Transfer 14, Week 3 ..... February 23, 2015

Dear Family,

Things keep rolling along. Its surprising how time just doesn't stop.

This week we continued to see lots of fruits of our work, all really exciting stuff.

The biggest news is that we had 3 amis commit to a baptismal date this week!

Yao and Matthew both agreed to the 21st of March, and Jia agreed to the 28th. Very neat! Sunday we had 4 amis come to church. Yao, Decahou, and this super funny couple that we had met last week named Guy and Monica. What a story.

We met Guy and Monica last week at a tram stop. After we said Bonjour as they walked by Guy turned around and exclaimed, Vous etes des Mormons! You are the Mormons! Haha. He is a really funny french man (ex-banker) and Monica(lawyer) is an awesome brazilian lady. They got married about a year ago, and are both in their late 50's. They invited us over for Friday. Guy LOVES speaking english, so we spoke half really slow english, half french. We were a bit scared that it would simply turn into a friend zone relationship, but Monica expressed some really sincere interest in our message, so we explained the Restoration simply and went through the Book of Mormon. They told us they would read together and come to church to see how it goes. Sunday they showed up with about 45 minutes left of Sacrament meeting., but we'll take it. And the members did a great job of loving them. They invited us over to eat lunch with them. We got to talk about our families and the Plan of Happiness God has created for our families to be together forever. Guy, who is the more skeptical one and isn't sure what he believes, got emotional as he talked about his family situation. At the end, Guy decided that instead of watching a movie that night, he was going to read in the Book of Mormon. It was neat. The rdv still took a long time, and we'll have to play our cards right to make sure our meetings are purposeful and effective. Its obvious from what we learned that the Gospel can really help them. Elder Tomlinson's closing prayer left tears in Guy's eyes.

Both Decahou and Yao are on route for baptism. Decahou just wants to wait for later on. Yao is doing super well and has now come to church two weeks in a row and is coming to FHE tonight, adn bringing sushi.

Yao had us over this week for the Chinese New Year with the Sisters, and fed us this really spicy chinese shrimp. Really yummy but hyper spicy.

Wednesday we had an awesome zone conference in Lyon. Talked all about the power of the Spirit of Elijah and the family. We got to watch Meet the Mormons, which was a real treat, and at the end got to hear Elder Taylor's dying testimony, who is one of my really good mission buddies (also trained by Elder Uluave). It was really sad.

Thursday I went on exchange with Elder Arts, our dutch zone leader who started his mission here. That was fun, then thursday night went back to Lyon to pick back up El T. I hit 10 hours in train this week!

I have been impressed lately in my studies about the cleansing power of the Gospel. Preach my Gospel teaches us that that is the whole purpose of the Gospel, to cleanse us of our sins through Jesus Christ in preparation to live with Heavenly Father after this life. But I've pondered a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ can cleanse us of our deepest regrets and our darkest shames. Its wonderful that as we begin to live a life of humility and patience and obedience, our personal power increases.

And our past errors are erased by that power of the Atonement. Its incredible!

I love you so much!

Bonne Semaine!

Elder Montgomery