---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elizabeth Montgomery <elizabeth.montgomery@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 5:37 AM
Subject: Letter #56 - 4/28/14
To: Christine Montgomery <chrismont9@gmail.com>
From: Elizabeth Montgomery <elizabeth.montgomery@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 5:37 AM
Subject: Letter #56 - 4/28/14
To: Christine Montgomery <chrismont9@gmail.com>
Hey everybody! I don't know why, but I am ALWAYS running out of time for this letter. But this will definitely be more, uh... substantial, than last week. :)
First off, TRANSFO! Transfers are on Thursday, and it looks like I'm staying in Vinograder, but with the slight change that I'm going to be companions with Sister Andrade, and Sister Parish is going to be with Sister Farmer. Those are the two formerly-from-Donetsk Sisters that came to Vinograder two weeks ago. It's kind of funny because we all live together anyway, we're just switching companions. I'm going to really miss being comps with Sister Parish... I'm pretty sure we're going to be life-long friends, not even kidding. But it'll be cool to have yet another companion to work with and learn from (she'll be my ninth companion in nine transfers!) And I'll still see Sister Parish plenty often. :) We got news that the Donetsk mission president and his wife are returning to America this week but won't yet be released from their calling, so take that to mean whatever you think it means.
So, my week... was... so much better than the last few! God gave us work to do! We had like four first lessons -- one with a very kind but anti-Mormon church man (Bladimir), one with a nice but not-super-interested guy we met on the street (Sergey), one with two 15-year-old girls we met at service a little while ago who have been coming to English (Valya is super interested, her friend Polya a little less so), and one with a young women one of our ward members invited to meet with us (Masha). Unfortunately Masha is the only one who has accepted a specific return visit (thus making her a new investigator), but Sergey and Valya still have great potential in my opinion. And we're still in intense finding mode and have some more appointments set up this week with potentials. I'm SO grateful we finally started seeing "success" this past week, though I'm also grateful for that trial of being rejected for several weeks because I learned a ton from it. Come what may and love it, right? :)
Okay, I'm left with 7 minutes for a spiritual thought. Our lesson with Vladimir left me with quite a few thoughts, but I'm going to save those for next week when I'm not so rushed. I'll say this much though, on the topic of pride. I thought of an interesting definition of pride: when you want to be right about your past more than you want to be right about your future. I think that people often fear the gospel because they think that it means that their whole past and their past beliefs have been a lie. They fear being wrong. First off, that's not what the gospel is about at all; I don't go around trying to prove that people's beliefs are wrong -- I find joy in the truths they know and offer to give them even more. And second of all, so what if you were wrong? That's what repentance is all about, and the gospel will make your future better than you can even imagine.
K, love you all! Have a great week!
-Sister Montgomery
