What an incredible week! I've had some ups and downs but its great to see how faith in Jesus Christ and our confidence in Him allows to anything that we need to do.
The week has been good with Elder Loera. He is fun loving and a great guy. However with him being new to the area, it has been a real opportunity for me to step up and take on more responsibility and lead our companionship a little more. My French I believe is good enough (what a blessing!) but can always be better. We went and ate at the Conchas last night, a filipino family in our ward who live in Monaco (darn we had to go to Monaco...;) with two young girls who love us and the parents only speak english and tagalo. They fed us really well it was a great time and they said next time we came they would feed us duck eggs, a filipino specialty! yum!
After teaching Viktor our Russian ami, on Saturday, I received word that I was giving a talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday. Yikes! It was a great experience. My French was at least good enough for everyone to understand. I talked about Faith and Happiness and how the source of true happiness comes from our faith (or confidence in that which we cannot see but nevertheless exists) in Jesus Christ. And that we can truly know this is true as we let the faith grow within us. We can truly know that we can do anything through Him as we experiment with it, as we test it in our own lives. Faith in Jesus Christ is truly a principle of action, of power, and of happiness!
Our boy Alcides received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday and that was so wonderful to be a part of. Elder Loera is eating up the Portugeuse members in our ward with his spanish and rough portugeuse.
Viktor is progressing well. He is opening up quite a bit and really enjoys our company and coming to church, however wont tell us anything about his family. He is struggling understanding what it means to believe in Christ and to receive forgiveness for our sins. Now this was an interesting thought to me. As someone who has never had the Gospel of Jesus Christ before in their lives, he really just does not have any real conception of God. Faith truly is a belief, trust, or confidence in our Savior that He really can do what He says He can do...Change us, improve us, make of us what we could never make of ourselves. And that is the Wonderful news of the gospel!
That is happiness!
That is what should have us glowing with excitement and light each and everyday. Is that as we experiment on that word on the word of God, we learn for a certainty that He exists, that our Heavenly Father loves us and that we are all His children and that He wants the very best for us. I was going to include this in my talk but didnt know how to say it in French...If God is with us, who can be against us?
I love you all! I think and pray about you everyday!
Beaucoup d'amour,
Elder William Montgomery
PS I'm running low on Nice puns, if anyone out there has some good ones
feel free to send them to me. Merci beaucoup!
