He's Just Dad

Well hey Family, how are y'all?

Good thing this was a packed week that I don't remember anything about. Cool.

We got the car back finally! A shiney 2011 red corolla. Whooo! back behind the wheel...in Austen. It's fun :) not as scary as San Antonio.

We have been teaching this man named Jesse, and he's been inactive for a while, no one can get him out to church. He's had a troubling life, done some things he shouldn't have and feels like he doesn't deserve anything now. He wants to see the blessings of the Gospel in his life, without living the Gospel. He's 37-yrs old, and single, and his greatest desire is to have a family and be happy, but he's not super willing to try for it. He feels like he's the butt of a joke when it comes to God. As we were talking to him I asked him to commit to coming to church for three weeks in a row and reading his scriptures and praying everyday, to do those things and then to see if his life wasn't going better. Hey, if people can change and  qualify for baptism in three weeks, why can't they become active again in three weeks? He was like "really...I'll seeing blessings now...in this life...God's not crossing His fingers on me?" I promised him that he would see the blessing come in this life, if he held up his end of the deal, God would be faithful to His end.   Towards the end of the lesson, he said "I have one last question, why didn't Jesus Christ write an autobiography before He died?" I held up a floppy copy of the Book of Mormon and said "read this and mark everything that talks about Christ and you'll come to know Christ better then by reading any autobiography." He said "...nah, I was just being a smart." Then I said "well, I can smart too." Then I handed him the floppy copy of the Book of Mormon. My companion may have given me a fist pump...she thought it was great haha. Oh, and did I mention the Bishops pre-mission daughter was there with us? Yeah. He tried to turn down the Book of Mormon, saying he already had one, I gave it to him anyway telling him to read this one and mark it up. He came to church this Sunday, and even met with the Bishop. Quite a few people came up and asked us how we'd gotten him to come. Well, what can I say, God does work in mysterious ways!

We visited with an investigator, Brother Kirk, who has been meeting with the missionaries about once a month for the past five months. He's a lawyer and very intellectual. It was a super long lesson that want around and around the topic discussion about five times. Mostly unproductive. He did notice that I bounce my knee when I get anxious. He told me I better watch out for restless-leg-syndrome when I'm older. Yeah, when I was in San Antonio Sister Young would have to tell me to stop shaking the whole bench at church because my leg was going so fast. Oh, the things that develop on a mission.

Sister Clements and I actually bought princess coloring books today so that we have something to do to relieve the stress. Coloring is good, I wish I had brought my coloring book from home. Esta bien!

We also told Celeste, the Sister we live with that we would mow her back yard this morning before we left. I was in the bathroom then headed out to Help Sister Clements, when she ran into me coming back in. "I can't get the mower started! How the heck do you start it?!" I went out to help and started it on the first try. She hadn't been holding the thing down on the handle, so it wouldn't start. "My dad always made it look so much easier when he did it" we laughed.

We also talked with the father of one of our recent converts. He's another intellectual, he "debated" a bit about the translation and the actuality of Jesus' name being Joshua...saying we should call him that and all this other stuff. It was another round about conversation. But I was able to bear my testimony to him about Joseph Smith being a prophet and  being inspired in his translation of the Book of Mormon, he didn't really say much back to it. So when all else fails, testify. We invited him to watch the talk "Safety for the Soul" by Elder Holland, who else could testify so boldly of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon?

We've been working with a less-active women and her non-member husband, I've mention them before, Carl and Vanda. They're good people. They remind me a lot of you, mom and dad actually. They've taken in a lot of teenagers over the years and helped them out of rough situations and taught them to make good choices, the recent convert I mention above is having a hard time with her family and depression, and we asked Carl and Vanda to help her. 

The mission gives all of the missionaries here an Atonement packet with a 60-day study of the Atonement with talks, scriptures and things. I made a pretty cover for mine, and got it bound a few weeks ago, making a few copies that I was going to send to people, mostly y'all, Danika, Sharlan, mom and dad and my friend Anna in Fort Worth. I made two copies so far, but I haven't been able to send them out to people yet. I've been holding on to them, not being able to mail them out yet. Last monday I was going to mail them, then felt like I should wait. We met with Carl and Vanda that night, and I felt like we should ask Vanda and Carl to help our recent Convert Rachel with the Atonement packet, do it together kind of thing. Rachel needed them, and frankly, they need her testimony. She's so fresh and vribrent and strong in her testinomy, and she wants to share it.So I gave away both of those packets I had made for other people, but I don't feel bad about it. Actually, I feel empowered to know that I followed the quite promptings I had had to keep the packets. And it was nothing huge, like this strong impression, it was just in the moment, I chose not to send them. If I had mailed them out, I wouldn't have had them to give to Carl, Vanda and Rachel that night. God does know what he is doing doesn't He?

Going with that thought, my Christlike attribute this week has been Charity. So I've been studying and working at developing it this week. Let me tell you, be careful when you pray for opportunities to show charity for people, because God works fast. All week I've been recognizing opportunities where I could get mad and start throwing hymn books, or I could turn outward and show love for other people. I learned that Charity is the highest, noblest kind of love, not merely affection, but true devotion.

 I also realized that charity isn't just showing love for our fellow men, but it is love for God as well. Hmm. Not sure about y'all but sometimes I don't think I show Heavenly Father that I love him the way that I should. While thinking about this during a personal study, I started to analyze my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I think I've thought of Him like I mentor more. I like mentors. Like  the, "okay, show me what to do next" or "how do I do that" or "prepare me for what's next" go-get-it-done kind of mentoring. I feel like I've had a lot of mentors that I've looked up to a lot in my life, from my band and seminary teachers, to counselors in school or Bishops, or even my Zone and District leaders now. I like being  mentored and "trained" per se. But thinking of my Heavenly Father as a mentor didn't really sit right with me. Yes, I've had some pretty great teachers and mentors in my life, and they've taught me a lot, but they're not my dad. I don't need mentors, I need my dad. My dad has been the greatest trainer that I've had in my life, but more than that, he's just been dad.He knows everything. He knows how to help his kids, and he loves caring for his kids. He's dad.

This week as I was pondering on this all, I got rather homesick. Lonely for the familiar things. Saturday night came, and the General Relief Society Broadcast with it. Then you know what came? The water. The tears, the snot, and the tissues. When President Monson got up- to speak, my heart swelled. After 8 months of testifying to people again and again of the truthfulness of the gospel, and of living prophets, and eternal families, I realized, and felt it confirmed, that Thomas S. Monson, President of our Church, really is a prophet, called of God. I know it. Because I've felt it. As President Monson spoke to us, he spoke to my heart. He testified of our Father's love for us, no matter what, of how He is aware of us and our very individual, very specific needs. He's just dad. Shar wrote to me a few weeks back and told me that love for God and from God is the strongest power, and God's source of strength and motivation for us. I'd second that. As we come to know who are Father in Heaven is, we are empowered and more capable of doing and being good. 

Well Family. That's about all this week. It's been a full week :) it's good to hear from y'all. I miss you and love you dearly.  

Les Quiero Muchisimo mi familia!

Hermana M.

"At least y'all aren't those Mormons!"

Well Friends and Family, how are y'all?

Not much has been happening this week. It's been pretty slow still. But let's try to dig up some goodness.

Monday: We had a zone P-day at a huge house. Like...indoor basketball court, cafe, theater huge. And that was only the downstairs that I saw. Cool.

We were also taken to the Salt Lick Restaurant by a part-member family, which is a big deal here I guess, it was pretty cool. Mostly just a lot of meat. Texans love their meat :) After dinner they wanted to take us to see bats. Yeah. Bats. They all hide under a bridge over by the Capitol building and then they come out just at Sunset. It's a pretty big production. It was pretty dark by the time they finally came out, so my pictures aren't very good. 

This week really has been a slow week. I've been studying "Hope" this last week since it's the next topic in my Atonement/Character of Christ study. I think it was a difficult week because I was lacking in the hope area. Sister Clements and I have been brainstorming a lot of things and trying to figure things out better for this area, but it's like we just keep ramming into a brick wall. Less-actives wanting to remove their records, people not returning calls, lessons with investigators falling through, recent converts struggling. It's been a rough week.

We did get to go to Stake Conference this weekend. It was a much needed Spiritual replenishing. They talked in the adult session about Temple Attendance, ironically our Mission President just gave us permission to go to the Temple when we felt like we needed it. He said to be wise with it and not abuse that trust though. I think we might be heading down to San Antonio soon in that case, because my whole heart has been aching for the Temple. In the Sunday Session of Conference, they talked a lot about having faith in Christ, the talks were all stellar and point on to what I needed. They were just very real life talks. I felt like my soul was just soaking in everything. I kept looking around wondering if everyone else could feel the Spirit that I felt their that day. That meeting became somewhat of a Temple, or holy place to me that day. I've been coming to find a lot more of those holy places since coming out on my mission. 

On Saturday, we went to visit a Less-Active women, and she told us not to come back to her again. It broke Sister Clements heart and we sat on the side of the road for a while after. Sometimes this mission stuff hurts. As we started walking back home for dinner, we passed by a man whom we had said hello to in passing earlier that day. He asked us if we were lost or exercising. In skirts. Yeah. Then he said "At least you're not those mormons...are ya?" "Well, we are actually!" We said haha he told us to come by and get water some time. We have plans to take him up on that this week. We got a good laugh at it :) Crazy Mormon kids.

We also were out in the rain quite a bit this week. We didn't want to sit and wait it out, so we just went for it. I had an umbrella, Sister Clements didn't. We ended up walking on a pretty busy road right as school was getting out. Soaking wet. Cool. We were laughing though, we got honked at a bit. It scared us at first, then it was funny. The drivers got a pretty good laugh too. We also passed a sign that said "real life" I forget what it was even for. But I wanted a picture by it because I kept asking myself "Is this real life?!" 

I've been enjoying my Atonement study. Elder Holland helped me out the other day to figure out why a mission is so hard. He's pretty smart that guy :)

We also are going to downtown Austen to see the Capital today. I'm pretty excited. It reminds me of maybe going to the Capital in the Hunger Games books. People dress kinda crazy here so maybe I'll see what Panem is really like haha :)

I love the letters. Blog printouts from other missionaries would be nice. Send love to the kids.

Well fam. The Gospel really is  true. What else really matters?

"Can't we just lock her up in our basement and introduce her to all my friends?!"..."I think that's illegal.."

That's what Sister Clements asked me while talking about a struggling recent convert in Young Womens...she's pretty funny :)

Hello Mi Familia :)

How are y'all doing? I want to hear the details of the family! How's school? How's them babies? Soccer sounds fun for them. Angelina will be a good player, don't break any bones though :) Last aggressive player we had broke her bone.

So we still don't have a car. Yeah. We called the day that we were suppose to pick it up and they told us that the Church's insurance still hadn't gone through...so we were looking at another 2 weeks of being car less. Strugglin. So we walk. We would ride, but honestly, I think I get motion sickness, cause it's awful and tippy and awful. So much for all those scraped knees learning how to ride a bike. So we walk. We walked to an area to visit some less-actives, and I guessed that it was about four miles away, Sister Clements guessed a little more, and Celeste told us it was about three. Pooo. Not as cool as we though we were. Celeste, by the way, is the member that we live with. She is AWESOME! Super brilliant and funny, and so, so nice. We love her dearly and she has a good sense of humor.

So to help our companion-relationship we tell each other every night why were love the other person. Like we would do at the dinner table back home. It's good to be appreciative of our companions and helps us step outside of ourselves a bit more. I really do adore Sister Clements. She listens very well and she loves hearing about y'all. And she likes pictures just about as much as I do. It's a plus :)

We also have a very FULL dinner calendar. So we'll be living off of eggs, fruit and Jillian Michaels workouts. We do them in the mornings...and then we hurt the next day. Whooo! So, if you haven't mailed those other things off yet, you could stick in my P90x and bands if you wanted to :)

So last Monday we taught a less-active women and her non-member husband. He's a pretty good cook so we got a fabulous dinner out of it as well. She had a rough growing up and he's pretty skeptical about Joseph Smith, but he loves the stories in the Book of Mormon, and so the Sisters have been reading with him once a week. Sister Clements and I are wanting to challenge him more though, to help him progress. At one point during the lesson last week, after he was talking about the lack of faith that he has, I asked him to pray about the Book of Mormon, and that we'd follow up with him this week. He stopped and stared at us silently for a bit. Then he said that he would. His wife was teary. Sister Clements says that she likes that I am so bold. Is that what that is? Maybe, I just thought I was mouthing off a bit.

After trying to organize our brains out, Sister Clements and I asked a member to take us to Home Depot and we got a white board. A huge one to organize everything on. It's different from my last one, but I like it a lot more. I knew you wanted one. The Sister who took us to get it didn't understand at first why we would need a TRUCK, but once she saw it she understood. Her son is on his mission in CA waiting for his visa, and she wanted to get a picture of it from us to send to him, she loves our updates on it and seeing what we're doing. Glimpsing a bit of her son through us I think. The life of a Missionary Mom :)

I think I need to put Tri-Cities, WASHINGTON on my name tag. Because everyone asks where I'm from all the time. More so here that in my last areas. Or maybe there's just a lot more people here then in my last areas. And then they get all excited that I'm a Spanish Speaker. Tryin' anyways. Pero, esta bien!

I've been studying pretty hard during my Spanish Studies. And I still sing the hymn in our Companionship study in Spanish and read the White handbook in Spanish. It helps a bit. Celeste served her mission in Chile, so she helps me out whenever she's home. She still uses it a lot in her job, so it's nice to have someone who knows the language pretty well. I don't remember if I told y'all or not, but there is a Spanish certificate Missionaries can receive in my Mission. You have to pass (75%) a Spanish test, speak 500 hours of Spanish and read the whole Book of Mormon in Spanish. Gah! We get to take the test every transfer meeting if we want to. I've taken it...never mind. I won't tell you how many times I've taken it already. But I'm moving up on it. I feel a lot better about it this last time I took it then I ever have before. And I've been studying better for it this transfer. And have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon in Spanish in the next two transfers. So just got to figure out the hours. It's difficult in an English area and with an English Companion. But it'll come through.

We got to go to a fish fry on Saturday night. Whooo. A neighboring ward put it on to get non-members mingling with members, and the Elder's invited us. It was pretty fun. It was hard to tell who was members and who was't, since it wasn't our ward. Not that I really knew the difference anyway since I'm still trying to figure out our members.

Sister Clements and I are also singing in the Stake Choir in Conference this weekend. My voice is hoarse from singing. I haven't sung like that in a while.

I've been doing a Special study on the Atonement and Character of Christ.You know when you get in those lame ruts where you think you're not going to learn that much more than you knew before...and then God laughs at you and you're proven SO wrong..?Yeah. That happened this week. My mind is blown away. EVERYDAY. I've been reading the Preach My Gospel Section on Christlike attributes, the Book of Mormon, the New Testament, Jesus the Christ, and a packet I got from President Jones with a bunch of talks on the Atonement. It is a beautiful thing, and I always run out of time during personal study. I've been having themes from Preach My Gospel for each week, so like last week it was Faith, this week it'll be Hope etc...so I study it and try to develop it more during that week. It's been incredible to see how much I have learned, and how my faith has increased. Things we would teach and talk about in lessons would tie into things that I had studied. It's been neat to see how I am prepared after I study. So to finish off my study on Faith, I figured out my own tangible definition. 

Ahem: "Faith is acting accordingly to our belief in Jesus Christ, with full confidence of receiving blessings, according to His promises to us as the Son of God and our Savior." 

What's your definition of faith?   

Well fam. That's about all for now.

les Quiero Muchisimo!

Hermana C. Montgomery

"Keep Austin Weird"

The black board my YSAs made

Hello my dear Family :)

Como esta?!

Well fam. Welcome to Austen.

I was transferred back up into South West Austin into the Oak Hills Ward. It's a FAMILY WARD! Weird. I didn't think it would be that difficult adjusting to a family ward, but boy was I wrong. YOUTH. BABIES. PARENTS. GRANDPARENTS. WHAAAATTT?! Brain overload basically. Did I mention there are youth and children? Cause there are. Weird. 

So my Companions name is Sister Clements. I ADORE her. She is from Highland Utah and is the oldest of 4 girls. Both of her parents served missions, her mom in Ohio and her dad in the Philippines. She has freakishly long dark hair and she only wears make-up on Sundays. We get along real good :)

Our ward is in quite a well-off area, and I've heard it's a little tricky  to find people to teach. I'm so excited to be here. Every night I thank God that I've been moved to this area, because I really am just so excited to be here. Sister Clements old companion Sister Burtenshaw actually got transferred to my Singles Branch in San Antonio. We just switched places. But she actually had to be transferred again since she's Canadian and can't go on the Air Force Base. Sad.

So before I said more about Austin there were a few things I had to get y'all up to speed on.

Vanessa and I saying goodbye :(

So in the YSA Branch in San Antonio we were teaching a boy, I've mentioned him before, Conner. We had an appointment with him two weeks ago on Friday and we confirmed with him the night before and everything was good. Then we texted us and asked if he could call us. We called him and he said that he had finally talked to his dad about taking the lessons and his dad wasn't very happy about it. He took his car keys and told him if he went to the lesson he would basically kick him out of the house. So Conner called us and we asked him what he wanted to do. Was it something he still wanted. He told us that he would find a ride to the lesson the next day. And he did. He came anyway. Sister Young and I had quite the ordeal planning his lesson. We ended up taking everything we had and hoping for inspiration. He set a date that day. He said that he was scared of his dad following through with his threats, but he said that he was more scared of not following what he knew was true. WOW. It was a powerful moment. He talked to us more later and said  that he told had said if he wanted to be baptized he would have to move out and support himself. He's now looking for an apartment. Talk about faith and dedication. It's incredible to see people dedicate so much for the truth.

So last week when my YSA Branch found out that I was leaving, they threw me a party. They tried to Slyly ask what my favorite food was and so made me tacos and they even got a cake that said "We'll miss you!" AWW. Dang. Make me cry. I will miss those kids. They taught me a lot. 

So Austen. Yeah. Sister Clements described them Austinites as creative modern hippies. I may or may not be getting a shirt that says "Keep Austen Weird." I love it :) there is just a some what crazy creative feeling here. Very different from Down Town San Antonio described as "The Straight Getts" 

Sister Clements and I

Being back in Austen just felt a little bit like coming back home.

So we figure out who our new companions are, and Sister Clements Whispers to me "by the way we're on bikes until Tuesday, Sister Burtenshaw crashed the car and it's in the shop." Cool. So just in case y'all were wondering... not eating all day, getting up at 4:30am, two transfer meetings and 100+ degrees equals a crashed bike. Cool. Not really. Just sort of... I hadn't been feeling good and tipped my bike. Whoooooo down. Sister Clements felt bad. I felt like a idiot. Pero, it is what it is.  We walked for a bit and a nice man gave us water. We gave him a card. It all works out.

Well, family. That's about all for now. 

Catch up with ya later!

"Do You Know How to Break a Finger?"

HELLOOOOOOOOOO Mi Familia!

 

Welcome to September. It's going to be a good month :)

 

This has been a busy week. It mostly started on Tuesday with a training by President Slaughter. It was on "Finding by Faith" and it was life changing. President talked a lot about focusing our efforts on investigators more and less of the Less-Actives and Members. He gave us a lot of training and instruction on working with members to be able to teach their friends. He also emphasized a lot what our purpose as missionaries is. We had an inspirational lesson with one of our members preparing to go on a mission soon. We tried some things we learned. He gave us six names of people who knew that he wanted us to be able to teach. Six. Is that real life?! It put me into a fiery mood and I just wanted to meet with all of our members to be able to talk about referrals.

 

We had FHE on the base that night and theres a girl who's been coming with one of our members lately. Like for the last three week  and she's really intimidating to me.  So, we've never really invited her to take the lessons, since we didn't want to have her shoot us down and never come back. She's pretty opinionated. Basically I was afraid of her. But after our training, we went to FHE and we prayed that we would be able to share the gospel that night on the Base. As we were saying the closing prayer at FHE, I remembered that we had prayed to be able to share the gospel. And I was a little sad, but then I had the overwhelming feeling of inviting Natalia to take the lessons. Scary as death, I was terrified. So I started to talk to her at the end as everyone was cleaning up. I was asking her questions and things and finally she was like " I feel like these questions are going somewhere..." So I stopped asking questions and said "Sister Young and I are Missionaries for our church, and we share more and teach others about the Gospel. Would we be able to meet with you and share more with you?" Boom. I was terrified. Like I may not have ever been so afraid to invite someone to listen to our message. She said "Well, when would we meet?" .......WHAT?!........ Sister Young and Sister Clark had said that their hearts stopped a little when I started to talk to her. She then agreed to give us her phone number if Sister Young told her her name. The pinky Promised. Natalia asked Sister Young if she knew how to break a finger in the middle of it. Sister Young panicked a bit. But we got her phone number.

 

I don't have a lot more time to email today since we're at a members. I'll try to write more in a hand letter, PERO. I might not have a lot of time since I'll be packing.  Yes, I'm leaving. Transfer calls came last night, I'll be leaving on Thursday and Sister Young will be staying. Mind Blown. We had both guessed the opposite of that.  And so the packing begins. Yikes. All I know is that I'll still be senior companion. More to come next Monday.

 

Well, that's all for now. More to come later.

 

I'm sorry it's short today.

 

I love y'all. Take care :)

 

Love,

Hermana M.