Bold As A Lyon - Prov 28:1

Transfer 11 Feeling Old .... September 29, 2014

Dear Family,

What a week. It was incredibly hectic. But incredibly productive. We got to see a lot of members and we've seen a ton of progress in the work. It was sad to see Elder Moeller go. We dropped him off at the train station last night and I spent the night with Elder Yeung. Elder Moeller was one the Elders I respected the most that I've ever met.

Now onto the new adventure! With Elder Moeller dead now I recognize the fact: I'm old now. One of the oldest missionaries in our zone. This transfer I will be serving with Elder Bollard and it will be his first transfer as a zone leader. He is two transfers younger than me and his from California. I know him from when he was in Pau and I was in Bordeaux. He is the man. This will be a really fun and exciting transfer. We received a new companionship in the zone, which means we now have 23 missionaries and a senior couple in our zone. I've spent my entire day at the train station helping missionaries catch their trains. Tomorrow will be the day that we do most of our planning, and then hit the ground running for the next 6 weeks.

This transfer we'll be focusing a lot on organization, planning, and punctuality. This past transfer we worked super hard, but were all over the place. We have a ton of great progressing amis. Several of which have expressed their desire already to be baptized. These people are named Kevin, Margot, Zahira, Oy, Ruben, Redoine and Marie and then we have a ton of others that we're working with. Lots of exciting progress! Very grateful and happy with the potential we have right now. Nervous and stressed to keep everything moving slowly.

How excited are you for General conference???!!

I love you all so very much! Make it a great week!

Your Heavenly Father and Savior love you!

Elder Montgomery

Transfer 10, Week 4 .... September 15, 2014

Dear Famille,

What an exciting week! Learned a lot this week. And we saw a lot of awesome progress. We decided to drop a lot of the people with whom we were working. They weren't progressing which was sad, but also their choice. But with this transition we've seen the emergence of some new really great people who are more interested and genuine in their desire. Let me give you some specifics on the week.

We went to Bordeaux early Tuesday morning and returned Tuesday evening. It was fun to be back in Bordeaux and see a lot of good friends. There were 4 zones of missionaries there for the combined zone conference. It was probably best however for the revelation I received. We watched the video recording of the Elder Ballard conference in Geneva. It was so incredible and inspiring mostly because of the simplicity Elder Ballard used in teaching us and his desire to really help the work move forward, it was tangible! We didn't get to watch this part but he had a question and answer session with the missionaries about what they felt like were the problems with missionary work in Switzerland. Everything he taught came from PMG, and he taught it with the intention of us applying it, which was nice. He taught a lot about teaching for understanding through questions, really understanding and becoming the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the importance of each soul to our Heavenly Father. It was great. I really pulled from it that I need to improve my personal studies and be improving my teaching skills as well. It was great because it answered a lot of the questions I had going into it. It was refreshing.

We dropped Anthony, and Zahira, neither of which were really serious about progressing in the gospel. But this week we taught for the second and third time a young woman named Ludmilla, she is from Guadeloupe and is studying geography. Really great. After our third rdv she set the goal to read the first 150 pages of the BOM in the next two weeks to be able to understand our message better!

How wonderful!

Oy is young father from Nigeria that speaks English that we met on the road a couple weeks ago. He came to church on Sunday and is excited to read the Book of Mormon and come closer to Christ.

Marlgozata is a polish lady that is a neighbor of a member family. She recently got back from vacation. She had been taught once a few months ago before she left on vaca. We taught her twice and she came to church. And she is progressing slowly but progressing.

In other news we did an exchange with the Albi elders. Albi is a small city North of Toulouse. They are a trio of elders there. So Wednesday I was Elder Sneddon from Germany and Elder Mataalii from Diamondbar CA. It was fun and different to be with two missionaries. We talked to a lot of people and visited a couple of old investigators and fixed times to see new potential interested people. It went quite well and was fun to see a new city.

Elder Moeller and I are pushing on. We are doing super well together, but are striving to be more exact. We're trying to manage a shifting teaching pool with member work, less actifs, and zone responsibilities. He is working really hard and is determined to finish his last two weeks very honorably.

We are excited for the coming week. I love being a missionary. I love sharing this good news with everyone! Everyone needs it! And it is so simple and sweet to share.

I love you all,

Elder Montgomery

all my living comps were in Bordeaux!

This is MaryJane. An awesome young mother, that was baptized on Saturday. I taught her on exchange with some of the other Toulouse Elders. She is great!

Transfer 10, Week 3 .... September 8, 2014

Dear family,

How is everyone? I don't have a lot tell you. I just asked Elder Moeller what we did this week and he responded "work."

Lots of new challenges, old challenges continue.

We had 5 people with a baptismal date, but we dropped two of them this week because they weren't showing any desire to move forward. I'll give you a little break down of our other three.

Juliana- an awesome middle aged Brazilian woman, who lived in DC for 15 years and has been living in France for 10 years now. She has a young boy. she is unhappy living with her boyfriend. She wants to change and feels like there is more to life than what she has. We're focusing on helping her read the BOM and pray regularly, and find the strength to change her life. (that is after all the power of the Gospel. The Lord grants us the power to change our circumstances)

Sara- an awesome middle aged Italian woman who is fiancée to a less actif return missionary in the ward. She already has a firm testimony of everything. We saw her and micheal yesterday. She is wonderful and has a such a pure desire to be baptized and come closer to her Heavenly Father. But they are living together and wont be getting married until December. She is ready to be baptized except for that; so we are working to find a solution with the ward to enable her to be baptized and protect her covenant until the marriage.

Zahira- a great young student, our age, from Algeria. She has testimony already of the gospel and the book of Mormon, but is too busy to see us. School and work consume her time. She has a sincere desire to be baptized, we just need to find a way to see her more and for her to come to church regularly.

Besides these three we are working with lots of others to help them grow in their relationship with Heavenly Father and the Savior.

We had one moment in particular this week that stuck out to me. Saturday evening, We had been invited to eat at an amis home, a couple who really liked us and had seen us 2 times before. They are an odd couple, Gilbert is from Toulouse, Emma his wife is Bulgarian, they areintersting, both over 50 yrs old. Their home was rather messy. But we had a great evening eating dinner with them and their 2yr old daughter(?) and phillipe their friend who came for the last 30 minutes. They are really sweet and full of love and just wanted to get to know us. Towards the end of the evening as we finished dessert, so gospel questions came up...death, the Savior, who is God. We got scratch the surface a little bit and there was a good spirit there as we taught very simply. They accepted our invitation to hear our message in full another time. I said the closing prayer. Just after the prayer it was silent in the room and Gilbert said," you know, its moments like these, when you are with friends and you have a wonderful night together, that time stops and it seems like our problems and worries are gone, and you know that there is something there above watching over us." It was really sweet and the Spirit was really strong.... We left and as we turned the street corner they called us and asked us about the book we wanted to give them! haha we ran back and gave them a Book of Mormon for our next visit and they were more than happy to accept it. It was special. I felt really blessed and loved.

Our work continues and we are doing our best to follow the Spirit. Another week!

I love you all!

Elder Montgomery

Transfer 10, Week 2 ..... September 1, 2014

Dear Family,

Once again this week we are just living on a different energy level. Its really quite something.

We had mission leadership council this tuesday in Lyon. It was probably my favorite one so far. What we learned and discussed was just directly in line with what I had been praying for and pondering the whole week before. I felt really inspired and we fixed some really great goals. We discussed how the mission needs to have fresh faith. Keep doing what we already have been doing but with new energy and new faith. And the results have been incredible.

Thursday we gave our zone training. We really struggled planning for it, but it turned out really well and both Elder Moeller and I felt like we made a lot of progress as a zone in the two hours we spent together. As a zone of 22 missionaries we discussed ridding ourselves of doubt, bolstering our desire, deciding on who we are and what we want to do and translating all of that theory into action through our plans and goals. A major focus of the training was on the new standards of excellence that President released about 3 weeks ago. The most eye opening standard is now to teach 20 lessons a week. THat is huge in our mission. Really quite rare in even the "best" areas. But very possible with better planning and diligence. Elder Moeller and I have a goal to crush that standard. We want to double in week 5.

If there is a time in which we can accomplish that feat it would be now with the teaching pool that we have. Yesterday we did our weekly planning. We planned for 17 amis for this week. Along with 10ish members we need to follow up with on their friends they know and other projects we have going on. This is rather unheard of in our mission. We feel very overwhelmed. Never in my mission or Elder Moellers have we had so many people to teach and to worry about. I have been pondering a lot about organization. We feel like there just aren't enough days in the week. We'll be relying on the Lord a lot these next couple weeks. So today and throughout this week we'll be evaluating and adjusting our organization and efficiency techniques to see how we can adapt. (If you have any tips please feel free to send them).

Its been nice because we've seen this explosion of work in our zone as well. Our numbers have improved dramatically in the past 5 months. Which is exciting.

With our zone we have been doing a Nothing Toulouse zone challenge, where we have assigned points to the standards of excellence and altogether as a zone we are working towards a grand total. Our goal was to unify the zone and help us all work on a higher level. Its seems to be working. I've really gained a testimony of brief daily contact with others and what a huge effect that can have. This is a principle taught in Preach My Gospel, that when applied works miracles.

We did two exchanges this week. One with one of our district leaders, Elder Olsen. It was quite fun and rewarding. And we had one with the assistants on Saturday. I was with Elder Elvidge. He is english, and he and I have been friends since I arrived in Gex early this year. We had a great exchange as well and it was fun to be in the presence of a really great missionary. The real counsel I got from him was to keep learning from Elder Moeller. Who is one of the most experienced and highly skilled missionaries in the mission. And he's right. I need to keep pushing myself in all areas including my french and teaching skills.

This morning I was studying in 2 Nephi 25 about the Savior and Nephi's experience with the Savior.

One thing that really struck me (as it as many times) the centrality of the Savior in our lives. There are no other "messiahs", or in other words, there is no other way to find relief, peace, deliverance from the problems in our lives, except through the Lord and His infinite Atonement. And surely He carries my burdens and my griefs day to day. I've really worked on in the past couple months to just trust him and choose to be happy and choose to have peace. Its often in our most stressful and difficult moments that we get to choose to be like Him. That is when we choose to forge a real Christlike character.

I love you all so very much! Make it a great week!

Elder Montgomery

Nothing Toulouse! .... August 25, 2014

Dear Family,

This week as just been incredible. Lots of differences between here and Lormont. I'll briefly give you a rundown.

In Toulouse there are 2 wards- Capitole and Concorde. We are in the Capitole ward along with 4 other missionaries (including a Chinese companionship and a team of sisters). And there are 6 missionaries in the Concorde ward. (This means half of our zone is in our city)

The Capitole sector is much better than the Concorde sector. It includes almost all of downtown Toulouse, the Young Adult center and the chapel.

This is where the Toulouse France mission was once based.

There is a lot going on as far as missionary work here. We have 5 people currently committed to baptism (4 of which were already committed before I arrived). We taught tons of lessons this week. We had ward council, the ward leadership is great. We operate on an incredible energy level here. We BIKE here. We use the public bike system. Which makes things really fun and I feel like a retro missionary. haha we also use the metro system a lot. And thats probably where we talk to the most people.

My comp Elder Moeller is fantastic. He and I get along really well. He has incredible missionary skills, and is super efficient and organized. He being such a great missionary causes me to rise to a new level. This challenge makes missionary work fun. We talk and say hi and smile at everyone. And we have already seen so many miracles in just 1 week. Maybe the thing I admire most about him is this is his last transfer in the mission. But he his push harder and has more desire to do good and become better and find people to teach than any dying missionary I've ever met.

The ward is great. We went and visited the Stake President, Fr. Depuydt, thursday and he invited us to play tennis with him. He smoked us. But the visit was great. More members I get the chance to meet and understand and love. The first step is learning all their names....which can be tough...

Our apartment is big, used to house 4 Elders. We live in a good area, better than Lormont. Toulouse is beautiful, but downtown is rather sketchy and busy as is the case with all big cities.

Our goal is to make this transfer the best transfer of both of our missions. To do more and find more success. We committed our 5th person to baptism this week. His name is Henrique. He is a tall, dark, Portugeuse man. Was taught by the missionaries 10 months ago and then lost contact, but we got him back and he came to church on sunday! Very exciting.

Although I walked into this sector and there was already tons of success going on, I'm excited to see what difference I'll be able to make with the help of the Lord.

Although this week was full of stress and anxiety (and some fear) I felt the Holy Ghost pushing me on and helping me fulfill my tasks as I strived to play catch up in city I didnt know (which was tough on the exchange we did this week). I knew I was on the Lord's errand, as everything turned out alright.

I know why I'm here. And I'm so grateful to be here. Because of Him

Here's to the best 10 months of my mission.

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgmery

-My desk

-This was a nasty day but a cool view of the pink city

-My sweet ride!

Transfersss! Transfer 10! .... Toulouse! August 18, 2014

Dear Family

Despite popular belief and the previous polls taken, I have been transferred to Toulouse, leaving Elder Castillo in Lormont for his 5th transfer! Very exciting!! I'm currently in Toulouse already with some other elders. I'm here as a zone leader with Elder Moeller, my good buddy from St. George, UT. He was my district leader while I was in Perigueux and I really respect him and we became really tight then and have been good friends since. He's got a big reputation in the mission for being an incredible worker. There are two wards here and I will be serving in the Capitole ward. I'm really excited to be here!!!!

How very sad I was to leave Lormont. It was tough. Recounting the week will be difficult, it feels so long ago. Here are some highlights:

We spent tuesday with the Darguence family, eating lunch and sharing spiritual experiences. Fr. Darguence is the member I told you all about when I first got to Lormont, he was a bounty hunter and body guard for Charles de Gaulle. He worked for the Paris and Bordeaux police, and has tons of incredibly crazy stories, spiritual and not. He recently had his second surgery in 3 months and is now in great condition and he and his wife are preparing to go on a couples mission. I had cut my hair monday, and so it was rather short and he asked about it, then decided he liked it and asked me to cut his hair...so I cut his hair (I have a picture). He was really proud of it and showing it off at church...haha

Wednesday and Thursday we spent in Bayonne, first I was on exchange with Elder Grant, then Thursday we attended their district meeting. Elder Grant is a good missionary, one transfer younger than me in the mission, he and I actually went on an exchange when I was Nice, so it was fun to work with him again and find ways we could both improve in our service. He has come a long way from where he was, but still has plenty of work to do. Bayonne is so pretty, and although I may never serve there, its probably the prettiest city I've been to yet and I will definitely want to return to visit.

Saturday, we helped the other elders move apartments- president is trying to split up all the 4 man apts. We also passed by the Senior Fourtina's and told them goodbye. It was really sad. I'm not a dramatic person usually and its rather rare that I show a lot of emotion. Throughout my mission I've mentioned people that I had felt like I had already been friends with before even coming here, and Papi Fourtina is one of those people. He is just the man. It was tough to say goodbye.

And Sunday was crazy as all last days are crazy in any given area. Bishop Darius called me saturday night and asked me to give a talk in church, which was a perfect way to express my love and appreciation to the ward. So I gave my talk on the importance of the Book of Mormon, how vital it is to what we believe and then after the next speaker had spoken, us 4 Elders and Mam, our Malegesh ward missionary leader, sang Sweet is the Work as the intermediate hymn. It was sweet and the Spirit was strong. We then spent the afternoon with Sr. David our sweet old grandma, and then after we spent the evening with the L'hospitals, one of our favorite families. I have pictures of all these people. Dont worry. Needless to say it was fun, and I felt a lot of love. It was hard saying goodbye to the area and the people.

But now I am very excited at the prospect of serving here in Toulouse. Its a part of the mission that is unexplored for me. And I think being here will help me push myself in new ways. Work harder, be more consecrated, and change more lives. Not that the we should need a change of scenery to change who we are, but I think being here will catalyze greater change through new opportunities. Time to really dig in and push myself to new heights.

My testimony of the Atonement has grown drastically on my mission, but especially after my service in Lormont. I'm beginning to understand what it means to leave my mistakes, regrets, and weaknesses to the Lord. I'm beginning. Its something I'll keep exploring. But I know and feel already the peace and happiness that is brought by trusting the Lord and doing what He asks. That through Him we are made strong.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Montgomery

Toulouse address:

Les Missionnaires

6, rue de Briançon No. 554

31100 Toulouse, France

Cutting Fr. Darguence's hair

The train station in Bayonne

Sr. David

With L'hospitals

Big map of southern france in the Bordeaux train station

Week 5 .... August 11, 2014 (Happy Birthday, Will!!)

Dear Family,

What a great week its been!!

We've had a lot of fun this week and seen some really great miracles, which continue to confirm to us how much the Lord loves us, and how much He is willing and able to bless us when we obey with a willing heart.

Lots of stuff happened this week.

On Tuesday, we went back to Perigueux to pick up my year long legality card, visiters visa? (I dont know what we call it) and we had the chance to eat lunch with Sr. Mass and Fr. Oziak, two of the staple members in Perigueux, who were quite happy to see me and we all had a great time. They are just hilarious. Fr. Oziak is from Texas but has lived a little all over and has the funniest french. I was happy that Elder Castillo got a chance to meet them. We then took 4 hours of trains down to Pau.

Wednesday I spent the day with Elder Spencer, a blue missionary from Oregon. In our short exchange we had a few powerful experiences. Of the 5 people we were able to talk to on the street, one was an interested student from Cameroon, who gave us his number. We then went on to meet a less active member in Pau who is from the Congo, but has lived in France for 10 years. He doesnt come to church anymore because of the divorce he had with his wife. The story was all pretty sad. And he seemed really sad. We shared a powerful scriptural thought with him and by the end he was in tears, telling us how much he knew he needed to come back, he just needed to find the strength. I was grateful for the opportunity to meet him and hear his story and help him with my limited abilities. This is one of the most interesting parts of the mission experience, the fact that everyday we get thrown into the pasts of random people who open up to us their stories. It has certainly humbled me, made me more grateful for my life, and has been a testimony to me of the power of the Gospel to heal and repair.

Another great miracle we had from Wednesday was on our train ride home. Trains are always weird and confusing. When we got to the train station in Pau, we learned that for whatever reason they had moved all the train times up by 30 minutes, so ours had already left, so they gave us tix for the next one. This meant that there were a bunch of random people on this train and not neccessarily enough seats. Elder Castillo and I ended up sitting in the middle corridor in between cars, on jumpseats. About an hour into the ride, a controller came by and normally with a crazy train like this they dont check tix, but this controller decided to check ours, and so we were both thinking he was just going to give us a hard time. He asked about "John Smith" in broken english and then we asked where he learned to speak english, and he confessed he was member of the church in Tarbes! Haha his name was Moses, haha he had just been baptized two years ago or so, and after chatting for a little bit, he told us to go up to First class. It was too great. We sat first class for the last hour and half home.

Friday was crazy. We started the morning at the Schatt's home, teaching Mylorine (12) and Timothe (10) english. We've done this several times now and have really started to develop a great relationship with this family. We ate lunch and shared a spiritual message. The white handbook tells us that our first responsability with members is to build their faith in Christ. I really want to see these kids go on missions, enjoy the blessings of the Gospel. Thats how it is with everyone we meet, but especially with the youth in the ward and on the streets, I want them to know so badly how to be happy. From there, we went directly to teach Isabelles mom for the first time in a while. We had a good lesson with her, taught her about prophets, but she just isn't quite willing (or able- just hit 93) to act on what we're saying. We'll keep on with it. We left from there and in the evening all 4 us elders ate dinner with the Blanchon's. A funny couple on the verge of being old but are still really cool. We had Fondue Bordelaise which i took pictures of, really good.

Saturday was great. We spent a large part of it with the Moulins. Fr. Moulins non member mom, dad, and aunt were there along with Sr. Moulin's mom and aunts. It was Fr. Moulin's birthday thursday, then they invited us over after they heard it was my birthday saturday. It was a blast. Fr Moulin's parents were just eating us up, they were so intrigued by us being from the US. Fr and Sr Moulin are great. They are a younger couple, no kids, both speak english, really active. Want to do missionary work really badly. They gave me a really nice frying pan for my birthday, and we just had a great time together. :)

Then Saturday evening as we ported to finish out the night we walked for a while out to a neighborhood we didnt really know existed. We had picked out the area but not really the exact neighborhood we wanted to go to. It turned into a "We went forward not knowing before hand what we would do" situation. We knocked about 15 doors before hitting Pierre, a hesitant Catholic who is more than excited to come to church and hear what we have to say, so we'll be going over to see him this week. A really wonderful miracle to end the day on. I felt really loved and really blessed Saturday evening.

Elder Mcbeth and Elder Miner bought me a slice of chocolate cake from the bakery and did candles and everything, it was really good.

And then of course yesterday we finished out the week. There has been a lot of anticipation with transfers being this week. Neither Elder Castillo nor I want to leave this area. Its hard to describe the love that is felt and how much you want the best for these people, especially as you get to know their lives and challenges a little bit. I love these people so much. It'll be tough to leave.

I love you so very much, thank you for all the birthday love!

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgomery