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
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