I pulled out my own manual and went through the whole thing.
As far as I can tell, when the manual says "pattern" it means one letter or decorative stitch. A word, for example, would be a collection of letter patterns.
I didn't see any indication that we can save those pattern collections permanently. The machine will only remember the current collection of patterns. Once we change it or turn off the machine, it's gone.
Sooooo ... if we know we'll want to use the same collection of patterns again in the future, I guess we have to write everything down and program it again each time.