Good Morning Family, it is a
beautiful Summer day in Texas, not too hot and not to chilly. All you need is a
light jacket...or a cardigan and scarf...which I'm wearing, it's fine haha :)
Some members were teasing me on the fourth of July for wearing a cardigan...but
it matched...what else I'm I gonna do?
So
anyways. Due to some changes in a few companionships in the mission, I have a
new companion! Guess who it is :) Sister Hopkins! My MTC companion and I will
start our missions together, and also end them together. Thus, the first shall
be last. We're having fun. It's crazy to see how different and yet the same we
are. We've done four exchanges together throughout our missions and now we're
companions again. Laughs 'till the end.
This
week has seemed forever long, I think it's the heat. So some highlights:
After
district meeting, while eating lunch someone said something about watching
Nacho Libre when they first get home from their mission (and it wasn't me), one
of the Sister's than said "that's an awful movie to start with."
There was shocked silence and maybe a few glares...and I wasn't the only one
haha. Glad our district has similar taste...for the most part hahaha.
MLC
(missionary Leadership Counsel) was also this week. It was really good. One
thing President Slaughter talked about was the insights that we gain about
God's knowledge through the JST translations in the Bible. I might have been
drooling. Okay, let's be honest, I think I always drool when President
Slaughter is teaching us. My brain just
can't take it all in, something's got to make room. Drool. Anyways...
Fourth
of July. It was this week, how was y'alls? Mine was pretty good, weekly
planning and all. We did have a lunch and a dinner and then a ward activity for
the fireworks, too bad it started raining and the party had to be moved inside.
Then we had to be home by 8pm and well, hardly anyone was there
before then because it was dark. We did get to watch the fireworks from our
apartment, so that's fun.
Jason
and Gaby have not been heard from since Tuesday. There's been a lot of stress
and things in the family and with the situation with her papers, and I am
really worried that reading and meeting with us has gotten put to the back
burner. Makes me very sad, it might be one of the hardest things of my mission,
when I've come to love people so much and they're struggling. We're hoping to
be able to meet with them again soon though.
So,
Sister Hopkins came from an area called Castle Hills, and that is where Sister
Greenall is now (my companion for a week). On Saturday night we
received a phone call from them telling us that they had met the sister-in-law
of one of their investigators and she had sat in on their lesson. Turns out,
this women recognized Sister Greenall. Jump back a week. Sister Greenall and I
contacted a women who only spoke Spanish. We talked with her briefly and gave
her a pass-along card. This women was the Sister-in-law of the investigator in
Castle Hills and she had just been taught the Restoration and wanted to learn
more. Whhaatt?? Does that make any sense? Sister Greenall taught someone in
Castle Hills, that she and I had contacted a week before in Leon Springs. Que
en el Mundo?? So anyways, they referred her to us again, and since we hadn't
talked with her a lot, we hadn't written the address down. So Sunday evening,
Sister Hopkins and I go on a hunt trying to find her house. Four houses later,
we still haven't found it. I knew the area, and I remembered it was on a
corner, but for the life of me, I couldn't find it. We were finally driving
down this street and we saw a group of people outside. Suddenly, Sister Hopkins
started screaming, "STOP! STOP! IT"S RAMIRO!" Her investigator
they had been teaching in Castle Hills was at the house of his sister-in-law
now, in Leon Springs. What? We found them. The whole ordeal was nuts and still
blows my mind a little. We have an appointment to talk with her more on Friday;
we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon and Restoration Pamphlet. We're excited to
teach her family more.
I've
been doing a new Preach My Gospel Study, doing all of the activities and
scriptures (in the text and in the boxes) and questions and consider this
boxes, the whole shebang. And after a week of an hour of study everyday,
I'm on page three haha, I'm learning SO much. I decided not to set a time
limit for myself. To just study and work on it until I am finished, even if it
takes me a year. It has felt so good to just look up all the cross-references
and footnotes and definitions I want as I study. For some reason, I think I've
put a bind on myself in the past, feeling like I didn't have time to study one
part so much. Taking my sweet time now. Anyone who wants to learn how to study
or get more out of their study, do this with Preach My Gospel. All the
questions. All the Scriptures. All the Activities. Everything. It will teach
you how to really study and think.
One
thing I've been studying about is teaching by the Spirit (on Page three). It
lists a whole bunch of scriptures explaining how we will know if we are
teaching by the Spirit. Looks like this:
Man,
putting pictures in like this never gets old :) did y'all enjoy last weeks?
So
anyways, I was reading all the scriptures with it and thinking about it before
looking at the text explaining each scripture, and I stopped on the D&C
84:85 one and looked up all of the cross references in the footnotes to it.
Very thought provoking. Talking mostly about treasuring up the word of God and
the promise of how we will not be confounded before men if we speak the
thoughts that are given to us by the Spirit.
So
later that night, we had a lesson with Janet. Janet has been going to church
for two years, her grandson is a member now but for whatever reasons that we
keep finding, she has not gotten baptized. She brought up a lot of confusing topics
that I'm sure y'all have seen going around the news and Facebook, and towards
the end of the lesson I shared my Testimony on the Book of Mormon with her. I
told her that the Church and it's organization falls, or it stands with the
Book of Mormon. One can't be right without the other. And that no one would
gain a sure testimony of these things without reading it for themselves and
sincerely praying. I wrote in my Journal afterwards:
"I
was thinking about our lesson with Janet last night, and what I had studied
about earlier about our mouths being filled. That happened last night. I know
it did, I was able to speak and bare my testimony in a way that I knew the
Spirit had filled my mouth.
"Yet,
it didn't seem like it mattered to Janet. I could tell that she was listening,
but it wasn't absorbing. Why? Didn't I have my mouth filled?
"As
I was thinking about this last night, I realized that not one of those
scriptures talks about what the other person will do. It doesn't say 'those
that you speak to will be astonished and confounded and desire to be baptized'
but instead it says 'speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts , and you
shall not be confounded before men "(D&C 100:5)."
I
looked up the definition of "confounded" and read "to throw into
disorder or confusion; to confuse; to bewilder, puzzle or perplex." The
promise and example in most of those scriptures was that as we treasure up the
word in our hearts, we will not be confounded before men. How
I came to understand it was as we are studying the Doctrine of Christ and doing
our part to learn by faith, we will not be confused, bewildered, puzzled or
perplexed by the doctrines of man. 
I've
actually seen missionaries and members be puzzled confused and perplexed by
what other people have told them about God or even the church that they belong
to. And I've seen people leave the church and abandon God over these feelings
of confusion. We need to know where to look. And it all does come back to the
Book of Mormon. I don't think I have ever doubted that the Church was led by a
man divinely called and ordained to be a prophet. Because I knew the Book of
Mormon was true, I knew it all was true. The Church and it's organization
falls, or it stands with the Book of Mormon. One can't be right without the
other. And no one will gain a sure testimony of these things without reading
The Book of Mormon for themselves and sincerely praying about it.
It's
either true, or it is not.
And
if it is true, we'd better follow what we then know is true.
So
that's about all for the week. Happy Birthday today Sharlan! And Happy
birthdays to Mariah, Anthony and Justin Rene! Thinking about y'all this week :)
Love,
Hermana
Montgomery
PS,
Conner Mitchell who I taught in Palo Alto a year ago finally got his
mission call to the Salt Lake City North Mission! Sister Young called and was
talking to me, crazy excitement :) He leaves in September!
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