Ready? Or Not? (Week 61)

Monday, September 30, 2024 7:50pm

Buenas tardes familia, como andan todos? 

Alrighty, this week we got some pretty good stuff done, not a high quantity of stuff, but a high quality of stuff, if you catch my drift. 

First off, we were able to get a date set with our friends Mariela and Cristian, and they were absolutely ready to pay tithing and follow the Word of Wisdom, so we said that the 19th of October, they'd get baptized. But they day after, Mariela sent us a message saying that she had some doubts about certain things and especially about callings in the church. We've gotta get a lesson set with them this week to clarify everything, but more than anything else, they probably need some prayers and member help for this one.

We talked to our main man Raul and his girly friend Marisa about his baptism, and the future is looking good. Marisa's lawyer is going to get everything figured out about her divorce this week, which means that they should be able to get married and everything soon and then BOOM, Raul's in the water, after almost three years of waiting lol. 

We've been in that process of finding still, I've realized that Azul is pretty religious and on average people actually go to church and read the Bible, so I've been trying to ask questions to people that require a bit of deeper gospel knowledge right off rip on a contact. It works sometimes, but a lot of others they just get kind of annoyed and slam the door. It's fine though, how else are we supposed to filter the wheat from the chaff? 

We had a pretty eventful Pday today, a big asado with all the elders in the district. It turned out really great (thanks Elder Malone) and I'm excited for divisions tomorrow, hope it turns out great as well! 

Welp, kinda late again, I'm really good at getting these out at a terrible time, aren't I haha? Anyways, hope yall have a great week, make sure you watch General Conference this weekend! It's gonna be lit!

Love yall! 

Elder Monty

Correlación misional

Wow iss pretty

Hay que robar los lentes a veces

Asado 🤑

Influx (Week 60)

Monday, September 23, 2024   8:56pm

Hey all, buenas noches!! It's super late, so I'm gonna make this a quick one!

Alright, so we talked to Cristian, Mariela's husband, this week all about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That lesson focuses a lot on baptism, and he was really ready to pray and read and search for an answer. Hopefully that means we set a baptismal date with him and Mariela this week. He also paid tithing in the church yesterday without us having to teach a lesson about it, so that's a really difficult discussion out of the way haha. I'm excited though, they're a great family and will do well in the church!!

The new missionaries arrived, about 22 of them in comparison to the 6 that left, so you know what that means. That's right, Azul has two companionships again. The new companionship here are the Elders Castillo and Blalock, and these dudes are awesome. Elder Castillo is from Chile and has a little less time than I do in the mission, and Elder Blalock is from Florida, but he's fresh out of the CCM. They both have a great desire and drive to get out and do the work, so I'm sure Azul 2 is in great hands. 

Before they got there though, we cleaned out the pension they were going to be living in because it hadn't been cleaned in weeks. We ended up focusing mostly on the kitchen, especially the fridge, and holy moly, it was very rank, but we got it spotless by the end of the day and they're chilling now. 

I've been listening to quite a few President Nelson talks, and wow, that man has spoken a lot in the women's sessions that we used to have! Now, I'm not a sister in the church, but I still feel so inspired to get out and work and invite everyone to feel the love and compassion there is in the church, especially through the Sisters. Yall are awesome, ladies, keep up the great work!

Anyways yeah, I've gotta be in bed soon, so I'll leave it here! I'm looking forward to this week, it's the beginning of a new transfer and we have a lot of work to do to help Azul become a ward, but I know that with the Lord's help, we'll get it done!!

Good night unto all and to all a good night, until the next pday mien friends!!

Elder Montgomery 

The cherries were weird, but a pretty great pizza overall (finally)

Reality is an illusion

Almuerzo con los nuevos Elderesss

 

Blessings For Faith (Week 59)

Monday, September 16, 2024   7:29pm

Buenas noches, hermanos y hermanas,  how we doing? Pretty great, I'd assume, because you're reading an email from Elder Montgomery. Kidding, kidding

So this week we were able to have a lesson with Mariela and her husband named Cristian, and he is just as awesome as she is. He asked us the age old question about someone evil in life repenting before they die and going to heaven, so we had a great conversation about the Spirit World and our lives after death. We were also able to lead it into the topic of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, which also means we gave him a BoM, so hopefully they'll get some studying done together. Both Cristian and Mariela made it to church yesterday, which of course they loved, and now we're looking to have a family home evening with them and our ward mission leader. It's looking to me like a baptismal date is on the horizon~~

Mariela also told us that since they've started talking with us, they've seen a lot of blessings. Cristian at the moment is without work, so he sells a lot of baked treats around the city, and since they started talking to us, he's sold out every day he's sold things. They also live in the house of Cristian's mother, who isn't the most pleasant person from what I hear, but the house has had a lot less contention as of late. I was just really appreciative that she could see that they were blessings and not just random happenstance, I think we all could learn a lot from her example. 

We talked with Raul, our long time friend (who's also blind), and his girlfriend/caretaker named Marisa, who's a member, about Raul's baptism, and we're finally getting close to it. The only reason he can get baptized right now is because they aren't married (they follow the law of chastity though) and Marisa needs to figure some divorce stuff out with a lawyer before she can do that. We at least know now that everything will be taken care of before October 19th, so that's when we're aiming for now. So we'll be praying and crossing our fingers that everything goes well with them, it's kind of all out of our hands, but I trust they'll get it done. 

Had a few bashy experiences this week, which is kinda fun because I always walk away with my testimony strengthened afterwards. One of them in particular was with a guy that said at first that he believed in God, until he kept contradicting himself so much that he said he believed more in nature and that God didn't exist, which made it even funnier when he said that people only do well in the church because it makes them happy and want to work, which I mean, sounds like blessings from God to me, but whatever, can't make him believe it if he doesn't want it. 

Transfers also happened this week, and Azul is going to be getting it's missionaries back! An Elder Castillo from Chile as well as a new trainee will be coming in to take the other half of the city, which will give us a lot more time to focus on our own area and actually get stuff done haha. I'm excited though, the district is growing as is the branch, there's a lot of blessings to be had in the future!!

Anyways, nothing else too crazy happened, and as always, it is kinda late, so I'll go ahead and end here. Hope you all have a great week and receive a lot of blessings!! Remember to look for God in your lives, He's everywhere and He loves you! 

Hasta pronto!!

Elder Montgomery

Quite possibly the best alfajor I have ever eaten

Giving me PTSD from playing chess with Eric

Oh yeah and there's a cannon too

Azul is literally the prettiest area

Con nuestros amigos Mariela y Cristian!!

Why's it called Azul when there's so many orange trees?

Helado para celebrar un año en Argentina!!

 

Olavarria Zone Conference

 

99+1 (Week 58)

Monday, September 9, 2024   8:33pm

Hey hey hey, good evening mein friends!! Welp, we're a week into September and stuff has been going down, so let me get right into it. 

First off, we got one of the best references I have had the pleasure of receiving. It's this lady named Mariela who's has a ton of faith in Christ and wants to start learning more, and she is incredible. The lesson we had with her was awesome, we didn't have to bring up a single topic with her, she just had a lot of great questions. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon, which she was really excited about, and she was able to make it to church yesterday and loved the sacrament meeting. We've got a lesson with her this Wednesday, and apparently her husband wants to learn more about the church as well, so we should be having some great lessons and maybe baptismal dates here in the near future! 

We also had a really good lesson about the Book of Mormon and home study with friend named Josefina. She's a kind of special case, she's under house arrest for reasons, so she can't usually make it to church, but she loves having lessons with us, as do her two kids. I'm not sure when her arrest ends, but we just have to nurture her seed of faith until she can finally freely go to church and get baptized, but when that happens I'm sure she'll be in the water that same week. 

We had a lot of fun at an activity on Friday where we watched Coco and shared a little message about family history. It was honestly really heartfelt, I had forgotten how tender the movie is! I had also been studying a bit of my family tree, so I felt very connected to my ancestors in that moment. Do family history work yall, it's so vital and so rewarding, and maybe this is just the history nerd in me talking, but getting to know the lives and storiesof your relatives is such a great time. 

Today happens to be the 100th birthday of our dear prophet Russell M. Nelson! Happy Birthday President! I really love how the Church's socials have been talking about it, relating it to the parable of the shepherd who leaves the ninety and nine in search of the one, it's such an important principle to remember as a missionary and really helps us focus on our stated purpose. I'm really excited to hear from President Nelson next month, and I hope you are too! I'm going to be trying to read through his General Conference talks this month, and I'd like to invite you all to do the same! There's a lot of wisdom to be had in those hundred years!

Well aaaaanyways, it's getting kinda late and my life isn't that crazy at the moment, so I'll go ahead and leave it here! I'm always grateful for this opportunity I have to reflect on the week and talk with yall though, and thank you all very much for being here to support me during this amazing experience I've had! I'll talk to yall next week!!

Nos vemos gente!!

Elder Montgomery 

I think spring is upon us

This church has an awesome outside pulpit area

Tal como Cristo

Watchin Coco with the branch

Barbecue chicken Macncheese for Sunday lunch

Ciego en la Senda (Week 57)

Monday, September 1, 2024   9:07pm

Wassup my friends, another week has gone by and August has somehow ended, pretty wild, no? Alright, I don't have a lot of time right now, so I'll detail this week pretty quickly

First off, we were able to set a baptismal date with our friend Raul for the 21st of September, so hopefully we can get everything figured out and him married before we hit that date. We also talked with quite a few members about helping him and his pareja out, so we have the whole batallion behind us with this one. 

We had Zone Conference this week, and it was honestly pretty awesome. Our Zone Leaders talked about how to get along well with our comps and how to invite the Spirit into the companionship, which luckily enough I have been very blessed with, I've loved my time with all my comps and we've always gotten along really well

President talked about baptism and a lot of the symbolism behind it, which was way cool, and also talked about how we can fulfill the mission and know we gave our all, which is always a much needed sentiment here. 

I had also spent the last couple weeks memorizing all of the favorite scriptures of our Zone as part of a competition our Zone Leaders set. We basically had everyone give their favorite scripture and whoever could recite the most would win an entire kilo of ice cream. If you know me, you know I'd do anything for ice cream, so I ended up memorizing all but one scripture; spoiler altert, that ice cream is mine. 

Well anyways, it was a pretty chill week, we had rain a couple of days, which put a damper on a few plains, but it's alright, we push forwards anyways. But yeah, I'll be talking to yall next week! Be sure to say your prayers and read your scriptures!!

Much love

Elder Montgomery 

Waitin for the cole after ZC

Los Dos Corazones de Elder Senador