I emailed you not too long ago, but we had a very fun few days nonetheless. Thursday we were in Lausanne. Friday morning we drove up to Yverdon and had zone conference there and then drove back to Lyon that evening. Saturday we drove to Valence, a city about an hour outside of Lyon, to do an exchange with the Elders there. Yesterday we attended church in Lyon and had a fun surprise visit from the Beyer family, and today we have spent most of the day at President's house working on creating next transfer.
Some interesting notes:
In this role as assistant, I speak much less french, and have found my french struggling significantly. I'll have to readjust things to change that.
In this role as assistant, I speak much less french, and have found my french struggling significantly. I'll have to readjust things to change that.
Creating transfers is fun, and its cool to spend time with President. His
plan right now for the seven assistants is for all of us to choose a sector in
the mission where we feel we could have the greatest impact and go be a district
leader there. We aren't sure who will be staying on as the assistant. We've been
working on choosing a new guy who is young enough to carry on when the new
mission president gets here in July. I chose Montpellier. Of course it is not
final, just a scenario. The idea is appealing to me. We did a lot of the first
round moving around today and will be finalizing moves tomorrow I
believe.
We'll be here until Thursday or Friday then head back to Marseille. Next week we'll be going down to Corsica to do an exchange with the two equipes there.
Really funny coincidence occurred this week. At the end of our exchange in Valence, Elder Holding, the elder I was with, and I were waiting for our companions to meet up with us to end. While waiting we were talking with a young student member named Daniel. He is American and is here for a BYU study abroad. While talking we discussed missions and of course I inquired where he had served his. He told me Southern Cali...I asked which mission...He said San Bernandinho....I told him my brother served there. He looked at my tag again and said yeahhhh! He was my grandfather in the mission. Apparently He was trained by Elder Lawrence (?) who Nate trained. His name is Daniel Manjures, I don't you think you know him, it was just a funny happening.
Thought a lot this week about commitment level and lifelong commitment and longer. Elder Pearson's talk from GenConf was striking. There was an interesting testimony born on Sunday that included this scripture and the speaker gave extra light:
Ether 6
8 And
it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land
while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth
before the wind.
9 And
they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea, the brother of Jared did sing praises
unto the Lord, and he didthank and praise the Lord all the day long; and when
the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord.
10 And
thus they were driven forth; and no monster of the sea could break them,
neither whale that could mar them; and they did have light continually, whether
it was above the water or under the water.
12 And
they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their
feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the
face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears
of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over
them.
Lots of times, I've found myself amidst whatever trials, and have felt kind
of like I'm going at it alone and not getting anywhere. This is a awesome
example of how as long as we are showing our faith and recognizing the Lord's
hand and staying humble the Lord will keep pushing us the right way and now
monster or storm shall beat us and the light of the Gospel will continue with
us. What has been one of the great scriptural discoveries of my mission that I
will use in future talks is the symbolism of the promised land in the BOM with
the kingdom of God and usually the wilderness or in this case the great deep is
life in mortality. And the BOM was designed to give us a clearer purpose of our
life and the reality of the Savior and His Gospel. And it does so with power. I
love it.
I now kind of feel like I'm prepping up for the final two transfers here. I'm excited to set my battle plan and go for it. Leave it all on the field.
Love you all!
Elder Montgomery
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| At President's house today |
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| Going out for dinner in Lausanne |
