My life is ridiculous - April 27, 2015

Yep. That sums up this week.

Begrüßung zu Eins und alles! (Salutations, to one and to all!)

Yep. My life is ridiculous. This last week was the busiest, most spiritual of my life!!! We didn't get full studies at all, this week -- not even Sunday. It was wonderful!!

So, Monday was the only slow day we had last week. We had District lunch at Star Diner which is an American style diner out of the 50's or something, out on the --. I don't even know where. In the city? I don't know. But it has legitimate American food, and it was really yummy, and really fun. It reminded me of something out of "Sand Lot", so if you've seen that, you will have an idea of what I'm talking about. it was a lot of fun to get to know the Elders in our district better. These Elders are ridiculous. I can tell most of them came out as 18-year-old boys. They've grown up, most of them, but they still sometimes act like 18-year-old boys. It's ridiculous.

Tuesday we had an adventure. We went to DDM, and it was really cool. We talked about how we can make DDM just as exciting as anticipating the Mission Conference with Elder Bednar. The Elders had a lot of good ideas. It is always really cool to watch them go from goofy boys playing with friends to young men in a planning session in about a minute. After that we went and visited Schwester Irgang again, and had a good time just being company for her. A great "Service Lesson," as we call them. Schwester Irgang grew up behind the Berlin wall, and is kind of simple minded, so we don't always get a lesson in with her, but it's still wonderful to have termin (appointments) with her, because the spirit is really strong, and it's great.

After Schwester Irgang we had an appointment with Ange. He is making So much progress!!! Saturday, we invited him to pray about a new beginning: baptismal date. he said he would, and after the lesson, Sister Bates and I both said we saw him in white, at the temple. It was the coolest thing on the planet!

Wednesday, we had 2 WA (Vey-ah= Weniger Aktiv oder Less active), a service project (helping a member move), and a ward activity. We were out of the house for 12 hours. But it was cool to talk about Guardian Angels with Sister Pink. We shared lots of stories.

Thursday, we had a member lesson about the power of prayer, and then had an appointment with Ange, but it fell out, so we made another because we still want to help him progress even more. Then we had an Essen termin (eating appointment) to Schwerster Dietz, a LA with a strong testimony, but respects her husband who has health problems and so she stays home with him. Then we had a mitglied dabai (mitt-gleed duh-buy=member present) and did some good-byes. Then we had permission to go to bed early in preparation for our Elder Bednar conference. So we did

Friday was the best day of my life. I would love to give you a play-by-play, but I am almost out of email time, so I will write a snail mail to Mom, and Jed with the info, and you can tack it onto the blog or something.

Saturday was another busy day with a couple service projects, a LA lesson, and a powerful lesson about the BOM, prayer and Baptism with Ange that we (and by that I mean "I" because we will be on a split) will be following up on tomorrow. we are super excited. It's been a good week.

Love you all, and miss you! Love to hear from you.

-Sister Montgomery

I'll set up the tent, you go get the snacks - April 20, 2015

Hallooooo, Familyyyyyyyy!! And friends :)

so, this week was a little crazy. Especially Saturday. But I'll get to that story in a minute.

Tuesday was DDM. It went mostly as normal. Besides the fact that it was not at the normal time, the Zone leaders got lost unter wegs (on the way), half the district was late, and Sister Bates and I had to leave after an hour. Then we met with Sister Irgang, and basically sang hymns our entire lesson. It was actually really peaceful.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were not terribly eventful. Saturday however was an adventure. 

So, it started out as a normal day. We got up, did Morgan sport, got ready, did Personal Study. And got ready to go to our weekly appointment with Sister Arnold, (an elderly sister who lives in a nursing home, and we help her with her therapies --- walking to her wardrobe and back leaning heavily on her walker). As we're getting ready to leave, Sister Bates leans over the toilet and proceeds to lose her breakfast. Both of us were hoping it was a one-time thing, and that we could still make it to our appointment. Nope. As soon as we get to Bahnhof, she lost the rest of her breakfast. She was mortified, poor kid. I called sister Arnold and told her we wouldn't be able to make it, but left out that she was vomiting (I don't know how to say that in German). So she asked if there was anyway we could still come. of course I told her no, and we went home. The rest of the day was a mix of slow moments with un-restful naps, and frantically rushing to the bathroom as we try to keep the house clean. It was quite the adventure.

So, this week I made a couple of decisions. I'm doing the floppy copy challenge, with the focus of "understanding the enabling and forgiving power of the Atonement." specifically the Enabling power. I have officially made it through the first 15 chapters of first Nephi, and I have realized that the Atonement has a lot more power than we give it credit for. It not only allows us to change, but gives us the power we need to change. It erases the mistakes of sin, and helps correct the mistakes of weakness. It's been really interesting to focus more on the stories and Atonement together as I read because I have gotten a better picture of why the stores are in the Book of Mormon in the first place. It's amazing, the power the Atonement has.

The other decision I made this week, is that I want to do another Floppy Copy challenge with the focus of "understanding how I know things with my heart and not just my head". Specifically because of Elder Wilford W Andersons talk from the Saturday afternoon session of Conference. I gave my first German talk this week (this is related, I promise). I was actually really proud of it. It was based on Elder Andersons talk, and I talked about being an example, and showing/teaching others how to hear the music of the gospel. If you want I can send it to you. The only problem is that it will be in German, and I'm not sure Google translate would do it justice. hmm . .  . I'll figure it out. If you want it, that is.

So. Subject line explanation: there is a street right outside the church, that is always busy, and we have to cross it to get to our bahn (bon) or to the church. Sister Bates calls this street "the bane of my existence." ("That's its name," she says). Today was really busy as we were headed here to do email. We waited a couple minutes for traffic to die, and then sister Bates says "Okay, I'll start setting up the tent. You go get the snacks," apparently thinking we were going to be there for a while, the goober. My companions hilarious XD

Love you all, can't wait to hear from you!

-Sister Montgomery

I have no fun subject line today - April 13, 2015

Yep. That’s my week.

LOL, just kidding!!

Hi, friends! How’s life? Mine’s great. 

So, I have a really cool miracle story from this week, and I'm really excited to share it, so I'm just going to skip to that part of the week, okay?  Good. Because that's what I'm going to do XD

So, last week I told you about the random text we got from Ange last week, right? Well, Sunday, he told us that he had just gotten back from Paris and gave us his new number. Then on Thursday, he texted us again, from a different number. So we saved the second one.  Then, on Friday, we get this random call from Ange, and he's says that he's in the hospital, and that we should come visit him. We were confused. But, nonetheless, we set out to visit him after he sent us the information for the station he's in. So, we get to the hospital, and find a map, and can't find the station. We headed to the information desk. The nurse at the desk pulled out a smaller map and showed us where to go with a marker. We finally made it to his room, and found out that he's been hospitalized simply because of a severe alcohol addiction. While he was telling us this, he also told us several times that he just wants to be done with it. He wants to set a good example for his 5 kids, and not be controlled by alcohol, or other addiction. Sister Bates and I got very excited when we heard that and ended up writing him a little "spiritual prescription" that includes daily prayer twice a day, 5 minutes of daily scripture study, and weekly church attendance. He said that he's going to follow it like he does his medical prescription. Saturday, we went to our next appointment with Ange, and he said that he'd prayed that morning but not the night before (they'd drugged him with sleeping pills and he forgot). But he's been doing really well. He asked us to write down specific chapters for him to read from the Book of Mormon, and Sister Bates, little smarty-pants she is, thought it would be a good idea to give him stories to read instead. So we wrote down several stores, like Nephi and company leaving Jerusalem, and Alma the youngers’ conversion story, and the Sons of Mosiah, and a few others. It was a really powerful couple days.

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful. it was really cool to see Ange have that desire to change. Please pray for him, as well. He's been brought really low, and needs all the help he can get. Prayer rolls would be great, too, if possible.  Thank you!

I love you all, and hope you're having a great time with life. I pray for you often, and love to hear your stories. :D

-Sister Montgomery

WOW! - April 6, 2015

HI!!!!

All I have to say about what has happened the last two weeks is WOW.  

I can't remember a lot of what happened, because I have been so tired the last couple weeks. This letter will probably not be worth much, because I left my planner at home (seems to be a trend come end of transfers. hmm,) but I will do my best.

So, the first couple days of this week were really slow. Not a lot happened. Then, Wednesday after noon, things took off. We had a LA termin, and it was interesting. Appointments with Sister Schwenk (sh-vehnk) are always interesting, because she has had some of the most bizarre experiences. Like seeing her mothers spirit, or praying her cat back to life, and supposedly talking to John the Beloved. Not entirely sure how that one worked out, but, like I said, bizarre.

Thursday way zone training, which was all about the BoM, and how we can use it in our finding and better use it in our teaching. It was really cool. We did a skit on the first 7 chapters, and it was really fun. I got to be the angel and told our District leader, Elder Christiansen, (playing Laman) to shape up and try again. It was really fun (and by that I mean entertaining, and silly).

Friday was the Temple, for which we left at 7:00 practically on the dot. And then drove for 2.5 hours and did an Endowment session (was the only missionary to do it all in English, the other 3 did in in German. the Elders even did the veil in German. I was quite impressed), and had lunch, and then did a ward sealing session. There were 15 of us from Gemeinde Essen. It was spectacular.

Saturday, once again started early, because we decided to do a district breakfast for transfer calls. The only problem was that the missionaries who had been put in charge of food (the Essen elders and Sisters) were the ones who didn't have the cancel to go shopping this week (due to P-day switch for temple). So Sister Bates and I made an emergency run to ALDI ( All-dee =just a grocery store) , and got some pastries, and eggs, and we had scrambled eggs and German pastries for breakfast, as we made transfer predictions and waited for 9:00. Then we learned that we are getting "digital, mobile devices," as President Stoddard called them, on the 24th of April, and that Elder Bednar will be coming that same day to talk about "Missionary work in the digital age." we are all very excited. President said that our stake presidents should be getting an email with information to give to our families, and that we pay for them the same way (though our home ward) as we do tithes and other donations. We are super excited.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference, and it, as always, was spectacular. I loved the talk about learning to hear the music, and Elder Holland's talk about the brothers, and how the looked out for each other. I got about 7 pages of notes, and it was amazing. We listened to it in English, but the women’s conference, and the Sunday evening sessions were and will be in German because we'll be watching the 5th session in Sunday school, and relief society. 2-hour class. It's gonna be fun.

OH!!! Ange (ange-hard G)came back!! Ange is an eternal investigator from the Ivory Coast, who is constantly dropping off the face of the planet, and losing his phone. He's quite the character. Sunday, between sessions of conference I checked the phone, not expecting anything. We had a text from a random number. It basically said "hey, Sisters, it's Ange. I just got back from Paris. This is my new number. I still want to meet with you." we were flabbergasted, but super excited. We texted back and asked if he had time Tuesday at 4. He said he'd be there. I'm a little apprehensive, but super excited. he seems like a really cool guy, with a lot of potential. Will you pray for him, please?

Also, we heard from one of the members that her friend/one of our other investigators, Manuela (man-you-ella) had prayed this week and recognized her answer. Then today, she randomly texted us and asked for a restoration DVD. We got super excited, and told her of course. She's finally making progress!!! 

So, yeah, it's been a fun absolutely crazy week. Love all and hope to hear from you, soon, 

-Sister Montgomery

P.S. remember to eat your veggies, and get enough sleep!

"My life is ridiculous!!!" (March 23, 2015)

Hello! (Echo: Hello!) Hello! (Echo: Hello!) We welcome you today!

"Here's my [week] so far:"

Monday was a wonderful, and restful. We did the usual: grocery shopping, cleaning, emails. Then we had a couple hours of nothing scheduled, so Sister Bates took me to what she calls the "Nerd shop." the have EVERYTHING. I'm not even kidding. The have mugs, key chains, books, cookie jars t-shirts, cookbooks, everything. You name it they have it. They had Harry Potter wands, a remote control wand (meaning you can play like you have a wand, and it would adjust volume, change channels, or switch from DVD to TV or whatever. it was so cool!)  They had Marvel, Harry potter, Hunger Games, Dr. who, Star Wars, and several other themes. It was fantastic!! iI was probably good we didn't have a whole heck of a lot of time, because I would have stayed there as long as I could. It was my favorite. I told Sister Bates "I wish we could take pictures of this stuff." it made me so happy :D

Tuesday was Zone conference. it was amazing. for some reason after an amazing conference/training I always forget my notes at home and can't tell you about the amazing things I learned. hmm. I may need to start writing myself reminder notes so I can tell you the about the amazing-ness of conferences and training.  ANYWAY. We had great fun with all of the wonderfully connected Themes (tay-muh= a lesson/devo presentation of some sort) we got to watch "Meet the Mormons." it was absolutely astounding!! I'm pretty sure I cried about 5 different times, and for those of you who know me, I'm not really a crier. Meaning it was powerful. Did you guys ever see it? If not, then you should, because it is absolutely beautiful. Also, I hear that they're going to be putting it out on DVD, soon. Not entirely sure if that’s strictly for missionaries, or general church members, or what. But if you can get your hands on a copy, I would recommend it.

Wednesday, we actually had a lesson with one of our 12 non-progressing investigators. Her name is Manuela (Man-you- ella), she's German, and is very reserved. We basically got to know her, because I had never met her before, and we were unsure if she still wanted to meet with us. It was quite fun. We ended up talking about Angels and how are the usually translated beings and don't have wings (this topic came up because she has about 20 different angel statues, on which Sister Bates commented, and then had to explain that they don't usually have wings. it was quite entertaining). Needless to say, it was a very interesting lesson with some trouble keeping control of the topic of conversation.

Thursday, we went to the DMV and tried to get drivers licenses-because it's mission policy, so if/when we get transferred into a car area we don't have to wait for that, making it easier on everyone. But we ran into a glitch: Apparently, because Washington has no vehicle classification restrictions on the licenses, I have to take the driving test (in German) from a German driving school. THAT'S goanna happen. Sister Bates and I both think the lady who helped us was just in a foul mood, and wanted to be a stink, because it says that Washington licenses transfer right over, just like the Utah license. I don't know. We’ll just try again later, and see if we can find someone nicer to help us :] so, yeah, that was an adventure.

Friday, nothing to eventful happened. It was nice to have a quiet day for once.

Saturday, on the other hand, was a flurry of motion and adventure, with crazy old ladies falling out of wheelchairs and being hospitalized, the building of two schranks (wardrobes), running errands for said old ladies, canceled LA termin (appointments) after we got to the termin and lots and lots of running around town. And Sister Bates yelling about 3 different times "My life is ridiculous!!" She's sitting here listening to me read my letter and saying "You're family’s probably going to think I'm nuts." she is :) it's great fun :)

So, this week for personal study, I have been reading in the Book of Moses. It’s amazing the things you learn using footnotes. or even just other sources, like the Book of Moses. Have you ever tried to read Genesis and Moses side by side? it's so cool, seeing all of the differences, and learning more about people from the extra details provided in Moses. I wish I had my notes.

So,yeah. That was my week. How have your weeks been going? I hope it was just as fun and eventful as mine. I hope they continue to be so. I wish you the best of luck, and pray for you "every day."

Love ya!

-Sister Montgomery