Fwd: Letter #15 - 7/15/13

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elizabeth Montgomery <elizabeth.montgomery@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:22 AM
Subject: Letter #15 - 7/15/13
To: Christine Montgomery <chrismont9@gmail.com>

Another week, another letter. This probably won't be as upbeat as usual... I've been feeling kind of off lately (even missionaries are allowed to have bad days every once in awhile; no use lying about it). Nonetheless, here are some updates.

I got a new companion on Thursday -- Sister Zaretska. I only saw the name before, so I assumed she was from Russia or Ukraine or something, but it turns out she's from America. She was born in Belarus, moved to America when she was 3, and has lived there ever since. She spoke Russian at home and English everywhere else, so she can very easily speak both. She's 19 and joined the church a little over a year ago. It's funny because for about 4 weeks, I thought I'd be training a non-Russian speaking American, and then for a week, I thought I'd be training a non-English speaking Russian, and then I ended up training a Russian- and English-speaking mostly-American. Crazy how that worked out. Anyway, I'm sure there will be more on her later.

Before Sister Filipovska left, we put together a family poster to try to get parents and families interested in the church. I'm so proud of it. :) I attached a picture of it; the quote is from the Family Proclamation and the English translation is, "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." Anyway, Sister Zaretska and I used it in the park on Friday night, with a book table of free Liahona magazines (Ensign for non-American countries) and Family Proclamations, and it went really well! We talked to a few parents and a LOT of really cute kids. There's a lot of families around this area, and I think we definitely planted some gospel seeds in that park.

Other than that, we've been doing all the normal missionary stuff: meeting with investigators, less actives, and members, and lots of contacting in between. Yesterday we got our addresses mixed up for an appointment and ended up taking a trolleybus for about 20 minutes only to have it ride it back to where we were, but in that time I talked to a super nice man next to me who cares a lot about his family (he's got a brand new 2-week-old son), and I gave him a Family Proclamation and invited him to English. It was such a great conversation, and I have no doubt the hand of the Lord was responsible for that exchange.

Quick spiritual thought. I read Matthew 7:7-8 the other week, and I noticed something really cool about it. It reads, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." I used to think those three were separate: ask for something and get it, seek for something else and get it, etc. But this time I saw it as a progression. For example, if I was in some random apartment in Kyiv and you wanted to find me, how would you do it? First, you'd ask someone, "Where does Sister Montgomery live?" Once you are given the information, you have to look at a map and seek out the address. And once you find it, you have to go into the building, go to the apartment door, and knock. It's like that with the Lord: finding the peace He has to offer is a process, but as long as we're diligent in that process, our search will be successful. And the neat thing is that He isn't just the one in the apartment that we find at the end: He's there to give us directions when we ask and He's there to walk with us on our journey. Here in our mission we focus a lot on 3 things (prayer, scripture study, and coming to church), and I also like that there's three steps to that process (ask, seek, and knock).

Well, I gotta go write President Klebingat now (we write him every week). Have a great week, and if you can send some extra prayers my way, that would be great. I'm sure I'll get to feeling better soon.

Love,

Sister Montgomery

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