Tennis, Granny, and and Sunday School.

Hey Family!

What is up?  It's going awesome here in SA! This week was pretty sweet. To start, I bought some tennis rackets because in our complex we have some tennis courts, so we've been getting up at 6:00 am a few times this week to play. It's difficult hahaha, but it's worth it for the exercise.

We had some great lessons this week.  Hopefully I haven't talked about these people before haha. . . it’s hard to remember what I've talked about before. But the first one is this 24 year old girl Paballo. We talked to her in the street one day, and she was with her sisters and they just sort of walked away, but she was really interested in our message. Her house is connected to a bar though, which is hard because we have to walk through it sometimes, which probably isn't the best place for missionaries to be seen, so we're going to start teaching her at a member’s house. Anyway, she's super cool. We taught just a simple lesson to her on the Godhead, which is always hard for people here to accept. Basically everyone believes that God is just a spirit who's everywhere at once, like oxygen, but it's pretty simple to explain his true nature. So once we're done teaching we always do the whole-- we don't expect you to believe us, we just invite you to pray so that you can find out for yourself. So we did that, and she's super busy with school and maintaining the bar and her kid, so we weren't sure if she was going to be able to pray. But we went back the next day and she said that she was up super late the night before, and everyone else was asleep so she tried praying in the way that we taught her, and she said that it was the most unique prayer she's ever had. Usually she just says the Lord's Prayer as fast as she can so she can go to sleep, but this time she actually took the time to pray and have a conversation with God, and she said that she had never felt so connected with God in her life! So we just testified that what she was feeling was the Spirit, and that she really was talking to Heavenly Father, so it was super cool. People rarely get their answer that fast, but I think she was just prepared. So I'm really excited to see Granny again (that's her nickname. Weird huh?) and continue to teach her! And also she said that even though she lives next to the bar she doesn't really drink, only on rare occasions, which is awesome, because the Word of Wisdom won't be as hard for her to accept!  So that was good.

Then we had a member lesson with an older guy, maybe in his 60's who got baptized last year, which was pretty humbling. He's been having a hard time.  He was working with a guy on a funeral and he gave him R800 to go buy groceries and the dude just bounced with the money.  And then two days later while they were sleeping some guys came into their house and jacked their R16000 (~$1600) TV, so it was just a super hard week, and he was super stressed and he found himself smoking. So he was asking us about the sacrament, how it works if you've sinned, and it was just humbling because an old guy is asking me, someone who's half a century younger than him, advice on his spiritual life. So all we could do was refer him to the Branch President and hope for the best. And he was just about to baptize his two grandchildren the next Sunday, so that's now been postponed. But it's good he's going through the repentance process so hopefully in a few weeks he'll be sharp, but we'll see!

Then Friday we stopped by this choir, we've gone to them in the past, they're super awesome. We street contacted this girl and she wanted us to teach her, so we went there and there were like 14 people in the house so I was super intimidated.  I usually try not to teach huge groups of people, but we just sort of introduced ourselves and what we're about, and then they were like "Well, we have to sing now, but you're welcome to stay."  It was dope! There were 7 guys and 7 girls, and they were amazing! I took a video, and hopefully I can find a way to get it back to you guys.  It was sweet.  They sang the Lord's Prayer and the guys had super good base (even though they were all high haha) and the girls were super good, so we're gonna go back next Friday too haha.

Church was sweet too. One of our investigators, a father led family, were there and the mom just gained a testimony herself the day before that the church is true, and I was like joking telling her to go up there and bear her testimony, but she was like "I'll go up when the time's right. God will let me know," and I thought "Way to be!" She's super cool, and her family is awesome too. Their baptismal date is set for next month, so hopefully they'll be able to meet that goal!

We were sitting in Priesthood during opening exercises and the different classes split up, and normally we just stay in Elder's Quorum but I just felt like we should go to Young Men's, so we did and it turned out that their teacher bailed, so we were just like "Okay we'll teach!" The Branch President was there at first, but then left, so it was just me and my comp and 10 young men, and it was super powerful. Honestly the most involved I've ever seen youth in a lesson haha, because they all felt comfortable with us.  We started talking about prophets and revelation (that's the topic for this month) and they were asking us a bunch of questions, and we'd ask a question and like 5 hands would go up, and it was just chill. So I'm glad we were able to do that, because a couple of them came up to us afterwards and said “That was so awesome! Like I honestly learned a lot, normally it's just the same sort of lesson every time, but today it was different!" And it was cool because I remember being in their shoes, being bored with the same bland Sunday School lessons every week, so I wanted to make it interesting for them. So I think I would be fine with teaching Young Men's lessons back home haha because it was super fun.

I'm super excited to Skype on Sunday haha, I think it will be around 6-7 pm here, which is like 10-11 am for you! Hopefully that works. Love you! Pet Chloe for me! :)  Thanks for the email dad.  I watched a cool Mormon message about a teenage kid who worked to improve his relationship with his dad and it reminded me of you.  I’m grateful that we always had a good relationship!  Thank you for paying for me to be on a mission.  It really is amazing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!  I love it, and I love the gospel and I love you as well!

But yeah fam, that's it this week. I'm excited to see your faces next week, it's gonna be awesome! Love you all, thanks for all you do.  Talk to you soon!

Elder Savage

Back Row:, Neunschwander, Carter, Mwale, Savage, Yates, 

Front Row: Tukia, Andriatiana, Tukia, Stomps and Togiatomai

Found the cutest little puppy on the planet!

Waking up at 6:00 am to play tennis.  Can you tell that I’m tired?  :)

Unite, Magwinyas, and the Huff man.

Hey fam,

Howsit? This week has been pretty good!

To start, I went on exhanges on Wednesday and had to lead my area.  I was worried about it at first because there are no street names so addresses are dificult to find, but it all worked out! We did some service for a member, and he makes these things called magwinyas.  They are like deep-fried rolls, not sure how to explain them, but they're amazing! He sells them for one rand each, so I buy like 10 a week hahaha. He served in the Joburg mission a few years ago and is now living here, so it was fun talking to him about what the mission was like back then.
And then after that we taught some lessons and Elder Stomps taught me how to drive a little more, and I finally got stick shift down haha.  So if my comp leaves I'll be able to lead the area with the car still, which is nice.

We taught a lot of good lessons this week.  One was to this girl we street contacted—she’s about 25 year old.  Her house is connected to a bar, which is hard.  It was on Thursday night and there were a couple of guys playing pool and a lot of people in the house so we had to teach her in the bar haha, which was kind of weird, but it was still a good lesson. There was a drunk old guy in the corner talking loud and I was just like "Hey, be quiet," and then after that he just kept to himself hahaha. There's way too many drunk old guys in Sebokeng, but it's alright.

On Saturday we had Unite again, which is when the members go to the chapel on Saturdays and we play games and have a spiritual message with them, so that was super fun. There's this crazy old guy who always comes to church, and he's not a member, but he's super active and dedicated. No one knows where he comes from either, and he's impossible to teach because he just starts talking about his life and then laughs really hard haha, but he's great.  His name is David. Anyway, the joke we have is that he is in an old folks home and escapes every Sunday to come to church hahaha.  He came to Unite on Saturday and brought a big bag of chips for refreshments, and I was just like "Haha thanks man!" Too bad he's crazy, or else he would be the most powerful/active member in the branch! But yeah, for Unite we played Pictionary and then we showed a mormon message by President Eyring, it's called Choose Wisely.  It’s a pretty cool one, and the members liked it a lot.

Elder Neu and I have street contacted a lot this past month, and it's kind of interesting because we always see people multiple times, but usually in different situations. There was an 18 year old kid washing his car, and he was wearing this hat with weed stickers (the brand is huff), and I thought this guy's a joker, but we just talked to him for a few minutes. And then later in the week we were teaching a family we tracted into, and they have an 18 year old son who said "I told my friend you guys were teaching me and he wanted to join, so is it alright if I go get him?”  We said definitely, so he left and came back with his friend, and his friend was huff man! So right off the bat we already had that trust because we had talked to him before, and we had a cool lesson. Not sure if he'll accept our message, but it was still a cool experience. Street contacting can be lame, talking to random people and trying to spark a conversation, but I never regret doing it. Even if we only get 1 lesson from it it's worth it!

So it was a good week, and then on Sunday I had to give a 10 minute talk on protecting the children, and I was just like what kind of topic is that?  Haha, but it was good.  I ended up speaking for 11 minutes! The longest talk I've ever given haha, and I was pretty proud of myself :)  We were fed twice in two hours and I almost threw up! So overall it was a pretty good day.

Anyway, thanks for all you do.  I'm excited for Mother's day!

Talk to you soon,
Elder Savage

The picture here is of a cow who's about to get slaughtered hahaha. In SA for weddings and funerals they buy a cow and kill it the day before, and that's what everyone at the funeral/wedding gets to eat! :) 

Autumn in Sebokeng.

Hey family, what's up! Like the title says it's fall here in Sebokeng so it's super nice, it reminds me of California! It's overcast and a little windy so I just put on a jersey (long sleeve/sweater) and it's prime.

This week was pretty cool.  We finally got to watch General Conference! If we had watched it live it would have been at midnight so the members here just wait for the church to send them the DVD's. So that was our Friday night, figuring out how to work the projector in the chapel and make sure everything was sharp. So we got there Saturday morning to start watching conference, and there were 12 people there.  Then an hour into the first session the power went out! For some reason the electricity companies turn off certain grids for 4 hours at a time.  It’s called load shedding, and it's super lame. So we were just like alright and we saw some cool investigators. One of our progressing investigators is a kid named Luiso.  He is 16 and he is awesome. He's the only one in his family who is serious about the church and he's been coming to church for a month now (he has to come for around 6 months before he can be baptized, since his parents aren't members) but he's one of my favorite people to teach haha. He's the smartest kid ever, and he always reads the pamphlets/scriptures that we give him.  We taught him the Restoration crazy fast because he knew all the questions we would ask.  We’d ask, “So what is a prophet?" and he basically just quoted the pamphlet from memory and said everything that we were going to teach, so we were just like “...Okay, well I guess we'll go on to the next principle" haha. We teach a looooot of people who have a hard time grasping the concepts we teach, especially the Godhead, so it's refreshing to have someone who understands everything we say the first time. When he doesn't understand he asks a question, so we never have to say "any questions?” Ah... it's the greatest! And he has a good friend who is a member and he walks with him to church every Sunday, so it's basically a perfect situation.

So yeah after that we tracted a little, met some nice people--we'll see if they progress. It's not too hard to get into people's homes here, so we have to weed out the jokers, because there are a lot of jokers haha.

Then the power came back so we resumed conference, which was awesome! Beforehand I always struggled during priesthood session, because it's the 3rd session of the day and I'm just like "Please just end already", but this time I was super into it. I loved President Monson's talk!  He is so funny!  Everyone was just laughing during his talk haha. There was another funny talk that I liked, hearing the music. I was just thinking "is general conference always this funny?" Maybe it is and I just never really payed attention back home haha, either way I liked it a lot. But my favorite talk was Elder Holland's. He's so passionate and always has awesome stories. As people say here "He's too much powerful" :)

But yeah, so conference was awesome, definitely the highlight of the week! Besides that we've just been eating a lot.  There’s a lady who sells ice cream cones for 1 rand, which is like 10 cents, so we get at least one every day haha. I've almost killed us a couple of times trying to drive a stick.  Last night was a little sketchy haha, but luckily I only stalled like 4 times. First gear is difficult.

And I always say to little kids "igamilami Sipho" (my name is Sipho, pronounced see-po) so I'll be walking through Sebokeng and a random kid will yell "Sipho! Sipho! Sharp!" and give me a thumbs up hahahaha, pretty funny.

Well that's it for this week.  Thanks for all you do.  Love you guys and talk to you soon!

Bye,
Elder Savage

Nature, haha.

Autumn . . . a double rainbow, kind of hard to see though.

Molo!

That means hello in Xhosa. Usually I yell it to people when I'm driving and they're just like "What the fetch, why is a white guy speaking Xhosa" hahaha, it gets a laugh like a quarter of the time.

This week was nice though! The first week here in Sebokeng was super slow just because I was getting used to the area and the people because it was all new, but now that I know it more the time's flying. Once you start doing the same thing every day time goes quickly! Sebokeng is a super nice township though, it's a little cheesier and quieter than Daveyton, so I've only had to teach like two people in a shack, which is nice, because when it starts raining on their tin roof it's impossible to hear anything so you just have to give them a pamphlet and be like "just read this," but mostly everyone here has a house so it's nice.

In Daveyton, most people spoke Zulu but here they speak Sotho, so I'm picking up new things every day. Sometimes I'll greet someone "Dumelang" and they'll be surprised and then say something that I don't understand, so I just say "Sorry, I don't speak Sotho, mna dingu Xhosa (I'm Xhosa) and then they'll laugh pretty hard haha. We have fun with the people here.

This past week was fun, I went on exchanges with Elder Carter, the black comp from Leeds England, and he's awesome, we had tons of fun. Him and my comp are teaching me how to drive a manual, because once Elder Neuenschwander leaves I'll have to drive it around the area, but fetch man driving a manual is difficult hahaha, I've probably stalled like 12 times! And they're always like "Elder Savage you're driving us to the area today" and our flat is like 20 minutes from Sebokeng so I'm just like "Dude I don't want to kill us" hahaha. But in the next couple weeks I'll get better at it.

Sebokeng is an interesting place though. I don't remember if I talked about it last week but they built a chapel for it ten years ago, hoping it would become a ward, but it has stayed a branch. Apparently the missionary work hasn't progressed too much this past decade, which is a shame, but we're not letting it dissuade us. Four missionaries are in Sebokeng currently, and between the two companionships we had 13 investigators at church yesterday! And it was branch conference too, so a bunch of people from the stake and the stake presidency were there and they were pretty impressed, because the chapel was packed! The previous elders weren't the best, so the members can really see a difference, because they've never seen so many new faces at church! So it's going pretty well here.

Some of our most promising investigators are a father led family. Apparently the mom just came to church one time out of the blue, she had never heard anything about it, she was just sort of prompted to come! So my companion and the last elder started seeing them and they're progressing like crazy! We've really focused on befriending them with the members, and the members are down because they really want the branch to be changed into a ward, so it's been super nice. The family (the Mqwati's, the q makes a click so it's freaking hard to pronounce) is made up of the mom and dad who are in their early 40s, their 19 year old son, 16 year old son, and 12 year old son, so when they get baptized it'll add a lot to the branch! So we're pretty stoked about them.

Branch conference was good as well, the stake presidency talked about tithing, and how that's one of the things holding us back from becoming a ward, so it's really motivating people to pay their tithing. Even Sister Mqwati was like "I feel like the windows of heaven poured down on me, I really want to pay my tithing" and she's not even a member yet haha! Super dope stuff.

But yeah, that's it for Sebokeng this week! If I don't email you next Monday it's because I tried driving stick on the freeway hahaha.

Love you all, thanks for everything you do! Till next time.

P.S. I took a lot of pictures this week because I felt so bad about how lame my email was last week, and the internet is super fast here so it can upload them like a boss. :)

Ice cream from KFC.

Ice cream from a tuck shop.

Hahaha... people here sometimes use a horse and buggy.

Donkeys eating out of the trash piles.

Cool nuclear power plant we can see from our flat.

Our flat!

Getting ready to leave the area.

No caption necessary.

Flipping Fong Kong car. No stereo, the doors all have to be locked/unlocked manually, and it only has three buttons... haha. It's the cheapest car money can buy, but I'm learning to drive it. :)

Another horse and buggy.

Mowing lawns in Sebokeng

Hey fam! Howsit going!  This week has been great! I got a lot of emails about general conference but it's not here yet, we won't see it for probably a couple of weeks haha, so I'm not sure what happened at all, but it sounds like it was good!

This past week was transfers! I'm now in a place called The Vaal (pronounced like hall) in a township called Sebokeng, and it's awesome! Sebokeng (See-bo-king) has its own chapel (which is awesome.  It's nice being in an actual church building and not just a garage or daycare :)) but it's only a branch. Apparently the chapel was built 10 years ago because they figured it would turn into a ward, but there's still not enough people for that yet.  Apparently there hasn't been a lot of growth in the past decade, but it's going super well right now! We have some powerful investigators, mainly a father led family that we did service for, they're super cool. They fed us pap and wors (sausage) and we're going back to them again tonight for family night!

They do this cool thing here called "unite" where all the members and investigators go to the chapel on Saturday and we play games and eat snacks and have a spiritual message, so that's what we did last Saturday and it was super successful! Everyone was laughing and having a good time and the investigators just felt more comfortable, so that'll be about every two weeks!

So yeah, really sorry, but it's a public holiday so we're not at the normal email shop so there's not a lot of time, but I love you all and will talk to you next week! And I'll send a longer email, I promise! Goodbye!

Elder Savage

Doing service for an investigator :)

Oh you know, you just mowing the lawns.

My new comp, Elder Neuenschwander. His mom's german. He just goes by Elder New haha because no one here can say his name. Great guy.

Saw a pink toilet.  You should send it to Grandma Orchard and tell her it reminded me of her.  Haha.  :)

Goodbye Daveyton!

Yup, I'm getting transferred! Spent 4 1/2 months in Daveyton, and now it's time to go somewhere else! It was definitely hard to say goodbye, harder then I thought it would be. At times I was annoyed with the drunks and teenagers calling me Mulungu, but now I'm leaving and I already miss it haha. Funny how it works.

Anyway, it was an awesome last week! On Monday we played basketball with some guys in Daveyton, and even though I suck at basketball I was better than them so it was sweet hahaha. And when we were there I saw this less active who we had been trying to find for six weeks.  He used to come out teaching with us all the time but then he moved and kinda dropped off the grid, so I was able to talk to him and just let him know he's not forgotten, so that was nice. And then afterwards we went and played flag rugby with some members and nonmembers, and one of the members is a member of the seventy! And he's freaking fast too!  I always pictured general authorities as old and slow, but he was a grasshopper haha. And he invited us to his house for a braai afterwards, so it was an awesome day all around! Besides that the week was a little hectic and stressful, and we hardly taught any lessons because there was a fireside on Saturday afternoon and a big baptism on Sunday that we had to plan for, and we had to drive for a doctor’s appointment in Johannesburg (not for me), so it was crazy, but we had fun.

I sent some pictures, but basically the baptism on Sunday went perfectly! There were four 8 year olds getting baptized and then 3 investigators--2 in our area and 1 in Daveyton 2. I've probably talked about the investigators before, Gugu and Busi, they're both super powerful. They were both a little nervous to get baptized, because Africans hate water haha, but it went smoothly hahaha. It was hard to say goodbye to them, but they have good friends in the church so I feel confident that they'll continue to be awesome in the church!

But yeah, that's it for this week, I'm excited to see where I'm transferred tomorrow! I'll have to finish packing tomorrow morning haha, procrastination is the best :) But I love you all, I love the gospel, and I love Daveyton.  I'm sad to leave it, but I know that it'll be for good reasons. Till next time.

Elder Savage

Me and Gugu and her daughter, Ntokozo, the day before she was baptized.

A dope sunset.

Everyone that got baptized! 

 Elders Quorum President (left), Busi’s best friend/fellow shipper (bottom), Relief Society President (right) and me.  Super fun people!

These members make amazing food!!!

Busi and I right after her baptism.

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.