Dear Fam,
Whewww what an exciting week! So much happened! All of it was capped off by
General Conference which was heavenly.
First things first my new comp, Elder Bollard is great, we've meshed really
well, and he is a great missionary and easy to get along with. He is from
Irvine, California and has 4 older brothers. He is a big guy and speaks great
french. He came out to the mission straight out of high school. We've had an up
and down week, but are excited for the busy transfer ahead.
This week, we had 10 teaching apts fall through, which was unfortunate. On
the flip side, we committed our ami Kevin to be baptized the 1 of November and
he is more than excited. He had taken a lot of the lecons early in the summer
then left on vacation and lost contact with the missionaries. He came back and
we found him in the street (Elder Moeller and I) and have taught him twice
since. He already has an incredible testimony of everything. He reads and loves
reading the Book of Mormon, he prays, and he loves church. I'm excited for him
and just hope he stays visible or rather doesn't drop off the map again. Along
with that we had 2 amis who came to General conference and they loved it. One is
named Sevane, pronouced like 7 (shout out to George Costanza). He couldn't stop
thanking us for inviting him. The second was Margot, our Polish ami, who is
progressing nicely. She keeps comparing everything we teach her back to the
Catholic church. We are hoping to commit her to baptism this week.
This coming week will be a bit crazy. We'll leave for Lyon tonight, for
Leadership council, get back on Wednesday. We'll have Zone Training and an
exchange with the assistants on Thursday, then go up to Rodez to do a baptismal
interview and hopefully hold a baptismal service for that same ami on
Friday.
We have been struggling in our sector of work simply in getting people to
show up to appts. We have a lot of great potential. I'm working on upping my own
expectations and working to fulfill them.
Lastly General Conference. Wow. We didn't even get to watch the last
session because of the time change. Next Monday we'll go to the VanTonder's home
to watch the last session. But it was just tons of answers to my prayers and to
questions I had been carrying with me. I'll share my thoughts with you:
-It was all centered on the Savior, His Atonement, and the Restoration of
the Gospel.
-My favorite talk was probably from Elder Klebingat, Elder Christofferson,
or President Uchtdorf.
-Of few of my favorite lines: "Partner with Him and move forward",
"spiritual casualness never was happiness", "Lord is it I?", "There is no higher
end than becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ"
-I noticed the emphasis on the Sacrament. I will be personally working to
take my weaknesses and mistakes to the Sacrament table every week in a more real
effort to repent. I loved fr Klebingat instruction on the Atonement, "apply it
generously". Daily, joyful repentance.
I imagine it was the same for you, but I just couldn't capture what love
and peace I felt. It was wonderful. Really...sacred. Hearing the Lord's servants
speak is among my favorite things in the world. What a wonderful manifestation
of the love of our Heavenly Father.
Now it's application time. Let's partner with Him and move forward.
I love you all,
Elder Montgomery
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| - In the Toulouse Train Station (To shawn buck) |
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| - Elder Moeller on the way home! |
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| - Elder Bollard and I with Fr. Lafargue, one of our favorite members and Elder Yang a recently dead missionary. |
