Elder Matthew Montgomery : The Blackout Begins (Week 22)

Monday , January 1, 2024 8:50pm

FELIZ NUEVO AÑO MIS QUERIDOS!!! Espero que este año les trate bien!!

Hope this last year was a good one though, I know it was great for me!

Welp, again, I'm sure some of yall are wondering how Argentines celebrate New Years, and well...they all eat a lot and get drunk. Not too different from Christmas tbh. Did mean that we tried to get home earlier though. Which was a great decision, there were so many loud people outside last night. We did have some elders come in for divisions last night though, so we had some fun making empanadas and chatting it up.

But yeah, this year for me will be my 'blackout' where I'll be in Argentina for the entirety of the year. Pretty wild! I'm excited though, I've already loved the few months I've been out here, I can't wait for what might be ahead here! I've also hit five months in the mission now! It's incredible how quickly time passes, it just really puts into perspective how much we need to focus ourselves on the work and use every moment to it's fullest to further the work.

Aaaaaaand speaking of the work, we had a pretty awesome week!! Had a lot of great lessons with people who who are like ACTUALLY progressing, like reading the LdM, praying, asking really good questions, and we finally have had some friends coming to church! Now we just need to get a few of them on date for baptism and we'll be looking amazing! We're also finding news still, somehow. Every time I think I've seen everything in this city, new people just come out of nowhere. Just really shows you that the work will always go forth.

We had our Christmas Conference and it was pretty awesome. Got to see a lot of old friends and meet some new people as well. We did a White Elephant style gift exchange (Yankee Swap, Dirty Christmas, what have you) and I received some good chocolates as my gift, which was lovely, I can never have enough sugar. Elder Sykes got a pretty awesome gift, fancy Truco and Yahtzee sets, and for anyone who doesn't know what Truco is, it's an Argentine card game that's based off of luck, skill, and betting, so I'm super in love with it. But yeah, a lot of fun, love all the folks in the mission!

We did have an interesting experience a little bit ago with a guy who was trying to bash with us a little. He stared off asking a few good questions but it slowly turned into him questioning the validity of the Book of Mormon without letting us get in our points. It frustrated Elder Sykes and I a little bit, so once we could, we bore our testimonies, gave him a BoM, and got out of there. We wasted a bit of time there and ended up late to a member lunch, at least they were chill with it. We did drop a very awesome spiritual thought with them about how we can find truth in our lives. Felt almost bad for them, it was like we were letting out our frustrations in that thought lol but we had a great discussion with them nonetheless.

Well, guess I'll share some TotS!!

Today's talk is 'If Christ Had My Opportunities...' by Elder Paul K. Sybrowsky. Elder Sybrowsky speaks about how like Christ, we should be focused on finding the one. He mentions how his grandparents were converts, how they were taught by missionaries, and how his own parents taught him to live the gospel and keep his own covenants and how he teaches his own kids and on and on and on. It really struck me once again the effect we have just sharing the gospel with one person, we can basically change the course of an entire family tree. It's incredible.

Well, getting this one out late tonight! I love you all, hope you have a great new year! Set some great goals, love God, and go forth in faith!!

Elder Montgomery

Oh, where could we be?