I hate being the center of attention - August 3, 2015

Grüß euch!!

So, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: I hate being the center of attention. Fact.

Change of subject: we have a couple new progressing investigators His name is Emmanuel, from Nigeria. The Duisburg Sisters contacted him a couple months ago while waiting for us to split, and we were finally able to get ahold of him. He's Golden :) he's catholic, but very curious, and open to the church. He's come to church twice, last week, and yesterday, and he came to Gemeinde Abend as well, he's been doing all his "homework," and the members are friendshiping him like mad, which is way cool. I'm sad to go, but Sister Pettitt will be able to handle it, and Sisters Sant will also be a wonder here. I'm excited for them :)

Oh, yeah. Transfer calls were on Saturday, and this Sister is getting transferred. To the Wiesbaden (vees-bah-den), American Military ward. I've been to Wiesbaden a couple times on splits, but I don't know a lot about the city or history or anything. I know I'm gonna be right on the Rhine river, and see all the history and amazingness of Wiesbaden. I'm so excited!! My companion is one of the Sisters from my MTC group, Sister Lyman. I don't know a ton about her yet. I know that she's really hard working, and diligent, and just a star of amazing selflessness. I'm excited to get to know her better :)

We also got a contacted referral from a member. The referral was her sister-in-law, Beate (bay-ah-teh), who has MS, and doesn't get a lot of visitors, and the Essen Sisters now have a "go" to start meeting with her, sharing music, and the gospel, and just be her friends. Once again, I'm sad I don't get to see this to the end, but I'm excited that it will be done, with or without me.

All four Essen Missionaries helped one of our LA move on Saturday. She had a lot to do, still, so we spent most of the afternoon and evening there helping as much as we couple. Schw. Heerhost, when she found out I'm bring transferred said "oh, my angel is leaving!" And gave me a big hug. Then, though out the move, kept calling me over to give me little odds and ends as tschüss Geschenk (good- bye gifts). It was the sweetest thing on the planet, and I almost started crying. I don't want to go, but I just keep humming the song "I'll go where you want me to go," over and over in my head. I'm sad to go, but I know it's time. This new area will be good it's going to be weird functioning in all English during church again. I wonder if the block is the same as in America. 

Sorry this week's letter is short. Not a ton of explosive exciting things happened this week.

I love you all, and hope that you have a good week.

-Sister Montgomery

Elders, Will you bring us ice? - July 27, 2015

Hello, family, and beloved friends!

How's life been this last week? Mine has actually been rather uneventful, but entertaining at the same time. Here's my week so far.

Monday. P-day. It was slow, which was nice. We did emails, and shopping and everything at our pace, not in a rush because we had to get somewhere. It was really nice. Then, about 8:00 pm, we met the Duisburg Sisters in McDonald's, and exchanged companions. Then Sister Heywood and I went back to Duisburg, did daily planning, and then I tried to color code my calendar, and ended up deleting all of the calendars that go with the iPad, so now I just have the calendar that's connected to my email. Jed, do you happen to know how to fix that?

Tuesday we went to Duisburg. We did studies, met with a Chinese Investor, Christian, trying to solidify his faith before he heads back to China at the end of the Semester which is in a couple weeks. Came home finished studies, then went contacting at the university with a whiteboard. The whiteboard had the question "do you believe in life after death?" and three possible answers -- "yes," "no," and "not sure." Sister Heywood and I thought we'd get a lot of "no" or "not sure," but we actually found a lot of people who believe there is a life after death. Only a small percentage were Christian, but it still brought us hope to know that, despite all the terrible things in the world, people still find solace in the little truths they find, even if they're only half truths, like reincarnation, or the odd version of heaven that Muslims believe in.

Wednesday. Here's the fun story. So, we had agreed to help clean the church. I'd made a personal goal to speak more German. So everything I that came out of my mouth was German, or at least most of it. So, We were on our way to the church, and had to run to catch a bahn. I thought it would be a good idea to take the stairs 2 at a time. So I did. I got 2/3 of the way down the 3 flights of 10 stairs, and then my ankle buckled, and I heard a snap, and a pop. I was able to make it to the bottom and lower myself in a one-legged squat (with the bannister) to the steps. I stood from there, and told Sister Pettitt "I have no idea what I just did to my ankle. German went right out the window. We caught the bahn, me hobbling, and made it to bahnhof, where we had to run again to catch our connection bahn to the church. We get there, and I'm trying to keep weight off it.  I figured since I could walk fine on it, nothing was broken, but it still hurt, so I knew that something was wrong. So, any time we have to walk anywhere that whole day, I was limping, trying to be careful. So we finish cleaning the church, and walk down to Rewe (RAY-vuh, a health foods/ fresh foods store), grab lunch, and then wait for the bahn back to the church. We'd figured we'd finish studies there, since we had to leave at about 9:00 to help clean. Anyway. At about 12:45 or so, I finally decide to call the mission Nurse, Sister Castleton. I told her what happened, and she told me to stay off it, get it elevated, and get ice on it. So we were stranded at the church. We would have gone home, but we had Gemeinde Abend, so we decided to just stay. But we didn't have any ice. So we called the Elders and asked if they would bring us ice. They did, and Elder Paskett got everything set up with towels and plastic bags, and then helped me get situated with my foot up. Elder Neary was like, "they're gonna have to amputate your foot." For some reason, both he and Elder Paskett thought it was funny to ask if I wanted the crutches in their Keller. I told them "no, I won't need them. I'll be fine." The rest of the day was comparatively uneventful. Aside from constantly trying to stay off my foot while the ward grilled, and my companion ran around the parking lot with the primary kids and "helping" set up and break camp while staying off my foot. It was a lot of fun :) I'm only being partially facetious. Then we cut my hair, as you see pictures.

Thursday, we were under house arrest. Doctors told me to stay off my food trumped missionary work for the day. The only exciting thing was the Elders bringing more ice, and the crutches by. Yes, I changed my mind and asked for the crutches. When they brought them by, Elder Paskett hid them behind the doorframe, and said "so, we actually couldn't find any crutches in our Keller. But, there's this guy in our neighborhood who had some. And this morning, we performed a miracle," then he pulled them out from behind the door. It was actually kind of funny. They've actually been a lot of help. Zum Beispiel:

Friday, we were only under semi house arrest, because I had crutches. Sisters Castleton gave us a go to do some go-bys and a member appointment -- only because I had crutches. So we went to our member appointment with the Skopeks, which was really cool. The Skopeks are an elderly couple, both very strong in the church, and had s lot of input with the less-actives, and just about everything else, too. It was really fun. But they live out in the boondocks, so it took us forever to get there. I'm not even kidding. Our Termin was at 13:00 (so 1:00), and we left at 11:40. I was not sure how to get there, and with my ankle, it was quite the adventure. We actually didn't have any problems, it just took us forever to get up the hill to the Bahn stop, which we watched pull away, so we had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. I don't know how many odd stares I get walking around in a dress and name tag. Add crutches and actually using the crutches to that mix, and you about double the stares, maybe more. It was quite fun. So, in our lesson, we had them each write down the biggest comfort they receive from the gospel, and then their biggest fear, and we talked to them about the restoration and how it gives us comfort. Then tied missionary work in by talking about how many people don't have the comforts that the gospel brings, and asked them if there was anything we could do to help them with their missionary work. They told us "visit and pray for the less actives." Then bru. Skopek told us about some of the recently reactivated members that he continued to visit for years, even though many said, "it's not worth it, they're not coming back." Then said that he found out later, that some of them only came back because he had been so diligent at visiting them. It was really cool, and very inspiring.  Then we did a couple go-bys, and went home. All in all we were away from home for about 6 hours. It was brutal, and I officially hate crutches and being "broken."

 

Saturday, we normally visit Sch. Arnold, but, since I could barely walk myself, we called and told her we would not be coming to help her practice her walking exercises. Then the Elders called and asked us if we wanted to coordinate ward lists and notes on the members so that we all have the same/updated info, and can work better as a team. So we coordinated at 1. Then, Sister Pettitt and I came home, and the rest of the day was quite, until we almost ran out of Ice. So I called the Elders. They said they were still in the neighborhood doing go-bys, and brought a bag of peas by about 45 minutes later. Elder Paskett started out with "so, we're really worried about your iron levels . . ." He's getting to be a goober.

Sunday, we had a really cool member Termin. We met with the Rochs, and Sch. Roch has had some fears. And today we were able to explain doctrine that I feel helped her receive comfort and peace, that fears are okay, but that there's no need because of the Atonement, and help from God. It was really cool.

So, yeah. That was my week. I wish I could have given more spiritual food and stuff, but I can't remember all the stuff I learned in studies, and I am absolutely horrendous at keeping a study journal. Sorry :)

Love ya! 

Have a great day :)

-Sister Montgomery

Things we can learn from the scriptures, specifically the war chapters - July 20, 2015

Grüß euch!

(Hey, y'all!)

So, I found some funny quotes for every day, these are the high lights. So I will be doing this a little differently than the last couple weeks. I'm going to give the quote, and the story that goes with it, then a scripture that applies. The scriptures you may need to think about a little, and I am being a little facetious with them. It's meant to be funny.

Monday: "Please don't forget your umbrellas." So, we were on our way home from emails, or something, I can't remember exactly. But, it had been raining pretty heavily all day long. So the driver made an announcement saying, "have a good night, travel safely home, and please don't forget your umbrellas." And I found the scripture Helaman 5:12 to go with that, only half thinking about how well it fit. Here's the scripture:

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

I thought about it after I picked it, and thought that an umbrella is kind of like prayer, or a priesthood blessing. Whenever we are in the midst of trial or problems, we can get a blessing, or pull out our patriarchal blessing an receive the strength and comfort or guard that we need to keep going, just like we can pull out an umbrella when it's raining out, and have the courage to keep going to reach your destination.

Tuesday: "Sister Pettitt likes to be having . . . unwet feet."

Again, it was raining really hard. I had a rain jacket and Sister Pettitt was talking about something. We were discussing something about getting out of the rain, and she was being dramatic and pulled that line. Then we both busted up laughing. It is completely correct; she had just forgotten the word "dry," so used "unwet" instead. I though the scripture 3 Ne 14:24-27 fit pretty well :) here it is: 

24 Therefore, whoso heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock--

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand--

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

I thought it fit, because we all want to be like the wise man and build on the Rock of Christ. But just because we're built on the rock, doesn't mean that the rain, floods, and winds won't come, or that we won't get wet feet. But as long as we are built on The Rock, we will be able to dry our feet off, and stay firm in our testimonies as we weather the storms and trials of life. It's a great blessing to be able to see how scriptures apply to our daily lives. I love the scriptures :)

Wednesday: "Is it true that you don't taste anything till the third plate?" 

So. Here's the scenario. Every week we have a ward FHE, usually only about 12-15 people at Gemeinde Abend (geh-MINE-duh ah-BEND =ward evening) and afterward the Missionaries hold an English Class/workshop practice thing. Usually no more than 3 people show up for it. We do it right after Gemeinde Abend so that more people will be like "well, I'm here, I might as well stay," but unfortunately, that doesn't work as well as we want. Anyway, last week, the ward mission was on (meaning we were supposed to provide a spiritual thought and an activity, and provide most of the food). So we brought muffins, and the elders brought a 20+ lb. watermelon, and cut up a little more than half of it for dinner. Everyone ate a slice or two, but that still left out quite a lot of watermelon.  For English Class we were talking about food, because we were still eating after FHE. Elder Neary's not a little person (6'1", about the same size as Ammon) and his favorite food is watermelon. So he finished it. I am pretty sure there were about 15 pieces on his plate, and some of them were not small- like 6-7 inches wide. So he ate a lot of watermelon. Sister Kozlik, the Elders and us were left to clean everything up from Gemeinde Abend. And we were all still talking about how much E Neary had eaten, and I remembered Ammon’s little "you don't taste anything till the third plate anyway." So I asked him "is it true that you don't taste anything until the third plate?" Elder Paskett and Elder Neary and I all started laughing as I explained how Ammon inhales all his food, and Mom telling him to slow down and enjoy it, and then how he pulled out that line. Elder Neary responded "that's perfect! I would like to hang out with your brother some time when I get home from my mission. For me, it's actually the second plate, but yes, it's true." I though that 2 Ne 28:7 fit very well with this. Just think about the story, and then read the scripture. It's too funny, I can't explain it, it just fits so well :)

7 Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us.

Thursday: "Okay, I think it is now time to eat Nutella." So, it was getting a little late, and we were getting ready to plan, and suddenly Sister Pettitt pulled out this line. And then went and got the Nutella and caked it on the bread. Thinking about this, I thought that Alma 55:13 fit very well, because she "took freely" of the Nutella. It was quite hilarious.

13 And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely; and it was pleasant to their taste, therefore they took of it more freely; and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength.

Friday: "I need to shoot something with a Nerf gun." I, for some reason, was getting annoyed with myself, and so during weekly planning and record updates just kept saying this. I thought that Alma 43:19 fit this scenario because I was on the offensive, but this scripture shows us it's also important to be on the defensive.

19 And when the armies of the Lamanites saw that the people of Nephi, or that Moroni, had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing--

Saturday: "There's nothing on here. It's blank!" We were working on updating records. And one of the records for a LA man in our ward was completely blank except for a name. He's from the Congo, French being his native Language, and doesn't get tons of German practice. So we'd called a couple days before and set up an appointment. Thankfully Sister Pettitt speaks French, so she was able to communicate with him. I just sat there and smiled while she got all sorts of info from him. It was really cool. So, I thought that Mosiah 8:11 fit this situation very well.

11 And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?

We had no info in our records, and 3 of the 4 missionaries in the area speak only 2 languages: English and German. "Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?" To French. It was great :) we got so much info about their family, and got 3 referrals, and a couple new potentials. The gift of tongues really is amazing.

Sunday: "My brain is not working." So, for some reason, my brain felt like it was in a fog all day, and so I kept pulling this line. I think I annoyed Sister Pettitt a little with how often I used it. But I thought Alma 54:16-24 fits pretty well. This one's a little longer, so I'll let you read it on your own. It's at the beginning of the war chapters, the last part of the chapter where Moroni is trying to negotiate prisoner trade, and this is Ammorons response. It's definitely a "my brain is not working" moment for Ammoron, it fits perfectly, and made me laugh so hard when I found it.

Well, I think that's all for this week. I love you, and getting pictures and letters is always exciting :)

Talk to you next week!

- Sister Montgomery

The month of missed birthdays - July 13, 2015

Liebe grüße!!!!!

Hi, everyone!

How's life?

So, we're already half way through the transfer. That's weird, half-way through the 7^th month of 12.

So, nothing terribly interesting happened until Tuesday last week. Und zwar dass ich ein Thema habe gehabt. Translation-- I had one of the devotionals last week at zone training. It was pretty legit. My topic was "why the apostasy was important for the restoration," but I took a little bit of a different spin.  I'll just send you my notes if you want. That's basically how it went, and it actually went a lot better than I was expecting, and it was actually a lot of fun.

Here are my notes: Zone training Theme - why is the Great Apostasy important (for the restoration)?

Materials: cups, board, marker, projector? 

Candy (little) for participants

Candy (big) for big helpers, No one gets 2nd until, everyone has 1st. 

Theme

Write on white board "personal apostasy" & "great apostasy"

(Ask Elder Neary to build 2 towers while we talk) 

True to the faith "apostasy" first 3 paragraphs -- What is apostasy? What happens?

Apostasy cups tower (make it big) = without Apostasy there would have been no need for a restoration, because nothing would have been broken. (Then destroy only 1)

Learning from the past.

Elder M Russell Ballard said - "Learning lessons of the past" (go to and follow markings, discuss along the way, make list on board).

Testimony and then close.

Wednesday, was crazy busy. We had 4 Termine starting at 10:00 and gemeinde Abend, and then English class.  It was nuts, but really cool. We contacted 2 referrals, met with a potential and made him a new investigator, then met with the Sooriyakamaran family (they're from Sri Lanka)' and taught the, English, and then went to the gemeinde house, for ward FHE. It was so cool.

Thursday was filled with go-bys on people who weren't there, or didn't have time, or whatever. It was sad. So, we had some time after planning, and Sister Pettitt busted out the cherries we'd bought and started trying to tie the stem in a knot with her tongue, so then I had to try, and succeeded in doing it 5 different times. I was pretty impressed, if I do say so myself.

Friday, we met with the Egyptian family who was at church last Sunday, and gave them a Book of Mormon, and it went really good. And I hit my 10-month mark, which was totally weird, because now I'm in the double digits, and only have 8 months left. It seems so much more doable than 18 months, which leaves me kind of surprised.

Saturday, we did a district finding activity scavenger hunt, I'll send you a picture of the list, and the number of points we got. We won :) we got a whiteout, minus one, but got extra points because 6 drunk men cornered Sister Pettitt, but she handled it like a boss. I was quite impressed. After the scavenger hunt, we went by on a potential. She wasn't home. So we go back to the bahn stop and there were these 8 guys doing a bachelors party, something about throwing a water bottle at a bear bottle, and drinking, and it was actually kind of dumb. But they saw us watching, and came over to ask us if we'd buy alcohol and give the bachelor a kiss with Lipstick on. Thankfully our bahn pulled up right then and we left. 

I’ve spent a lot of time studying why the apostasy is important, and the Sister Training Leaders, and Zone Leaders all said I did a good job on my Theme. I thought it went really well, everyone participated at least once, everyone got candy, and the towers were pretty dang cool.

Well, I think that's all for this week. Thanks for the stories and pics and everything.

Ich hab' euch lieb!

-Sister Montgomery

"I'm melting!" - July 6, 2015

Hello!

So, this week was brutal. It was 36 degrees (Celsius) with about 47% humidity. For 3 days in a row this week. It was terrible!!! So, yeah. That's the highlight of my week. It was kind of ridiculous.

We've been doing a lot of contacting with the Essen Elders, and have gotten a couple potentials out of it, but so far we don't have any new investigators Davon (from that that, V is pronounced like F).

So, Sunday was kind of ridiculous. I know, I’m using that adjective a lot, but it's the only one that adequately describes what happened. Here's the story: we headed out to church, and we have to umsteig (oom-sh-TYE-guh=get off the bahn), and catch another bahn. And we missed our second bahn by, like, half a second. So, we decided that it would be better to just be better to walk. Haha nope.

Here's what happened next: it started raining. Cheyenne, do you remember that rainstorm we had back in 2010 at the band swing into spring? Where it was dumping buckets and we were drenched within seconds of going out? That is what happened yesterday. And we were dripping when we walked into the Church.  And sat down in FHV in front of 2 grandmas. Bad choice. One of them started picking hair off my back, and then magically produced clothes out of her bag and started dabbing us dry, and then the other grandma grabbed a cloth and started
helping Sister Pettitt, murmuring "you're very wet, I’m so sorry," and then the first grandma practically drug us out of relief society to go find a blow dryer to help us get dry. It was adorable.

So, yeah, that's the other high light of my week. This week was really slow, and stuff, so I’m sorry this is a short letter. I do have pictures, though, so . . .

Well, I guess that's all for this week. I love you all and hope that you survive the heat.

Bis nächste woche,

- Sister Montgomery