Soy deciplo de Jesucristo

HELLO HELLO HELLO MI FAMILIA :)

 

Oh, goodness it was so good to hear y'all yesterday! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to add Danika's sparkling personality. Family, I love y'all. I hope you know that.

 

This has been an eventfully uneventful week. Figure that one out. With finals ending at Texas State and mothers day this week as well, we've knocked a lot of empty apartments. It has been an emotionally draining week.

 

Our dear Jennifer, decided this week to support her mother in her church rather than be baptized this coming Saturday. Jennifer was one of the very first investigators Sister Miller and I taught here in San Marcos, and we were devistated. We have been and are still going through the denial and guilt phases. I keep wondering what more we could have done for her. It's heartbreaking. Really. I honestly don't know if I've ever said "heartbreaking" in my life, but if I were to use it to describe anything in the world, having an investigator who has gone through so much, changed and prayed so much for healing, be one week from baptism and then turn around...that would would define heartbreaking pretty well. Everytime you think you've started to get a mission under control, it comes and slaps you in the face, and you have to start all over.

 

But with everything in life, God has a plan and a balance. On Thursday night, we called our dear friend Gilbert, after about a month of no contact. Let me tell you. If I could rewrite Alma 36:21 it would be something like "yea, I say unto you, my family, that there is nothing so exquisite and so bitter as are our pains when we lose an investigator. Yea, and again I say unto you, my family, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as is our joy, when our investigators return." Joy. Joy is eternal, and joy, my family, is what we felt as we called and heard Gilbert express to us that "life is eaiser when God is in it." We are so excited to start teaching him again. Pray for him. He has a long way to go, but he knows now, that it's what he needs to do.

 

We also started teaching a young man named Luis (you MUST pronounce it in Spanish. LOO-ESS say it with me. we Sister Miller and I learned that the hard way). He is steller. We have spent more that 12 hours with him this week teaching him. We had to try and cram in as much as we could since he'll be leaving for home this week since school is out. He had so many good questions, and he said that as soon as we mentioned Jesus outside his partment complex last Saturday, he wanted to know more. We've had some incredibly POWERFUL lessons. There is nothing so cool in this world, at this point in my life, as being able to move your mouth and speak, and know that those are not your own words coming out. Truely, God's hand is in this work.

 

My Spanish is struggling. I need to speak it more. But with being in an English area, and only speaking it with a few members in my ward and with my companions, I'm worried about it. We were able to speak to a man on the street in Spanish for a few minutes this week and gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon. As I explained the importance of the Book of Mormon and Jospeh Smith breifly in Broken Spanish, I could tell that I was a Spanish called missionary. It felt so good and right to testify in Spanish. President Jones promised his missionaries that we would be able to learn Spanish just as well as any missionary who served in a forigen country Spanish speaking. I believe him. If he has been called as our mission President, and gave us that promise, I believe it. However, when I took the TSAM (Texas San Antonio Mission) Spanish Test, I got by trashed kicked a bit. And by a bit I mean A LOT. PERO. Heavenly Father has promised us that our weeknesses can become strengths (Ether 12:27) and if he can make the Nephites "mighty in writing" He can make me mighty in Spanish. But if not,  I am still un "deciplo de Jesucristo, el Hijo de Dios. He sido llamado por el, para daclarar su palabra, entre los de su pueblo al fin de que alcancan la vida eterna" (3 Nephi5:13). That was without my Spanish Book of Mormon incase you were wondering...so you Spanish speakers excuse the spelling errors if there are any. I have been blessed with the ability to understand it pretty well, it's the speaking it that is difficult. Because I read by sight and not by pronouncng words in English in my head when I read, I've had to start reteaching myself how to read properly and out loud in Spanish so that my mouth will learn to form the words. It's tricky, but I've already been able to see myself progress. I hope to be finishing 2nd Nephi by the end of this transfer, and I'm almost done with 1st Nephi now, so hopefully I can make it. I read a lot slower in Spanish than I do in English. It drives me nuts sometimes how much easier it is to just speak in English, PERO. God didn't intend for us to come to earth to be in our comfort zone. He wants us to expand, and so expand in the Spanish language I shall. But a shout out to any Spanish speakers who want to write to me in Spanish, have at it. Or non- Spanish speakers who want to try and write me in Spanish (Sharlan). Any and all help is welcome :)

 

Pues, mi familia. No tengo mas tiempo.

 

I love y'all. Take care. Adios.

 

Hermana Montgomery

The Bitter with the Sweet

HELLO FAMILY!

 

Well. This week has been eventful. And yet I have almost no memory or it.

 

Transfers happened. I dear Hermana Wright left us to open a new area closer to Austen and train a new missionary as well as becoming a new sister leader trainer person. I miss her dearly, pero(translation: "but"), we had some good laughs and we know it's not the last time we'll see her. For sure.

 

Sister Leavitt, is our new trainer, and get this, she's from Kennewick Washington. What the random?!?! So yeah, she graduated in '08 from Kennewick High and is in the Kennewick East Stake. Small world. It is a very, very small world. Her dad is the institute director in Kennewick, and when she saw a picture of Jed on my wall, she was like "oh, I do know your brother" from way back when he went to institute there for a bit. Weird. Crazy, random. Small world. So, if you ever wanted to contact a Spence (hahah our dads even have the same name...weird.) and Jannie Leavitt in the Cascade ward, your daughters are serving together in Texas.  Small world.

 

So some fun facts of this week:

 

My hair was purple. Well, almost. I had bought hair dye a few weeks ago, and finally got around to doing it last p-day. When  I was doing the whole prep and it was on my gloves, it looked like I had squashed...blueberries and then was smattering them into my hair. I was sort of mortified. "I am a missionary, going to FHE tonight, and transfer meetings later this week, and I am going to have purple hair." Think of Kate Hudsen in Bride Wars screaming "BLUE! I HAVE BLUE HAIR" and that would have been about my state of panic. But once it was all dyed and stuff and blown dry and curled, it didn't look so bad. Don't worry mom. I don't have purple hair as a missionary. You can start breathing again. It looks good. I did feel a little more wild and bold when we went tracting that night though, and was able to talk to people more energetic-like. I told Sister Wright, maybe I should dye my hair "purple" more often if it would help me be more bold.

 

That p-day we also went cowboy boot shopping for Sister Wright. Purple hair and boots. Good P-day.

 

A few weeks ago, we met a really nice girl outside one of the apartment complexes we tract, and she was really excited to see us. Her name was Amelia, and she said that she would text us when her scheduled cleared and she could meet with us. We exchanged numbers, and texted a few days later. She was still really excited to meet and talk with us, but was really busy working everyday and taking her finals for school. And so she told us we would be the first to know when she was free. This weekend, knocking in a different complex, we met a girl. As soon as she opened the door I thought she was familiar to me. And her name was Ameila. No. WAY. What are the chances we'd find her home. We went in and she knew she had met missionaries, but she couldn't remember if we were the ones she had met. Turns out we were. She said  that we couldn't have come a better time in her day. She'd been struggling, having negative thoughts, and we showed up, knocking on her door. We said a prayer with her and she talked with us for a while about some goals and views she has for her laugh. She is SO cool. Although she is still busy and in the middle of finals, she still wants to meet with us maybe next week. God is so smart. He just plans everything out perfectly.

 

We also met, last night Ryan Jirovec. He was on the TV show The Voice, and got second place or something on the show. He's good, look him up. He's done demo's for Andrea Bocheli and JOSH GROBAN. He's now finishing his degree here at Texas State. He had met a few Mormons doing the show, and so talked to us for a little while. Sister Leavitt beign the outgoing missionary she is, asks him if he'll sing a song for us. The deal ended up being that if We sang for him, he would sing for us. Cool. I can't believe we did it. We gathered around Sister Leavitt's tiny hymn book and sang Be Still My Soul. Cool. It took a lot from me to not laugh at our own ridiculousness. He later called his friend Haylee from the show who's a Mormon and told her about these "cute Mormon missionaries who sang a song from their hymn book for him" hahahah typical little Mormon girls. Hahahaha His friend Haylee told him to have us come back and teach him, we'll see if it all pulls together. It was cool though, he sang Awake by Josh Groban for us, and Amazed by Lonestar. He was pretty good too.

 

OH! I forgot. Cockroaches  Nasty little things. And they're in our apartment. GROSS! To the max. One night, Sister Wright was in the shower, and I was in our bedroom, and I heard her yelling some pretty great slang words. I wondered what had happened  maybe the water had turned cold. Nope. She had found two cockroaches  doing some pretty gross things in the shower. But they had scurried away before we could smash 'em. Needless to say, sleep did not come easy that night. In fact, Sister Miller only got about 3 hours of sleep after finding one in the bathroom at 2am. The next morning, we smashed one in the bathroom, and then Sister Miller found one IN THE LIGHT (WHAT??) in our kitchen. I don't handle these stressful situations well. Sister Miller and Sister Wright were going to take the light off, while I stood ready with hairspray. But, Sister Wright moved to get something for about 30 seconds, and the little (actually it was HUGE, like 3 INCHES) bug started moving down the light and away. I don't know how it happened. But all of a sudden I was screaming. Hysterically  At 6:45 am. And then Sister Miller was screaming. I handed Sister Wright the hairspray and she sprayed it and then smashed it. With a frying pan. We've bleached it several times, and I still can't bring myself to use it. Sister Miller has asked me to never scream again. She described it as "a blood chilling experience." So that was fun. It's still taking some to to recover from the trauma induced. I might need therapy when I return home.

Love Sister Montgomery the Third

Members Matter

Pues, Hola mi familia! Como Esta?  Estoy bien. Siempre :)

 

WHOOOSH. It has been, a big week.  First, we had just about the lesson that we could have with one of our investigators, Jennifer, I've told you a bit about her, she's got some hard things to overcome, but she is so committed to changing and coming unto Christ. This lesson we had with her, was almost a make or break it lesson, because we could tell that something had been bothering her and it was really holding her back. We decided to plan our lesson and have it be about healing from the Atonement. Somehow, I'm still trying to figure it out, everything fit in perfectly. We brought a member with us, who ended up sharing some personal experiences about how she's been able to find healing, in a big way, through the Atonement. It really opened Jennifer up to talking with us about her concerns. She's started going to the addiction recovery program, and going through the book they gave her brought up some really difficult things from her past. Hard things.Raw things.

 

Remember that picture you sent me in my package of the girl with Christ's arms around her? She was blond. Honestly, when I looked at it the day I got it,  I was confused, I wasn't sure why you had thought of me or wanted to send it to me. Now I know. I gave it Jennifer. She didn't have any pictures of Christ, and we were trying to think of one to give her while planning, I thought of it, pulled it out and showed it to Sister Wright. She looked back at me and said "it looks like Jennifer in the picture." And it did.  So we gave it to her. She really liked it at first. But as we were talking more about the Atonement, forgiveness and healing, she got upset. Crying, she shoved the picture away from her and asked "how is THIS possible?" She didn't understand how God could forgive and heal her from things in her life. I'm not sure how we were able to do it. God was able to call things to our memory to share with her, everything we had been studying, preparing for came forward at this point.  A few lesson ago we had planned on sharing a song with her, on my ipod about Christ's Atonement, during that lesson a few weeks ago, I couldn't do it. I wanted to, but it wasn't right. We shared the song with her this time. I am still a little blown away at how smart God is.He knew everything that needed to happen in that specific lesson. And he prepared a way. He even inspired mom and Shar to send me that picture. Weeks before that lesson. He is so smart. She LOVES that picture now. As we talked more about healing, she picked it up again, adoring it. Soaking in the idea of Christ's arms around her. At one point, the member we brought, put her arms around Jennifer and just hugged her.I wanted to take a picture of that moment, and freeze it in my mind. Because through Lara, Christ had put his arms around Jennifer. Just like in the picture. Members matter. More than anything. They are just about the best of friends now, Lara and Jennifer. In just a few short days. And it has changed Jennifer. In order to move God's work forward, the missionaries and the members must join together. There is now other way that the work can progress like it needs to without the members stepping up. As Elder Anderson said in his last talk "paint your [missionary] badge on your heart." 

 

The gospel takes my breath away. I so badly want people to realize that when we are knocking on their door, we're not just another church of religion coming to convert them. We are messangers of God, sent to bring his children back to Him. It's not just a religion. It's something that is a part of us. a part of our devine heritage. If people, members, investigators and contacts alike, could only truly understand what this is, the world would change. Share it. It's not just our church, it's God's plan for us.

 

Transfer calls came last night, and boy oh boy was it a shoutingcryinglaughingsreaming experience when we realized that President Jones was calling us and not just the AP's. Our dear trainer Sister Wright is being transfered, becoming a trainer of one, and a sister leader person (similar to a Zone Leader). Poor Sister Miller and I will be staying in San Marcos and will be getting a new trainer, a stepmother. We joked last night that we could say "you're not my real mom!" when told to do something by our new trainer. Just kidding, you know we'll play nice. But we are sad to see Sister Wright go. Way sad. She has two transfers left on her mission, and so we won't get to see her much after she leaves. She's been great, and this next transfer will be just as good I'm sure.

 

One thing that Sister Wright did teach me was about picking a Christlike attribute each transfer to work on, she was working on patience this last transfer, and so I decided to start that as well. I was praying and studying about it, and came to Hel. 5:26 talking about Lehi and Nephi when they were in prision. It describes how their hearts took courage and the "did stand forth and begin to speak..." Now, I'm not sure you would count this as a "normal" attribute of Christ, but this is what I have decided to work on for this next transfer. I've come to find that I have a hard time talking sometimes to people. "WHHHAATT??!" you may say, "Cheyenne, have trouble talking? IMPOSSIBLE." I know, shocker. But  I do. I have trouble opening my mouth. Sister Wright told me once that sometimes you just got to open it and pray like crazy  that something good and actually profound, or even understandable, comes out. Sometimes you just have to "stand forth and [begin] to speak." and so for the next six weeks, I would like to study this attribute of testifying more and learning how to use it more in my life. We'll see what it can do to me.

 

Pues, familia. No Tango Tiempo.

 

Keep smiling and scootin' on.

 

Love,

Su Hermana Montgomery

Not on a Sunday....

FFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYY,

Hi.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

 

I LOVE your letters. All 78.5 that I have to read. My companions were laughing at me because I was trying to laugh quietly at all of ya'lls letters. Your letters are gems.

 

So this week, we taught one of our investogators, Jennifer, about keeping the Sabbath day holy. My trainer, Sister Wright had done a really good visual expirament before, and so we dicided to use it. We asked Jennifer what her favorite condiments were, like mustard, ranch, salsa, those kinds of things. She told us the normal kinds of things. Then we pulled out some ice cream, scooped her a nice bowl, and then started to make her a sundae with all of those good things. Her face became a little worried as Sister Wright sqeezed out some ketsup, mustard, vinigar dressing, and other condiments onto her ice cream. We then handed her the bowl and smiled. She said "Well, those are good, but not on an ice cream sundae!" Exactly. We talked to her about how playing sports, going boating, going to the store or movies were all good things, but not on a Sunday. doing those things on Sunday are like putting mustard and ketchup on ice cream, they're good, but not on a sundae. We then talked about how and ice cream sundae wouldn't be and ice cream sundae with out the ice cream, it's like that with church. It wouldn't be a sunday without church. We then scooped her another bowl of ice cream, and put the appropriate toppins on it, chocolate and whipped cream and stuff and talked about how there are things that do go on Sundays, like reading out scriptures, writing in  journals, visitng family, and other good things. I thought that it was a good lesson to help Jennifer understand, and I wanted to share it with the family becuase I thought that maybe it was something you could use to help teach the kids. It's interesting how many things I learn to teach that would be so great to use with the kids.

 

I had my first Zone Conference this last week. FABULOUS. Really. It really pumped me up and made me want to do my best as a missionary. Being a missionary is something that I've wanted to do for my whole life, and this week especially, I've looked in the mirror somedays, and smiled. Just becuause a year ago, I would have never in my life guessed what I would be doing right now. I am a missionary. I love it.

 

We also made scrap book pages for President and Sister Jones, since they are being released in July and we will be getting a new mission president. We gathered our paper from the tables, sat down with our photos they had asked us to bring, and then Sister Wright turned to me and ask "will you make mine for me?" my companions think I am crafty or something. Please. I try to tell them about Shar and Danika's crafts, to help them understand how uncrafty I really can be.

 

We've been doing a lot more tracting lately, since a lot of our lessons are falling through since finals for Texas State are next week. We've met a lot of interesting people, and seen a lot of timing miracles.

 

On Friday, we met a girl sitting in a parking lot. She's had a rough life, dropping out of school at 13 and being kicked out of her house later. She's turn to a lot of things that are harmful to her body, and is starving a lot of the time. As we talked to her about God's love for her, she got pretty worked up and upset, asking us "where is my God? In a world like this, where is He? Why isn't He here?" We shared the Book of Mormon with her, and hope to find a way to get her to Church. She did feel peace towards the end before we left. She wasn't able to get to Church yesterday however. Friday night, as we came home, I was really shaken from the experience. Life Isn't a fairy tale. It is hard. It is dark. And it can hurt. But. We have a Savior. God knew of the things that we would fall into in this life, and the pain that we would have to experience, and in His infinite and eternal love, he provided a means for us to escape it. He provided us with a Savior. He provided an Atonement. I am so greatful for Christ in my life. His Atonement and Love are so real. Tangible. Everyday, in everyway.

 

I love you all so much, and think of your smiling faces often. Jed, I got your graduation annoucement. Your picture is awesome :) Congrats with everything, and good luck to Jed and Katie with graduation and the baby, and to Sharlan with not being homeless for long. Good luck with Ammons Project and Jubilees graduation, your both going to be great! Danika I love your face, and your letters, I pray for you everyday. Little kids: I love your pictures and letters. Keep them coming. Mom and dad, I enjoy your letters and hope you keep up with your sci-fi show. Sounds like dad is enjoying it haha :)

 

Take care ya'll!

 

Letters are always welcome :)

 

Hermana Enne Montgomery

A Representative of Jesus Christ

This has been the fastest week of my life. It's also been an awfully slow week as we only had one lesson with an investigator, and three walk in lessons. It's been difficult, but I've seen a lot of miracles as well.

At one point, I want to say Wednesday or Thursday night, we were knocking doors and it was my turn to lead the introductions and such. The door opened and we could see that there was a kind of birthday party going on, and immideatly I felt uncomfortable with everyone staring at me. The girl who answered yelled "mom it's for you!" passing off the annoying visiters to someone else,and walked away leaving us standing there. The mom came over and the words "hi, we're missionaries" were barely out of my mouth before she started laughing at us and shuting the door. "Don't want any of that here!" she said as the door closed sharply in my face.  First time I've really felt like crying since coming out to Texas. Sister Wright touched my arm and said kindly, "Christ had people spit in his face too." It was then that I realized, and if I was to represent who Christ was and is, I was going to have to take some of brunt of peoples words and actions. He was mocked and tortured, Spit upon, and scorged, and He was the kindest person to ever live. If I am to represent Him, I have to represent Him at all time and not just when it's easy.

We've started to get a little Spanish tutoring for a few minutes after church on Sundays from some of the native Spanish speakers,since we aren't using our Spanish a lot. We've been practicing and preparing all week to teach them just one principle from Preach My Gospel, and I was nervous. I worked on memorizing the first vision in Spanish, and so far it's been kicking my trash. While practicing Sunday morning with Sister Wright, she told me to simplify it. To use the words that I did know, and to not make it harder for myself by using descriptve or laungage I didn't know. She told me I could do that bare minimum of what I did know, and work up from there. And so I did. Mike, a member in my ward was helping me, and he's been speaking English since 1st grade. He told me that he still has trouble reading English sometimes and sometimes doesn't understand words in english. It gave me hope, since he's been learning English for over 10 years know and still struggles sometimes. It will come. I can at least use past tense forms of words now, so that's a plus.

Transfers are coming up fast already and my trio has decided that we need to start praying to stay together. We just have too much fun and work well together to be split. The laughs keep us going in the day as we knock on many empty apartment doors. The weather has been pretty up and down this week, one day we'll be sweating buckets, and the next we'll be putting on coats and tights. One day, I said "as long as I can wear carves and scardigons I'll be okay." That mishap of words is still going strong in our jokes.

I'm working hard to learn all that I can. I want to be prepared. We were told that we could be training the new wave of sisters as soon as we're done with our own training. I've already had nightmares about training. Sister Wright thinks sister Miller and I are all cute being so worried about training in eight weeks. She said she'd even recomend us for training once we were done. She got a good laugh out of our tarified faces. I hope she was joking.

Well. The work moves forward.

With mucho love,

Hermana Montgomery

Tails of Faith and Tender Mercies All Around Us

Hey Ya'll.

Hmm. That was fun. Let's do it again. Ya'll. Embrace it folks.

Did you all LOVE conference? I know I did. A lot. Did anyone else notice the new camera angles? I think there must be a new director of filmography or something, because it was a bit different from others.

It's been a rough week here. Oh wow. Lot's of Trials of Faith happening around us. But also a lot of tender mercies.

One of our investigators, Jennifer, is moving mountains. We taught her the Word of Wisdom this week, and she struggled with the idea. We ended up being there for a very long time, but before we had left she understood what she had to do and started getting rid of the things. She has some pretty intense addictions to these things, and being in a college town, partying and drinking is what everyone does. But as she threw things away, she became more excited, and then kept looking for more things to get ride of. She is still struggling and working through some heavy withdrawls from those strong drinks, among other things. I admire her willingness to change so much. The things people do to come closer to Christ are not easy. But as Elder Holland told us once "becoming aquanted with the Savior is not a cheap experience. It's suppose to require some of your soul." I love his words. It gives me strength to know that amide all mine and others trials,as we turn to Him, we are coming to know our Savior more

On Sunday, we knocked into a few people and shared an Easter message. One, James invited us to come back again on Tuesday. James is a Photography Major here at TSU and has been through a lot  the past couple of years. He's had five deaths in his family in the past three years, including his father's death from cancer. He has a lot of empty space inside, and I can feel angels all around us trying to help him as we teach him. He told as that his dad passed away around 21 days before his birthday two years ago. We knocked into him March 31 this year, 21 days before his birthday this year. I don't believe in luck. He still has a lot to heal from, a lot of pain, and we're praying so hard for him to find the turth in our message.

Right before the end of our last lesson with him, he said something about me being a "computer" becuase I just knew all the answers. This troubled me a little. I am not a computer. I am a person, doing my best to connect to people and help them understand. And I started overanalyzing my whole life, wondering if I act like a computer, just spitting out the facts and not caring about the people. I didn't feel like I was. And I started to feel like no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to be good enough. After the lesson we were home eating dinner, and my trainer, Sister Wright finnally got it out of me what was bothering me. She had to explain to me that in this sistuation, James was not unsulting me, instead giving me a very high complement. She told me that He could tell that there was something different when I spoke to him, and because he couldn't identify it as the power of God, he had to find a different way to describe it. Computer. I felt a little better. I just wished I could know for sure.

Within seconds we recived a text message from James thanking us for our lesson, and spacifically the short mormon message that we shared with him ("Mountains to Climb"). He said that it was pretty "spot on" to how he felt. I had decided to show the movie to him in our lesson, because nothing else seemed to be coming. At the time, I couldn't tell if President Eyring's powerful words in the movie had touch him at all. But they had. And I had felt prompted to share it with him. I realized that even in my selfish moments of doubting if I could really be a good missionary, God had sent me a tender mercy to show me that I could make a difference. That through following the promptings of the Spirit, I could help others find peace in their life.

I am so grateful for a Father in Heaven who knows not only my needs, but all His children's needs, and he will not withhold from us if we but ask.  Even with so many struggles this week, with our investigators not following through, and losing quite a few, God is still there. And this is His work.

Well. Family. Life is busy and rough here sometimes. But I am a missionary. I am a Missionary. I still can't believe I'm here. This really is His work. And it is marvelous.

Love,

Your Hermana Montgomery

A Whole Bunch of Firsts

FFFAAAMMMMIILLLLLYYYY!

(Must read in the tone Nacho would use)

 

How is everyone?! I've spent so much time enjoying everyone's emails that I now have to speed type. it could be a struggle. Pero, esta bein.

 

Well, It's been a busy week and I can hardly believe that it's only been a week. Sister Wright and Sister Miller both agree with me that it feels like we've been together for MONTHS. So much has happened since coming to San Marcos that I feel that I must have lived here my whole life. Sister MIller said "if it weren't for my lack of knowledge of how to get anywhere, I'd have said I've lived here my whole life." True Statement.

 

A lot of firsts happened to me this week. Let me share a few:

 

I met and taught my first "wickin" this week, I think that's how you'd spell wickin, not really sure. It was interesting, and she accepted a Book of Mormon and said that if she felt it was right, she would keep reading it. Interesting.

 

I spent my first Easter away from home. Weird. Yeah. Last year, school ended right before Easter and so I was able to come home. And so I spent the day knocking on doors. In the rain. Interesting.But it was so good. I met two people who let us in and we had excellant lessons on the Atonement and both scheduled a time for us to come back and teach them again.

 

I went to my first lds non-temple wedding. The sisters before me had been teaching a couple, and they just got married. The girl, Sarah was disowned by her family for deciding to get married and baptized, and so it was really good that our trio was there to support her, since no one in her family was there. I really admire these people who set aside everything in their lives to follow what they know is right. Kevin and Sarah are already planning their Temple wedding ina year, and it's so exciting to see them learn and grow.

 

I also gave my first talk as a missionary. Yes, since there are only about 30-45 people in our small YSA branch, when someone new comes into the ward, they snatch them up fast. They asked me to speak on the Atonement, and for some reason, maybe because I was a missionary speaking and needed to be wise, or becuase I still hardly know anyone in the ward, or maybe it was that the Atonement is so important and I wanted to deliever it in the best way possible, any of those reasons could be it, but I was really nervous and stressing out over this talk. But it took place, and went pretty well. And now I can breath a little.But really, as a missionary, everyone expects you to know the answer. There is a very high standard for Sister Missionaries, and boy, when they call on me in class to answer the question, my hands start sweating. That's never happened to me before. Sweaty hands. It's weird. A whole new level of nerves I guess.

 

Our Branch President taught the combined lesson in our Branch yesterday, and we talked about a Book of Mormon Challange at one point. He told a story about a missionary who had the goal to read the Book of Mormon every month while on his mission. And he did. He read it 24 times on his mission. That really impressed me. Our Branch president and his wife decided to try to read the whole Book of Mormon in March, and they did. He said that he wanted to know if he could do it himself before asking his branch to take on the challange. And so he challenged us to read it. And then do it again. There is great power to be had in studying the Book of Mormon a little, or a lot, everyday.

 

The work is so great here. Everyday I am amazed at the people and their faith and strength. God's hand is in our lives everyday.

 

I love you all, and hope that you are doing TOO FANTASTIC.

Hug Shar for me.

 

Love,

The Hermana Montgomery