Sipho gets baptized!!

Hey fam, howsit going!

This week was very good. To start, we had a baptism yesterday!!! I'll send a pic, his name is Sipho. About two months ago my trainer and I were driving, and as we drove past a road he was like "I've been feeling that street for a long time," so we tracted it. The first house didn't care to hear our message, so we went to the second house, and they were watching Lord of the Rings (I've probably told this story like 8 times, but it's whatever), and there were some girls there and a 23 year old guy, and he was kind of a joker haha. Afterward, Elder Clegg and I just thought he didn't seem very serious, but then the third time we went there we found him reading the Book of Mormon on his own, so we were like "Whoa this guys pretty cool!" And now he's changed his life and been baptized! In his testimony he said that when we first came to his house he was like, "Yeah, I guess I'll let these guys in" but it was sort of just a whatever thing, he didn't really care that much, but then as we were talking to him a lot of the things we said made sense, so he decided to let us back. It was super cool to hear him talk about it. And he's just a cool guy, he's already been a missionary, he'll read the Book of Mormon at school, or on the train, and people ask him about it and he talks to them about it, and he's just awesome! This next Sunday he'll get confirmed, and then before the month ends we're gonna get him the priesthood, call him as a ward missionary, and get him to the temple for baptisms for the dead! And we're teaching his best friend and other members of his family too, so our goal is for him to be able to baptize them. Pretty exciting stuff! He's definitely a kingdom builder.

That's one thing I've learned from the baptism process this past week, is that I don't want to do anything the day of the baptism haha. My goal is to get someone from the ward to speak, baptize, say the prayers, and confirm the next Sunday, just because if the missionaries do everything, if we teach them without a member present, and we're the only ones they know, then they get attached to us and are bummed out when we leave, and sometimes go less active. So the week has been awesome, Elder Rini and I are on the same page a lot more, because we're learning each other's teaching styles and we just talk a lot about our plans and goals, and we're really working on getting members in most of our lessons, so that our investigators have friends at church and feel welcome! We have three more baptisms lined up for the end of this month, which may be my last Sunday here (everyone seems to feel like I'm leaving, which would be fine, as long as those three people get baptized haha) so hopefully everything goes according to plan! Even though I know it never does hahaha! But I'll still be satisfied with our efforts. We've been working hard, and it's definitely paying off!

Other than that, not too much has happened this week, just getting our teaching pool organized, dropping the people that don't want to hear the message or keep commitments we give them, which can be difficult because I always want to give them another chance, but it's nice having 6 people on date who will actually be baptized than having 14 who aren't very serious. Constantly learning new things about missionary work, the scriptures, and just life in general! My mission is the best, wouldn't trade these past months for anything, I've learned and experienced way too much! I love the gospel, I definitely know it's true, and I've seen it literally change people's lives! I know why I'm here and I'm grateful for it! I love you all, thanks for everything you do! Talk to you next week,

Peace

Sipho is on the right, Ronney, (the ward mission leader), is the one on the left.

Eta?! (What's up?)

Howzit in America! It's going pretty well here! People are wearing snow coats because it's like 65 degrees hahaha. People here hate the cold, but I love it!

This week was pretty sweet, it went by super quickly. Our bikes got a bunch of flat tires, so it was a lot of walking, which sucks because it takes forever, but it was still cool. On Saturday we went to a funeral at the chapel, which was kind of uncomfortable because our Bishop made us sit on the stand and we didn't know who died, but it was whatevs ;) Buuuut besides that the week rocked! We met with Sipho again, and he's sharp (pronounced shop, it means good) for baptism this Sunday! So I'll send you some pics from that. And we were able to meet with some of our other most powerful investigators, and two of them are really excited to get baptized! Their names are Gugu (23) and Busi (around 45). They've had some problems with the word of wisdom, but I always just tell the story of our investigator Olga (who still has to get married but then will be good to get baptized) who was drinking a lot of tea every day, but prayed and was able to quit cold turkey, and is still living it! So it's inspiring for them to hear that, it helps them know that they can change!

Yesterday's fast Sunday was cool as well! In fast and testimony meeting at one of the clusters a lady who's had a lot of challenges recently with family members being sick said that Saturday night she was having a really hard time, and she fell asleep and woke up to an angel who said he was there to comfort her, and then later she fell asleep and an angel came a second time and said that she was the one he was looking for, and that he was sent to comfort her. It was a super cool testimony. She just said that she knew that God knew her and knew her challenges, and she was so grateful for the comfort she received. The spirit was pretty strong, and we had some investigators there so I think they felt the spirit as well! It was pretty cool.

Haha you'd laugh if you saw my food cupboard, it looks like it's owned by an OCD person. The thought of having cockroaches in my flat is too much to handle, so I put like every food item in a plastic bag haha.  A couple weeks ago I had some of Elder Clegg's cereal that he hadn't eaten in forever and there were maggots in it, and it was so disgusting so I just decided to buy plastic baggies for everything! But that's it for this week, love you all and I love my mission! I'm grateful that I'm able to be here, and that I love the people here, because back home I wouldn't say that I had that much love for that many people, but my love for others is definitely growing! Talk to you next week!

Elder Savage

Winter is Coming!

Summer is ending and the cold is coming! Right now it's like 65 degrees and overcast, which is my favorite weather, so hopefully we'll have more days like this! This past week was hectic, but it was good! Transfers changed a lot of stuff!

So I had four guys in my flat, we cover Daveyton 1 (that's me) and Daveyton 2, but my comp and both elders in Daveyton 2 got transferred, so there's 3 new guys in the flat! My comp is Elder Rini from South Africa and he's sweet! He speaks xhosa, which is the coolest language here, so he's been teaching me some stuff. It's a flipping difficult language, the clicks are weird, but I'm getting better! I always tell people "mena xhosa (I'm xhosan)" and they just laugh hahaha. People here are the best.
But yeah me and another elder, Elder Tye, took like 6 black trash bags and just cleared out our flat, because there was so much junk from previous missionaries, so we just threw everything away! The flat's a lot cleaner now, which is awesome because the Spirit can be there a lot more now. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, eh?

So yeah so I'm leading the area now, which is a little hectic, but I'm learning a lot. Learning how to set appointments at the correct times, so we don't have to bike back and forth, learning how to manage my time better so I can get places on time, learning how to get members to feed us hahaha. It's good.

This week was fine with our investigators, for some reason everyone and their mom was gone, so we didn't get to see some of our most promising ones, but we still had some great lessons! You hear those stories about golden investigators who get baptized two weeks after missionaries knock on their door, but I've come to realize just how rare that is! We've found a lot of people like that, who are just awesome and gain a testimony right away, but there's always something holding them back from being baptized, always a lesson that they have a hard time accepting. For some it's the word of wisdom, others it's the law of chastity, but we had some people this past week who are too sick to leave their house, have been in prison, or had abortions, or just can't accept the law of tithing, so it's hard, and we have to learn to work with these people and try to help them with their problems. Usually the only way we can help them is just by inviting them to pray and ask for help, because God knows them better than us, and he knows how to help them in their lives. So that's what we've had to do a lot these past two weeks, just invite people to repent and pray about the things that we teach them.

We had this one guy and his wife, and we stopped by two weeks ago because the wife randomly came to church, even though she didn't know anything about it, and we taught them the restoration and left them with the Book of Mormon. The husband was kind of a joker, but it was fine. So we went back this week and I asked if the husband wanted to join us for the lesson (he was working on his car) and he was like "Yeah, sure." So we started the lesson and asked them if they were able to read the Book of Mormon and he was like "Yeah I wasn't able to read all of it, I'm only about half way through." And I was just like......wait, you read the entire first half in a week? And he was like..."yeah," hahaha I didn't even know what to say hahaha, the most any of our investigators have ever read is like 3 chapters, and he read about 200 pages! He still doesn't know if it's true, but I was like "Dude I promise if you finish it and pray you'll be able to receive an answer," so we'll see if he does it! I'm pretty excited to go back to his house this week haha.

So yeah, that's about it for this week, Elder Rini and I have just been biking and eating peaches like crazy (like every other house has a peach tree, it's magical), so it's been great! Love you all, have a great week, I'll talk to you next time!

"Eldah Savage!"

What's up! How's it going back in Utah? Probably snowy haha, I don't miss that. I'm excited for the next transfer, because it'll cool down a little! The humidity here I'd say is sort of inbetween California and Mexico, so it's not terrible, but it still gets really hot. But Summer is almost "ovah!", as Africans say because they can't say "over" hahaha. "Eldah! Eldah Savage!" hahaha the people here are awesome.

So yeah transfers are tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited! I'll be staying in Daveyton, and I'll see who my new companion is tomorrow! Our whole district is changing up which is cool. I've gotten used to driving on the left side of the road now too! I picture driving back at home and in my head I'm driving on the left side hahaha, it's kind of weird. I think I'm going to take a driving test tomorrow at transfers, because you have to take a test with a senior couple and they're too far from us to take a test on a normal day. So hopefully I pass! Most of the missionary cars here are automatic though, which is nice.

This week was pretty sweet! We had stake conference yesterday, and President and Sister Dunn talked, so it was cool. All of our recent converts and a lot of our most promising investigators were able to come which was so great! It was awesome because they had to pay for a taxi in order to get to the stake center, so we kind of saw who was serious about the church! We've had to drop a bunch of people these past two weeks because they just aren't quite ready to fully accept the gospel, so now we're just left with the investigators who are really cool and down to get baptized! I'm constantly learning how to tell if people are serious or not, like this one girl we got as a referral. She always says that we can come teach her, but she's never there, and we haven't taught her a lesson in like two months, so we just have to invite her to church and tell her to call us when she's interested. It's kind of hard, because I always want to keep giving people chances, but I've learned that people have to be ready and use their agency to learn about the gospel. We can't make them accept it. So it's been a good week of learning and gaining experience!

One of the guys that came to stake conference is so powerful haha, his name is Obed and he's the funniest guy ever, I think I've talked a little about him before. He sells cool times for his job, which are basically little slushies, and he's like dirt poor. We went into his room one time and it was sooo nasty. He doesn't have any money for cleaning supplies, so he would just wear the same shirt every time we saw him, and his room was littered with matches and trash, but he's awesome! He's the guy that was smoking 20 cigs a day so I was like "Can I throw away your cigs" and he was like..."Alright, okay," hahaha. These past few weeks he's just really been cleaning up, because he has money to spend on things other than beer and cigarettes. He even got a haircut, and deep cleaned his room, and bought laundry detergent! :) And he brought a friend to stake conference as well, which was sweet! He's the only person who did that haha. But yeah in the first lesson we taught him, we asked him to pray and ask if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and he did and he got an answer! He said he just felt really happy, so we were like "Yeah man that's the Holy Ghost!" So after that everything with him has gone pretty smoothly because he has that solid foundation. So hopefully he can commit to live the word of wisdom (he's down to 1 cigarette a day!) and be baptized!

Another cool investigator we have is this family we tracted into. We taught them when we first tracted into them, and then we went again and saw who in the family was serious about the message, and so far it's just one of the aunts, but she's sweet! She's also received a confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. But the cool thing was they have this little gym in their house, and as we were ending the second lesson with them, talking about the Book of Mormon, the Young Men's President walks in and is just like "Hey Elders!" We were like "Senzo what are you doing here?", and he's like "Oh I come here to gym!" The family loves him too, so we had him bear his testimony about the Book of Mormon and it was powerful. So it's nice because when they come to church they'll already know Senzo and his mom, and Senzo just got his mission call to London, England, so he'll be a super good example for the family! But yeah, Elder Clegg and I were just like "What are the chances that the Young Men's President walks into a lesson with a random family" haha, pretty cool stuff!

So yeah, that's it for this week! I'm just so grateful I'm able to be here in South Africa teaching people about the gospel, because I definitely know that it's true! I love you all, thanks for the emails and the prayers, I'll talk to you guys next week!

Peace

Maggots and Matatas.

Hey fam, howzit going! This week has been going pretty well!

To start, last Monday we had a zone activity and went bowling! At the bowling alley I was talking to this Afrikaner (a white guy from South Africa) who worked there, and I told him I was from California. He asked where so I said Sacramento and he was like "oh I know Sacramento! Great place. I used to live in Reno, and I would drive to Sacramento in the mornings to get Krispy Kremes donuts," hahahaha I was just like no way!! That's awesome haha. Afrikaners are crazy :)

Our flat is a little hectic right now because an Elder got ET'd (emergency transfer) so we have five guys in the flat, but it's fun! It's also a little dirtier though. I don't want to tell you how many maggots we found this morning. And yes, there was one in my bedroom :/ No idea how it got there, but I basically wanted to throw up hahaha. But next week is transfers! So hopefully we'll be able to keep our flat a lot cleaner.

This week has been a little difficult with investigators. We have some people who have testimonies of the Book of Mormon, and they know that the church is true, but they just have challenges that they can't quite get over. One of the big problems here, not sure if I've talked about it, is lebola. Basically, if you want to get married, the bride and groom's uncles and parents (no idea why the uncles are involved) get together and negotiate a price. It's very traditional, and it's pretty lame because it takes awhile to save up the money for lebola, and then the couple are just living together, which is a matata. (zulu for problem. Like Hakuna Matata, hakuna means nothing, matata means problem, so no problems/no worries...for the rest of your days) So we have a couple of investigators who can't get baptized until they lebola and get married, but we're just encouraging them to get married in a chapel for free! Haha they usually just laugh at us when we say that, but we're still working on it :)

The other big problem is the word of wisdom. We found one of our favorite investigators drunk one day, and so we just left. After we left he apparently collapsed, because the only thing he had consumed the entire day was alcohol, so an ambulance had to come and give him an IV with sugar and other things, but he basically almost died. So we saw him again and he was like "Don't send Joseph Smith and his angels to me again, they almost killed me last time," hahahaha, we were just like, "that's not how it works", but he just kept on saying "I almost died!" haha he's so funny.

We also have an investigator who has a problem with smoking. He was smoking like 20-30 cigs a day, so we asked if we could throw out all of his cigarettes and he was just like "........okay," so we did! He's cut down to just a few a day, so he's making progress! I felt a little bad throwing them away, because he's suuuuper poor, like he hardly even eats, he just makes pap (maize meal) and smokes, but at the same time I was like nah it'll be good for him ;)

And we were supposed to baptize Sipho (the guy we tracted into 6 weeks ago who was watching Lord of the Rings ;)) but he's not quite ready, so it'll be postponed for a couple of weeks because of Stake Conference, but he's an awesome guy!

Anyway, that's it for this week, sorry my emails are short haha, I try to make them as long as I can! Love you guys, talk to you next week!

"It's not our words that convert people, it's the power of the Holy Ghost."

Hey family, howzit going! This week has gone by crazy fast, luckily I wrote some things down because I don't remember any of it haha.

So we've been tracting a lot this week and just inviting everyone to church. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but you just gotta keep trying! That's how we got Sipho Lukele, who's our most powerful investigator. Haha when we taught him the law of chastity and dressing modestly he thought he had to dress in a white shirt and tie like us all the time, so he was bummed but totally ready to do it! So we explained that no, you can still dress like a normal person haha. He gained his testimony of the Book of Mormon and ever since then has been keeping all the commandments we teach him, he's super sweet.

But we've been tracting to a lot of college kids, which can be really difficult. They remind me of the scripture (don't remember where it is) that says "When men are learned they think they are wise." These people have grown up in Daveyton their whole lives, and then they go to College in Pretoria (a city an hour away from Daveyton) and they just experience different cultures and learn a lot, which is good, but then they come back to Daveyton and are super prideful. They just think that everyone there is ignorant because they know more than them, so they can be pretty difficult to teach. Hahaha this one guy in his 4th year of university was just like "Well let's take a look at history. We have Zeus, who was a god, and his son Hercules, who was half man half god, so I don't really believe in just one God," and I was like "Dude what the freak are you even talking about" hahaha. They think they know a lot, but they don't, and every time I just want to bible bash them to death, but I usually just bear my testimony and bounce. Like Paul says in 1st Corinthians "I came to you...not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God...that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." As missionaries we speak in simple terms, because it's not our words that convert people, it's the power of the Holy Ghost. So, when a college girl tries to tell me that she's on a deeper spiritual level because she has a memorized script about how Jesus Christ is metaphysical, I'm just like "Okay well I know that he isn't, and if you read the Book of Mormon you can know too," and then they're usually silent because as some general authority once said (maybe a prophet?) "It's almost impossible to dispute a heartfelt testimony."

Besides that, we've been having really good lessons with our investigators! The one that stands out the most is Gugu, a 21 year old single mom who's in her first year of university. We taught her last Sunday, and we were talking about repenting and correcting your sins, and I just felt like I should make an example of forgiving people and letting go of grudges, so I talked for like a minute on it and then we moved on. Then on Saturday we taught her again, and she said that before we talked about repentance, she had a dream about going to her neighbor and apologizing, because four years ago they had an argument and haven't talked since. But she brushed off the dream, and then we had that lesson, and then that night she had the same dream again! So she went and apologized and dropped the grudge, and said that the whole process just confirmed to her that the Book of Mormon is true! Ah I was so happy, it was one of the coolest lessons I've had so far!

So yeah, it was a pretty great week! But now we're gonna go bowling as a zone activity, so I'll talk to you guys next week! Love you all, thanks for all you do!
Cheers

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 :)