Transfer 15, Week 4 .... April 13, 2015

Dear Family,

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.

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.

 11 And thus they were driven forth, three hundred and forty and four days upon 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

At President's house today

 

Going out for dinner in Lausanne

Transfer 15, Week 3 .... April 9, 2015

Dear Family,

I am emailing from the chapel in Lausanne, Switzerland. Our adventures continue. I realize now that it has been a week and a half since I last updated you.

Lots has happened!

We started off last monday in Marseille and would go on to do exchanges with the Elders in Avignon, Manosque, and Vitrolles. Then Friday we had our zone conference in Nice. It was such a huge blessing for me to go back to Nice. I got to see the old chapel and some of my favorite friends from the ward there. It was really fun and was interesting to see these people that I knew from over a year and a half ago who still knew me and were excited to see me. I was really grateful.

We continued on Saturday to do another Zone Conference in Aix en Provence. At these zone conferences, usually President will present, then Sr Roney, then Sr Povar (the mission nurse), then we'll have lunch and after lunch we'll present to the zones. We taught about trust in our calling as missionaries and the impact of the Atonement in our missionary work. Right after conference on Saturday we left Aix for Lyon and we arrived at the Ecully Chapel in Lyon at 6 just in time for the Saturday morning session of General conference. General conference was wonderful as always, Elder Hollands talk at the end was classic. We just recently got the chance to watch the last session and I think that was my favorite.

Monday and Tuesday we did two more zone conferences with the zones in Lyon. The Monday one was probably the best one. There was a great spirit there. We had missionaries share some great experiences with the Atonement and it was clear that the message of the gospel is really "good tidings of great joy" worth sharing with everyone possible.

Monday as well I got to see Elder Tomlinson, who is doing well in Clermont. Such a funny guy.

We were planning on staying in Lyon to do exchanges with the missionaries there, but got asked to come along and assist in the Switzerland zone conferences- there are three Swiss zones. So Wednesday we were in Geneva, and today we are in Lausanne. This is the chapel I came to for zone conferences when I was in Gex. Tonight we'll be driving up to Yverdon for the last zone conference.

Yesterday in Geneva we ran into a member I knew from Gex, and she recognized right off the bat which was surprising to me. It was awesome to see her; but cooler to know that I had a good influence in people's lives and that they remembered that.

Its been fun to go around the mission and see so many mission friends and see different parts of the country. But Its really great to have the chance to share the testimony the Lord has given me and to have these awesome real spiritual experiences many days in a row.

During these adventures I got to have interesting conversations with the Lyon stake president (whom I ate lunch next to) and the Geneva stake President whom we talked to after the conference. I LOVE these opportunities and its always awesome to hear the perspectives of these people who have sacrificed a lot and to hear how inspired they are.

This transfer is flying by as expected. The excitement is mounting already for where I'll end up next transfer. We'll be doing transfers next week which I'm really excited for.

I love feeling the Holy Ghost. And its great to recognize the fact that Heavenly Father is speaking to me. That has happened a lot recently and it makes me really grateful to know that its real. That this is all real and its worth it.

I'm excited to hear your take on conference. What a blessing to have the Gospel!

I love you!

Elder Montgomery

E huntsman and I at mcdo

Almost two years later: shout out to Kalin uluave back at the nice chapel

Here is the chapel in Aix en provence

The marseille crew

El T and i after Zone conference

Transfer 15, Week 2 .... March 30, 2015

Dear Family,

What a crazy week. This is probably the funnest assignment I've had on my mission.

This week we were in Lyon doing exchanges with 2 equipes until Thursday and then travelled to St. Etienne and Gap on our way back to Marseille doing exchanges with the elders there. The hardest part of this week has probably been parking the car. We lose a lot of time looking for parking. Grrrr.

My companions are great though, Elder Huntsman is like a seasoned veteran in only his 5th transfer, and Elder Palmer is so humble, it makes the whole experience so much more full.

Tuesday we had Mission Leadership conference in which President had us do a pretend gameshow to do roleplays. For the first time ever We had all of the district leaders in the mission there along with the Sister Training leaders and Zone Leaders (Total of 78 people). I was nominated by my companions to be the "gameshow host". So I ran this gameshow, throwing back to my announcer days at DCHS, narrating the roleplays of different missionary situations.

It was really fun.

Thursday was great, we went to a district meeting in Lyon, and afterwards did an exchange with the Zone leaders of lyon. Elder Huntsman and I had Elder Barnes, who is a new zone leader this transfer. We did a long voyage with him to go teach an old ami who lived an hour away in Oyonnax, a tiny industrial city. This is ami whose name is Diana, was taught all the way up to baptism in another city and then left unexpectedly. She is an awesome woman from Honduras who recently had her first child. Our rdv was the first one she had had in 6 weeks. She was so happy to see us. She wants to be baptized very badly and the only thing holding her back is that she lives an hour away from the closest ward. So they'll have to figure that out.

On our way back to Lyon from that rdv we stopped to see a less active member who the elders had met in the train station almost a year ago. Her name is Kelly. She is Tahitian (They are just generally happy and fun people and super sensitive to the Spirit), her whole family are members, but she kind of dropped off the radar after moving to france with her boyfriend. She as well was so so happy to see us and kept telling us. We got to know her then her french boyfriend got home, we quickly became friends with him. We shared a message about obedience to the commandments and how much God loves us. It was awesome. The Spirit was so strong. Kelly sat there testifying to us about how she knows the Gospel is true and that it feels so good to have a BOM back in her hands. She told us that she knows Christ lives and that He loves her. All in front of Vincent her boyfriend who sat there a bit stunned by the environment. By the time we finished there was such a sweet feeling in the room, it seemed to filling each of us. We finished by saying,"this feeling that you are feeling right now is the Spirit of God testifying to us that these things are true". Vincent shuffled uncomfortably. Haha after we said the prayer we asked if the next time we come if we could teach him about what we believe and he excitedly accepted. It was so neat. We left on cloud 9.

Saturday on our way back to Marseille we stopped in Gap to do an exchange. Gap is a valley city in the French Alps on the east side of the country. Among the most beautiful places I've ever seen (I took Pictures), the drive went all the way through the mountains. Incredible. I got a chance to go out with a blue missionary named Elder Romero from Wyoming. We taught a less active man together. Elder Romero is a great, a bit quarky but coming out of his shell nicely. He wasn't active growing up, but decided to come on a mission after his father suggested to him, and he read and prayed over the BOM. Really interesting. It was a fun and successful exchange. We got back to Marseille at 930 that night.

And finally we got to attend church in Marseille. It was a blast. The ward was so happy to have new missionaries. Not that we'll be there very much. But we were able to bear our testimony to the struggling ward. At one point marseille had two wards and was a mission HQ. BUt now is down to an average attendance of 85 people every sunday.

However Marseille is such a beautiful city. Wow. Almost feel like we're living in Hawaii here. Its awesome.

Its been such a blast to be a travelling equipe and to go around meeting so many different people and bearing our testimony to so many different people. Its like the disciples of old who travelled to different cities all the time. How neat! Its been such a huge blessing for me. This week we have 3 exchanges lined up in 3 days and then will spend Friday and Saturday doing Zone Conferences in Aix and Nice. Could not be more excited for General conference.

I love you so much! Please take advantage of ALLLLL of General conference! (Why wouldn't we? what could be more important?)

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgomery

The team in Marseille

The Bordeaux crew at Leadership conference

AFter District meeting in lyon at Master Tacos

Driving through the french alps

Transfer 15, Week 1 .... March 23, 2015

Dear Family,

Lots of fun this week. We've been everywhere and back again. We're currently in Lyon. We got in Saturday evening and we'll be here until tomorrow for the Leadership council we'll be taking part of.

What a week!!! How neat!

We got to Marseille late monday evening. Fun facts about Marseille- its the largest city in our mission, it only has 2 missionaries in it, it used to have its own mission there. Its rather dangerous. Haha as we arrived I had the feeling that I was going into a ghost town. Its also had a mystical air in my eyes. So it was fun to get there and to set up camp in our apt, and tuesday we spent the day with the Marseille elders and having them kind of show us around and give us a break down of the area. We attempted to go to Chateau d'if, but we missed the ferry. Another day.

We spent the rest of the week on the road. Each evening returning home to sleep in Marseille and have regular study schedule the next morning before taking off again. We did an exchange with the zone leaders in Nice and in Aix-en-Provence, and also spent a day with the elders in Antibes. Really fun. It was neat to go back to Nice and see some old members I had known when I was there. I remembered the streets rather well for not having been there in a year and a half.

I spent my exchanges with Elder Andrew in Nice, Elder Nye in Aix, and Elder Martin in Antibes. Great guys. ITs fun having the chance to inspire and hopefully teach others.

One of the great blessings of the week was Saturday. Seeing that we needed to be in Lyon by Saturday night, we decided that we would go spend a few hours with the Elders in Clermont. We also got to attend Yao's baptism. It was such a huge blessing. It was really great closure for my chapter in Clermont. I got to see a lot of my members again and say a proper goodbye, and it was really special to see Yao be baptized by Elder Tomlinson. It was a really proud moment for me to see ElT step up to the plate like that.

Yesterday we attended the Ecully ward with President and his family. We also had our planning meeting for the zone conferences and the mission leadership council this week. It was neat.

My comps are awesome. Both elder palmer and elder huntsman(who is always rocking the sweater vests) are super humble, hardworkers, and really here for the right reasons. Its been so much fun to be with them and to learn from them. We've been having a blast together.

We haven't really been serving as conventional assistants. Our task is really to help train other missionaries, and the current set up is nice for us because we don't have to worry about a lot the little errands and other things the guys in Lyon have to, we just get to go out with missionaries.

I love it. I love serving the Savior. I love helping others feel His love. I love having His Gospel in my life. Its funny how truth feels so real and pure. Its a special thing which I will cherish forever.

I love you!

Elder Montgomery

Elder Martin and I on the coast of Antibes

On the road to Nice

Nice!

After Yao's baptism

Fr. Obrecht and Fr. Villierme -two of my favorite people from Clermont

After Yao's baptism

Transfer 14, week 6 A big change... March 16, 2015

Dear Family,

What a week! On Wednesday, we got a call around 1pm from President, not expecting our transfer calls until Friday. He's asked me to be the next assistant! We packed up all my stuff and were in Lyon by Wednesday night, and I only got to say goodbye to a few people in Clermont.

So the mission is in an interesting situation at the moment. We've been doing a huge push on finding with family history, and this theme has been called Project Elijah. To really push this new project President called 6 assistants for a short time with one companionship in each of the old mission headquarters (when there used to be 3 missions here). So in my call with President he told me it was expected that I'd have this assignment for only one transfer after which I'd be a district leader. In our meeting at President's house on Thursday I got assigned with Elder Palmer (easily the best missionary in the mission and one who came into the mission with me) to go to serve over what was the old Marseille mission!

 

So we'll be living in Marseille and will be serving 4 zones of about 22 missionaries each. Including Nice, Aix, and the two Lyon zones.

 

Because neither Elder Palmer nor myself are legal to drive in France, we have a third man with us in our equipe, Elder Huntsman, he's in his 5th transfer. He'll be with us to work with us and drive and do exchanges with other missionaries. Really fun!

 

The other assistants are Elder Castillo and Dupre, and Elder Higham and Davis. I took Elder Taylor's spot.

 

It was great to see Elder Castillo again. Man its so much fun to be with him. He sends his love to you guys and is quite excited to meet you. I've got him going on all our humor.

Aside from that I am sad to have left Clermont so quickly without even being able to say goodbye to the members on Sunday (I attended one of the Lyon wards for church on Sunday). Yao's baptism is fixed for this Saturday. I'm trying to find a way for us to be working in the area at the time to go to see it. What a bummer to have left so early, especially right before his baptism!

 

I really count myself lucky and blessed to have served in Clermont. I think I really did my best missionary work there and although I didn't accomplish all the goals I had set, I think I made a difference. I began to reach my potential there, it was a huge blessing and in retrospect an answer to many prayers. The work is really accelerating there and we were seeing miracles daily!

 

I was also sad to leave Elder Tomlinson. I never thought that this week would turn out like it did. He is a great man, and I'm excited to see what he does in the future. The elder coming into to replace me was an assistant about 4 transfers ago, and so I know he'll take good care of ElT and Clermont.

We are in Lyon right now and will take off for Marseille today after we finish our emails. An exciting new life of travelling and exchanges awaits. We'll seeing and serving lots of different people which will be lots of fun. What a challenge and a blessing it will be for this next transfer!

New Address:

La mission francaise de Lyon

Lyon Business Centre

59 rue de L'Abondance

Lyon France 69000

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgomery

 

Goodbye to Yao

David came to see me off at the gare!

Final Goodbye to ElT

At a members home in Lyon for dinner

The new team-E. Palmer, me, E. Huntsman

 

Gotta get those apples

Transfer 14, Week 5 .... March 9, 2015

Dear Family,

Another week on the horse. Nothing super crazy happened this week until yesterday.

The teaching pool continues to cycle around. We taught 3 new potential amis this week, and didn't get to see 3 of our current amis. But we had some cool experiences.

Tuesday we got to teach the lifelong best friend of one of our good member buddies whose name is Franck. He is from Ivory Coast. He invited us to teach a lesson about the family with one of his buddies named Jean marc. He is a really cool guy, and really solid catholic with an awesome family. At the conclusion of our little lesson about the family, he asked us about the foundation of the church, so we had the chance to teach a 15 minute lesson about the Restoration (The Restoration of the truth is still happening and we can play an active part in it!), and gave him a book of Mormon and challenged him to read and pray about it. The Spirit was really strong and I think he felt that there was something different in what we were saying. He accepted it with slight hesitation. We followed up on Franck and apparently Jean Marc was super interested but we have yet to fix a return rdv with him. 

We taught another new ami who is also a student here, but he is from Chad! Not everyday you meet someone from Chad. His name is Marcelin and he is super chill and really smart. We taught him the Restoration and part of the Plan of Salvation and he came to church yesterday. He's doing well and seems to like it all. He is super humble. Excited for his progress.

Thursday we went to Lyon and had district meeting there. Had a fun time, it was a really good, Elder Haws our district leader has come a long way, and has become one of my favorite district leaders on my mission. Its odd how close we become with friends in such a short time.

Friday we took a 2 hour drive up to the big city in our sector, named Moulins, with David a young adult here. He's awesome. (Our sector, or ward boundaries, are ginormous, we probably touch 25 percent of the population in our daily work) We went up there to teach a less active recent convert who is living in a depression clinic at the moment. It was an interesting rdv, but I like going on special missions like this. We as missionaries get called to do so many crazy things, its awesome.

The recent converts name is Christopher and he has some problems to work out, and we'll have to work closely with the bishop to get him ready again.

Sunday was a miracle day. We had only Marcelin with us during our first hour of church, and then during Gospel principles class, we had another young student that we had taught this week named Ismael come and he brought a friend with him named Gino. (They came in as we were listening to a lesson on the temple very inappropriate...Grrr I would go on to have a talk with our ward mission leader to make sure that that doesn't get taught again.) But it was a huge miracle because Gino just came to support his buddy but would later figure out that his aunt is member of the church and she used to attend the church here in Clermont and all the members here know her. He is Peruvian and hit it off with the peruvian freres we have in the ward. We set up a lunch on Tuesday with one of them and Gino. Money. Then Sunday afternoon we had lunch with another Peruvian family, the Estradas and their non member sister and brother in law and their 2 sons. The brother in law's name is Jean michel and he is french french. But super fun. It was a huge success. I felt like dad, being the crowd favorite cracking all these Seinfeld-esque jokes. It was awesome. We shared a bomb message about things of eternal worth, and as we were leaving (final 3 minutes, clutch time) even set up a time to come to their house and show them how to make american cookies (I'll have to prepare for that). But that's kind of one of our strategies, just to find an excuse to see them again, and we pulled it off.

Then we spent the evening eating a crepe dinner with the Castelao family who had an American son in law in town. Really fun really family.

ElT has made huge strides this week in all aspects of his work and energy level, and we are beginning to work with more and more unity which is exciting.

The smell of transfers is in the air, never sure what will happen, but it sure is fun to be with ElT for his first one. I think we'll both stay together. 

The restored Gospel continues to roll forth, what a blast and a blessing to be a part of the Restoration of the truth! 

Much love,

Elder Montgomery

 

 

Elder Sommer and I- one of my favorite German elders in the mission

The sunset from our apt.

Our lunch at Fr. Luisi's home- Tomato farci (?)

Our District meeting lunch in the Institute center in Lyon.

 

 

 

Transfer 14, Week 4 .... March 2, 2015

Dear Family,

What a fun week!

 

We actually spent all week in Clermont and made rather good use of our time. We had some really cool potentials come into the game and are looking forward to this coming week.

First, the weather is getting sunnier is just wonderful. Everybody's happier!

A quick update on the amis:

 

Yao is doing great. He came to church again yesterday, and we taught him after. (we saw him 4 times this week). As we reviewed the scripture we had left with him he told us how he feels peace and joy when he reads it and is even beginning to feel what we've been describing as the Holy Ghost, a warm particular feeling within him. It was awesome! And he's excited to have a calling. Really promising.

We saw Matthew once this week. He's super busy with work. However he read in the Book of Mormon and liked it. He's had a rough past and is still trying to shake some old habits, but tells us constantly that he's been thinking more and more about having a family and how he wants to be a father. Really good, but he has a long way to go to be ready.

 

We weren't able to see Jia this week, she doesn't seem to be progressing too well. She struggles to pray.

 

Decahou is just awesome, comes to church for all 3 hours, participates, has accepted all the commitments. Just still feels to overwhelmed by work and school for baptism.

We got to teach a funny potential this week by the name of Sylvain. He is from the Ivory Coast as well. We gave a tour of the church and he loved it and then suggested that we go to his friends house to have a discussion (it was just next to the church building). We go to this big apt. building and into this apt. where there are two smiley african men watching tv and two woman, one of whom was doing the weave in the other's hair. Elder Tomlinson was a bit thrown off. haha we sat down with them and turned off the tv and taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel. THey are all christian and it was really fun. They weren't totally convinced, but they enjoyed our company and asked plenty of questions. We left them two BOMs. They told us they'd come to church on Sunday seeing as how it was next door, and they said we were always welcome to come back. Haha its always fun to teach multiple people about the Restoration of truth which is still happening on the earth.

Now. Buckle up. Thursday we had planned a rdv with a man by the name of Alexandre, and we had planned to meet him in place Jaude, the big open square in the middle of downtown. Well he was late and we were left standing for about 30 min. As we were standing ElT noticed a camera in an upstairs window of an apt overlooking the place and it was pointing at us. AFter standing for a little bit we decided to move, so just as moved about 15 ft. we saw a woman walk right by us and two guys start harrassing her. We didn't know what was happening until they had made it to the tram stop which was about 30 meters away from us. We were on the tips of our toes ready to go stop it if something happened, but other people around them soon broke it up and another camerman ran into the scene. We thought it was a movie at first, but then one of the 'harrassers' ran up to us and asked if we'd seen what had happened and if we'd be willing to answer a few questions about it in front of the camera. Sooooooo we said yes. Just then Alexandre shows up. Haha We figure out it was actually a psychology experiment about how public reacts to others in danger. Well, a big burly professor man comes over and stands by us, and the camera comes out and we get asked a few questions about when did we feel teh danger, what stopped us from acting, etc. Then they zoomed in on our nametags and asked us if our beliefs influenced us in how we would've reacted. AND so we taught them about the love of Christ and our responsability and blessing to love and serve others. (looking back I wish I wouldve taken better advantage of the sitch but my blood was pumping.) After the camera got put away the interviewer tells us this will be a documentary aired on national french public television in 3 weeks. Woahhhhh. 

 

We said thanks and as we walked away I called president to tell what just happened. We figured that there wasn't much we could do, he would later text us saying "hope you didnt embarrass the church :)" hahaha Then we went and taught Alexandre which went well.

Anyways Saturday we had another ping pong session with the young adults and one of them brought a family to tour the church building and play ping pong with us. (This family as well lived just next door to the church but had always thought it was cult so they never entered, but were completely surprised when they took the tour. It was a middle aged man named Christophe, his two sons and his father. Christophe is absolutely hilarious and kept telling us how much he loves American movies. HE is also a super competitive ping ponger. So my reputation preceding me, I got nominated to play against him. It was fun, and I won, and left him feeling excited to come back again next week. But it was a super fun visit and we're excited for their potential to see if we can teach them about the Gospel. What a blessing!

So things keep rolling here. Elder Tomlinson and I are doing well. His french is picking up nicely, still working on teaching unity. The Lord keeps opening up new avenues for us. He is so concious of us because this is His work. Its so wonderful the blessings we receive everyday. Faith precedes the miracle. Its so great to be a missionary.

I love you!

Elder Montgomery

 

We were happy to have the visit from the Assistants, and we got say goodbye to Elder Taylor

Little lunch before our missionary meeting with Fr. Garon.

Ping Pong with Christophe