Dear Famille,
This week blew by as usual. We continued in our
faith, pushing more and talking to more and more people than we have in weeks
passed. We still have yet to find any solid investigators. Those that we have
are very flaky. The challenges continue. But so do we.
We went down and had an exchange in Pau again to welcome in a new
missionary, Elder Spencer, the only bleu in our zone this transfer. That was
fun, I spent the day with Elder Bollard, one of the district leaders, and he is
a great man and a great missionary.
We had an interesting experience together. We had gone out to Bizanos, a
small suburb of Pau, to pass one of their amis. He wasnt home, so with the hour
we had we decided to do some porting (knocking doors). We walked to a round a
bout with about 5 roads branching off of it. Decided to say a prayer to go a
certain way. After the prayer we chose a road with an electrical box that had
the word dope spraypainted on it (it was odd because I had made a mental note
earlier in the day that I had seemed to be using that word a lot during the day)
so we started this road. The first house we see, really nice, large, had a big
gate around it. We ring the intercom and a lady's frantic voice comes on saying
"I'm coming!" in french. Out comes this nice looking older lady, who looked very
nervous. As she asked/saw who we were, she turned off, we presented ourselves
and she quickly told us that she was waiting for an urgent phone call regarding
her very sick son, and that she didnt have time to give us. We asked her as she
was walking away, if we could do anything for her and she simply kept
walking.
We refelcted as we walked away that here this poor lady was, very much on
edge because of her son, looking for a solution, and seeing that she believed in
God (which she told us) I imagined she prayed for help, and here we come to
ringing her doorbell, what couldve been the very solution to her son's illness,
a blessing from the holy priesthood. It dawned on me how so many times in life
God just gives us a solution, probably a bit different than we thought, and puts
it right under our nose. But if we are distracted and not sensitive to the
Spirit, the solution slips away. It also was a testimony to me that God uses us
as missionaries to fulfill missions of mercy to His children wherever they may
be in the corners of the earth, because of His great love for each one of us.
Saturday we spent the morning and afternoon helping a member family, la
famille Blanchon, stack fire wood for next winter. It was this massive pile that
we moved and stacked with the help of us 4 elders, Fr Blanchon, two of the
Blanchons' daughters (who are older, have had kids, and divorced), and the
boyfriend of one of the daughter. It was fun and exhausting. Always feels good
to do service. Everybody there was a member except the boyfriend, whose name is
Eric. We got to get to know him a lot better. It was interesting in talking to
Fr. Blanchon to hear the stress in his voice as he pushed us to go talk with
Eric. I felt that Fr. Blanchon had a certain stress about it. And I realized as
we ate lunch together, and I was pondering the situation in mind, that Fr.
Blanchon is really working to make sure his family is all sealed in the temple.
And how important that is to him. I had this little revelation and all of the
sudden I saw the immense importance of talking to Eric. Fr. Blanchon wants to
save his family. The fact of living together forever as a family is a real and
urgent matter that is a great blessing, but also a large responsibility we all
have. It was another small but real witness to me of the reality of the Plan of
Salvation in our lives. And of course I thought of you my super wonderful
family, and how much I love and want to be with you forever as well. And I am so
grateful to have you, especially when I see families here that are torn apart.
It makes my heart ache and also extremely thankful.
"Only the Gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human
family." -President Benson, Preach My Gospel
This week we go to Lyon for leadership council, then have zone training,
then interviews with president next monday in Pau. Gonna be a really full week.
So emails will probably come your way Tuesday.
Exciting week ahead, We all must rely on the Lord more.
Beaucoup d'amour,
Elder Montgomery
