Stinky Feet, Change in lesson Plans, 3 Nephi and on, God is Good and The Gospel is Real!

Hola Mi Familia!

 

Family, I love y'all. I just about died from all the excitement going on there at home. Y'all are the greatest :) Jubilee, being a real life adult really did change you. You sound different. It was good to hear about all your Educational news. The Gospel, Family, Hunger Games, New mission  leaders, broken fingers, ya know. Just life :) Y'all sound like you're doing good! I appreciate your emails a lot :)  So for this week, let me get y'all in on the "deets" as Abby now Buck would say...

 

Monday: I wrote a bajillion letters. And I finished making a Gospel of Jesus Christ diagram thing to share in lessons. It's kinda like a Plan of Salvation set up with all the circles and the pictures, but it has the principles of the Gospel. It's pretty neat if I do say so myself. We started using it in a few of our lessons and people liked it a lot. Sister Young and I were wanting to make pictures and diagrams for all of the PMG lessons. I'm just starving for the Gospel ALL THE TIME. There's never enough time to read and to study. Good thing I have the rest of eternity to get it all figured out. We have a "Finding by Faith" training by President Slaughter tomorrow, and I've been dying to hear what he's prepared for us.

 

Tuesday: We've been asked to set goals with our YSA members so that they can progress Spiritually, since it's very easy for us to become stagnate in our Spiritual growth. And so meeting with them we've been doing. It has changed my WHOLE perspective on goal setting. A lot. We met with our EQ President on Tuesday, at McDonalds since we couldn't meet at the church without a third girl. He has had a lot on his plate with this Branch and his been very overwhelmed. Surprise. So we talked with him about how to set goals and what was important to accomplish right now. We read part of Elder Hollands talk "Lord, I Believe" ya know the part that talks about not being afraid to ask for help when we need it. It get's me every time I'm being Prideful and not wanting to ask other people for help. Meeting with him has changed him a lot. He's started to set goals and he talked to us about how our lesson effected him. After he went to a lesson with us, with some of his Friends from work, he was shaking because he wanted to hug us so bad. So instead he gave us a really strong hand shake while grasping our elbow with his other hand. He called it the "Joseph Smith Hand Shake." Watch the Joseph Smith movie and you'll find it haha. He told us it was the closest he could come to hugging us.

 

Wednesday:We had dinner with a girl in our Branch, Diane, and her brothers family she's living with. Diane served her mission in New York Spanish Speaking and is WAY smart. She graduated from BYU in German and Geography. She wants to be a teacher. And she is AWESOME! But, her brothers family. Holy Cow. We got there and before we could say anything arms were wrapped around our waists as six children rushed us outside the door with cats and dogs. Diane's brother has six children under eleven, sound familiar? They were fantastic and everything that comes with a big family. The parents reminded me a lot of Jared and Tina. They even looked like them. She just finished law school and he is in the middle of law school. They said that their youngest child, John will basically grow up in the law school library. She took her final holding him in one arm and typing with the other. Yeah. She's pretty diligent. We also had another PMG night after dinner with our members where they got to role play a bit being missionaries. It could have gone better...next time haha.

 

Thursday: Weekly planning. Eh. We did end up meeting with one of our members and his mother. She was a less-active and then came back and he was baptized at 16-years-old. I didn't know that about them. It makes me grateful to be getting to know our members better here. They're real people too. And they need to come unto Christ as well.

 

Friday: Sister Young and I got up earlier and hitched a ride with Elder and Sister Clark (the military relations senior couple we work with) to BMT graduation. Yes, I am getting to know the military lingo better, BMT simply stands for Basic MIlitary Training. That's only one of the many things we've learned about the military in the last three months. But anyways...graduation. We had two investigators who were graduating and so we got permission to go so meet their families. It was neat :) it actually reminded me a lot a lot of marching band with all the calls and marching and salutes and things. Flashbacks galore. We also got to tour their dorms after the graduation. Eh. Awful. We got to see first hand about all the places they've talked to us about. Elder Clark also toured us around the planes a bit and gave us background on them. It was neat. Pictures to come :)

 

Saturday:Rush rush rush getting things ready for Sunday. We mostly met with members and set more goals and made a lot of phone calls. The life of a missionary.

 

Sunday: I have a love/hate deal going on with Sundays here. We have about 14 hour days on Sunday starting with Branch council on the Base at 7:15 in the morning. Then we have church and lessons and then go to the YSA branch PEC and then church and lessons there and then we don't get done until about 3pm with church and things. Then we have about an hour until we go home for dinner, so we try to schedule things to fill up. And then after dinner we have more calls and more appointments. Food and Bathroom use. Those are the two things that Sister Young and I decided we don't get enough of on Sundays. But Church is always good. On base yesterday we got to meet one of our graduating investigators wives. They talked to us a lot about how much he has changed taking the lessons with us and learning about the gospel. He told us that he wouldn't have been able to make it through BMT much less everything else that happened without meeting with us. It's good to know that we're making a difference in people's lives. It makes the hard worth it.

 

Well family. I didn't even get to record a hundredth part of all that has transpired in this last week, but it will have to do.  I'm proud of y'all. Who you are and what you're doing. Keep at it :)

 

"Cath up with ya later"

 

 Hermana C. Montgomery

Speak English, Called Spanish, Teaching in Arabic

Dearest Family,

 

How is everyone doing? I miss your faces and things..

 

Life is going good here in the great San Antonio Area. Let me sum it up.

 

I was with Sister Christianson in the Monte Vista Spanish Area last week on exchanges. It was a BLAST! I didn't understand a whole lot, but Sister Christianson who as been down in Del Rio for 4.5 months speaking Spanish said that she still didn't get much more than me. I feel like I'm ready for a Spanish area. My mouth is aching to speak Spanish like a native. Probably won't ever be able to speak quite like the natives, but I can always try :)

 

Sister Christianson said that they always see miracles on their exchanges, so we were watching for them. There was one door that we knocked on, and a Hispanic looking women opened the door with two dark curly haired little girls. Sister Christianson asked "English or Spanish?" the Women responded "Arabic." ...uhh...we did not get trained for that! But we were able to talk to her about mormon.org and asked if she had a computer. "Laptop?" she asked and she invited us to come in. We got on Mormon.org only to find that there is not Arabic on it. She had her daughter run next door and she brought back a man who spoke Arabic and English. He was a translator for three months, so his English was not super well, but we asked if she wanted to learn more, and she said that she did. And so we started teaching the first lesson. With an Arabic translator. Speak English, called Spanish, teaching in Arabic. Cool. We're not actually sure how much of the first lesson went through to her since the translator was struggling to understand us, but she seemed to be interested. Mostly she wanted to talk about how different the U.S. from her home.

 

After quite some time and a few wide-eyed stares at each other, Sister Christianson asked me, "what should we do?" I responded, "they need to know about the first vision." And so we started to lead into it. We talked about the many churches. It was translated. We talked about Joseph's family and his confusion. It was translated. We showed a picture of the first vision from my picture book. It started to get translated. The man who was interpreting for us, who stated he was not religious, started to tell the women about the vision in the middle of my saying it, then turned and looked at me and the picture and said "wait, did this really happen?!" Sister Christianson and I nodded. We finished the vision and he took the picture and showed it to the women explaining what had happened to Joseph. He turned to look at us again "this is very weird to us" he said. "Things like this don't happen normally where we are from." Us either friend.

 

We set up an appointment for them again on Saturday. It'll be exciting to see what happened. We called the mission office and found out they already had an Arabic Book of Mormon waiting for us. Weird. God is so smart. I wonder why they don't have Arabic missionaries here. I've heard there's quite the population of them in San Antonio. Interesting.

 

Right before our exchange, Sister Young and I taught our YSA fhe. It was a missionary night and it went really well. We're trying to get the members involved in Preach My Gospel more. It all comes down to their testimonies.In order to do that, we had a Preach My Gospel activity with some of our memebers preparng to go on missions and some others we've been working with. We assigned each of them a section from the first lesson and gave them a few minutes for them to read through it and prepare. Then we taught a first lesson. It was neat for each of the members break out and teach. After we talked about bearing our testimonies and how they can strengthen each other.We had them all pair up and share their testimony of something. It was WAY neat. And so I issue you a challenge. Everyone who is reading this, find a way to share your testimony with three people this week. Family, member or nonmember. Try it, you'll like it!

 

We also have been teaching Conner, I mentioned him last week. He's the boyfriend of one of our members. He has been our most proactive investigator. He asked us a lot of questions about being a missionary his first lesson. He's already been challenged to be baptized and serve a mission by the Bishop. We'll see. Right now he's mostly hesitant because his parents aren't happy about him taking the lessons. It's rough.

 

Sister Monica Rogers, the Sister I told y'all about a few weeks back who was helping us with activity ideas is moving to Idaho. And so we've inherited he food. And dishes. And other goodness. We won't have to shop for weeks now!

 

Well family. I miss y'all lots. Any mail is good.

Take care!

 

Hermana Cheyenne

"Conversion Comes When We Sacrifice"

Hello my family dear :)

Sharlan, you are too crafty. I was looking at the picture of your mission call, and Sister Young leaned over and said "WHAT IS THAT?!" then I bragged about you. You're just too fantastic!

So tonight, Sister Young and I are in charge of FHE for our Singles Branch and we're having a missionary night. We've organized it into four areas: One memorizing the first vision, one setting up Mormon.org profiles, one writing down frequently asked questions, and one writing testimonies in Books of Mormon. We're going to have a break out and do each one really briefly and then come back together and share a couple of quotes and go over some questions. We're really excited about it!

We had Zone meeting this week, and one thing that our Sister Training Leaders talked about was the need for men in the church. They told us that often times the fathers in the families are left behind because the are not quite ready, while their wife and children are ready.  "Don't forget them" they told us. "Teach the whole family, teach fathers." While Sister Young and I don't have fathers and families in our teaching pool, we related their lessons to our Branch. We have quite a few strong young women, and not so many men. Like 5-7. If that. So, we had a Phone conference with our Zone Leaders Elder Weaver and Elder Pinie to talk to them about some of our concerns and to get more spacific help. We brought up that we don't have a lot of Young men, and even fewer Melchizedek Priesthood holders. So we asked them what we could do, since singles don't respond very well to "Sisters with Tags" inviting them to activities. They feel like they're just a project or assignment. Our Zone leaders told us to send the girls after 'em... And so we're cookin' up some great assignments for our ladies :) haha

One thing that Elder Weaver mentioned to us was that in order for our members to become converted, they needed to come in contact with people who were converted. And then he said that they would become converted as they sacrificed things for the Gospel. "Conversion comes when we sacrifice" Elder Weaver said. I started scribbling that one down as fast as I could in my study journal, and while their was a pause on the phone Elder Weaver said "I hope you're writing that one down, cause it was goooood!" "You bet I am" I said. How are you becoming converted?

We got a new Branch Mission Leader last week, Chris, Since our last one headed out to BYU for school last week. He served his mission in Colorado and got back about a year ago. He's going to be good for our Branch. Real good. One of the first things that he asked us to do was to start meeting with the members and setting goals with them. 1. Spiritual goals: things that will help their own testimony grow and 2. Missionary goals: things that will help others testimonies grow and invite others to come unto Christ. He served in a Singles Branch similar to this on his mission, and he is going to work wonders here. Sister Young and I are really excited to work with him.

On Thursday, the Sister, Monica Rogers, who I mentioned last week ask Sister Young and I if she could meet us somewhere since she had something for us. We told her that we would be at the church in about 20 mins and we could meet her there. We we met her, she handed us each a large picture frame. On her wall at her home she had a picture of Christ on tiles and framed and it was WAY cool, so I had asked her about it when we were there for dinner. She said that it took a lot of work to make, she's very crafty, and that it was a big project for both her and her husband. Sister Rogers had made a picture for BOTH Sister Young and I, with non other than my favorite artist Liz Lemon Swindle's paintings on it. I may or may not have started crying. It was a lot of work for her and her husband to put together and she wanted to do it for us. They are BEAUTIFUL! They're going to be a mission treasure :)

 

We have our first exchange of the Transfer with our Sister Training Leaders, I'll be leaving for the day and going to Monte Cristo, SPEAKING SPANISH, and Sister Young will be staying here and having our Training Leader come. Whew. Spanish. It'll be fun. Pero, Con Dios, todas las cosas estan possible.

 

We've been working with a young girl the past couple of weeks, Stephani. She's started coming back to Church after a bit of a dip and we met her a little more than two weeks ago. When we first stopped by and asked if we could set up an appointment with her she was like "Sister Missionaries, what do they want with me?" We've been meeting with her twice a week now, and she adores us. We've got her reading and preparing for our lessons by studying Preach My Gospel, and she loves it. Last week we talked about the Plan of Salvation and invited her to write in her Journal which Kingdom of Glory she wanted to go to after this life. The next visit she showed us her Journal entry with CELESTIAL KINGDOM written big and bold in pink on the page. She is on fire and doing so good. She's getting to know Branch members and she's going to really help lift things.

 

We've started to have a Book of Mormon Study/Gospel Principles class twice a week on Wednesday and Friday nights to get investigators and members involved more. Members don't have a lot to do during the week, and it has been my personal baby to get this class going. "If you build it, they will come" I've been telling everyone. Give the members opportunities to be more involved and they will be involved. Give the opportunities and ideas to share the Gospel and they will share it. Be an example to them. That was something else our Zone Leaders told us, if you want your Branch to be excited, you have to be excited. Be their mirror. I learned that in all the Drum Major Leadership camps as well. Neat how everything just relates back to each other. But anyways, we've had a lot of success in our activities and feeling the spirit in these classes, even on our Friday night one. Got to give these young adults something to do in San Antonio on a Friday night...hehe. We're real excited about it :)

 

We also sent out a mass text to all 27 of our members Saturday night reminding/inviting them the Church, since sometimes it's a struggle getting members there, let alone investigators. We had a second place high of 38 young Single adults yesterday. Second to our first Fast Sunday with 49 members there. Since Sister Young and I have come in, in the last two months, we have about 13 more people constantly coming than our first Sunday. Whew. Keep it rolling.

 

AHHHH! Conner. I almost forgot Conner! Conner is the Boyfriend of one of our members. He's been coming to Church for a while, and we've been dying to teach him. But his Grilfriend Anna was a little hesitent. So we've been waiting patiently, respecting her. She told us last week that he told her he wanted to take the lessons. Freak out. Lots of screaming after the phone call. Anna's family went out of town the next week, and Conner was waiting for them to come back, since he needed to have the lessons at their house since his Parents weren't super supportive.We have a lesson set up with him on Wednesday. He's going to be Solid. Anna is leaving for BYU this coming week, so we've got to get him involved with other people as well, but we're so excited to teach him!

 

We also saw Mark, our investigator that was Baptized last month and then passed off to the family ward. He's all spiffied up in a white shirt and tie and recived the Aaronic Priesthood. The family ward has done wonders for him. It was good to see him. 

 

Our Young Basic Trainiee investigators are just pluckin' along. We got them those cheap CTR rings the other day cause they were asking about them. They're so great. We wanted to see if Sister Young and I could swing going to their graduation on the 23rd of August. We'll see if we can get permission. Who knows.

 

Oh and y'alls talk about the new Temple video is killin me. It's like waving a chocolate Cake in front of a dieting Dudley Dursley. Pretty close anyway.

 

I left my Camera memory card and converter at the library the other p-day after sending pictures and I haven't been able to find it since. I'm really kind'a distraught about it since it had all much Pictures from the MTC and San Marcos on it. So keep my little Memory card in your prayers. Maybe it will find it's way back to me. God is in control.

 

My mailbox has been real empty lately. I did enjoy your letter this week though mom :) and yours too Shar, you're a life saver with your letters. I love you, Sister.

 

Send love. Kiss the Kids. Say Your Prayers. Dry your tears and know that I love you

 

And "Take heart, the Lord loves his Children" (President Jones).

 

Until Next week! Adios mi familia :)

 

Can't wait. LOL. Smiley face

 

-Your Hermana in Texas

Odds and Ends

Well hello family of mine!

 

Whew, good thing we have all the time we want to email now, because I just spent 40 minutes reading letters and emails. Y'all are the bestest.

 

This week has been a whirlwind of events.

 

We went to visit a 22-year-old less-avtice boy this week, since we had a little time between lessons. When we arrived, we found that he didn't live there anymore, but now lives in Washington, so we talked to his parents for a little while. His adopted mother, Monica Rodgers, turns out was a YSA here in San Antonio about 15 years ago and helped build up the YSA program from 10 people to about 50-60 people. So we talked for a while and laughed a lot, bouncing ideas off each other. Her mother was there visiting, and we later found out that Monica had been having a really hard week. And then we stopped by. Her mom told us that she hasn't seen Monica smile for a while until we stopped by. After we left, I thought to myself "this is real missionary work" building other people up, no matter who they are and sharing Christ's love for them. He called her a few days later and asked if we could meet with her to get some more feedback and ideas for things we can do in our Branch, she told us to come for dinner too and we brought our branch missionary, Isa. After dinner and our planning session, we shared the mormon message "good things to come" from Elder Hollands talk. Hits the spot every time. It's become Mine and Sister Youngs favorite to chare. All inspired from Sharlan writing me and reminding me of it a couple months ago. God is so smart. He just knows where we all need to be, and if we let Him, he can make more of our lives and efforts than we ever could. We're not sure who was helped more that day, Monica or us. God is so smart.

 

I've started reading the Book of Mormon again this month, and I decided to have my study come from Luke 14:27 "And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come follow after me, cannot be my disciple. Wherefore, settle this in your hearts, that ye will do the things which I shall teach and command you." I'm studying how to settle the gospel deep in my heart, and how changes of heart take place. In doing that, I've been studying Preach My Gospel a lot more. Sister Young and I have been studying a principle everyday from Preach My Gospel. Let me just say, I have fallen in love with it. I wish that I had used it better the last 6 months, because it really teaches you how to be a disciple of Christ. Sister Young and I have started encouraging memebers to have one, and we've been giving them chapters to study before we come and visit them so that we can talk and discuss it. it's incredible to see the change that has taken place in our teaching and in the memebers attitude. In doing this, I've been highlighting different Preach My Gospel principles in the Book of Mormon while reading it. My Book of Mormon is a rainbow. Just within the first chapters of 1 Nephi, all of the principles of the Gospel have been exemplified. It's incredible! Really. So I now have a challenge for y'all. Everyone, get your OWN Preach My Gospel and start studying it. Really. Jed told us to do this like 7 years ago, and being the 12-year-old punk I was, I thought "study the Missionary book? Why? I'm not a missionary." FALSE. It's not just the missionary book. It is what Heavenly Father has given us to help prepare the hearts of men to accept the Gospel. READ IT. Your life will change. I promise.

 

Okay, I'm done ranting at you. But really, read it. Use the lessons in FHE and reading at night. If Jubilee and Ammon want to become better missionaries, get your own preach my gospel and read it. Highlight it. Sister Young and I have been doing lesson plans, so we think of personal experience, analogies, pictures, stories or other things to use in lessons. Y'all can do this too. Understanding the Gospel and the Atonement is what gives people the desire to change and share the gospel. Sister Young and I have been seeing this change take place in our Branch. Try it, you'll like it :)

 

Right now, we have two investigators, Brittany and Vanessa. both are gems and so ready to accept the Gospel, but it's hard to let go of their life before. Lots of changes need to be made, and it's a scary thing. They both know it's true though. It's an experience everytime we meet with them.

 

The airforce base is the best. Literally a Heaven for missionaries. We have four preparing for baptism, and everytime we go tto go on to Lackland we have a good experience. Sister Young and I decided we would both struggle if we were moved away from them. They're so great. The Senior Couple serving with us there, Elder and Sister Clark are the best. Sister Clark said that she wrote about us on her blog. I'm not sure how you could find it. Maybe try googling "lackland airforce base, clarks, missionaries" I don't know. I'll see if I can get a blog address.

 

Well family. I think that's all. Time is now running out. Gots to go.

 

Love those babies for me. And send pictures. You know how I like those.

 

Also, I can recieve and respond to emails from anyone now. Just not males in my mission area. But everyone else I can. So getting others emails would be great :)

 

Also, I haven't used my debit card really this week.  I can check it out today though.

 

Les Quiero muchisimo mi familia!

 

Love, Hermana Montgomery

Flood facebook!

Ohhhhh, what to write?! There's too much. Always...

 

I forgot to even tell y'all last week about our baptism. Like...what...? How did that even slip my mind?! Who knows. Mark and April had asked Sister Young and I to sing "Lead Kindly Light" at the baptism, which both of us were excited about...until we sang it the next morning and it was very churchy hymnyy and not very exciting or soul-full. So we changed it up. We added in some acapella parts, a few solo parts and had our pianist play an active high at one part, and then for the last verse, I sang the tenor part an octave higher, and Sister Young sang the Base part an Octave higher. WAY. COOL. Except for the fact that we were shaking out of our minds. Right before we went up Sister Young leaned over to me and said "Lord, make us sound like angels..." We were both really nervous for how it would go.  We sang right before he was actually baptized, and right in the middle of my solo part, my voice just kinda slipped and I had to breath. It ended up making it a bit more dramatic in the performance singing "the night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on." I'm not sure if I really just couldn't breath at that part, or if the reality of what I was singing just kind of hit home to me.  I am far from home and sometimes all you can say is "Lord, lead me on. I've got nothing."  Anyway. This dramatic sucking in of air and dynamic change and word choice kinda threw everyone into the Spirit. To my surprise. There were tears, and smiles and I realized how much I loved the people looking back at me. I looked at Mark and his girlfriend April at this point, who were both following along in the hymn book, and crying softly. Breathtaking moment. I which I could have frozen the moment in time. This Gospel really is what brings us true, pure joy. Even with the awkward breath-taking and rushing frantic moments of filling a font and getting people their on time.

 

Since we found out that we have another six week run at this area, Sister Young and I decided that we are going to do everything we can to build and lift this area. Starting with the memebers. If we are to rely on our memebers for referrals, and our memebers have struggling testimonies, that strong testimonies we must help build first. We started a 40-day fast this last week. My last area was finishing on as I came in, so that was where we had gotten the idea. We passed around a calendar, and someone signs up each day. the person signed up, starts at 5pm the day before and goes until 5pm the next day, when they signed up. The idea is to continually have someone fasting in our Branch for missionary work for 40 days striaght. We have already seen the mircales. Whoo boy have we seen the miracles. We reached our memeber present goal for the first time last week, and we commited a friend of our Elders Quarom President to Baptism. She's been reading the Book of Mormon for 3 hours everyday since. We also got a random call from the other stake with a referral for us. Lessons and opportunities have just been popping up. It's incredible to see the hands of the Lord reaching down to us like never before.

 

We are also implementing a "flood facebook" this friday. The idea is to have every member post something about the church on their facebook this friday August 2nd. And it's not just a Branch thing. Our Branch Mission leader is creating an event on facebook tonight that explains more, and were hoping to have it spread around the states. So, I have an assignment for you reading this. This friday, post something. A link to your favorite talk or mormon message, a scripture, a quote, a picture of you outside the temple at your wedding. Whatever it may be. Be creative. And tell people The event should be going around, so look for it, and if you don't see it, go find it. It's called "Stand Forth and Begin to Speak." I coined that... Following Hel. 5:26 :) Because the more people that are in on it, the more it's going to touch those around us.

 

Que mas..? AHHH no time.

 

The meetings on the Base are going to be changing, and so Sister Young and I taught our last Gospel Principles class. She begged me to break something. So I let her. We decided to kinda go out with a bang, or a crash. We taught the restoration to about 35+basic trainees and their visiting families. While describing what happened in the Apostacy and how the authority and power of God was lost, Sister Young took out a glass cup, zipped it up in a plastic bag and then Smashed it onto the floor, shattering it into pieces. Whew. Then she picked up the bag and ask "who wants to put this back together?!" Silence. We explained how without God, and his power and authority, the church couldn't be put back together. Poeple tried, but they needed devine assistance. The we talked about Jospeh Smith. It. Was. ASTONISHING. I think we surprised a lot of people. We had a good crowed come to our next hour class where we teach the Preach My Gospel Lessons. So many that Sister Young and I had to split to different sides of the room, she taught those preparing for baptism, and I took the questions from those who were there for the first time. Steller lessons. I felt smart answering questions without a trainer beside me. But I guess I still had the best trainer with me :)

 

Well family. There's never enough time. I love you all. Have a good week! And rememeber "Stand Forth and Begin to Speak"

 

Love,

your Hermana