"And There's a Triple-in in Leon Springs Ward..." Yep..That's Me. - May 19, 2014

Dearest Family,

Since I was transferred last week I guess the biggest news I could tell y'all about is my new area. I'm in a place at the very north side of San Antonio, and I'm in a trio again! We were also tripled into an area, meaning Elders were moved out and we were moved in. First Sisters the Ward has ever had. Intimidating? Possibly. 

It's called Leon Springs and it's just a little baby area, well, baby compared to Pleasanton it is(Sister Regan Stayed and her new companion is actually my old companion Sister Lund who I served with in Del Rio). We live with another companionship (Sister Farmer and Sister Felix) and so we have five Sisters in our apartment, it's almost like being at BYU-I again...only with less bedrooms and more desks. We have a bunk bed and we originally had our desks in the bedroom as well, but it was a bit claustrophobic and plus there was no light in the bedroom, so we took over the front room with the other Sister Permission.

My Companions are Sister Done (Dow-ne, like dome only Done) from Logan Utah who has been out for eight months and actually just came from my stomping ground in Del Rio, and Sister Chambers from Perry Utah (by Brigham City) who has been out 16 months and came from Rockdale north of Austin. They are gems. We get along really well. Sister Chambers keeps us calm, Sister Done keeps us focused and I keep us laughing. Sister Chambers has the addresses, Sister Done has the phone and I have the keys. I was going to try and red dot myself so I wouldn't be there driver anymore since I've gotten really tired, but Sister Chambers got in an accident and is red-dotted, and Sister Done won't be driving her mission. Therefore, I drive. It's not so bad, we have a gps in this area now, saves our lives. I'm glad Sister Chambers has been out longer than I have, it takes the focus off of me. She goes home in June, so this is her last transfer. We've been role playing what to say to people when they ask us how long we've been out. She's tried the ploy "a little over a year" and some members have already called her out on it. I just say 15 months and start laughing, because I know they'll make a bigger deal out of her.

So triple-in. Our ward doesn't have houses. It has castles. Literally. We went to our ward mission leaders house and I almost drove off the drive way onto the grass because I was staring at his house with my mouth open. HUGE. It may or may not have had a courtyard. It's also a lot of young families, and the area is very family oriented, not just the members but a lot of the other people we have met as well. It's interesting. We have to be careful of the 8pm hour because a lot of families are putting kids to bed, and as you know...bed time is not always the best hour for visitors. 

There were a few investigators that the Elders had been working with; even a couple of active-non members, but no one has really been progressing. The area has so much potential though. We started visiting members and part-member families and less active families and then if they weren't home we would knock around a little.

Friday evening (so we had only been in the area about 24-hours) we decided to knock on this door and a young mom opened the door and started talking to us. Her name is Stephanie and at first we started to schedule a time to come back the next day, but after a few more minutes of talking to told us to just come in a talk to her for a couple of minutes. When we got in, she started talking to us about her passed (married and divorced twice and now living with a man 20-years older than her), it felt like she was giving us a check list of all the information that missionaries normally ask about. It's like she knew Preach My Gospel. We taught the Restoration in about 15 minutes with the Pamphlet showing her the pictures and asking her questions, she was very focused and listening carefully. She caught on very fast. We set up a return appointment for the next morning. Oh, and when we went to give her a Book of Mormon, we realized that non of us had one and we would have to get one from the car. When we got to the car to get one for her, we realized that we hadn't brought any of our supplies out into the car yet and therefore we had no Book of Mormons. "Quick!" I said "Everyone look under the seats and in all the compartments!" We were frantic. Found a golden investigator and couldn't even give her a Book of Mormon. And then Sister Done found one in the glove compartment. Let's just say it: God answers prayers.

The next morning when we went back to visit Stephanie, she wasn't home, but her "boyfriend" Boyd was home. We were a little worried at first, but then he asked us if we could come back at noon because he wanted to take the three of us to lunch and ask us some questions. Whaaattt? Stephanie had told him a lot about us, and I mean, he knew almost everything we had talked about the night before. So we came back at noon and followed him to a restaurant called Dog and Pony. As we were eating, we asked us questions about our missions and plans for afterwards. He talked about his family and how he met Stephanie and what role Christ has played in his life. He talked about how we all needed a foundation on Christ or life wouldn't be anything. Basically he was almost word for word quoting our doctrine! It's like he knew the Book of Mormon. My jaw may have hung open a little at things he said. He started talking about how he believed the family unit these days was being attacked and we needed something. We then pulled out the Family Proclamation (Which we had all studied and role played with that morning to use with Him and Stephanie-Miracle!). He loved it. Once we finished he looked at us and said "Do you know what it would do to the world if everyone read this and lived it?" Gold Star. He told us how The Family Proclamation was going to be a point of study and discussion for his family in the coming days (They have five kids-19, 18, 16 ,6 and 2). Basically, I've never met a family so prepared to have and live the Gospel. It blew me away.

And this is just one of the families we have found this weekend. I feel like God is just blessing us with people who are prepared. We're super excited to be in this area, and are expecting to see miracles.

We sing hymns in three parts while driving in the car and role play a lot. I take a lot of pictures and they laugh at me. Some times I have to explain my humor. We are all so different, and yet it just works. It's kinda like having Brennen from the TV show Bones and Anne from Anne of Green Gables as companion’s hahaha and then there's me. Makes for interesting days :)

Well family, I'm learning so much. Studies have never been better, the work is going to get going and I'm in a trio again. Here comes the Sun do do do do :)

Sister Cheyenne Montgomery

Fever and Chills and Blessings that Come - May 12, 2014

Hello family!

It was good to hear y'alls voices even for a little bit last night! I hope y'all are doing well. Congrats Jubilee On your call to Germany!! I almost screamed in the church and dropped the phone when Sister Sage showed me dad's text to her. Figures you'd get to go there, you and I will have to do splits with the Sisters in our ward for the whole month of August :)

We had our Sisters conference on Tuesday and went to the Temple that morning. I hadn't been feeling super good that morning and in the middle of the session I got chills pretty bad and was shaking and freezing. My companion kept feeling my forehead and told me that I was warm. My only prayer was to make it through the session without throwing up. It was a struggle, but I made it through. At lunch I happened to sit at the table with three past companions plus Sister Regan, who all babied me into eating my food rather than hiding it under my napkins. I've had eleven companions now...and only two of them are home. Weird. Sister Miller who I was trained with is now companions with Sister Young who I trained, they talk about me they said...and notice things the other one does now that they picked up from me. Strange. So we all swapped stories. It was fun.

The conference part of the Sisters conference was interesting. There have been a lot of Sisters struggling with anxiety and depression lately, and since they told us to bring our adjusting to missionary life booklet, I figured they would talk to us about it. We didn't even open the booklet. The focus was more on dressing better and baptizing more so that "we wouldn't feel so stressed." Some things that were said by the Sisters training almost felt a little condescending like ..."and then you're going to have an anxiety attack and quite." There was more than one sister out in the hall crying afterwards and as I was hugging one Sister she whispered to me "I'm just a baby." She is not a baby. And teaching and baptizing more is not always the key to not feeling stressed. Sometimes things are out of our control and it's stressful. We're human. It does not make us any less of a good missionary or a good member or person if there are some things that we struggle with that others don't. Stress, anxiety and depression are a very real thing that should not be discredited. Sister Regan and I were able to talk through some things and I was able to feel better. President Slaughter also addressed that Heavenly Father knows our bodies and how they work, meaning to take the time to take a break. I don't know why I'm ranting about this, probably because I can be a stressed out and overwhelmed missionary and person and it has never helped to feel like you're being told you're not doing enough.

 

 My trainer Sister Lauren Wright wrote me a letter a few weeks ago and told me about how she was talking to a return missionary friend and her friend said to her that obedience doesn't bring success. It brings blessings. Y'all know that missionary quote? "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles." Her friend went on to explain that there are disobedient missionaries who are "successful" and then she said something along the lines of obedience brings tender mercies from the Lord that help us to grow. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. When I hear the quote "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles" I have always thought of it in the image of me smiling in a picture with my companion and dozens of people dressed in white jump suits. I've had one of those pictures. Does that mean I haven't been obedient? That I haven't been working hard enough? Five areas, eleven companions, hundreds of contacts and investigators and I've been there for one baptism. I have come to believe that statement "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles," but more often than not, the blessing does not come in the form of a white jumpsuit. I believe that more often these blessings are subtle. Think of Mom and dad studying the scriptures so diligently with us when we were young, probably didn't pay off the way they expected in the first ten years or twenty years, but I know that reading scriptures as a family has forever changed my life and already my future family. Other blessings may come faster like the response to President Monsen’s announcement where everyone could see the effect immediately. That announcement has as well forever changed my life and already my future family. And as Elder Holland has said "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come" (An High Priest of Good Things to Come, October 1999). I do believe that has we are obedient and faithful to God's commandments, we are blessed. That principle has increased more than anything on my mission, but I also understand more clearly that those blessings are not always what we think they will be.

So anyways, back to being sick. I had a fever for all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, missing our Zone Conference that I was supposed to train at with Sister Regan and the Zone Leaders. Another Sister had gotten sick at the same time and was throwing up, so I went over to her apartment and we stayed together while our companions went to zone meeting. We were a pathetic miserable sight. I am a Doctrine and Covenants pro now since I watched all of those short movies and not so short movies multiple times while I was having hot and cold flashes and coughing up a lung.

When we were finally able to get back out again Friday, it started storming and we were half expecting a tornado or something to blow Pleasanton over. We took shelter though with some members and were able to make it through the rain storm.

We had a lesson with the Hopp family again and at one point, Blaine came out to talk to us again (for a reminder of who Blaine is, read letter from April 21... or I'll just put it right here:

April 21, 2014

"We've been teaching a young man, he's actually a son of a part-member family. He's about 22 years old, and has been doing drugs since he was 9 years old. Rips my heart out. Blaine's mom's greatest hope is for him to join the church. He's been in and out of rehab for the last three months or more and does drugs to keep his depression and anxiety back. He's been struggling a lot. I've felt like we needed to teach him since I got to Pleasanton, but I never had the guts to ask him. The first time Sister Regan was there when he sat in on a lesson, it finally popped out of my mouth and I invited him to let us come and work with him. He said sure, but he apologized up front and said it wasn't going to be easy for us. I got a blessing when I was in Del Rio that told me I was called to Texas to teach specific people, people that only I could teach. I've often had a hard time believing that, feeling that there was always someone else that would come and do more or better than me. One night though, as Blaine's mom talked about him in and out of rehab, I had the distinct impression that Blaine was one of the people that I was called here to teach, and to remember that.

"So, we've taught him three times now...the gospel changes people! It's basically like teaching a ten year old...with 22 year old problems. Sister Williams went with me on exchanges to teach him, and she sat with her mouth open the whole time, not knowing how to work with him. He's so contradictory, and lost. But I've never been so sure in my life that the Gospel changes people. When people talk about the "Nobel and Great Ones" I've never felt like it was talking about me, or people like me, they're talking about people like Blaine. I'm so positive that Blaine fought for agency before this life and for the chance to come to earth, and now he's trapped in this drug addicted body. He does have his agency here, and he is going to change. Already, just little things, he's changed. Made his bed, clipped his cocaine nails, started playing the guitar again, put up his GED certificate on his wall and other certificates, and reading verses in the Book of Mormon even though its hard since doing so much LSD has basically made him dyslexic and read in circles. After we taught him the plan of Salvation in about twenty minutes since he was being so ornery, I asked if we could end with a prayer he was like "Wait, you're leaving so fast?!" Then I was like "Well, would you like us to stay and talk more?" and he sat back for a minute and said "Do as you please." So we sat back down and read Alma 5 with him...harsh, but he understood more than he was going to admit. He really was paying attention to the part in the Plan of Salvation about the Resurrection, as I explained that our bodies would be made perfect, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I have learned so much about God's plan for us through teaching Blaine this week. Blaine has taught me a lot. Even though he drank a half a bottle of vodka right before our lesson...I've never known so well that the Gospel can change people. He really is a funny person, Sister Regan and I have started a "Blaine quote wall" for all of the things that he says, and I have to control myself a lot not to laugh in lessons cause his reasoning is so skewed. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about him in letters to come."

So Blaine has been avoiding us for a while now, and we haven't been able to teach him for about two weeks. We kind'a stepped back and decided to let him have his time. So he comes into our lesson and he's super excited to see us. He sits down and is waiting patiently for his turn to talk, and when we finally turn to him he says "I met a good friend of yours the other day." I started to think of everyone we knew here that he could possibly meet "investigators, members, bishop, other missionaries, contacts..." and then he said "I overdosed the other day and died and met the devil." Well...I must say he was not on my list of friends that I was going through mentally. The things he says to try and get a rise from us. He goes on to explain how he overdosed and died and basically realized how messed up his life is. He described it as "darkness, suffering and pain, literally hell." sounds a bit like "racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins...I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell..." (Alma 36:12-13). So Blaine has decided to stop drugs. Cold turkey. He's been clean for a week! And he said the closing prayer, and it was a good prayer. When he said yes to saying it he said "Yeah, I guess I do have a lot to be grateful for from Him." He has plans to get clean and get a job and start working to get a car and things. This is huge! Sister Regan and I couldn't stop screaming once we got in the car. Bruised my already sore throat from all the coughing. Oh well.

Well family, sorry this got a bit long. Last night between phone calls President Slaughter called with Transfer news, I'm being transferred Thursday and Sister Regan will be receiving a new STL companion. I will still be an STL in my new area. Figures we would have so many week five miracles before transfers. I think I'm red dotting myself for driving in the mission. I'm tired. And I have no GPS. Area Six coming up fast. 

I love y'all, take care. Squish Calebs cheeks for me.

Hermana Cheyenne Montgomery

And Thus Ended the Days of My Watch

Dear Montgomery Fam,

Since when do we have a dog?? She sounds great!

This week...man..this week. It's been crazy.

We had exchanges with some Sisters this week that doubled into their area three weeks before, where elders had been serving. They even moved into their apartment, and I think they felt bad for taking the time to clean and scrub something’s. So they didn't. They were sisters living in an Elder's apartment. And it was bad. Both had been experiencing a lot of stress, their area had been doing good, and they'd been working super hard, but they had put their sanity, apartment and companionship on the back burner and it was starting to weigh on them. I went to their area and was talking to one of the sisters. She's a very good missionary, so funny and has a good head on her shoulders. She talked quite a bit about the stress of things and at one point after studies we just started cleaning. There were dishes from the elders on the counter still, and trays of food on top of the cupboards. She vacuumed while I scrubbed baseboards and even pulled out the fridge to sweep and mop the floor. It was nasty. But talking to her in the car afterwards she said, "I can't even explain how good it felt to just VACUUM." Family, sometimes, we just got to take the time to vacuum. That day, even though stress had been hard on me before the exchange, I felt so peaceful. I think God knew how to calm the storm in me so that I be of help to that Sister that day.

 

Part of the calm came while reading an article in the March 2014 Ensign entitled Trials, Tribulations and Trust in the Lord by Elder Bradley D. Foster that morning before I showered. It told the story of a mother and father who lost their first child, Preslee Jo, who was 18-months-old in an accident  where she fell into a canal and floated a little ways downstream. The article was about how they were able to start recovering from it and helping others learn of faith. The mother had a blog and wrote and updated people while the experience was happening. The parents’ response of faith was incredible to me, and over 7 million people read the story of their faith and trust in the Lord through her blog. Something about the article and message really struck me, and just helped me feel at peace, somehow.

One thing that was written said "While she was in the hospital, Preslee received a blessing in which she was told that countless people would be drawn to her story and that she would continue to influence others for good. When Ashley heard this, she thought her daughter would recover. 'How else could she continue to influence others?' she asked."

I think I was part of that blessing. I don't know that I have had an Ensign article effect me so much. Something about it made me realize again that God really is in control. That it will be okay, even when things look black.

The sweet wouldn't taste so good if we didn't know what sour was.

One of the quotes that Elder Foster used was from a book called Why Did This Happen To Me? by Ray Pritchard, it said "Sometimes we will face things for which there is no earthly explanation. In those moments we need to erect a sign that reads, ‘Quiet: God at Work.’ Meanwhile, hold on, child of God. Keep believing. Don’t quit. Don’t give up. Let God do His work in you. The greatest tragedy is to miss what God wants to teach us through our troubles." I liked this so much I wrote it out and stuck it on my wall by my desk so that I could remember. Elder Foster also added on to a quote by Elder Worthlin in his talk Sunday Will Come (Ensign, Nov. 2006, 30) that said "'When the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces,' the Savior’s power and assurance can still make it possible for us to experience joy and peace. " I loved this article, a lot actually, and have been thinking about it all week. I'll put a link to it at the bottom so y'all can find it, I want to share it with you.

This week we also had MLC (Missionary Leadership Council), and the Director and Assistent (I think) Director of Missionary Prosalyting for the church were there actually. Talk about intimidating. We even had to role-play in front of them. I should have brought my notebook with me to email so that I could write more about it, but alas, I'm left to my memory.

They had a Q/A and we talked about our concerns, and then they taught us about things that we could "tweak" in our mission to increase the vision and faith. One of which was using the pamphlets that go with each of the lessons differently, focusing on the pictures in them. The Director of Prosalyting was actually a Visual Media guy so it was right up my alley. So using 1 Nephi 11-14 as a guide, we practiced using the pictures in the pamphlets more in a "what beholdest thou?" or in modern language "what do you see?" He talked a lot about having shorter lessons (10-20 minutes) and coming back to our investigators more frequent, instead of having hour-long lessons once or twice a week. It was really hard to try and teach the whole restoration in seven minutes, but it made me throw our things that had become rote in my teaching and stick to the doctrine that the Spirit could testify to. Sister Regan and I have been trying this and we've been having more lessons, we even set someone with a Baptism date yesterday on the first lesson (20 minutes), which hasn't happened while I'm teaching a whole lot. It was neat :)

They also talked about "The District" Movies (https://www.lds.org/callings/missionary/the-district and ttp://www.mormonchannel.org/the-district) that we use for training new missionaries. They pointed out that these weren't just for missionaires in training, they were suppose to be like game film that we would go back and watch and rewatch and then do it again, pointing out bad things and high points and what was good and what could have been done better. Brother Hemmingway (Director) was actually the director of the District 1 and gave insights to it, and Brother Donaldson (Assistendt Director) President for the District 2 and he gave insights to that as well. It was really rather interesting to get some inside scoops of things that happened. So, Sister Regan and I have been watching the District videos every night since Thursday, and we'll be using those a lot more.

We're having a Sisters Conference tomorrow! All of the Sisters in the whole mission are going to go to the Temple and then we're having a conference afterwards with President and Sister Slaughter. Sister Regan and I suspect it'll be mostly about handling stress better since there are many sisters who have been struggling. But WE'RE GOING TO THE TEMPLE!! That always makes things better. What was interesting was right before we got the phone call, I asked Sister Regan how many times she had been to the Temple, and we had both been at least twice, so it wasn't likely we would go again. Point: God knows what we need before we ask. So that's good.

Anyways, I love ya fam. I start 90 days tomorrow. Strange world this is. Thank y'all so much for your letters and stories; I love the play by play updates.

Love always,

Hermana Cheyenne Montgomery

Zone Conference Week - April 28, 2014

Dear Family,

I don't know how to keep up with time, everything is going so fast and I don't know how to stop it. Our STL (Sister Training Leaders) Leaders asked if they could change our exchange to this week instead of next week, since they just needed a day to work in their area. I totally understand that, I feel like we never have a full day to work, things always come up.

We had Zone Conference this week, it was SO good. We talked a lot about revelation and I wish I had brought my notebook to email so that I could tell you more. We were also asked right at the beginning of the meeting if we would participate in a musical number in the middle...uhhh these things keep happening. So we left lunch a little early with some of the other sisters and practiced in the Chapel. We sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer to the tune of Come Thou Fount. We were even able to figure out harmonies and things before, it turned out really nice :) glad I have some talent to pull together.

The last hour or so of zone conference, President Slaughter turned it to the topic of marriage and opened it up to questions from missionaries in the two zones. Interesting...His response to question about his thoughts on getting married quickly after our missions will probably be the talk of the mission for a while. He said, and I quote "from the time that your foot hits the floor off the plane, to the time when your knee hits the alter is the most spiritually dangerous period of your life." Then he asked us how long we wanted that period to be...a lot of things were brought up from dating nonmembers to choices of career and who we wanted to be responsible for raising and teaching our children. it was a good discussion. He also told us to lock our hearts, but to be aware of the future, to be looking for things that we did or didn't want in our future families. I've already be made more aware of that on my mission, it's interesting just how much you can tell about a marriage, family and home life in one dinner appointment with members in the ward or investigators.

Another thing that President Slaughter advised was getting a masters degree no matter what, even if it was career related or not. He said something along the lines of "in a world that is increasing in darkness and competitiveness, we need to be a little more that most people." It reminded me of when Elder Bednar told us in January that at this time " [we] we need to learn faster and with greater intensity than ever before." Food for thought I suppose.

We talked about scripture marking at one point and how we study the scriptures, and President Slaughter said that we wasn't very good at remembering "Book of Mormon stories that [his] teacher told to him" but he was pretty good at remembering "Book of Mormon doctrines that his Savior left for him." He explained to us how we have increased so much in knowledge and light while on our missions, and that if we didn't continue studying for the rest of our lives, we would lose that light. He wanted to dispel the false doctrine that "reading at least one verse a day" would get us through and help us out. We have to continually be studying and increasing our knowledge. It hit home even more when in Relief Society a few days later the Sisters talked about hardly getting the chance or remembering to read their scriptures during their week. One said she normally got to do it at least once a week. Really? Your priority will be where you put it I suppose.

We were asked at our dinner appointment if we were scared about anything about going home having so little time left (Sister Regan and I got our first set of paper work for our flights home this week). I think I'm most afraid of forgetting. I don't want to forget how much everything has meant to me, and how much more the Gospel means to me. I don't want to become complacent or take for granted the work that we have to do as members, because the greatest work that will take place is the work I will do after my mission.

We got to go into the class for the teenagers in our Spanish Branch this Sunday to help with the lesson. Let me just say, God puts a lot of trust in His youth...I think I'd gotten very use to being around missionaries and had forgotten what youth classes were like...

So anyways...I'm not sure what else to write. I guess I'll write more in a bit if I think of more.

Love Y'all

Hermana Montgomery