HELLO HELLO HELLO MI FAMILIA :)
Oh, goodness it was so good to hear y'all yesterday! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to add Danika's sparkling personality. Family, I love y'all. I hope you know that.
This has been an eventfully uneventful week. Figure that one out. With finals ending at Texas State and mothers day this week as well, we've knocked a lot of empty apartments. It has been an emotionally draining week.
Our dear Jennifer, decided this week to support her mother in her church rather than be baptized this coming Saturday. Jennifer was one of the very first investigators Sister Miller and I taught here in San Marcos, and we were devistated. We have been and are still going through the denial and guilt phases. I keep wondering what more we could have done for her. It's heartbreaking. Really. I honestly don't know if I've ever said "heartbreaking" in my life, but if I were to use it to describe anything in the world, having an investigator who has gone through so much, changed and prayed so much for healing, be one week from baptism and then turn around...that would would define heartbreaking pretty well. Everytime you think you've started to get a mission under control, it comes and slaps you in the face, and you have to start all over.
But with everything in life, God has a plan and a balance. On Thursday night, we called our dear friend Gilbert, after about a month of no contact. Let me tell you. If I could rewrite Alma 36:21 it would be something like "yea, I say unto you, my family, that there is nothing so exquisite and so bitter as are our pains when we lose an investigator. Yea, and again I say unto you, my family, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as is our joy, when our investigators return." Joy. Joy is eternal, and joy, my family, is what we felt as we called and heard Gilbert express to us that "life is eaiser when God is in it." We are so excited to start teaching him again. Pray for him. He has a long way to go, but he knows now, that it's what he needs to do.
We also started teaching a young man named Luis (you MUST pronounce it in Spanish. LOO-ESS say it with me. we Sister Miller and I learned that the hard way). He is steller. We have spent more that 12 hours with him this week teaching him. We had to try and cram in as much as we could since he'll be leaving for home this week since school is out. He had so many good questions, and he said that as soon as we mentioned Jesus outside his partment complex last Saturday, he wanted to know more. We've had some incredibly POWERFUL lessons. There is nothing so cool in this world, at this point in my life, as being able to move your mouth and speak, and know that those are not your own words coming out. Truely, God's hand is in this work.
My Spanish is struggling. I need to speak it more. But with being in an English area, and only speaking it with a few members in my ward and with my companions, I'm worried about it. We were able to speak to a man on the street in Spanish for a few minutes this week and gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon. As I explained the importance of the Book of Mormon and Jospeh Smith breifly in Broken Spanish, I could tell that I was a Spanish called missionary. It felt so good and right to testify in Spanish. President Jones promised his missionaries that we would be able to learn Spanish just as well as any missionary who served in a forigen country Spanish speaking. I believe him. If he has been called as our mission President, and gave us that promise, I believe it. However, when I took the TSAM (Texas San Antonio Mission) Spanish Test, I got by trashed kicked a bit. And by a bit I mean A LOT. PERO. Heavenly Father has promised us that our weeknesses can become strengths (Ether 12:27) and if he can make the Nephites "mighty in writing" He can make me mighty in Spanish. But if not, I am still un "deciplo de Jesucristo, el Hijo de Dios. He sido llamado por el, para daclarar su palabra, entre los de su pueblo al fin de que alcancan la vida eterna" (3 Nephi5:13). That was without my Spanish Book of Mormon incase you were wondering...so you Spanish speakers excuse the spelling errors if there are any. I have been blessed with the ability to understand it pretty well, it's the speaking it that is difficult. Because I read by sight and not by pronouncng words in English in my head when I read, I've had to start reteaching myself how to read properly and out loud in Spanish so that my mouth will learn to form the words. It's tricky, but I've already been able to see myself progress. I hope to be finishing 2nd Nephi by the end of this transfer, and I'm almost done with 1st Nephi now, so hopefully I can make it. I read a lot slower in Spanish than I do in English. It drives me nuts sometimes how much easier it is to just speak in English, PERO. God didn't intend for us to come to earth to be in our comfort zone. He wants us to expand, and so expand in the Spanish language I shall. But a shout out to any Spanish speakers who want to write to me in Spanish, have at it. Or non- Spanish speakers who want to try and write me in Spanish (Sharlan). Any and all help is welcome :)
Pues, mi familia. No tengo mas tiempo.
I love y'all. Take care. Adios.
Hermana Montgomery
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