Fwd: Letter #28 - 10/14/13

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elizabeth Montgomery <elizabeth.montgomery@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 8:02 AM
Subject: Letter #28 - 10/14/13
To: Christine Montgomery <chrismont9@gmail.com>

Heya fam! I had a really good week! Tender mercies of the Lord are befalling me left and right. I'll tell you a few of them...

First off, general conference! We finally got to watch it all (or nearly all) this weekend, and it was SO good! Man, almost better than Christmas. :) I especially liked all the emphasis on missionary work; it's so much easier to convince/inspire members to help with missionary work when you've got words of living prophets and apostles at your fingertips. It's interesting being surrounded by people who believe that the idea of prophets died when Christ died, and I just want to raise my voice and be like, "No, seriously, there's a prophet today! Yeah, a prophet, like Moses. And I heard him speak like two hours ago!" I had a hard time just sitting in the church or at home listening to conference for so long because I was so anxious to get outside and share their words with everyone else. And now this week I can. :)

Also, we had an amazing Zone Conference on Friday. Every conference leaves me on a spiritual high, no joke. Besides doing a lot of instructive role-plays, we delved thoroughly into the doctrine of repentance, and I learned so much from it. I feel like I'm better equipped to truly "preach nothing but repentance" (Mosiah 18:20) to this people, a topic which, by the way, is so much more pleasant and glorious than we normally understand it as being. As Elder Scott just said in conference, "Remember, repentance is not punishment. It is the hope-filled path to a more glorious future."

Oh, I have to tell you about our hilarious lesson with Maria Monday night. She's our neighbor that called us out as we were walking and told us to come over, and last Sunday she invited us over again, so we stopped by the next evening. Little did we know that her friend Tamara was visiting, and Tamara really doesn't like Mormons, and she's really vocal about it. We started a pleasant lesson with Maria, and she showed us her marked-up copy of the Book of Mormon through 2 Nephi (umm... amazing!), but it wasn't long until Tamara came into the room and started going off about this and that from the Bible and how stupid we are, not letting us get more than two words in at a time.

We managed to quiet her down long enough to basically say, "We're going to watch this film about the Prophet Joseph Smith. If you don't want to watch it with us, please leave." She finally went to the other room but continued to make commentary about what she was hearing from the film (accompanied by Maria's sweet commentary, "Oh the animals are so cute!"). After we were done watching it (Maria loved it), Tamara came back in and proceeded yelling at us. We managed to sneak in a closing prayer, and as Maria was walking us to the elevator (closing the door on Tamara), she said, "I'm so sorry! Please don't judge me by her... we'll meet again when she's gone!" What a strong woman. Thankfully the member that we had on the lesson thought it was an awesome experience (16-year-old girl whose spiritually on fire), and we just had to laugh all the way home, because I'm pretty sure laughter was the only thing that could get our blood pressure back down haha. Oh man, what a lesson! Good opportunity to practice charity too. ;)

Anyway, this week was just full of the Spirit. He's been guiding our plans, He's been working in the hearts of people that I love, He's been leading the elect to us and vice versa, and He's been guiding my words as I speak and testify. We had exchanges on Wednesday (I was in Voskresensky with Sister Wallace) and we were met all day with receptive people. One woman, Valentina, even wrote down all her information and gave it to us, including when she's available to meet (basically set up an appointment all by herself). A few days later we stopped by, and we were surprised to find that the address she gave us was a business, and we walked into what looked like a business meeting with six women. Sister Cromwell and a member from the ward were with me, and later they both told me they were thinking, "What did Sister Montgomery get us into?" We were worried there were going to try to sell us something, but they were actually interested in a gospel discussion (once we led it in that direction), and we basically gave the whole first lesson to six women at one time, including bold and powerful testimonies and a prayer at the end. The Spirit was so strong in that room, and we left with two fewer Books of Mormon and three interested potential investigators. I'm so grateful to have had a part in such an awesome miracle from God. :)

Alright, I still gotta go report to President so I'll call it quits there. Hope you have a fabulous week!

Love,

Sister Montgomery

PS -- Hey Addi, do you know a Lindsey Staley? She's a new sister in my zone and went to BYU-I before, and when I asked if she knows any Montgomery's, she mentioned you. Sweet! (As a pure-blooded Montgomery, I just couldn't help myself from making one of those infamous "small world" connections.) :)