I'm Excited for Zach!!! About the Mission Papers!

Oh I knew Duncan would go to Arizona!!! He'll do great! I'm excited for Zach!!! About the mission papers! And who knows about BYU-H? Maybe it will end up being for the best? I'll send you back the National Merit thing but the biggest problem right now is that I still don't know which semester I'll start. I'll leave the month up for you to decide so you can choose whichever one would be easiest to change. I am definitely still planning on going to Utah. The baptism went tremendous and I sent some photos. Nothing too interesting this week except I went to the temple!!! Tremendous experience to say the least!!! The biking is still going, that's for sure. We had good dinners. I'm out of time today but I'll let you know about transfer news next week. Who knows! And don't worry about the bracket. That'll distract me a little more than I'd like, unfortunately. :)

Love,

Elder Montgomery

Dad,

I'm doing great! I'm not eating as well and not working out as well but I could tell I was starting to burn myself out so I'm taking it slowly. There's more important things. My scripture study is going fantastic as usual! I finally finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish this week! Now I'm reading it out loud for pronunciation practice during Spanish study. In my regular studies, I stopped the close examining, because of course, I got burned out on it. I've switched to the New Testament so that I can focus on the life of Christ. I started with John because I'd always get stuck in Mark but I've finished John and am now in Matthew. Interesting order, right? I plan on reading the Doctrine and Covenants afterwards and then the New Testament in conjunction with Jesus the Christ. It ended up not costing too much and right now I have two elders in the district who are extremely handy with bikes. We did have a rash of flat tires this week, though. Bike repairs sure do cost a lot of money in the long run. I did make a trip up to UC though and did meet the famous Howard. Turns out he's not a member but he knows more about what's going on in the mission than I think even mom does :) He's a super cool guy and was telling me about how Schwinn made a custom size bike for Artis Gilmore. My Spanish is definitely improving and no... I still can't roll my r's. I'm a lot closer than before but I'm trying to move out of the "Chewbacca" sound. I probably won't be able to talk to you until Mother's day but even then, that's in less than 2 months. Have a tremendous week!

Love,

Elder Montgomery

There is Definitely no Cafe Rio in Texas.

I did get the St. Patricks day gift. Thank you very much. Hahaha I'd guess there's only one person who would Shamrock you that wasn't at church with you. Maybe a neighbor across the street or someone.  Of course it would be a Hawaiian girl that asked Zach to prom. Does that mean he's not asking anyone else? It seems really soon for all this to be happening. It's already been a year since that was me. Crazy. 
We just had 2 of the 3 this week investigators at church yesterday. J is getting baptized Sat.y So we have a lot to do to make sure everything is prepared. He's 10 years old so I guess that my next baptism will be an 11 year old jajaja. Nothing too interesting happened this week.
Transfers are coming up,  I think I'll probably leave but I don't know. Elder M finishes next transfer so if I stay, then I'm almost guaranteed to stay another one. 
There is definitely no Cafe Rio in Texas. Still car sharing. The bike is doing great as far as I can tell. Just logging the miles. Elder L knows about bikes so he's making sure mine stays in good shape. We studied about knowing the Church is true this past week and it was great. Some of the talks we read included Come, Join with Us by President Uchtdorf, The Caravan Moves On by Elder Bruce McConkie, and Knowing what we Know by Douglas Callister. The most important thing we should do is find out if the church is true. Once we know that we know, there are no bounds. Stay true to the church. The caravan is the church and only those on the caravan will reach Zion. We are lead today by inspired leaders, prophets and apostles. Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Elder Montgomery

To his Padre..

I can definitely understand the tiredness. It's been hitting me pretty hard lately. Something just always comes up right as we try to make that break through. Well as long as Ben only balked once hahaha That's good that he pitched the first little bit though. That's the most important part anyways :) 

 I can't believe it's been 9 months already either! Interestingly enough, one of the biggest pet peeves I have is that people don't say Yes Sir and Yes Ma'am. That may have been the most frustrating part with all those Western people in the MTC :) The locals use Ma'am and Sir, not Yeah, Huh and What?  What some fail to see is that Sir and Ma'am go a LONG way down here. Time goes by very strangely on the mission. The days are very long. The weeks are shorter. Sometimes it's long. It all depends on what your focus is. There's nothing that I can ask of you guys right now. I love you so much!

Love,

Elder Montgomery

Tres Leches Cake

RILES!!! The Condor is back in flight. I repeat, The Condor is back in flight! That's such terrific news! I'm so excited for him. 
I don't have approval to facetime when he opens his call yet but I'm thinking that may have just been an Urban Mission Myth. We'll see, though. I will guess  for Zach's mission , Argentina if he goes foreign and state side I'll say whatever mission Bakersfield, CA is in. Oh wow that's a tremendous stake conference!!! Sounds like my kind of place! 

We had 3 investigators at church yesterday. Elder M is great!!! He's basically one of the top 5 missionaries in the mission (if we ranked missionaries, of course:) We don't ever go on field trips, really. I guess we're just too lazy. Or we want to play basketball. Well we don't actually eat very much dessert but I've had some homemade Tres Leches Cake and it is the best, bar none. Biking is going great! It's been pretty chilly and rainy the best few days but that's okay cause it's for a good cause. Speaking of new shoes... Yeah I need some pretty bad. The sole is essentially completely off and I can touch my toes and heel. The problem is finding size 16's. I think I'll just have to order them online or something. Something that'll last me the rest of my mission and a little longer maybe some Echo's or something of the sort. Well, I'm out of time for today. 

The Gospel is true and so is the church. Read the Book of Mormon. There is power contained therein.

Love,

Elder Montgomery

Uncle Sam is a Ham!

That is indeed excellent news about Miss T and the Book of Mormon. It's the best book in the world! I'm glad that she is getting exciting for Zach as well! 

Jajajaja Ben was Uncle Sam and he had a solo? I wish I could see that. 

Of course they would say that to him, he's a ham! 

That sounds like a great missionary mom lunch! Where is Ileana going? If it's for 9 weeks, then she must be going somewhere exotic! The ward is still the same size. Fluctuating near 100 people every week. There's a pretty decent sized youth program. Probably around 20ish or so with lots of YM preparing for their missions. We get all sorts of things for dinner. Chicken parmesan, taquitos, head from the cow, you name it. My Spanish is getting a lot better! I might just go to the Spanish ward when I get home and skip out of Centerville ;) I haven't been too good about the video log but I'll do another one here pretty soon. I did get that ring. Sterling silver. I'm allergic to silver aren't I? My finger turned green for a week and the ring tarnished or something. So I don't wear it very often. Elder Le S is Elder C's new companion. He's from New Zealand and Bountiful. He's a big boy. Probably about 6'3" and 245. He's been the best competition for basketball so far. The fish is either tilapia or swai. I did get the Valentine's package, thank you! Elder S really enjoyed the candy hearts. 

This week we have been studying the Book of Mormon. President Slaughter gave us a study program called "Be Not Moved" a couple weeks ago. The first week we studied the prophetic role of Joseph Smith and this past week we studied the Book of Mormon. Me encanta el Libro de Mormon! One of the concepts that stuck out most to me came from C.S. Lewis who was quoted by Tad R. Callister. He gist of it was that he was tired of people saying they accepted Christ as a great moral teacher, but not as the Son of God. Christ did not give us that option! He either is the Son of God, or he is nowhere near an instructor of values. He made claims that if proven false, would completely negate all his other teachings. A good fruit cannot come forth from a bad tree and vice versa. It is the exact same with the Book of Mormon. Within the record contained therein, the Book of Mormon claims to be from God. The teachings are magnificent and presented in such a clear and concise way as to essentially magnify the doctrine and principles found in the Bible. There is no middle ground on the Book of Mormon. It either came from God and it is what it claims to be, or it is false and has no capability of teaching us correct morals. I bear my solemn witness that whosoever shall actually read the book, not just Sparknote it or flip the pages, and pray to God with a true desire to know the truthfulness thereof, they will be answered by God. Our message is that God speaks today and he speaks to all of you. I love all of you to a degree that you could not know.

Love,

Elder Montgomery

Adversity is On Purpose and It's What Makes Us Who We Are

Oh I can't believe Matt is home! I'm sure he's doing great! I'm glad Zach can start his papers and I'm sure everything will get figured out for the Eagle project. I will guess Phoenix, AZ for Duncan.
My new companion is Elder M who is from some little town in Nevada near Las Vegas. He has been out for 21 months and was a Zone Leader for the past 6 transfers so he's a tremendous missionary and he has absolutely fantastic Spanish. Fluent Spanish. He's helping me out a lot and I can definitely see an improvement. He's very, very smart and loves math and debate. He went to BYU for a year. He's not really a sports guy but he said he's down to try. We've had a pretty good week. I ate Red Lobster for the first time and it was quite delicious. We're working really hard and I'm sure we will find some people soon to teach. We're definitely on the brink. I can feel it strongly.
I've been thinking a lot about adversity lately. It comes in all sorts of different forms. Laziness, heartache, illness, not advancing, etc... It's truly what teaches us, though. God's plan is so tremendous! Que milagro! Adversity is on purpose and it's what makes us who we are. I would not be anywhere near I am today without adversity and being taught about humility.
Love,
Elder Montgomery


Dad,
Oh wow even you gave them a lower case c. (side note if you play ball in Lakeview's Region, you know who this sentence is referring too ;) ) They must have been up to no good recently. 
Wow Matt is home already! And he spoke! I can't even believe it. 
That's very true about the agency thing. Definitely something that I've learned on my mission.
Things have been going pretty well. I am keeping a journal. I didn't really write anything during Timber Ridge but I'm trying to make up for it now. My bike is doing alright. I don't think they did that great of a job because it still squeaks but I don't really know. 
My Spanish is getting better especially with my new companion, Elder M. He has tremendous Spanish! Very very good! He's helping me out a lot. We don't really have that many investigators at all but we're doing work. I'm definitely trying to stay strong and I hope you can continue to serve and help other people.

Love,

Elder Montgomery

What a Wonderful Time to be in Texas!

Wow!!! Snow and an earthquake! What a wonderful time to be in Texas!  That's a shame that you didn't get to see off E. Tshuma. That's great about Birthday caroling to Ms. Terri. E. S is going to be a ZL somewhere for his last transfer and I will be staying in Adams Hill. I'll probably be getting a DL companion again. It's going by so fast! I feel like I just got here! 
I cannot believe that Matt is going to be home tomorrow.  He had so many companions and areas (I'm one to talk, right?)! 
That is definitely way awesome for Ben's baseball team! He landed on a team with great coaches. 
The Spanish ward is great! We're starting to see a lot of progress with missionary work in the ward. 
Wow Sis Mortensen is going home already! Craziness! 
That's great that Zach got the approval to go ahead. 
I don't really have any time because of President's day but I love you all and I'll tell you about my new companion next week. 

Love,

Elder Montgomery

To Dad:

Oh yeah that's so awesome about Matt! I can't believe he'll be home,tomorrow! Hahaha the Missionaries in your ward are emailing from our house? Sounds about right with all the computers we have in the house. Libraries closed because of Holiday and We see no such luck in the Spanish ward. Growing is always hard and we don't always want to do it but it's really the best. It's great to look back and see your progress. Have a great week, I'm out of time.

Love,

Elder Montgomery

All Sins Start from Within, All in the Name of Pride and Selfishness.

Well...

So my first impression was Bro Doyle's missionary board. That is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen! I'll get some pictures to you soon so that it can be updated. That is so impressive! He's doing a great job! 

I'm excited that Zach got his stuff approved. 2 months is enough time, I think? That will all get figured out I'm sure. I did get the package from Sis K. I have about 5 more letters to write and then I'll send them all off this week. That's good that the girls played so well this year. I hope they do well in the tournament. I'm sure the girls will benefit from this break. Just let them keep working and they'll get where they want. Hopefully Ben goes to a good baseball team!

We can only do so much with our own agency. We should support in this time. Love, true Christlike love or charity in it's simplest form is all we can do. I'm not suggesting enabling but rather finding out what is best.  We should do our best to help her with any righteous actions. Agency does not mean that we can decide to sin just because we can. Moral agency is only exercised when you choose to do the right. A 10 year old shouldn't be left at home on Sunday simply because he doesn't want to go. Sure he has the ability to choose his actions, but we should "help" him choose the right. Nevertheless, people can act in any way and are not limited simply because God does not want it to occur. The consequences, however, are set in stone. What we can do is to help people recognize the true consequences and results of sin. If we search the Book of Mormon, especially 2 Nephi Chapter 2, we find ample examples of the true purpose of life here on earth. Verse 25 tells us that "los hombres exiesten para que tengan gozo" or that men exist so that they can have joy. Some people may jump on that as an excuse to do what they want in the name of "joy." Of course, there is a difference between joy and pleasure and that is what must be recognized. Seeking pleasure is just what is suggested in verse 27, in that men can choose according to the flesh. They don't actually choose to follow the devil, but rather they choose to listen to their own selfish desires. All sins start from within all in the name of pride and selfishness. So the question I ask all of you is what is the difference between pleasure and true joy? How does that affect how you act, what you do, and who you are? 

Happy Birthday and Valentine's day Mom!

Love,

Elder Montgomery