You Know, Temples Are Pretty Cool (Week 13)

Monday, October 30, 2023   12:25pm

*sits down, cracks knuckles, tries to think of a clever way to start the email*

Nope, I got nothing. 

Hi yall, how you been?

This week was pretty great! We taught a lot, ate a lot, and, as always, walked a lot. Some big events were the confirmation of Raquel yesterday, the moving of the other companionship into a different pension in the city, and the learning of how to make bread. So yeah, pretty cool stuff. 

So first off, we baptized Raquel a couple Saturdays ago, but we couldn't get her confirmed that Sunday because of Stake Conference, so it happened yesterday, but still, she is now a fully fledged member of the Church. Yayyyy.

The other companionship moved to another part of town, so now Elder Bain and I have a pretty big pension to ourselves, which gives us a lot more flexibility with how and when and what we eat. It's been awesome, we've made some great food like Mac and Cheese, Brazilian Hot Dogs, Pan Relleno, and wow, it's been delicious. 

Speaking of Pan Relleno, an Hermana in the ward taught us how to make it, it's basically a pizza wrap. Flipping amazing, but the dough itself can be used to make basically anything, so yeah, we probably have some good food to come. 

We've had some pretty awesome lessons recently, specifically with a couple who aren't married but live together. We told them about the temple and about sealings, and they were about ready to be baptized right there. Gotta get them married first tho. 

Um yeah, idk if yall know this, but General Pico is a really chill area where basically nothing happens, so apologies if I don't have any exciting stories yet. The craziest thing that happened this week was this guy who asked us a bunch of uncomfortable questions about the law of chastity and then said that he did whatever makes him feel good. And then said he wanted us to come back. So that's fun. Maybe at some point, I'll have an area where I get knives pulled on me. That might be more welcome.

Alrighty, I know I forgot it last week, but I do have a conference talk for today. It's called 'Beware the Evil Behind the Smiling Eyes' by Elder Neil L. Andersen in April 2005. To begin, he tells an awesome story about his friend who worked for the FBI where basically, he was doing a drug bust and let his guard down around a suspect who looked harmless because he was smiling. Right as he was about to turn his attention to someone else, the Spirit told him to "Beware the Evil Behind the Smiling Eyes." The FBI agent looked at the suspect again and realized he had his hand on a gun in his pocket. He would have died if he hadn't listened to the Spirit. We have a lot of similar things in our world today, and many things that seem harmless can severely harm us, both physically and spiritually. I've realized that a lot out here, as there can be people who are interested in talking to you, but don't care about learning the gospel, and then waste your time or try to make you question your mission, morals, or the gospel itself. We have to be aware of these kinds of people or things in our lives, and the only way we can do that is live worthily of the Spirit. I would just invite you all this week to take a look at some of your interests, activities, friends, whatever, and evaluate with the help of the Spirit if they are things of God. 

Well um yeah, that's pretty much it this week, hope yalls weeks go well, Go with God, make Him proud!!

Elder Montgomery

Pictures

1: Pan Relleno

2: Mac N Cheese

3: Lil snack

4: The family we've been teaching and their nephew

5: Cookin' up some dinner, noodles n red sauce

(And a couple screenshots from our video chat with him during our Halloween Party at Grandma and Grandpa’s house!)

First of Many, Hopefully (Week 12)

 

     Monday, October 23, 2023   10:37am

Hellooooooooo North America!!!

Hope everyone's week is going great! 

Alrighty, so, drumroll please. Transfers happened aaaaaand....I'm staying in Pico with Elder Bain. Heck yeah. I didn't think I was going to move anywhere but there's always a risk. I was more afraid of Elder Bain leaving tbh haha. But yeah, the next six weeks will be me and him just hanging out, saving souls, the like. SPEAKING OF SAVING SOULS, we did it yall. First baptism acquired. Elder Bain and I had the pleasure of witnessing our friend Raquel's baptism last Saturday, and it was amazing. Raquel has been taught by a lot of missionaries and was totally ready to be baptized the whole time, but she needed the right people to just push her in that direction. She told us after her baptism that there's just something different about us that she trusted a lot more than all the others. That really solidified my testimony of divine revelation and the fact that missionaries are called of God. She also asked me to give the talk about the Holy Ghost afterwards, and gosh, I was so nervous about it, but after I finished, people were crying and I was crying and we all felt the Spirit so strong. It was incredible. 

Well, other than the baptism, not a lot has happened this week. Spanish is always improving, we get closer to our amigos and God every day, and the value of the Peso goes down weekly. It's about 1000 pesos to one dollar now. Loco. 

Oh yeah, yesterday was voting day here, which could be a really good thing or a not very good thing, because riots will probably happen if the guy who looks like he's gonna win does win. So that'll be fun. 

Well um yeah, not too much this week other than the baptism, but yeah, I love my mission, I'm so excited for the rest of it!!

Love you all a ton!! 

Elder Montgomery

Batptism! You want it? It's yours, my friend. (Week 11)

Monday, October 16, 2023   7:26am

I am so disappointed in myself for not adding a title last week! If I were to add one now, I think I'd call it 'Learning and Teaching, Teaching and Learning.' There's been a ton of that going on these last few weeks haha. Also, no, you didn't miss week 10, I just realized that I didn't send an email during my home MTC, so it's technically week 11 now. Wild. 

Anyways, hope everyone's been doing great and feeling blessed! I know I sure am, cause we were able to get someone put on date for baptism! HECK YEAH, FIRST ONE! The actual baptism is happening this Saturday, and I'm supposed to give a talk on the Holy Ghost. In Spanish. Cakewalk. But yeah, I'm super excited, and again, I'll have more on that when it happens. 

We've had some other pretty big wins as well, like we've been able to find a lot more new people who are open to lessons, the amigos we do have are progressing really well, we actually got some people to church yesterday, AND we found a carniceria that is both cheap and high quality. Gotta love Argentina for that high-quality meat, yall. 

Speaking of cooking, I actually got to try out some other recipes this week, and they all turned out a lot better than I was expecting. Elder Bain also taught me how to make Brazilian hot dogs, which are heavenly. I have a couple pictures, I'll throw them in later.

In case anyone was wondering, my Spanish has come along very nicely. I can pretty much say anything I want to at this point, not in the most grammatically correct way, but I can say it nonetheless. The hard part has become understanding people, like seriously. My brain will recognize all the words people say, but it takes it a little bit to string everything together and make sense of what they said. It's fine though, it gets better every day. 

Anyways, let's move on to the conference talk for this week! Yesterday was Mother's Day here in Argentina, so I thought it would be best if I did one accordingly. This one is called Behold Thy Mother by Elder Jeffery R. Holland, October 2015. This talk has been a favorite of mine for a while because of how much it helped me realize what my mom has done for me when I heard it the first time. The talk itself draws a lot of parallels between the love of the Savior and the love of a mother, showing us how the scriptures talk about the Savior, how he has 'borne' our burdens, 'delivers' us from captivity, 'carried' us in our times of sorrow. Sounds a bit similar to something mothers go through, right? They've carried us, quite literally, through times of vulnerability and weakness when we couldn't have helped ourselves. It was definitely painful and stressful for them sometimes, but they love us nonetheless. My own mother is a perfect example of this. She's helped me through every tough time in my life, and I know I wouldn't be out here without her support. I hope all you mothers out there know how much your kids, biological or not, love and appreciate you. So yeah, I only have one invitation this week, and that's to let a mother in your life know how much you appreciate them. Call them, text them, give them a hug and a kind word, anything. It'll mean everything to them because you are everything to them. 

Wellumanyways, this week was great and time has really been flying. Transfers are this week, although I'm most likely not going anywhere because I'm still in training. Yeyyy. But yeah, I love it here, the people are awesome, the work is awesome, the language is awesome, the Gospel is PERFECT. *drops mic*

Love you guys, see you next week!!

Elder Montgomery 

Picture tii~~me

1. and 2. MacNCheese we made

3. 4. and 5. French toast we made

6. Cool photo opp

7. This was from conference, the guys just sent them to me lol. 

Dia de los Madres

It was Argentinian Mother’s Day today and I got this sweet note from my cute boy.  

Translation:

Today is Mother's Day here, so I wanted to say I always love you very much, my mom, I hope this day of rest went very well for you!

And a little later, I was able to share some exciting news from Cat and Preston…

He’s gonna have all kinds of new people to meet when he gets back from Argentina!
 

Santa Rosa Virtual Zone Conference

 

(Week 9)

10/09/23  9:57am

 Hey yall! Another Pday, another week gone. That's crazy.

This week has honestly gone great. We've had a lot of amazing teaching moments with our amigos, like, one of them is this younger girl who we totally thought had no interest at first, but she contacted us at one point a couple weeks ago asking if we could come back and teach her again, which is the first and probably last time that'll happen. We taught her, gave her a LdM, told her about conference and invited her to watch. We asked her if she watched it the Monday after conference, but we didn't hear anything back, so we totally thought she was ghosting us, but she texted us back on like Thursday saying she watched the Sunday Eveningsession and loved it! AND she's been reading in the LdM and enjoys it thus far! Freakin nuts dudes. All our other amigos are also making some amazing progress, and honestly we might even be able to set a baptism for this month, but more on that if it happens. Just know that I'm really loving the people here, they're all so funny and friendly.
I AM SO CLOSE TO FLUENCY. I'm like right on the verge of it. My speaking and listening skills have basically caught up to my reading and writing, which means that I do everything a bit slow, but give me a few seconds, and I'll get my point across or whatever I need to do just fine. I'm so excited for when I can really have a good conversation with people here that's not just about the Gospel lol. It also helps a ton that I'm living with a Peruvian Elder, Elder Nieto, who understands English, but not well enough to speak ot fluently. We teach each other a ton, and it's so helpful. He also had a really neutral accent when it comes to Español, so he's easy to understand. It's lovely here. OH YEAH, we also did exchanges this week, and I was with an Elder FROM Argentina. He was really cool too, and Elder Bain had actually trained him when he started as well, so we're technically brothers in the mission, I guess? Anyways, I love learning this language.
I got back into hitting push ups every night this week, as well as some planking and it honestly helps me sleep better and feel better about myself. Wild how that works. But anyways, my abs and tris are looking immaculate. I'm sure you all were dying to know that.
I started cooking some stuff! I made some spaghetti-ish sauce with some chorizo I browned, ate that stuff over noodles, and DANG it was the best thing we have made in the apartment. Shout out to my mom for the recipe that I definitely followed and was not lacking in ingredients at all.
On another food note, there are these things here called Alfajores. Little Debbie wishes she could make anything as good as an Alfajores. It's basically a snack cake thing like some Little Debbie's items, but this is three mini cakes stacked on top of each other with Dulce de Leche and usually this marshmallow cream in between them. Simply heaven on earth. Oh yeah, and the members feed us really well. It's great down here.
Alright, lets flip to a spiritual side real quick. Prepare to be edified.
So, this last week, I listened to all of the general conference talks from the year 2004, and holey moley they're amazing. So I'm gonna talk about them and other conference talks every pday now. Yuh.
ANYWAYS, this week's talk is Pure Testimony by Elder M. Russell Ballard. This talk is straight up fire. Basically, he defines a proper testimony and kind of tells church members off for 'thankimonies.' He then tells us the power of a proper testimony by giving the example of Alma and Abinadi and how we might never be able to see the power of our testimony, but we should share it nonetheless. And yall, I can testify this power of testimony is so real. I've seen it out here so many times, it's incredible. So I want to invite yall this week to
1:Pray for opportunities to share your testimony this week
2:Go out with the missionaries if you can. Having a member bear testimony in their lessons helps a ton.
3:Read the talk and reflect on your own way of bearing testimony. See what you could improve or change it for the better.
Um yeah, that's about it this week I guess. To end, I'll just say that there's always so many small miracles on the mission, it's hard to notice them all sometimes, but as I've stopped worrying so much and just focused on working, it's been so easy to see the Lord's Hand in the work. I honestly just do love being out here so much, these next two years are gonna be amazing, I know it. And hey, I've been put here for two months now, getting close to three. Just gotta do it again. Eleven more times. That's nothin. Ez gg. Lol anyways, love yall, praying for yall, hope you have a great week!!
Elder Montgomery
Picturesss
1: Breakfast this morning. (MEMBERS PAYED FOR US. THAT DOESNT HAPPEN HERE HOLY MOLY)

2: Elder Bain and Elder Nieto

3: Me makin cena

4: Pico during sunset

5: A candy shop had King of Fighters branded sodas. They were pretty good

6: One of the many Alfajores I ate

7: It rained pretty hard.....

8: ......so we busted this bad boy out

9: Just got this sick, JENYOUWINE leather belt

THINK CELESTIAL (Week 8)

Mon  10/2/2023  9:49am 

As my favorite Spiderman once said, 'Hey everyone!' 

Welp, lots of teaching this week, nothing super interesting, but I've been loving it. No baptisms yet, but we are getting close. There's a lady that Elder Bain and I have been talking to that is totally ready to be baptized, but she doesn't think she's ready yet. Sad, but we'll be here for her once she's ready. Hopefully this month. Because we would like a baptism every month. Anyways, teaching people is so cool, I love being able to talk about the Restoration and the Atonement all the time. AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND ME. Consider me Latino baybeeee. Jk, I still have a ton more to learn, but I'm on the right path. 

Officially been on the mission for two months now! I can do this eleven more times. E. Z. Also, Happy October! Hope you all are having a great fall and spooky season. I am having neither, as it is spring, and Argentina does nothing doe Halloween. Fun. 

Yup, General Conference happened. It was pretty cool, watching it entirely in Español. I could understand when I was paying attention, so I can recall a handful of talks, but not too many. We were able to watch the Saturday Afternoon session with a family we've been teaching which was awesome. They asked some great questions about how the church is structured.

My favorite talk was definitely President Nelson's. The whole 'Think Celestial' thing is an awesome way to think, and it helps a ton on the mission. Can't wait to actually listen to the rest of them once they're on gospel library lol. 

Speaking of which, I've been listening to the April 2004 general conference, which is amazing btw. A lot of great advice on how we can live without fear and have happy families in this world that is heading in a bad direction. I specifically liked Elder Packer's talk from this one. And you should go read it. 

Welp, that's kinda it this week. I'm still feeling great, feeling the Spirit, loving the people, having a great time. Only way this could be better now is if I was fluent in Español, but we'll get there. 

Til next week!

Elder Montgomery

Food n stuffs

 I got my own email from my boy this week and he’s just the cutest. And we talked to him for nearly 3 hours! He also called Bobby and Jooj for a bit to see how they and their brand new baby boy, Maverick, are doing. Technology is such a blessing!

Mon 10/2/2023   6:43am

Hello, Dearest Mother of Mine Whom I Love, Adore, and Respect Very Much.

I figured this would be easier to email you about so you could have it on hand lol. 

So, I really appreciate the big family cookbook, and it turns out that I could actually make a lot of things in it, especially if the main ingredient is meat or pasta or something. Pretty lit. But anyways, here's a list of things that Elder Bain and I have found to be on the pricey side down here or just dont exist at all:

Beans. I cri.

Chocolate Chips 

Maple Syrup.

Most any 'mix,' i.e. gravy, brownie, etc.

Iffy on Heavy Whipping Cream

There's also some pretty different spices than what I'm used to, but that's not really a problem. 

But um yeah, that's those. I also had some things to ask/ask for:

Cream of tartar necessary for snickerdoodles?

Pancake mix necessary for French Toast?

Mashed Potatoes good without Whipping Cream? 

Spaghett recipe?

Haystack recipe?

Macncheese recipe?

Potatoes and kielbasa?

I have no idea if cream of chicken exists down here, but haystacks would be nice to have at some point. 

Honestly, the hardest thing to do out here is vegetable stuff. Like, anything that's not like onions or bell peppers is like super expensive OR ISNT OUT HERE EITHER. Like, no broccoli, no green beans, nada. At least they have frozen peas. I think. 

Anyways, I love you, mama, thanks for always being there to support me. You and Emma are like the only people who've emailed me for the last couple weeks, and your updates make me so happy every time I read them. Soyeah, love you, hope you're having a great fall. I'm definitely not jealous or anything. Why would you think that. 

Love you, miss you, all the feels,

Matt