A Little Bit of Texas Pride and Shunshine

FFFAAAMMILLLYYYYY.

 

HI!

 

There are just too many things exploding in my mind to write them all, but I will do my very best to let you all know how my first week in the land of the sun has been.

 

First. We flew out Wednesday morning.  When we got to the mission four of the Hermana's were assigned to stay at a senior couples house in San Antonio the first night.  Before we went to bed we had a little adventure in the bathroom. I had noticed the toilet might not flush right in the guest bathroom and so I warned my companion not to use it, or at least proceed with caution. So she decided to check it out. The next thing I know she comes running out whispering/yelling "it's flooding! IT'S FLOODING!" and sure enough, the bathroom floor had become a 2 inch lake. It took a while to clean it all up, and I'm sure the senior couple had no idea what they were getting into when they said we could stay there. We didn't either.

 

We also got to go the the Almo on our first night, I'll have to tell you more about it in a hand written letter. It was cool. Texas pride is real. And big.  And I will deffinetly be coming back with a bit. And the sun is GLORIOUS. It is still a little chilly though, weird, and so I get to wear my cardigns for just a little longer. WAHOO.

 

The next morning we had the transfer conference, and I ended up having to go to austin to actually meet my new companion. There had been rumors of one sister training two sisters, and having a lot of trios in our mission, and I was just lucky enough to be a part of that. So i have TWO companions, Sister Wright is traning both Sister Miller and I. We are serving in San Marcos, which is just a little ways outside of Austin, and we are actually in the YSA ward there. It's a bit interesting being around people my age and having them call me Sister Montgomery. It's also a English speaking part of the mission, so I'm not getting to use my Spanish and whole lot while teaching. But as a companionship we are trying to speak Spanish to each other as much as possible. So let me tell you a bit about my Companions.

 

Sister Wright: She is the same person as Sharlan. Really. With a little bit of Kaylee Brooks. The same kind of mannerisms and voice fluctuations, and hand motions and her sense or humor as Shar. Sometime I have to look up and rememeber that it's Sister Wright I'm talking to and not Shar, becuase, I'm not kidding, I sometimes think Shar is training me. I guess that's Gods way of making it up to me that I missed Shar's homecoming by a few months. Sister Wright is awesome and energetic and she is so good at teaching us and the investogators.

 

Sister Miller: She has a huge smile. It's what she is known for. She is so loving at caring, and just connects to everyone. She is also from Washington, up in Bellingham, and what do you know, also went to BYUI. Everyone asks us if we knew each other before we came. And then we have to explain that we are actually rather far part in Washington.

 

We each bring different aspects to the teaching, and I'm rather glad that I'm teaching the first couple weeks in English. But I do miss Spanish sometimes, and being called "Hermana Montgomery" instead of just Sister Montgomery.

 

OH. I haven't even told you about our investogators. Real quick.

 

We have three progressing investogators that came to church yesterday. They are so prepared. EVERYONE is. It's crazy how often we knock on doors and the people are like "It's interesting that you would show up today, I was just praying this morning..." On our first night, the second person that we knocked into, we shared the whole first lesson with and invited her to church and everything, and she was really excited about it. Sister Wright has to keep telling us that it's usually not like this, becuase so many people are just so ready for the message that we have to share.

 

Time is running out. Always. There is so much to do always, and so little time to do it in. I'm am so thankful for this opportunity to be serving in the Texas San Antonio Mission. I wish I could write you guys everything that I've experienced in just these few short days I've been here.

 

Life is good. Life is Great. The Gospel is true.

 

I know it. I live it. I LOVE it.

 

HERMANA Montgomery

As The Army of Heleman

Dear Family,

 

And thus begins my last week here at the MTC. Wow. They weren't kidding when they said that on our missions we would have the longest days and the shortest weeks, the longest weeks and the shortest months, and the longest months and the shortest years. We head out on Wednesday at 6am for the airport. There are about 30-35 of us in our traveling group, with 5 of us from our district. We met a sister who is actually from San Antonio and she said that everyone is talking about us coming in becuase there are so many sisters coming into that mission. It's an exciting time to be a missionary.

 

With leaving the MTC comes saying goodbye to our friends and investigators. We taught Consuela for the last time. Best lesson we've ever had. I don't remember if I mentioned it in my last email, but after our last lesson with her,with the ripped picture object lesson, she committed to baptism. Finally. I was so excited for her. And over the week before we taught her again for the last time, she changed. She was reading the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions and had a desire to know and understand the whole picture. We had decided to talk about the Book of Mormon more in our lesson anyway, and as she started asking questions, it was confermed that that was what she needed to hear. We shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, and shared Moroni 10:1-10 with her. After we asked her to pray right there to know if the Book of Mormon was true. She did. It was one of the most powerful prayers I have ever felt. After she asked to know, she waited. Totally still and quite for about a minute and a half. I even peaked at one point to see if I had missed the end of the prayer, becuase that's happened before to me when they're in Spanish. But no. She was waiting for her answer. The Spirit flooded the room overwhalmingly. We could tell she felt it. We could tell that she had recived her answer. She changed again after that. We could feel her peace all around her, and could feel the happiness that she felt. But then came the sad part. I don't know if most missionaries do it in the MTC, but I had to say goodbye to Consuela. We had to tell her that we wetre being transfered next week, but that new missionaries would come and continue to teach her everything she needed to know about the gospel. It was hard. I wanted to be there for her so much. This person, who was really my teacher, had become such a part of my existance that it was hard to hug her and say goodbye. We've been told to keep tabs on the people we teach for the rest of our lives. I'm starting to understand why now. Teaching and sharing the gospel builds bonds. I challenge everyone to build those bonds with everyone around them.

 

We were asked to sing in our sacrament meeting this last Sunday, and we had originally wanted to sing our of our favorite Spanish Hymns, but then we were requested to sing the EFY medley. We went to the music library to find it and found it in Spanish as well, and so we decided to suprise everyone bby singing it in Spanish. We practice and finally decided that the Hermanas would sing their part in Spanish, the Elders their part in Spanish and  then we would invite the rest of our branch to sing with medley part with us in English. We've been practicing all week and Sunday came and we were up first. We started singing, and at first I could look out and see that not all the elders were paying attention, they were goofing off or whatever. And then we came to the Elders part in Spanish and they all sat up and watched them carefully. And then one Hermana in our district stepped forward and raised her hands to have them stand up. Everyone got excited. We all stood together and sang "We are as the Army of Helamen, we have been taught in our youth. And we will be the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth." The Spirit and energy in the room was immeasurable. Everyone was shaking and could feel the power and reality of our words. Many had tears. At this point, I took the Hermanas hands on either side of me, and in a row, all six hermanas joined hands, holding each other up. Afterwards, talkis were given, with President Jackman last. He asked that instead of us singing God be with you 'til we meet again for our closing hymn, if we could sing the medley again. And so we stood again and sang again. The elders have been told that whenever they stand up in a meeting, the are to button the jackets so that they look nicer. I noticed that when the rest of our branch stood to sing again with us, all of the elders coats were buttoned, and they stood tall. They weren't little boys goofing off in the back anymore. They had heard the words, and now they were answering the call.

 

I love and pray for you all.

Hermana Montgomery

There is more

Well Family. Travel plans have come. Oh wow. I have exactly 1.5 weeks until I get on a plane and jet out to TEXAS.

So much as happened this week, like every week, but it's been a good week.  It started basically on Sunday night, We watched a old devotional from Elder Bednar talking about the character of Christ. So basically my favorite things. I was talking notes in such a panic so as not to miss anything important that the rest of my district was laughing at the mad scribbles flying from my hand. It was good stuff. Basically, he defined Christ's character by how he always turned out and focused on others instead of himself.

This week, we taught Amalio and Consuela twice each. During our second lesson with Amalio, he was trying to explain to us that he just didn't have time for the gospel. That he couldn't be a fanatic about God like we were. That he had a life working 12 hours a day to provide for his family and parents, and he didn't have time to study the Book of Mormon as much as we could. Before we had went into the lesson, we had prayed to be be able to know what to say in the moment. Now, as Amalio was talking to us, I felt prompted to share the quote in our kitchen by Ezra Taft Benson that says "when we put God first, everything else falls into place, or falls out of our lives" and I sat up right there said no to that thought. "I can't say that in SPANISH! It's too hard. I can't do that." Through out the lesson, other scriptures, quotes and thoughts came to my mind, but I turned them down because I didn't know how to say them in Spanish. After our lesson we had class, and our teacher talked to all of us about how Amalio was progressing. Our teacher, Hermano Hopoate, is Amalio, but he is basing his character off of a real investigator that he taught on his mission. Hermano Hopoate told us basically that for Amalio, we needed to show him the relevance of the gospel to his life. He told us more about Amalio, and what his character was, and the more he taught us about Amalio, the more guilty I felt. I had prayed and asked, been impressed upon to teach Amalio, exactly what we were being told he needed, and I had said no. Said no straight up. It was really humbling to me. I realized, again, that if we want God to help us, we have to have intentions of meeting Him half way. If we ask for help, we need to get up and follow Him when He is telling us what to do. I hope that I can do better following His instructions and promptings in the future.

Consuela. She hasn't been progressing. Mostly she doesn't understand how she needs God in her life. Why does it matter if he has a plan of happiness, if she is already happy with everything that she has? And so after much studying, scribbling on the board, praying and discussing, my companion and I came up with a lesson plan. We wanted to talk about faith, and having just a small desire to have faith. And we also wanted to talk about how having faith helps us to see the bigger picture in life. And so we had a little object lesson. We found a picture of a flower, in one of my ensigns, that I knew would come in handy, and we cut it out. During the lesson, we showed her the picture and asked her if she thought it was beautiful. She said yes. And then my companion ripped the picture into little pieces. As she ripped I watched Consuela's face. She was absolutely astonished, flabbergasted  taken a back, in short, shocked that we would show her a beautiful picture and then rip it. My companion handed her one small piece of the picture, and said "oh these aren't important" about the other pieces and put them underneath her scriptures. We again asked Consuela if she thought the picture we had given her was beautiful. She said "yes...but I want the whole picture." YES. Our lives may be great, they may be perfect, but without the gospel and knowledge of God's plan for us, we have only a small piece of the grand picture. The picture is beautiful. Why would we want to be content with just one small, ripped piece of the picture? Conseula is starting to understand why it matters. There is more. There is more than this life. There is more that just school , status and money. There is more than just us. There is a plan. God's plan. And it is beautiful.

Part of that plan for us, is gaining experience. And boy did I have an experience this week. We were role playing, and teaching in English. Weird. The topic we were practicing was Christ's Atonement and time on Earth. I thought to myself "I got this. I know how to do this in English." And so I taught. And talked a lot. And when we came to the feed back part, I got pretty good feedback. BUT. I didn't have the Spirit. I said what I wanted to say, and what I thought, not what I was prompted to say. I think I realized that day one of the reasons why I'm learning Spanish. When I speak Spanish, I depend fully on the Spirit for what to say. When I speak in English, I rely on myself. It was really humbling to me.

I realized that I didn't really say anything about the pictures that I sent last week, and so I will say something about my pictures this week.

(See Left) You should all know and appreciate the fact that I haven't given up my drawing skills. This is my latest project of stick figures. My district. They are TOO FANTASTIC. This is my rendition of us. And Elder Jensen, our district leader, says that oddly enough, they all look like us. I was told I was an artist. You know it. Nobody can one up my stick figures.

Well, that's about all. I'm glad that I had time to finish telling you about my week. Keep writing. I love you all. 

Hermana C. Montgomery

The Refiners Fire

Ollo Mi Familia!

Well. It's been a crazy week here. How do I even begin?

First, Elder Ballard came to the MTC on Tuesday to speak to us. It was just a rumor at first about a General Authority coming, and I was so excited I couldn't even focus. My district was making fun of me cause I was making everyone rush through dinner so that we could get good seats. When Elder Ballard came in, everyone stood up and the whole room changed. We sang "Consider the Lillies" in the choir, and the rest of the meeting was just as good. He talked to us about how we know the gospel, we've known it our whole lives, and we shouldn't doubt our ability to teach it. It was empowering to be told that by an Apostle of God. Afterwards, we had a district meeting, and our Branch President jokingly had to tell me to calm down a little because I was so pumped up afterwards. 

Our lessons have started to progress really well teaching Amalio and Consuela, a lot of people have been writing and asking me if it's weird to teach "fake investigators" and it's really not. When I teach Amalio, it's Amalio, not Hermano Opoate. Our last lesson, my companion and I prepared a whole lesson, then were studying the next day and ended up changing  the lesson plan 10 mins before we went in to teach. It ended up being just what we needed. We talked about Christ's sheep and had him read John 10:16 and 3 Nephi 15:21 talking about Christ's sheep from other lands. He's reading the Book of Mormon and always has lot's of questions for us. At the end of the lesson, Amalio was looking down at the scriptures, and I said "Amalio, if we are also Christ's sheep, that means He will come to visit us. Christ will come again to the Earth." I believe that with my whole heart.

 I heard in a mormon message this last week that God has set is hand in preparing the world to recieve His work and His coming. One of the ways that I see His Hand in this work in the age change. God has always called the young people to take part in His work, Nephi, Mormon, Joseph, David, Samuel, and now His 18 and 19 year-old missionaries. I've seen how the power of God is working in these young men and women. Especially this week.

Love, Hermana Montgomery

Validation. Do it.

Hola!

Well, here I am, starting into week four. OH WOW.

There is so much to be said, and so little time, so let's get started.

So there have been some requests to know more about my companion, so lets start from there. Her name is Hermana Hopkins, she is from Orem Utah and wants to be an elamentary school teacher. She sings so good, and wears big hipster glasses, and is quite blind. She did ballet for a while and loves to dance, and she is about as strong willed when it comes to being in charge as I am. God has blessed me with someone who will help me grow and learn to be humble.

This week, we got two new investogators, Consuala and Amolio. They are fantastic and I'm so excited to be teaching them.  Before one of our lessons to Consuala, we stood outside the door and prayed, before we knocked on the door, I looked at Hermana Hopkins and said "Christ is going to be in this room." And he was. We were talking about his Atonement, which never ceases to amaze me, and were able to share that with Consuala. I was able to bear my testimony and love for my Savior, in Spanish, and I knew that we weren't alone in our teaching. It was an awesome experience. I am learning so much here, and already my life has been changed.

I read a quote once about reading, it said something like "sometimes we read a book and it seems the whole world has been shattered, and the world will never be put back together until the whole world has seen and heard what you have seen." My world has been shattered, and my mind and understanding of the gospel changed, and that is why I'm serving a mission. I have a need to share what I know and have others feel the fire burning like I have felt. I've never felt that I was in the right place in the right time so much in my life as I do right now.

We went to the Temple today, and on the way up, I just got so excited. And so I shouted "GOOD MORNING!" to the security guards at the MTC through the window, even though they couldn't hear me. Then proceeded to smile, wave, and shout good morning to everyone I met. The other Hermanas got a good laugh at my excitement, and the rest of the day as been so good, simply because I decided to say good morning to a stranger who couldn't hear me.

AND now for some Spanglish news:

We were learning about...whatever it was, I don't remember...and my teacher asked me "where should we pray?" I answered "en la toda tierra" in the whole earth, because that was all I knew how to say in reference to praying "everywhere and at all time" in Alma 34. My teacher then asked me, "in the bathroom?" I wanted to say "OOHHHH you'd better believe it Brother" but I gave the better answer of explaining "podemos orar antes domir, y antes...meals...en la classe..." Basically I I rocked the answer. Sort of.

So another fun fact about this week is I came up with an acronym. Acronym? You'll understand.

I was studying, and came to a statement that eternal life is to know God and Christ (John 17:3) and I was wondering, what did it mean to KNOW? So i was thinking it over, and with my limited knowledge I thought I might have gained new understanding. Knowing is

Kneeling in prayer.

Noticing His hand in your life.

Obeying His Word.

Waiting in faith.

KNOW. I thought that it helped me understand a little more, and so i wanted to share it with you. Enjoy.

I've also started reading Jesus the Christ, and after every sentence, I feel like I need to come up for air and ponder what I've read. It is SO good. My district as already noticed that I mark everything I read, and has teased or admired me for how yellow and written on my book is already. I feel like I need to analyze every sentence. The writing style actually reminds me of The Declaration of Independence, kinda interesting. Both inspired documents.

After tomorrow, my district will have the "oldest" meaning been there the longest, Hermana's in our zone. OH WOW. Time is going fast.  ALSO. Last thing, watch the mormon messages. Today, family. The newest one, and the one called "Sanctify Yourself" Your life will be changed. And I think the kids can learn a lot from them.

I love you guys. You are awesome. Remember to validate people. Always.

Sorry this letter is so scatteredbrained. It's my life right now. 

As always,

Your 1/3 favorite missionary,

Sister Cheyenne Montgomery