Elder Matthew Montgomery : (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)