Elder Ferguson

Elder Montgomery was able to meet up with one of his childhood friends at the CMM!

Elder Christian Ferguson was in our ward throughout Matt's childhood, until his family moved away a few years ago. They were in cub scouts and young men's together for years, so it was pretty cool that they were at the CMM at the same time! He is also going to Argentina (heading out next week, actually!), but it's one of the Buenos Aires missions. 

 

An Invitation from Elder Montgomery

 Just wanted to invite anyone who might see this to read from Alma 32 today. During the last couple weeks, the Book of Mormon, especially Alma, has helped me grow my faith in Christ and His love so much, and I promise it can do the same for you. I know through this Book that Christ lived and died for us and has a perfect love that will never end, and I will always hold it (and especially the Book of Alma) close to my heart.

Missionary Plaque

When we got to church today, we were very excited to see that they got Elder Montgomery's plaque up!

He's stake center hallway official now!

 

Welp.....Week 1 at CCM I guess

Sat 8/12/2023 11:32am

Hello everyone, hola a todos, or whatever language you want me to speak. 

So yeah, been at the Mexico MTC for a week now. It's been pretty great so far, most of the food has tasted great, my district is awesome, and I've been learning Español pretty quickly (not as quickly as I'd like but whatever the Lord willeth I guessahahahaha). Also, immigration? Easy. People made it seem way scarier than it was. Then again, I did only get into Mexico, we'll see how Argentina goes. 

Mexico, by the way, is GORGEOUS. The CCM is surrounded by these not really mountains but like really big hills that have super lush vegetation on some sides and these awesome cliff faces on the other. There's also a giant B made of rocks set into one of the hills. Idk why. It's pretty cool tho. Oh yeah, I was pretty shocked to see that most of the birds here are like lime green. Like, that's when it hit me that I was out of the US. Also, it rained pretty hard, and all these Utah kids were freaking out like 'I've never seen rain like this in my life!' and I was like 'This is legit every other week during summer in NC.' Yeah, guess you could say I'm one of the cool kids. 

My district (really only one Elder lol) has this goal for us to collectively do 1000 push ups a night, and we've been getting pretty close. Me and the Elder who started it are carrying pretty hard though, everyone else does like 25-30, while he and I do 40-50 in a given night. It's honestly helped me a lot, I have a personal goal right now to do 120 push ups a day for the foreseeable future, and I feel great about it. I still have like no stamina though, we all played futbol with another district and I had to sit out after like ten minutes lol. I'll work on that. 

I can tell my Español is improving, but it's not at the rate I want it to be. Most of the other elders think I'm really good at it as well, which doesn't help very much when I don't feel super confident with it. It still is the first week though, I'm sure I'll get there eventually. At least I can read and understand most everything, which has definitely been a blessing.

Well.....yeah, there hasn't been too much else to write home about, so I'll leave it here I guess.

I love and miss yall a ton, and I'm super glad to have so many great people who have my back like this. Oh, and if you all have any questions for me, email me pleaaaaase, I'd love to answer. 

¡Vaya con Dios, mi amigos!

Èlder Montgomery

(P.S. my PDays from now on are Thursdays, so I'll be able to get back to everyone then <3. Also, I can't messenger people outside of my immediate family until I get out to the field, hope yall are okay with waiting four weeks for that lol)

 

Our First Video Call!

We got to talk to our missionary AND see his handsome face too!

For over an hour!

He was walking around the CCM campus while he was talking to us and we could hear birds squawking in the background. He says there are a lot of lime green parrots there. 

He sounds great and says things are going great too! 

After we got done with our call, he messaged me a few pictures!

This is his district. The elders all live in 5-6 bedroom houses with 4 elders per room. 

The hermanas live in apartments. They had a pair of hermanas in their district to begin with, but plans changed for them, so now their district is all elders.

Matt and Elder Wilcock, who was on the way to get a haircut.

La Tienda on the CMM campus is well-stocked with Dr. Pepper!

He loves the landscape and climate there and said it was pretty cool driving through the huge, sprawling, Mexico City as they traveled by van from the airport. 

Heading to the CCM

We left our house just after 2am on Tuesday, August 8th to drive Elder Montgomery to the airport. 

He had a long day ahead of him. First he would fly up to St. Paul, MN, and then straight down to Mexico City, arriving there at nearly 3pm our time. 

(The 3rd flight for later in September from Mexico to Miami is one that they will cancel eventually. They are just required to have a returning ticket before being allowed to enter into Mexico.)

We got to the airport, got his 2 pieces of luggage checked, and then it was time for those very last hugs. You might be able to tell that I was trying to smile through all of the tears and emotion. Matt was excited to finally be on his way though.

We watched him at security until he was completely through and we could no longer see him. And then I was taking deep breaths and trying not to totally break down right there in the airport. 

It's such a crazy mix of emotions because I knew he was doing exactly what he was supposed to. We'd spent the last 19. 3 year raising him to do this! So I was so intensely proud of him, but man are we going to miss him! I can't imagine sending him off 20 years ago when we'd only get to talk to him twice a year and would have to wait for letters through the mail! We'll get to see his face on video calls every week! I don't think he'll need that, but I'm grateful for it!!

So we came back home and got some sleep.

And I checked my phone all day to see updates on his flights. 

His 2nd flight was a little delayed. He did have another elder from our stake on both flights with him, and then they met up with a sister in St. Paul. So at least he wasn't alone!

The flight status said they'd landed around 3:30 our time, so we just had to hope and pray that everything went well with both flights and with customs and all of that. 

Finally around 8:30 that night, I got this short but sweet email update from him:

And then I could sleep soundly that night. 

Last Day at Home

Monday, August 7th was Elder Montgomery's final day at home. He only had to be in his online classes for part of the day, so his cousin James came to hang out. 

They played some games with the other kids. 

He requested chicken-fried chicken for his final meal. 

Then we all went to Scoops on Main to get ice cream for FHE. 

After that, we played a round of Telestrations for our FHE activity. 

Matt did our bedtime scripture read-aloud. 

Then it was hugs all-around because he would be gone to the airport and headed out on his first flight before they woke up in the morning!

Group hugs!

Last picture of all my babes together for over 3 years, since Eric will head out on his mission before Matt gets back!

Individual hugs!

Then it was time to finally get his bags packed!

We had to leave for the airport at 2am, so Michael and I just stayed up with him and helped him get ready.