The Perks ... May 19, 2014

Dear Family,

This week was super packed with stuff. We found very little time to work.
A quick overview: 
-Two exchanges: one in Pau and one in Bayonne (two dream cities of southern France)
-Two baptisms in our district that we attended, one from the Agen srs and the other here in Lormont 
  and 
-A wonderful District meeting
It was rather full. Both Pau and Bayonne are 2 hours away from BDX by train. So we had lots of travel time in there as well.
Its been fun to see baptisms though. There was another one in our ward last week for a man being taught by the other Elders equipe here in Lormont. So things are definitely moving along. 

Summer has definitely come. It is blazing hot yesterday and these seasonal allergies are killing me.
We have been struggling to find people to teach which is rather frustrating. The bomb family that I told you about last week, was busy all week and is kinda giving us a cold shoulderish feel, which is no good. We need to be more creative with our finding techniques and more effective with our time.
The continuous battle.
I think my favorite part of the week after the baptisms was going to Bayonne. I was with Elder Thackeray who is just an awesome guy, and a wonderful missionary, super humble. We went out to Biarritz to work which is along the coast, where I saw the atlantic for 23 seconds as we walked. Just a super beautiful area, among the most beautiful i've been to. Unfortunately, lots of tourists at this time and not a lot of people wanted to talk with us. Interesting cultural note: its a Basque city, the basque are a tribe/culture from the Pyrenees area. (the basque people and arabs do not get along very well so there were practically no arabs there) All the road signs were in basque and french, which was cool. 
Everybody spoke french though.
Its so wonderful to travel and see and talk with people from so many different backgrounds and having the opportunity to influence them for good. One of the great perks of being a missionary.

I reflected a lot on personal courage and integrity this week and how central it is and I thought i'd leave you with a quote from President Monson's conference talk who quoted Robert Louis Stevenson,
"Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowd shouts your name."

I love you so much Make it a great week!

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgomery
 Elder CAstillo and I with our two favorite members -Fr Monclin and Fr Charles. just hilarious.
The Bordeaux St jean train station

Bayonne, just a beautiful french city

The atlantic ocean that I caught a glimpse of in Bayonne