Well Done, William! Welcome Home!
Transfer 17, Week 5 - The Last Week .... July 13, 2015
Ma chère famille,
What a week, what a weird feeling!
It feels like going home seems really normal, and that I'll get home and
everything will be exactly the same as I left it.
As far as this week, we have been busy. Having a trio has been fun,
recharging, and rather stressful.
Monday we went with Fr. Girard to see a suffering friend of another member.
The friends name is Denise, and when her member friend told her about blessings
she asked for one. So we went over and explained what blessings are and then
pronounced one of health upon her. There was a strong spirit there and the life
auxiliary who was there asked us if she could come to church to understand
more...haha it was wonderful!
Tuesday we got to teach Emmanuelle and Steve the friends of the Stake
President's family that I told you about. They are a super fun young couple.
They love the USA haha. They are both really open to the idea of becoming
members of the church. But are understandably feeling some doubt and nervousness
about it. Emmanuelle is traditionally catholic and is a bit more nervous to make
the change. They asked President Lepore to do a marriage service for them
because the catholic church won't do because Emmanuelle has already been married
and divorced. But they both love us. Steve is really cool and open and wants to
learn more. So we'll be going back to see them on Thursday.
Wednesday we took the hour and a half train up to Chalon sur Saone to do
our exchange with Elder Lapointe and Elder Brill. I spent the day with Elder
Brill and it was a blast.
We came back down to Lyon Thursday morning for district meeting which we
held at the Ecully chapel in Lyon. (not our normal chapel). We held it there in
order to have enough room for Elder Dupre's and Elder Elvidge's districts to be
there as well, so we could all have lunch together. IT was so much fun. District
meeting went incredibly well. My last great sermon. I taught all of my favorite
doctrines that I felt were the most influential on my mission according to the
direction of the spirit. District meetings are 2 hours and I have 10 other
members in my district that attended plus one of the zone leaders. It was
wonderful and I loved it. Elder Elvidge and Elder Dupre are two of my closest
friends in the mission field and they will be finishing with me next week. And
they were both former Assistants, so it was fun to have 3 district meetings
being done with my friends who I look up to so much.
After that I did a day exchange with Elder Thorne in my district, he is
awesome.
Friday we had a day exchange with the Zone leaders I was with Elder
Barnes.
Yesterday at church was the first official missionary sacrament meeting.
The bishop asked us to choose 3 speakers to speak on missionary work. He asked
me to join him on the stand for the sacrament meeting to introduce the theme and
the speaker. The members were super kind as word spread that Elder Ardeche and I
would be finishing next week and we received several invitations this
week.
As the continued comments and questions about returning home, I've come to
respond that I'm excited to go home and excited to finish strong. But as this
week went on I had several moments when I felt the Spirit very strongly and my
thoughts turned to not having the nametag anymore. I can not and could not
escape the fact that I am sad to leave this glorious position and responsibility
that the Lord has granted to me. As I have written to you so many times, I do
LOVE being a missionary. I LOVE being a messenger of the Lord. I LOVE helping
others feel and recognize the Spirit and in effect the Love of the Lord. There
is no better feeling than knowing that someone has been profoundly changed
because the Lord used me as an instrument, there is no greater satisfaction than
knowing that I hastily and faithfully followed a prompting and receiving the
confirming witness of the Spirit that the Lord is smiling on us as we complete
what He would do if He were in our place.
I LOVE the Gospel, I LOVE my Heavenly Father, and my Savior Jesus Christ. I
LOVE being in their service, I've never felt a joy so real as the joy of serving
and helping and loving those around me as children of God. I know these things
are real.
An eternal thank you for all you have done for me and for the numerous
prayers on my behalf you have given in the past two years. I LOVE you all.
A très bientôt,
Elder William Montgomery
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| Elder Ardeche is really French...haha |
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| Elder brill and I on exchange in Chalon |
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| At the train station with elder brill |
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| The Confluence district |
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| Elder elvidge and elder dupre |
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| With elder haws one of the zone leaders in Lyon |
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| Elder thorne and I eating pastries |
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| The ami board in our apt. |
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| The big map by our apt |
Transfer 17, Week 4 ...... July 6, 2015
Ma chère famille,
Lots of interesting stuff to tell you about. To give a quick overview of
the week. It was extremely hot. We were sitting at 40 degrees C almost all week
and even during the night it was suffocating. And France doesn't believe in air
conditioning...haha I think that should be a requirement for a first world
country. Nevertheless, we chugged along and had a great week. We're doing a lot
of teaching right now. I feel like we have more people to teach than we do time,
its almost frustrating! It is a great feeling though to be teaching so much, and
we have some really solid amis right now so I'm hoping that won't change in the
next two weeks.
There have been some interesting happenings though. Two weeks ago we had a
less active family that we've been visiting, the family Chassain, take us to go
see a friend named michelle who is suffering from cancer, she's undergoing the
treatments right now. We got to go see her again this past week. Its hilarious
to me. Fr Chassain is the only member and he has some twisted views on doctrine,
but both he and his wife love the missionaries and they feel the spirit really
strongly when we visit them. Its incredible to me that This less active man has
such faith in us and in the Lord to introduce us so naturally to his suffering
friend, and then since he's introduced us to a family member and told us about a
neighbor that he wants us to go visit with him. Both times we have visited
Michelle she has been so grateful and excited for our visit. We've shared
thoughts from the BOM both times and explained what it is, and she was so
touched when we offered it to her. I love it when we get to see others exercise
faith to help those around them feel the Lord's amazing grace.
In other news we ran into a man named Dan a couple weeks ago and taught him
twice this past week. He has been taught several times by missionaries in the
past. He is an american and a biblical scholar and a bit too entrenched in his
own viewpoints and logic to accept anything else. About as close to bashing as
we can get and still call it teaching...
We also been teaching Lianna on a regular basis. She accepted a BOM in
Russian this week and was so touched. She has had trouble with her faith and is
super open to the idea of reading from the BOM, which is super exciting.
Sarah didn't make it to church yesterday which was bummer. But we were able
to teach her once this past week about the Plan of Salvation, which we really
liked. She is actually a bit hung up on baptism which she was open with us about
because she has already been baptized twice in her life. So she wants to make
she gets this one right. She knows that she needs to keep searching for herself
to know, which is great.
Friday I did an exchange with E. Hutchinson- a Welsh elder in my district,
went really well, its always fun to have a little change up and to get to know
someone new.
Saturday there was a baptism in one of the other lyon wards and after the
missionaries threw a 4th of July BBQ which was fun.
This past week there was a group of Elders in Martigny Suisse that had to
get emergency transferred because of legal issues. So the Assistants called last
night and asked us to take one of those missionaries into our equipe. His name
is Elder Ardeche. He is from Nantes, France. He came in with me and will finish
with me in two weeks and I've actually done 2 exchanges with him back in my
Bordeaux days. He is super energy and a bit crazy sometimes. It will be fun to
have a french elder with us though! That should bring a fun shift in status quo
to the equipe.
This week is already looking really busy. We will go to Chalon sur Soane on
Wednesday and do a blitz there and then come back up for Thursday district
meeting and do an exchange after. Then Friday we'll have an exchange with the
Zone Leaders. Too much to do, not enough time! the Lord is so merciful to
us!
I love you all!!
Elder Montgomery
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| 4th of July bbq |
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| The Boughton family that I became such good friends with in Perigueux were at church on Sunday for one of their children is in our ward...things come full circle |
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| The missionaries who were present in our ward on Sunday |
Transfer 17, Week 3 Ran's Bday!!! ..... June 29, 2015
Dear family,
Happy Birthday to RANNNN!!!!
What a week we've had. Reallly exhausting. haha wow we're tired. But we saw
lots of incredible miracles and the Lord has been really merciful to us.
Sadly, Mavis and Henry have both been MIA all week. We haven't been able to
get a hold of Mavis and Henry just keeps setting rdvs but not coming to them.
Haha but those goes the missionary carousel...We'll keep trying.
Another Nigerian ami of ours, Collins, accepted a baptismal date of August
8th. Great news! but we'll have to go really slow with him to make sure he
understands everything.
The good news is that our dark horse ami Sarah has really stepped up. The
reason I say dark horse ami is because we weren't really sure about how things
would go with her at first, but we've taught her three times and they have all
been great rdvs. She is from Cameroon but is really cool and timid. Sunday would
prove to be a huge miracle.
We had invited her to church on Sunday and she said she'd come. It was 1h30
(when our church starts) and we were standing by the metro waiting for her. She
wasn't answering her phone. Collins arrived and so after waiting another 15
minutes we went to church. After the first hour, who comes out of relief society
but Sarah! Super happy. She told us that she at met a member on the metro who
had walked with her to church and then into Relief society. But wait the miracle
gets better. I talked to the member later, her name is Alicia, she is a cool
young adult. She always takes the bus to church on sunday and is there early,
but this sunday she was running late and had to take the metro. She was on the
same metro car as Sarah, and was READING her Book of Mormon...haha. So Sarah
approaches her and asks her if she's going to church and she says yes and they
walk there together. It was huge. The Lord really knows each one of us and He is
incredibly aware of each one of our needs. Sarah had a wonderful time at church,
the members ate her up and we'll be seeing her again on Tuesday.
Along with that we are now teaching Lianna three times a week. She is
russian and has struggles with her past. We teach her english for 45 minutes
then have 15 minute lesson for right now, because she hasn't jumped onto the
idea of coming to church and everything. But she wants and needs the Gospel in
her life. She keeps asking us why we are so happy all the time. And she doesn't
fully understand why the Savior is important yet. We'll work on that.
Today we spent the last P-day at presidents house with President and sr
Roney. It was so much fun. President Brown will be arriving tomorrow
night.
We had a wonderful dinner visit with the Bishop's family, the family
Chupin. Really cool young family, with two young kids. Had a bbq, with duck
shish kebabs...so good...I'm a big duck fan after my mission.
Looking forward to another week of work.Time is speeding by, but also the
next three weeks seem monstrous in front of me. Go big and THEN go home!
I love you all!
Elder Montgomery
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| Mid ward council with Fr Girard... |
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| Final presidents pday! |
Transfer 17, Week 2 ....... June 22, 2015
Chere famille,
Another week down! things are speeding up!
We spent a lot of today at President's home, it was really great.
Friday we had our last zone conference with him and sr roney. It was so
wonderful. They have become some of my best friends and greatest role models.
All President teaches about is faith in the Savior. He only teaches about the
Savior all the time. He left us with the scripture in John 13:14-17 about
happiness. That the Savior taught us the key to happiness, to follow Him. It was
really special. I'm so grateful for the chance I've had to be with them. When
Elder Kearon came last time he talked about how as missionaries we are not only
called to specific missions but also to specific mission presidents, I
definitely feel like I was called to serve with the Roneys.
We took a trip to Grenoble to do Elder Mauss's legality renewal...its so
pretty!
We saw Mavis once, he's doing well but has yet to come to church, which is
sad, thats our next step.
Monday we had a cool miracle. We were walking to do groceries and were
passing the institute center in Lyon. We saw an African couple that was just
smiling like nobody's business at us and we stopped and talked to them. The
girlfriends name is Progress (nigerians often name their children christlike
qualities) and told us that she had met missionaries a year ago but was pregnant
at the time and didnt act on the invitation, but that she had always hoped to
find missionaries again to have the chance to talk to us and come to church. So
we got her number and saw them on Wednesday! really cool Nigerian couple.
Saturday we taught Lianna. A 25 yr old friend of our russian ami olga.
Lianna is also Russian/armenian. She asked us to teach her english, so we had
made it 40 minutes into our really basic english lesson, when we asked if she
had any other questions and then she asked in broken english, using the
principles we had just taught her, Why is life so hard? Haha it was a beautiful
moment. We ended up having a wonderful gospel discussion about the love of
Heavenly Father and she was just amazed. We taught her how to pray and she was
super touched. She told us how she feels that she has never been loved by
anyone. She wants to learn english more regularly so we will be teaching half
english half gospel here coming up this week.
We're really hitting our rhythm right now. The ami carousel continues and
we find new people every day. Lyon is such a wonderful city. Miracles at every
turn!
A thought from my studies this week: Moroni teaches us in Mormon 9 about a
God that never changes and that is and will always be a God of miracles. I think
the God like quality of consistency is essential. The great test of this mortal
state is to see if we can consistently make righteous exercise of our agency.
Faith is really shown over long periods of time. As pmg puts it genuine
repentance is best demonstrated by righteous actiosn over a period of time. God
is the master of this! I don't think its just automatic for Him, He really has
mastered it. And how consistently we use our agency will determine our
destiny.
I love you all so much!!!
Beaucoup d'amour,
Elder Montgomery
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| Elder Tomlinson looks so great! |
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| Pday at presidents |
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| Goodbye picture with president and sr Roney |
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| The boys! Elder bollard, dupre and elvidge |
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