August 4 - Email

   So guess what!! Kamiel, a nine year old that we are teaching, is on date for the 30th of August :) yay! They are a less active family, I told you about them a little bit before I think about their other daughter named Kayla and how I wanted to drop by. Well, it has been really hard to contact them since the first time, but this past week we got in with them twice! So, that was really awesome! Kamiel is so cute and so mature. She is really smart. My comp is really excited, it is amazing to see her excitement.

   I went on exchanges this week with Sister Lathrop, we walked so much I was going to die because it was one of the last days of the month and they hardly had any miles. I wasn't wearing the best shoes and that was what killed me. I got sun burnt for the first time on my mission, just on my back/shoulder/neck area, no big deal. But on exchanges it was so funny, oh man, it was fun being in an English area again. These little kids were so funny. We were at a member's house and one little boy was talking about his new teacher this year and how he is a guy and he was really excited about it. The cousin turned to him right away and said "Does he have chest hair?" hahaha He is only 8 or 9. It was so funny. Later on, we were talking about Alaska and how Sister Lathrop eats moose there and that same kid says "ohh, that's racist!" haha! I love little kids!

   Last Monday, we spent pretty much all of pday painting rocks, it was really fun haha. We painted missionary rocks for our zone and for President and Sister Toone. We still have some to finish up today for our meeting tomorrow. We wrote "Gilbert 'Rocks'" on the back. haha. President and Sister Toone thought theirs were really cute. I sent you pictures.

   We received a referral from a member this week. So we decided to try it. We went over and we weren't exactly sure if it was this lady's house. Her name is Ana. But luckily it was!! We talked to her outside for a little bit and set up another appointment to come back and teach her family. She said she loves the patience that her member friend has. We asked if we could give her a movie to watch, we ran out to our car and came back and she let us in to watch it with her right then. We were really surprised, but it was so cool. It was "Finding Faith in Christ" which is 29 minutes. So quite a longer film, but she was so cool and she seems super open, it is awesome!! She has 5 children, 4 of which are over the age 8. Wow what a blessing!! Good thing we didn't have a dinner that day because it went right over dinner.

   On Saturday, we had a member out with us, Maribel, and she like passed out on us. It was really scary! She left on a mission but came back from the MTC because she started getting anxiety attacks real bad. Yeah, so we think that is what it was. But we handled it well. And I felt helpful which was nice.

   We had MLC on Thursday. My comp and I bought reading glasses from the dollar store to wear at MLC so we could match our zone leaders. Everyone loved it, we didn't wear them the whole time, just when we stood up and talked about our zone because the glasses hurt our eyes. MLC was really cool, it could be my last one because I don't know if I will be a Sister Training Leader next transfer... but we will see. I told President Toone to put me somewhere or with someone that may be struggling where I can truly help and put my all into it because it will be my last transfer, so therefore I may probably step down. But my zone leaders put that Sister Savage and I stay together, and I would totally be fine with that! I love this area and I love my comp! At MLC we talked about the role of the Spirit in conversion, how our investigators must feel, how missionaries must feel, and how members must feel. It was really cool, so that is what we will be training our zone on tomorrow. Also, one of President Toone's sons was here with his wife and new baby. He is huge into missionary work in the church. He works at the MTC and will be someone big in the missionary field in awhile. He went to Argentina on his mission and teaches the missionaries and teachers in the MTC Spanish. He would sometimes switch to Spanish when he was speaking to us it was funny because he wasn't meaning to. It was an amazing privilege to be trained by him. He testified so strongly of Christ and missionary work. He taught us how to ask inspired questions which is something I am definitely not the best at. Elder Jeff Toone asked us if we truly know Christ, not just know about Him, but truly know Him. He asked "have you paid the price to come to know God?" So have we? Have we personally, each one of us paid this price? What can we do to pay the price to come to know God?