us steak and cheesy potatoes and veggies and it was honestly one of the best meals I've had here haha. I didn't realize how much I missed a medium done steak. So flipping nice!

The week was pretty normal.  We did a lot of driving taking missionaries from place to place, so we got to know the area pretty well. What we found is on the backside of Sandton, the really nice city, you go about 15 kilometers and there's the second biggest township in the world, Alexandra. We had to drive through it yesterday and it was ridiculous!  There are so many taxis and they don't care about the law, and the stop lights were all out so it was just chaos. It made me a much more defensive driver haha.  I'm glad I'm not serving there. To drive in that every day would be way too much stress.

Another cool thing about this week was we went into Young Men's last Sunday and asked if they could come teaching with us during the week.  Most of them have never really gone with missionaries before, so it was pretty cool! We're going to work with them a lot and try to help them prepare for missions. I think altogether I went with missionaries twice back home, but it would have been nice to go more often. So we'll see how that goes!

Yesterday at church was sick!  As we were walking to Gospel Principles, the class with investigators and recent converts, we saw this member and his wife walking with another couple, and they introduced us to Lana and Matthew. This member intimidates me just a little because he's like 6'5" and has a deep powerful voice and is a millionaire, but he was just like "Elders, these are the friends that we previously told you about."  We thought, "Oh sweet!" Lana and Matthew are both in their late 40's and they were married, divorced, and are now back living together which is weird, but we'll work with it. Anyway, a few weeks back a member invited Lana, who's a paramedic, to come to the church and do a first-aid thing for the Relief Society. Lana noticed there's something different about the building and asked if she could come to church one of these Sundays, and obviously the member said yes so she finally was free to come yesterday! We went to the member's house later on for dinner with Lana and Matthew and were able to watch the Sunday morning session of General Conference which happened at 6 pm here. We talked to them a lot.  They’re a super interesting couple, both are paramedics, the husband was in the army and has traveled all around the world so he had some cool stories.  Lana has always been very spiritual, but she's never felt like she's belonged anywhere. She's been to basically every other religion -- Jewish, Muslim, Christian, always looking for a place where she belonged, but she's never found it. She has asked people in the past about the Mormons, and all she has ever heard is "They have multiple wives." So that sort of intrigued her, because she was confused why everyone had always said that. She was sort of thrown in the deep end yesterday.  She came to church and the members basically gave her an overview of the restoration and then we watched conference.  It was a lot at once, but she said that she has the same feeling watching conference as she does when she's at our church, so we told her that is the Spirit. Her son called and he had broken his arm, so she had to leave, but we set up a time to see her during the week.  She told us "literally any day, even if you want to come speak with me at work it's fine” hahaha.  So we are super excited because she's pretty prepared! Member referrals really are the best, and in Randburg the members are powerful. So it was a pretty awesome week!

I'll get to watch the rest of General Conference next week, but I think my favorite talk last night was Elder Eyring's about the Holy Ghost. For the first time in my life I'm actually really excited to get the Liahona with the conference talks and study them more. I think I just realize now how cool it is to have modern day prophets and apostles that tell us more commandments and give us more counsel and direction.

Love you all!  Thanks for everything, talk to you soon!

Elder Savage

Ten of us elders went to an all you can eat sushi place on Saturday for $10. I ate 30 pieces of sushi, not sure if that's a lot, but this was us afterwards.

P-day!

First week in Sandton!

Wow, okay, I have a lot to write about this week haha. It was pretty hectic.

So the area I'm in is Randburg, and it's completely different from my past areas. It's a town, so people have money, and I mean a lot of money. We cover this little city called Sandton. I’ll send a picture.  It's one of the nicest cities I've ever been in and is super clean.  In the middle of the city is a six story mall.  Driving around all I see are Porches and BMW’s, so it's a pretty new environment. The majority of the ward is white, but there are also a lot of blacks and Indians. So it's been an adjustment, because I have no idea how to act around white people haha. I go to their house and I'm just like a baby giraffe because I don't even know what to do but I'm getting used to them. The other night we went to a black family and it was much more chill, and I felt like I was at home haha.  I'll get used to the mulungu’s.

My companion is Elder Souza, and he's from Brazil.  We were talking before transfers about how I was going to go to his area, and then it happened! So it's pretty sick.

The area is not as easy as a township in regards to missionary work. You can't really tract here because people have big gates with dogs and electric fences, and there's a lot of nice apartment complexes that you can't get into, so mostly we have to work through the members and get referrals. For finding we just do street contacting but we're in a car, so we plan in advance for when to do that. The car I'm in is an automatic, which was super weird at first because I've been driving a manual for 6 months. 

We also did a lot of service this week. On Wednesday ten of us went to the temple for it’s 30 year anniversary because they invited a lot of officials from other churches to the temple grounds for lunch and presentations so they can learn more about our religion. So some of us served food and others (me) helped with the cars and directing people where to go. So that was unique.

On Friday we went to a homeless center in a nearby township and helped some ward members there. It was sort of like a soup kitchen. The members who are there are super sweet.  It was the Bishop and the ward mission leaders' wives. At first they just wanted to feed the homeless, but now they're starting an addiction recovery class for the people who are addicted to Nyaope (a super addictive drug--it's like crack but worse.  People who are on it get so addicted they sell everything they have and then are left homeless, so it's pretty terrible). It made me like the members who are helping them a lot, so hopefully we'll be able to go this week as well! 

On Friday night a crazy thing happened.  Basically our door to our flat broke, so we couldn't get inside so we went and slept over at the zone leader's flat, which was pretty tight haha. And then Saturday we played rugby in the morning with members, and then helped another member move, and the locksmith didn't come until like 4:30 so that's when we finally showered. But it was still a nice day! 

Sunday was the best though. . . it usually is. I've previously been in clusters or branches so it hasn't been to hard for me to get to know all the members, but now I'm in a full-functioning ward with hundreds of members, so I was a little worried about it. I prayed that I would be able to get to know them somehow, or they would get to know me. So we were sitting in church at 8:50 and the Bishop asked if I could introduce myself and give a short testimony.  Then, like 5 minutes later his counselor asked me if I could also give a talk since the first speaker bailed, so I was like "Yeah, okay. " I gave a 5 minute talk on prayer, and it wasn't until afterwards that I realized my prayer had been answered, because it was a way for all of the members to get to know me a little better. So it was pretty cool.

At church there was a new lady (we only have a few investigators, less than 10 altogether, which is still really fortunate for an area like this) and she's a friend of a lady named Sister Lee. Sister Lee and her husband are in their 20's and they're both returned missionaries, so they're the perfect fellowshippers for this new girl, Jade. We set up a time to see Sister Lee and Jade at Lee's house, and then our 7 o'clock cancelled last night so we asked if we could go visit them. We were talking to Jade and she had a lot of questions, and they were textbook questions like “How can I know that God is there?" and “Where do I go when I die?" so it was a super cool lesson. I mean there were 4 missionaries in there, so how could it not be dope! We just did how to begin teaching and talked and ate ice cream, and we're really excited to see Jade again. I'm super lucky that my first week here we got an awesome new investigator!

So yeah, that's it. As I said, I'm once again a greenie, because it's so different here than anything else I've experienced.  It’s like I have to relearn how to be a missionary haha, but it's good. I'm really loving this area. A great first week.

Thanks for everything.  Talk to you all later!

Elder Stephen

Some pictures of an indoor pool and rock climbing wall inside of a wealthy member's home!

Elders Mamhere, Widdison, Carter, Malunga, Brown, Souza, Savage, Derera, Todd and Henderson.

On September 15, 2015 the  South Africa Johannesburg Temple was dedicated. Now 30 years later, there is a Celebration! On this special day, the Johannesburg Zone was invited to help with the event. Over 100 people were invited to a special luncheon to commemorate and celebrate this occasion. Local business, government, and religious leaders form all over Johannesburg were invited to attend. Tours of the temple grounds, foyer and gate room were offered before the lunch.

Last week in Sebokeng!

Hi,

It was a great last week! On Monday we had a district braai and played tennis and then went to a family home evening with a family in the branch. In one of the zones we cover there's 3 families who get together every Monday night for FHE, and it's been really effective for them.  So we have been trying to incorporate that for more families in the branch, and that is what we did Monday night.  We invited investigators and members to the second counselor's home, and it went pretty well. We watched a video from those new life of Jesus Christ bible videos and discussed it. It was a good FHE.

On Tuesday we had a sweet lesson with Lebohang, a recent convert, about the Priesthood. At first he wasn't really interested in getting it but he said he thought about it a lot and was now excited to get it! So he should be able to start blessing the sacrament in a couple of weeks. One thing we've been doing is using Mormon Messages or other church clips because it's nice for people to have a visual thing to see, along with reading from the scriptures, and there's a lot of good clips about the Priesthood and it's power, and how to be worthy of that. So we had really good lessons with 3 priest age recent converts by using those resources.

On Wednesday President Dunn came to Sebokeng again for some secondary baptismal interviews, but the people getting interviewed were a little late so we were able to chat with him for 10 minutes which was cool. He's a great guy, very real and down to earth. When my companion was opening the gate for someone he said "You know, between you and me, you're leaving Sebokeng. But I really think you're gonna enjoy your new assignment." So I was like okay that's cool. I figured I was leaving since I've been here 6 months, but I wasn't really sure what the assignment would be. And then on Friday he called me to be a District Leader. So that's cool. I guess I'll find out where I'll be going tomorrow, and I go for District Leader training today. We'll see how it goes!

Sunday was awesome!  Four people altogether got baptized! Three of them were Mqwati's, the mother and two of the three sons, and now the other son wants to get baptized as well.  We’re still working on the dad, and he's such a good, nice guy.  I have no doubt he'll get baptized sooner or later. And there were something like 17 investigators at church, and some less active members who haven't been in a long time.  It was awesome seeing that and seeing the branch members fellowship them. Sebokeng really is a great place.  I'm sad to leave it, but I know it's in good hands!

So altogether it was a great last week!  Everyone wanted to feed us so I only cooked twice this week haha, and we still have leftovers in the fridge. That's about it. I'll let you know the details of my new area next week! 

Talk to you soon.  Love you all!

Elder Savage

Collen Horomba and I, aka the dopest Zimbabwean ever. 

Me and my homie Loyiso. He's the one who just got the priesthood.

The Mqwati family.

The Maziboku family.