Good Morning
Family! And what a week it has been.
Last week, I wrote
about how Sister Staker and I had cleaned our whole white board and started over
looking for new investigators. Things have been struggling a lot the last
couple of weeks, and we felt like no one was progressing, or even wanting to
progress. The stress and frustrations have really taken a toll on Sister Staker
and I and we've had to be working a lot to stay positive. So we had been
revamping and re-planning and reevaluating our goals and plans and our focus
was finding new investigators this week.
We started by going
on exchanges with the Sister Training Leader APs on Tuesday, I went up to their
area with Sister King, and Sister Hill came down to Pleasanton with Sister
Staker. They're teaching a lot of really prepared people, and it was neat to
see how they are all actually getting ready to be baptized. Pretty sure
every lesson I walked out of my jaw was on the floor. Prepared investigators,
prepared members. Sister King and I were talking on the way back to meet up
with the other Sisters, and she mentioned something about binding the Lord to
His promises, talking about how if we do all we can do, then the Lord has to
keep is promises to us. So I've been pondering on that a lot, ways that I can
do my part to bind the Lord to his promises.
And promises have
been kept this week. As Sister Staker and I have been changing our efforts, we
have seen the Lord's blessings come. We found eight new investigators and other
investigators that we had have started to progress. It's been interesting to me
to see how things have kind'a just fallen into place as we've started to talk
to more people. In about August, the mission started to move away from knocking
and was focusing more on member work and other ways to find, since more people
get baptized if a member introduces them rather than missionaries knocking
on their door. Since then, there has almost been a bad taste in the mouth of
the mission when it comes to spending our time knocking. Sister Staker and I
have been trying to knock a few more doors than normal as we stop by formers,
and walk down the street when lessons fall through and talk to people who are
outside rather than just getting back in the car and trying the next former or
less active on our lists. It's been really interesting to see the difference. I
haven't been out contacting a lot since my first area working at Texas State
University in San Marcos knocking the apartment complexes, so I'm a little
rusty, but it's coming back.
We've also cut down
on the amount of things that we carry, traveling more light. We've been asked
to use the resources that we have more, going back to using the pamphlets and
things provided for us, rather than other things. So now, I just carry my scripture
case with my Quad, a little Book of Mormon to give away with Pamphlets and pass
along cards in the pocket. It's a lot nicer to carry instead of my big bag (it
was getting a bit torn anyway from use). I think it has also helped me to teach
more simply and focus on the point rather then the teaching. It's been a bit of
a paradigm shift week.
I gave my training
in district meeting this week about distressing from the work, fitting eh?
Sister Staker had me change right before I left because I needed to be more
happy and bright colored if I was giving a training on stress, it's not
always people tell me that.
The training went
well, I felt a little scattered brained, but I think that was mostly because I
felt like I was giving a training on coping with something I didn't know how to
cope with myself. I guess that's usually how God teaches us right? I used the
new adjusting to missionary life booklet which gives a lot of ways to handle
stress positively. I'm sure the booklet has been helpful to a lot of
missionaries. Sister Staker's training on "Companionships: how to have one
like Sister Staker and Sister Montgomery's!" went really well too, I
learned from it :)
Thursday evening we
headed up to North East San Antonio to do an exchange with the Garden Ridge Sisters,
Sister Morrell and her trainee Sister Swenson (Sister Morrell was the first
Sister I did exchanges with and was trained by Sister Wright as well). They are
in a bike/car share area right now, and that day they had been on bikes. We got
a text when we were almost there that said Sister Morrell had
crashed going down hill and had hurt her arm. When we got there they were
getting there as well after getting a ride with some members. She couldn't move
her right arm, and her left wrist hurt too. At first, we changed plans and
decided that Sister Morrell would come with me to Pleasanton instead of Sister
Swenson since she couldn't ride her bike, but she wasn't doing very well and so
we decided to postpone the exchange and instead call Sister Slaughter and figure
out what we needed to do medical wise.
We ended up driving
them to the emergency room and spending the night there since no one in their
district had a car that week. Sister Swenson went with Sister Morrell to do all
the ex-rays and get her arm wrapped while Sister Staker and I slept and were
entertained by Disney Channel in the waiting room. It was a long night. And we
looked like trash. Since it was a weekly planning day we hadn't
really done our make up and our hair was in ponytails and buns, and we
were both in maxi dresses. We were quite the sight...Sister Staker said we
looked like hobos with tags. Yessss...We finally got back to their apartment
around 2:30am and crashed on the couch since our apartment was a half
an hour drive south. Sister Morrell had a fractured elbow and will get a cast
today, she's a trooper. They are both good Missionaries and we had a good time
together despite the broken bones haha.
While teaching
a part member family this week, we were going over the Plan of Salvation. For
some reason, we got really focused on the Atonement, and as we were talking
Fred (the non-member husband) interrupted us. He asked us what we meant by
the suffering of Christ during the Atonement, he said that he didn't remember
that in the Bible. His wife, who has been less active, turned to us and said
"isn't that where He bled?" it kind'a set the tone for the rest of
the lesson. We turned to Luke 22 where it describes Christ's experience saying
"... being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it
were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." and talked about
not only did Christ suffer for our sins, but He suffered for our trails and
heartaches. We read Alma 7:11-12 talking about how "he shall go
forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this
that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains
and the sicknesses of his people...and he will take upon him their infirmities,
that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may
know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their
infirmities." He was dumbfounded. Astonished. He literally was
speechless when we asked what he thought. It was neat to share how the Atonement
related to him more personally, and how to Book of Mormon supported and
expounded upon the doctrine in the Bible. All of a sudden I gave him an
assignment to read some parts in the Book of Mormon, we closed the lesson and
we left very quickly. I think the sudden end let him keep his thoughts focused
on what we had been talking about rather than small talk or the rest of the
Plan of Salvation. It was a really neat lesson.
We also finally got
in contact with a less active member, James May and his girlfriend Jackie. The
Sister's before us had taught them once, and told me all about them, but we had
only met once. We got to have dinner with them and talk about things. They're
both very sweet people and we have a return appointment set up. We're excited!
Area 51 got brought up again, poor Sister Staker.
One house we
knocked on this week, we were setting up a return appointment and exchanging
information and then the girl stopped and was like "oh! y'all were at my
sister's house this week!" And sure enough we were...we had contacted both
of them in Pleasanton, totally different days in different parts of the
city. We had even briefly met her at her sister's house. And we
had only knocked on about four doors in between. Chance? Probably not.
Viridiana, our
investigator in the Spanish Branch texted us Sunday morning between
meetings and said that she didn't want to meet with us anymore, since she
wasn't feeling anything. I was okay for a little while, but then as I was
playing prelude music for the Spanish Branch sacrament meeting, things
exploded. My heart just felt a little bit like it would never be okay. I felt
like I could have done more. I could have spoken Spanish better. I
could have answered her questions better. I don't know. I know she felt
the spirit in our lessons, and that it was making a difference to her. But it
was her choice. And I bawled. The only thing that really comforted me was that
the lesson before we had given her all of the pamphlets for the lessons. She
has the apps on her phone, she has the pamphlets and she has a Book of Mormon,
and I know that she will be able to find her way back to the truth someday. She
will get baptized, and it will be okay. We gave her the tools to come back and
the feeling will be familiar. She'll remember.
While thinking
everything during sacrament meeting, I started to think about how this is some
part of how God must feel when his children wonder. A lot more that's have been
going through my mind lately about our relationship to our Heavenly Father,
maybe my thoughts will be more collected next week and I can explain them
better. Until then, it's been a really good week. We've seen a lot of miracles,
and been blessed. And I've learned a lot.
I love you family,
and hope that you have a good week!
Love,
Hermana Cheyenne
Montgomery
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