Elder Matthew Montgomery : I'M MELTINNNNnnngggg (Week 17)

Monday, November 27, 2023 12:30pm

HO LEE SHENAIHA TWAIN PEOPLE, it has been HOT here in General Pico. Upwards of 110° this last weekend and lows of high 80s the entire week. Now take into account that we're wearing pros clothes and it gets a bit much. Like, I hate being cold and can take a lot of heat, and sheesh, I was sweating pretty good. Well, aside from that, I had a pretty awesome week! (Hope yall did as well♡)

We did a lot of work with inactives members this past week, which has been pretty cool. Some of them left the church pretty soon after joining, so our lessons with them are basically the same as with our investigators, but the lessons with the longtime members are super awesome. They often give some pretty powerful testimony in line with our lesson, as well as actually understanding most the doctrine already. We did have a couple come to church again yesterday too, which felt really cool. Reactivating isn't something that gets us numbers, but you can really see how happy it makes people to be close to their Heavenly Father again.

Recently we had been having some struggles finding people, which was weighing on us a little bit, so during our weekly planning, we decided to say a prayer specifically for the purpose of help and support with it, and wow yall, God really helps those who remember to ask for it. That day we found a guy who told us he was super happy to see youth like us going out and preaching and that he could tell there was something different about us and asked us to pass by! We still have yet to do that, but it really helped us have a better attitude about the work.

After that planning, we also had a lot of amigos that we thought weren't progressing very well all of a sudden make awesome leaps of faith and have started taking the lessons really well, especially one of the friends we have on date. We asked her to read the introduction to the LdM, and she ended up reading all the way up to 1st Nephi, telling us that she felt like she couldn't put it down! I just feel so grateful for everything that happened, which was perfect I guess, seeing as thanksgiving was last week lol.

This week I was able to weigh myself...apparently I've gained like fifteen pounds since getting put here. It's probably because all they eat out here is carbs, but we'll pretend that it's because of all the meat and that I've been hitting a lot of push ups. We do cook a lot of stuff for ourselves, and honestly, Elder Bain and I cook better than most of the people down here. Mostly because it seems like people don't believe in seasoning anything unless it's an asado.

We do have transfers this week, which is a little bit scary. Elder Bain and I both have the same amount of time in Pico, so it feels pretty up in the air with what could happen. We both hope that we can stay here together another transfer, but if anyone does leave, I personally feel like it's gonna be me. Idk why. We'll see though, everything is according to God's will.

Welp, that's my week! Time for TotS

This week's talk is 'My Heart Pondereth Them Continually' by Brother Devin G. Durant, October 2015. Elder Bain was actually assigned to speak on this talk yesterday, and he did a great job.

In this talk, Brother Durant gives us two invitations. The first is financially related; to try to save a certain amount of money every week, which is great advice, but it's the second invitation that I want to focus on, which is to 'ponderize' a new scripture every week. 'Ponderizing,' Brother Durant says, is a combination of pondering and memorizing. He says that each week, we should select a verse to try to think about and memorize each week and try to gain a deeper understanding of the doctrine within it. After selecting the verse, he advises us to put the verse somewhere where you will see it often, so it can be in your thoughts often as well. Elder Bain and I started doing this as well, and it honestly has been awesome. My scripture this week is 1 James 2:28, and it's helped me think about how I can increase my faith and confidence in the Lord, which has really been a blessing. So this week, I would also invite you all to follow this invitation. I'm personally going to try to keep it up throughout the whole rest of the mission, but however much time works for you is perfect.

Welp, I hope yall have a great week! Most of you guys are about to get into winter, make sure you enjoy it for me!

Tons of love, always!

Elder Montgomery

Algunos Buenos Fotos:

1: Mac and Cheese once again