First Baptism!

What's up everybody! This week was sweet! Last week the chapel got broken into and people stole the pipes in the bathroom, so we just had to tell some investigators that they couldn't go to church, which was lame, but yesterday was awesome!

To start off, the bishop asked me to give a talk on missionary work in the North Cluster (remember me and my comp work in two clusters that are like 10 minutes away from each other, and we also go to the chapel), so I had like an hour to prepare it on Saturday, which was fine, but I would've liked a little more time. And then on Sunday we get to the cluster and I see all these white guys outside of it, and one of them was President Cook of the seventy, and I was just like "Fetch I'm gonna have to give a talk in front of a general authority" hahaha! So it was pretty stressful, but then I got to the pulpit and started talking and I really wasn't nervous at all, which was nice. I talked for like eight minutes, so it was good! President Cook gave me a thumbs up and I was just like sweet :)

And then we had our first baptism! There were 2 teenage girls that my comp had been teaching when I got here, but they were out of town for awhile, so they came back and we taught the last lessons and baptized them! I baptized the 13 year old, whose name is Ellelwang Ptlele, so I had to practice saying her name a bunch of times haha, but it was good!

We have a few solid investigators, and we invited one to the baptism but he couldn't come, but he was like "So when can I get baptized? Because I'm definitely ready", and Elder Clegg and I were just like "Bro we can baptize you in like two weeks!" So that'll be awesome. He's the guy that we tracted into when he was watching Lord of The Rings, so you know he's cool ;)

And then Sunday night there was a YSA devotional thing on serving a mission. So all the Elders from the nearby area were there, and the stake president and his wife gave cool talks. His wife's talk was awesome though, she talked about how she went on a white water rafting trip, and when they were coming to the class 4 rapids (the really big ones) she asked to get out and walk on the land because she was too scared. So she got back in the boat afterwards, and she was happy that she didn't do the class 4, and she felt good about not doing it. But then later, people would ask her and her husband how the trip was, and he would say it was great, but she would say yeah it was good I did most of it except for the class 4's, but then I got back in the boat and finished the rest of the trip! She always had to explain why she couldn't do all of it, and after awhile she just felt bad about it, and really wished she could've gone back and stayed in the boat, and she related that to serving missions, and how people will leave the boat, and just do school or their career, and then later down the road they'll just wish they could've gone back and had the experience of serving a mission. It was a really good talk, and we had a less active from our area who's been struggling with a lot of commandments, and he was just like "I need to serve a mission, I have to." It was awesome! He's been struggling a lot recently with some commandments, so I think this will help him to change and have a desire to be more converted!

So yeah, it was a crazy cool Sunday. I don't even remember what happened during the rest of the week, it went by too fast haha. I've just been eating pancakes and teaching the Africans how to play chess ;)  No, but it was awesome.

Anyway, thanks for the emails, love you guys, talk to you next week!
KAOFELA ( it's Sotho, one of the 12 or so main languages of SA, pronounced sootoo, for united). It's what all the cool kids are saying :)

Olga and the tea.

Hey fam!

It was so good to read your emails this week! There is definitely a bunch of stuff happening! Well, not a whole lot happened this week, but it was still awesome!

The new cluster in Minenawe (min-uh-now-way) is sweet! Because everyone here walks or gets taxis, it's hard to get to church when it's far from their house. So, we've just been tracting all around the cluster and been like "The church just opened up right by your house, so you don't have any excuses not to come!" Haha, we've been able to have a lot of investigators because of it, it's super nice.

One of our coolest investigators is Olga, I think I talked a little about her last week. She's like 40 or 50, and she's the one who had a vision of a man in white saying he would come and fetch her. She's definitely been prepared to hear the gospel. Anyway, at the end of our first lesson she was talking about how life's hard, but she's always happy. She was like "As long as I can come home and drink my tea, life's good. That's all I need is my tea." and Elder Clegg and I were just like fetch. This is gonna be difficult haha. So we planned to teach her the word of wisdom for the second lesson, because we just felt like that's what she needed. The day we were going to teach her we went on exchanges, so I led our area (which was a little stressful, but it worked out) with Elder Stilgoe from England, and he didn't know Olga obviously, so I had to lead the lesson as well. So we were talking about how one of the things God has commanded us is to abstain from coffee and tea, and she was like "Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but this last week at church (her first time at the cluster) I was praying that maybe I would be able to stop drinking tea, because I've just talked to a lot of people about it and haven't felt as good about drinking it. I don't even like the taste of water anymore, I just drink about 5 glasses of tea a day, and I think it's causing problems. (one of these problems was not being able to read for more than a minute or two, because she just got headaches and became tired) So I was praying that maybe I would be able to start drinking more water, and then on Monday I didn't make myself one glass of tea. My husband made me one, because he thought it was strange that I hadn't drunken any tea all day, but besides that I've been drinking water, and I like the taste of it now!" Hahaha I was just like why are we even teaching you, you're like already converted hahaha. So she started living the word of wisdom after drinking tea her whole life before we even talked about it! It was awesome! She straight up already has the gift of the Holy Ghost, like she has promptings to do things all the time, and she sees the consequences when she doesn't follow her promptings, it's insanely cool. We saw her again and she said that she's even able to read the Book of Mormon now! She's already seeing the blessings of keeping the commandments, it's just awesome.

Well that's it for this week, thanks for the emails and everything! I finally finished that chocolate you sent me for Christmas mom! It was money. Talk to you guys next week! Bye.

Elder Hamilton speaks at the cluster

How's it going fam! 

Everything's sharp here (sharp, pronounced shahp, or shop, it means good. You can basically use it in any context). This week was pretty hectic though! On Friday we got to go to the Johannesburg temple again! It was super sweet, I'll send a couple of pics. Temple days are awesome, because I'm just happy for the rest of the day! And then on Thursday all of the Elders in my MTC group and their trainers went to the mission home for orientation. We just got to eat awesome food and play ping pong, so I was happy haha. President Dunn and his wife are like the coolest people ever. He has this CD he gave us that was produced by the church, it's like a fireside he gave talking about this time he got attacked by a bear, you should look it up! It's insane! So that was cool.

At church on Sunday we had a member of the seventy at the cluster! Like the second I saw him I could just tell he was a general authority, they just have like a light around them. But it was really weird seeing a white person at church haha, but he was awesome.

Apparently the twelve apostles are very aware of the clusters in Daveyton, like they talked for awhile if one bishop could preside over three locations, and so they thought they would try it out, so our clusters are basically an experiment! They've only been around for like 5 months, and then there's three others in the surrounding province, so they apparently talk about the work that we're doing! Which at first was a little scary, but it applies some good pressure. The member of the seventy (his surname is Hamilton, but I'm not sure if he should be addressed as Elder or President) also said that whenever people ask him about President Monson, he tells them the same thing; he's 87, but he acts like he's 67. (Those ages might be a little off, that was like 24 hours ago so I can't remember ;) ) He's

very upbeat and always on the move. 

Which reminds me of a story I heard in the MTC: President Monson visited some missionaries at the MTC, and the missionaries said that the prophet is definitely old. While they were eating lunch he would retell the same joke multiple times haha, but when he bore his testimony, it was super powerful and he didn't repeat himself at all. So even though he's close to 90, he still is a super powerful servant of the Lord.

Welp, that's it for this week! Love you all! The pics from Disneyland looked awesome!

Talk to you next week

Elder Savage 

PS. So remember that member that I talked about who had that dream about doing the temple work for her brother and dad? Yeah well we talked to her again yesterday, and she just has the craziest stories! We were talking to her about the Holy Ghost and how it can protect us, and she was like yeah I definitely know it can. She said a few years ago she was going to go see a business associate in town, but she had a strong prompting to stay home, but she ignored it and left her house. On the way, she got into an argument with this guy on the street and he stabbed her! haha Elder Clegg and I were just like holy cow! That's really intense! haha so I guess the moral of the story is always

listen to the spirit, or you might get shanked.

*** Fun side note: Natalie, Stephen's sister, served her mission on Temple Square and Elder Hamilton was called into the Quorum of the Seventy while she was serving. She got to take him and the other newly called members of the Seventy around Temple Square on a personal tour!

"Pitbulls are the devil"

Yo fam! 

How's it living in the snow right now? Summer is heating up, and no one here has AC in their homes so it's like a sauna haha. But this week was sweet. 

New Years was tight! We had to be back in the flat by 6pm, so we picked up some meat on the way home and some elders came to our apartment to braai. We just hung out and ate amazing food, it was awesome. And then on New Years day we didn't work, so we just played tennis and risk! It was a nice mini vacation haha. New Year's was sooo fun, there was just like 10 elders in our flat, and i made the best dinner i've ever made haha. I spoiled myself and bought some doritos, sprite, and grapes! those with my cheeseburger yho it was good! and then new years day we woke up, i ate some top ramen and we played uno, then tennis, and then risk and chess that night! We play tennis now every pday, it's way better than golf haha. Some rich members gave the elders in our other flat 4 tennis rackets, because that's what it's like to serve in Benoni haha. The diversity is so insane.

Elder Savage & other Elders playing games on New Years 

But yeah not too much happened besides that. I've learned for myself that pitbulls are the devil haha. One of our investigators has an awesome medium sized black dog, and I always pet it for a minute before we go in and teach. So we were teaching and then we heard some noises outside. People were calling the guy's name and we ran outside, and this pitbull had his dog by the throat in the street! So the guy and his neighbor broke a freaking broom on the pitbulls back, so it let go of the dog for a second. The dog then ran near me and Elder Clegg in the courtyard, trying to get away, but the pitbull just ran after and started killing it again, so I was just like "nigga let's go" (the n word isn't inappropriate to say in Daveyton; they all call each other that haha) and I started kicking the pitbull as hard as I possibly could but it didn't even do anything. Then the mom took some boiling water from the kettle and poured it on the pitbull, which finally made it run away. But yeah, it was pretty crazy! Luckily the dog survived, but it's definitely got some problems now. So moral of the story, don't get a pitbull :) 

On Saturday all of our appointments ditched, so Elder Clegg and I started tracting right around of one of the clusters. We got in a few people's homes and just invited them to church since it was so close to them. And then we went in one house and they were watching Lord of the Rings haha. They turned it off after like three minutes, but during that time I have no idea what my companion was saying haha, I was flipping glued to the TV. Eish it was difficult (they say "eish" a lot as well). But yeah, that cluster has only been open for a few weeks, and the most people we've had attend was like 32, but yesterday there was 71! We had just found a lot of people from tracting during the week, and like all of them came! Even the people who were watching Lord of the Rings ;) So it was pretty cool to see some fruits from our labors. The week is gonna be packed with teaching all of those new investigators, which is awesome! 

We're also gonna go to the Johannesburg temple this Fr, so it's gonna be a pretty awesome week! Thanks for the emails and pictures! Talk to you next week. Elder Savage 

Joel 2:28

Hey family, howzit going! 

This email will be a little shorter because I just talked to you guys a few days ago, but that's alright! Skyping was rad! 

So for Pdays now we go golfing, because Daveyton has a free golf course. It's a little ghetto, but it's free so I can't complain! 

Golfing on P-day

The teaching this week has been pretty crazy! I've been reminded a lot of the verse in Joel 2:28 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." I'll explain why.

On Monday we were walking and this lady was in her front yard and called us over, and she was talking about how she wanted to learn more about our church, and she saw missionaries a couple of months ago from a distance but wasn't able to get to them. Before we left she said "You remind me of a dream I had. I'll tell you about it on Friday when you come to teach me," and I was just though "no, tell me now!" haha, but we went on Friday and taught her. Her name's Ulga and she's pretty powerful. She said that she stopped going to church because the preachers would talk about Jesus Christ, which she liked, but then they would just start talking about money and how the congregation needed to pay them. She was praying a lot to know which church to join, because she's been so confused about religion, and then one night she had a dream that a person dressed in white came to her and said he "would come and fetch her." She said that every time she see's the missionaries she's reminded of the dream that she had. Pretty cool stuff! We've only taught her one lesson but we just explained that the message we are teaching is what her dream was talking about. So hopefully she can gain a testimony of that!

And then on Saturday we taught the plan of salvation to a member, and she said that a couple of years ago she had a dream where her brother, who had died, came to her and asked her to take him out of the prison that he was in, and then a couple of nights later she had a dream where her dad came and said the same thing! She didn't even realize what they were talking about at first, but then she realized that she needed to go to the temple and be baptized for them! The 7th Article of Faith states "We believe in the gift of...prophecy, revelation, (and) visions," and I definitely know that's true! Hearing her tell the story just made me want to go do family history work haha, but unfortunately I can't. But you guys can! :) 

Thanks for all you do! Mom that Christmas package is seriously awesome, the chocolate is gonna last forever haha! Love you all, talk to you next week!

Elder Savage 

Here are a couple short videos of us Skypeing with Elder Savage. :) It was such an awesome experience! He is just glowing with the Spirit. 

Exchanges with Elder Otieno

What's happening! 

Things are going pretty well here in South Africa! Christmas time is nuts, it's weird because it's hot and people are just barbecuing every day, it doesn't feel like Christmas at all haha. I'm so excited for Thursday! For Christmas all of the Elders near the MTC are going there and we're just gonna do fun stuff and braai (that's what they call barbecue here) and play volleyball and stuff, it's gonna be awesome! And then afterwards Elder Clegg and I will go to a members house, and mission pres is awesome and he's letting us skype for an hour! It's gonna be sweet!

This is slice. Four pieces of bread, french fries, hot dog, and this amazing sauce! It's like 90 cents in american money and 4000 calories haha!

This week was awesome though. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the zone leader Elder Otieno. He's Kenyan, and he's huge, and I sort of expected him to be serious because he only has a few more months on his mission, but he's like the goofiest guy I've ever met haha. After we went tracting at a mall for a little while, we went and taught some lessons and ate at a member's house, so it was a pretty good day. But then we went back to his flat and I spent the night there, and it was honestly like sleeping over at a friend's house. We were just laughing at all of the pranks he's done on companions haha. He was training this guy from America and they got in the car to go to there flat from the MTC, and Elder Otieno was just like "Elder, I can't drive, you're going to have to drive us to the flat." The new Elder said "I've never driven on the opposite side of the road before!" But Otieno was just like "I don't know how to drive Elder, it's up to you." So the elder had to drive them like 40 minutes back to their flat! Haha Otieno didn't even tell him until they got back, oh man so flipping funny. 

But yeah I'm not sure if I've explained the church situation here, so I'll just explain it really quick; so in Daveyton, we have a chapel, but people here don't really have cars, so they can't travel very far for church, so along with the chapel we have what are called clusters. They're like church branches, but smaller. There are only about 5 clusters in the world and two of them are in our area! Each cluster has like 30 members attending, and half of those are kids haha. So if I ever talk about clusters, now you know what I'm talking about. Elder Clegg and I have investigators that go to both clusters and the chapel, so Sundays are pretty hectic for us! We're just running around like chickens with our legs cut off (Sons of Provo quote). 

Elder Savage walking an old woman into the church cluster. So sweet! 

One thing that's difficult with the investigators here is they can be really nice, and they'll always let us in and say they want us to teach them, but they're really not that interested in the church. They'll agree with everything we teach them, but they won't make any of the commitments we give them, so we've had to drop a few this week. But it's good because it lets us see who's really serious about the gospel!

After the rain in Daveyton 

Well thanks for all the emails, they're awesome! Can't wait to skype on Thursday! Merry Christmas, talk to you all soon!

Elder Savage 

Stephen's caption for this photo: 

Scabbers! No but seriously, rats are everywhere here. I probably see like 2 or 3 squished rats on the street every day. But I can't complain, it's free food! ;)

Salani Kahle!

What's happening! 

This week has gone by pretty fast, but it was good though! I think I sent you those pics of me and Elder Clegg painting that lady's house and having to use her ghetto outhouse haha. She's like the nicest lady ever though. People here always give us yogurt or biscuits or something to eat even though they're living in super rough conditions, it's crazy. My goal for when I get home is to give the missionaries something every time they stop by, because I know how awesome it is to get free stuff haha. 

Some of their living conditions 

But yeah we had zone conference this week and it was awesome, we had Elder Cook from the seventy and he was way cool. He talked for a little on safety, because it's December so people go crazy, and for a few hours on just the conversion process and working hard. It was pretty motivating, Elder Clegg and I afterwords were just like "Let's go to work!" It's lame though because the government shuts off the power in Daveyton pretty frequently to save money, but they don't tell people when they're gonna do it, so sometimes we have to stop proselyting because it gets pretty sketchy at night with no electricity. But they usually do it during the day, which is good.

The outhouse Elder Savage had to use

We've had a lot of good lessons this past week! We got a referral from a member for this guy who owns his own little gym and he's pretty tight. He's flipping jacked, and he doesn't drink or smoke because he takes super good care of himself, but he's a spiritual guy too. He talks about praying and how his prayers get answered, so the lessons should go well with him! Member referrals are the best. 

Pretty sketchy! 

We also taught this less active kid named Jazz (his actual name has clicks in it and is freaking hard to pronounce) and we had a sweet conversation. He was asking a lot of really good questions about hell and the spirit prison. We teach him again this week and I'm super excited for it, because I've studied and learned about spirt world/prison for a few weeks and I feel like I understand it better than I have before. I honestly don't love lessons where you're just talking and they don't ask anything or have any comments, I'm not that good at giving those lessons because I can get through the restoration in like 5 minutes when they don't say anything. but I'm working on it!

I go on exchanges in another area with a zone leader on Tuesday, so wish me luck! Talk to you all next week, thanks for the emails, love you all!

Salani Kahle!