out of time!

I only had 30 minutes and i got kicked off but an elder is letting me use the last ten minutes of his time! All is well... this is soooo different from the country but it's awesome.. i'm excited to keep figuring it out! I've really been bad at writing letters..i'm sorry! I'll try and do better! I hope all is well i love the you all and thank you! sorry  this is so short i'm going to write more next week. Lots of adventures here in the city! i'm grateful for the gospel! i love you! Ya for Holly and Mark this weekend i will think of you lots! love me!

Wow. Happy THanksgiving!

What a change! All is well. Sister Hakaraia from New Zealand is awesome! she thinks it's way cool that you served there dad and she said we can stay with her when we visit someday:) She says some of the funniest phrases but sister Rosenlof and I are catching on and i even catch myself talking like her already!She's only been out six weeks and i feel terrible that i have to rely on her so much. I wanted to be a helpful trainer but getting put somewhere where you know no one and have no idea where you are going is CRAZY. I now know what my sweet Sister Simons felt like! So Sis HAk ( i'm going to shorten it) has done two things that remind me of you dad, things you've told me about new zealand. We had Thanksgiving dinner last night.. it's in october here.. weird eh? And she mixed all her food together like me....and then i remembered you learned that in New Zealand. Then we were doing dishes afterwards and she was washing and a sweet investigator from mexico was drying and i came over and he was like this is a weird way to do dishes.. and she wasn't rinsing the soap off! haha. So i was the rinser and he was like ok this is normal. Oh and heather she say's 7:30 in her new zealand accent all the time and it's awesome.. i think of you :) I LOVE being around so many different cultures again. I met a lady from the DR and it was fun to talk to her about going there and about you Holly. This place reminds me so much of my time in Russia there is a big ukranian church next to our chapel and it looks like a russian building.. ill attach a picture. Our chapel is really cool cause it is very different. and we ride the subway and buses and I've just had so many wonderful experiences on them in Russia so it's not foreign to me at all. I love having so many people to talk to. So we lost our sweet Sis Rosenlof on her first day! We weren't sure what subway stop we were suppossed to get off and then it was time and she didn't make it off. We felt terrible!!! So Sis Hak went ahead to see if she hopefully got off at the next one and I stayed to see if she came back. We took our tags off cause that's what you do but i was talking to a lady and gave her a pass along card and then a man came up to me and said do you know who i am.. it was brother bradshaw that jen knows! We only had a second cause his train came but what are the odds that he picked me out when i was seperated from my companions! So we retrieved her quickly and all is well... poor thing! This area has done amazing! On sunday Leonard who was baptized three weeks ago recieved the priesthood and baptized Mandla who is his friend but they didn't know that they were both learning about the church when they started. And the Sergio was baptized last week and received the Holy Ghost. And then MAndla and Sergio bore there testimonies at the President's fireside... phenomenal! and they are way amazing converts! Leonard is from Kenya, Mandla is from Swaziland, and Sergio is Armenian but raised in Lebanon. SO COOL! Mandla speaks like the people in the Gods must be crazy.. with all the clicks.. it is soooooo cool! He left us a message yesterday and he so happy and says ready to keep fighting for the celestial kingdom. he is So humble and I have learned so much from them and i've only been here less than a week. Wow. So everything is great! I love the gospel. I bought boots that are good for -45 degrees and i'm so excited to have warm feet this winter especially in a bus area. I'm so blessed. HOlly and Mark I'm sooo excited that your wedding is soo close! I love you all! love me!

My new companions :)


Our Chapel

The Ukranian chapel that makes me feel like i'm in russia!

BIG CHANGES!

So i recieved very humbling news this week. I'm going to be training in down town toronto. There will actually be three of us me, sister Hakaraia who is from New Zealand and has been out 6 weeks and then a new sister that will get here tomorrow. It's a bus area and so i'm going from one extreme to another. I'm so excited for all the adventures that are ahead.. pray for me. Patrick came to conference and was very impressed and he is just great. We've been so blessed and though i'm sad i'll miss his baptism i'm just so happy for him. I felt like so many of the conference talks were just for me. I loved hearing so much of hope and of being patient and grateful when God lets us struggle and that we need to be so watchful and careful. I thought so much of how all of you have done so much for me in helping choose good things and stay away from evil. Mostly be your examples. I'm sooo grateful. So sister swim and i are sad to part.. we've had the craziest experiences and it's funny cause we've been out in the country. This week we had a bird poop on my hand while we were tracting.. that was disconcerting. We taught a lesson about the word of wisdom where we took a water bottle and fillled it up with musturd and sesame oil and all sorts of stuff to show how bad substances make us unpure and afterward the people dumped it out for us and gave us it back. Well we have water bottles everywhere and we are always filling them up and we were just starting planning when sister swim took a drink of a newly filled water bottle. it registered to both of us at the same time that she was drinking out of that sick water bottle and her face was priceless hahaha! I'm trying to think of what else has been going on... while tracting this week i asked to adults if there parents were home cause they looked so young. they were not impressed. i haven't had that problem my whole mission and then withing two days i did it twice. We have met some of the sweetest kids lately... this one lady pretty harshly rejected us and her little boy went off and was like thanks so much for the offer though.. try those guys over there they like it... then when we were walking away we heard him say.. oh that was so nice of them. It made our day. Thanks so much for the oreo's mom... we didn an official test to see if american oreo's are better or canadian. We took it to Nikki to try them both and she was very thorough and the verdict was.. American oreo's are better :) We went to the old folks home for my last time and it was one of my sweetest.I fed one guy strawberry shortcake and he kept smiling so big. I gathered a bunch of wheel chairs around me and talked and sang to an old man a few old ladies there hands were cold so i took turns holding there hands... two of them kept kissing my hands.. they couldn't even talk. I'm just so grateful to know of the plan God has for us. I was thinking of them in there resurrected perfect bodies. It made think of Max as well since his birthday is coming up and I just felt so sure that there is so much more after this life. I'm thankful for that! Wow. I've loved the country. The people here are amazing and i'm so grateful i had the chance to serve here. I get all spectrums in this mission and i love it! I love you all... sorry to those i haven't had a chance to write back to yet.. you are not forgotten! I love you.All is well and i'm sure my next email will be a frantic one!

Sister savage

one of the members dog had puppies.. that is a brand new one... i've never seen one in real life before..it was the sweetest thing and they made the cutest noises. The mom kept sitting on them.. i kept thinking woah take it easy they just got here!

My last district

I'm a missionay:)

I'm grateful that i'm still so grateful to be a missionary. I really am. It was a rough week for teaching. Sister Swim and I often walk away from doors so confused.. we tell people there is a prophet on the earth and that our families can be strengthened and protected and live together forever and people say i'm not interested. i'm thankful to be interested! These things have truly blessed me and i can't imagine life with out the gospel. We've had an interesting day today.. we had to take our car in because i part got recalled so we decided to ride our bikes but then the chain came off one of them and got jammed. we were right by costco and I called a member who we knew could help us and I asked what he was up to and guess what.. he was at costco! So we went in and he bought us poutine( french fries, cheese curds, and gravy) which is soo yummy and ice cream cones and fixed the bike. We are soo blessed! I feel so taken care of as a missionary. It's getting really dark in the morning which makes waking up hard but who wants things to be easy right.. doing hard stuff is way better! I'm grateful for the scriptures and i'm always trying to be better.. I have so much to do better at! I love you all! be happy! we have to go pick our car up! it looks rainy so it'll be a fun ride!


sister Savage

here's a pic of sister swim and i.. she took it upside down..sorry

Hello again!

This week sister Swim and I both got pretty sick but we still did our best and we are being blest. I thought I was tired but being sick really wipes you out. My mind has been so foggy.. It was embarrassing because I was telling someone to look at our website and I was trying to tell them there were little clips of people and their experiences and instead i told them there were little people and their experiences... whoops. I had to give a talk yesterday and the power was out and my voice was struggling but i made it through.. it was really different talking in a very dim chapel without a microphone. When the power came on during the second speaker the mormon tabernacle choir blared from the speakers and woke everyone up.. it was pretty funny. Patrick came to church again yesterday which is amazing. He is such a trooper. He is 76 and has parkinsons but he has been awesome.. this week we met with him and he was asking lots of questions about the baptismal font and if he'd be able to get in and out.. so that's promising! The elders met a lady who dyes silk at some fair and so we all went and made scarves or ties today and that was fun. She has a parrot and the elders had been holding it but when i went to put my hand out it bit me really hard.. sure scared me. I guess it doesn't like the color red and I am wearing a red shirt. Then I was ironing my scarf and it kept coming up and pecking my bare feet.. birds are kind of scary. I am so blessed and learning so much...today I was reading Jesus The Christ and it was talking about when people were accusing Christ of healing people by the power of satan and it was so interesting because He tells them you can say whatever you want about me as a man but don't associate the power I have with that of satans because it is the power of God. I just love how humble our Savior is. He took persecution and rejection patiently and preached the truth. I love you all and am grateful for all of you support. Have a fabulous week! love me!

What a wonderful week!

We have had some great miracles this week. We went to teach an investigator named Gaye and we didn't have her phone number so we stopped by early to see if it was ok if we came back at three and if we brought someone with us. She was soooo excited to meet a member.. she said she had been thinking about what she would do once we left and so she was like you got get her. So we brough sister Whitehead and had a great lesson and then she came to church yesterday! yahooo! We also taught an older man named patrick who has parkinsons disease and he told us he would come to church. We didn't see him but then he walked in a little late. He had spent the whole night in the hospital and then went back after church. He is so sweet. He said he wouldn't have missed it. all the memebers were so welcoming and we were so grateful! Two investigators at church.. wow :) I got a serious case of hiccups while tracting this week.. luckily the man was really nice about it and offered me some water. I haven't had hiccups that bad in a long time! I am so happy and things are getting better here everyday. Sister Swim and I have been a little under the weather but still able to work so that's a blessing. We had a picnic dinner in a random field the other day and it was so beautiful.. it felt like we were dreaming. Oh and some members in my ward were going to Buffalo this weekend for there sons basketball tournament and they were able to meet up with laurie and bryce! wow huh! Laurie made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies on saturday and I ate them on sunday.. amazing! Well I was reading in romans 12 this week and these are my favorite verses,"1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.2 And BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD : but BE YE TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 12 Rejoicing in hope;patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Cool Huh. It is up to us to decide to be hopeful and prayerful and patient and to not be overcome. I heard a quote this week that said, "If satan keeps reminding you of your past, remind him of his future." Some have badness in their past.. mistakes and heartaches but everyone has a bright future unlike the adversary because we know that throught the Atonement of Christ we can live with God and with our families forever. Don't let regrets hold you back. Move forward. Believe Christ. Do good. I love you all and thank you for your support!
Love Sister Savage
We wanted to take pictures on these cool round hay bails......
but then I couldn't get up so we just pretended to try and pick them up:)

Blessings!

We have been so blessed this week with people letting us in and agreeing to let us come back. It takes us by surprise but it's great. We were tracting in the rain the other night and this man said sure come in and Sister Swim tried to go first and she kind of closed her umbrella but it shot back out and drenched me and so she was fighting to close her umbrella and get in the door and I was just trying not to get wet and the man was so patient and just stood there while we collected ourselves. He said we could come back so that's exciting. We had two really hot and humid days and then it cooled off a ton. The hot weather really takes it out of ya.. We were soo tired. We are teaching a really cool lady name Jeanne who is so on top of reading and it's just great. She had mormon friends when she was young.. it really shows how all of us are doing missionary work even if we don't know it just by setting an example. We are teaching a really interesting man named john that loves to talk. We took a lady with us that loves to talk too and wow did they get off on some weird stuff. Now we are just working and praying to get them to church! We have two cool families that we have appointments with so that's great. It is really interesting because whether i'm thinking about now or past experiences or future ones i always picture myself with my name tag and pamphlets. I am just so grateful to be here. I'm grateful for all of you! I hope that all is well. I know God lives. I know this gospel is true and if we live it we can overcome this world because Christ already has. Until next week! I love you! Love me!