Sunday, January 30, 2011

"I am now in an area called Brahma Lodge...I am back in Modbury Stake."

January 30, 2011

Hello from Adelaide!

I am now in an area called Brahma Lodge. This is my first P-day in Adelaide since 2009. I am back in Modbury Stake. I went on Tradeoff to Brahma Lodge twice when I served in Modbury when I was finishing my training. I am part of Paralowie Ward. Our Ward Mission Leader and Bishop are very missionary focused. There is no reason why I got transferred out of Darwin so quickly except the spirit has called me another way. My companions name is Elder Latu he is from Tonga. We were flushed into the area; we replaced Sister Missionaries In the area. Sister Tierchert who was in my intake went home, she served in Brahma Lodge. Also Sister Rau in my intake went home. It is weird to think both the Sisters are home now. I can remember coming into Australia with them. So this whole week we have been trying to get to know everyone in the area. We have met heaps of people. We have been mostly finding this whole week. My former companion in Murray Bridge Elder Taufa is in my district. He has one transfer left until he goes home. He is my brother in the mission, he was trained by Elder Inglis as well. We have served around each other for a total of a year now. This mission is becoming very young rather quickly.

We didn’t do anything on Australia Day; we wanted to meet as many people as possible. Since that day is a national holiday, many people were home.

Well I am going to go now. It is good to hear about everyone from home. I am excited to hear where Jarom is going to serve his mission. Where ever you are called, it doesn’t matter where you serve; the work is the same.

-Elder Montgomery

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"I am getting transferred....Flying into Adelaide."

January 24, 2011

Hello from Palmerston

For the last time! I am getting transferred. Pretty crazy turn of
events. I so did not see that coming. My flight leaves in 2 hours.
My guess is I will be transferred somewhere to Adelaide. I am happy I
did see a different side of the world. Darwin is a beautiful place.
It will be interesting going from a wet heat to a dry heat. It is
summer in Adelaide. I am escaping a potential cyclone so that is
good. There might be one hitting Darwin this week. I have noticed a
pattern in my mission, the areas I take over, I take over very
quickly. The areas I do not take over I am transferred out very
quickly. Australia Day is coming up. It will be fun to try and play
some cricket.
We had a good last week in Palmerston. We have Sara, Scott and
Andrew all progressing. Kimberly and Diego are also being taught.
There should be a couple baptisms in the near future for this area. We
finished strong in the transfer. We taught the most lessons this week
than any other.
I am going to go now. Flying into Adelaide.
Love you all heaps
-Elder Montgomery

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

"...God will provide a way."

January 17, 2011

Hello from Palmerston!

This week has been good. We received a good referral this week. A returned missionary came home last Sunday and he set us up an appointment with a less active man. We are to teach him the quit smoking program. This man is named John, he has a brother name Don, Don is a prospective Elder and is working towards going on a mission. John has 8 kids, none of them are baptised. Five of those eight kids are baptismal age. So by teaching the quit smoking program to John we hope that this will open the door to teaching the gospel to these kids and even reactivating John.

We had a baptismal date with an investigator named Andrew. He is from Papua New Guinea. He was in Cairns for a couple weeks visiting his wife. They have been separated for almost a year now. They have made certain reconciliations and she has agreed to move back with him in Palmerston. One of those conditions was to not be baptised Latter Day Saint. She is Catholic. When Andrew told us this he was on the verge of crying. He knows the church is true, and he desires an eternal family. We taught him a powerful lesson based on 1nephi chpt 3 which talks about a commandment from god to retrieve the brass plates from Laban. We shared with him that god gives no commandment unto the children of men unless he provides a way for them to succeed in keeping the commandment. Basically to melt down our message, God will provide a way. We went into fasting and we had a discussion, committed him to read about fasting in the Gospel Principles book. We are fasting for all our investigators, but for Andrew we are fasting that his wife’s heart will be softened. He has also expressed he will fast as well.

Scott is progressing through the Book of Mormon. He is up to 3rd Nephi. By now he has probably read through the climax of the Book of Mormon, we will see him on Wednesday.

Sara’s daughter was sick this week. So her sleeping patterns have been atrocious. One day she went to bed at noon. So we didn’t have the opportunity to teach her this week. But we did teach her less active mum and her little sister who is not baptised either, this bunch live in a separate house. They went to a cottage evening at a members home this week which was great, they were about to go to church but then Sara’s mum was admitted to the hospital on Saturday. She has a hernia. Surprisingly her husband actually showed up to church, that totally shocked us.

Today for P-day we had Megan’s husband named Kim, Megan was baptised in December, and Kim took us to Litchfield national park. It is a beautiful place. There are multiple waterfalls. There was no danger of crocs because of the fast moving streams (and waterfalls). If anything a fresh water alligator could have unfortunately made himself into some of these streams, but that doesn’t matter because those guys are more afraid of us than we are to them. There was many people swimming. Being in the wet season those waterfalls had heaps of water. Fortunately the roads were not severely flooded. I saw my first frilled neck lizard and goanna.

Well I am going to go now. Love you all heaps.

-Elder Montgomery

"...the spirit is the only thing that can convince them."

January 14, 2011

hey mom, i dont have much time left, i emailed kyle.
But things are good here in Palmerston We are teacing and finding.
Sister Lisonbee is pretty Sweet. I hope those sources work. But really the spirit is the only thing that can convince them.
I havent watched them myself so i hope they are good.
I am going to go now, sorry for the short email!
I have to email president.
Love you heaps

-Elder Montgomery

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

"Members named the Bryants are the Mum and Dad to us in the area...took us on a road trip near Jabiru and we did some sightseeing out in the bush."

January 4, 2011

Hello from Palmerston!

Tuesday is P-day this week; it is different every day of this transfer it seems. We did things a bit different this P-day schedule wise. Members named the Bryants are the Mum and Dad to us in the area and they took us on a road trip near Jabiru and we did some sightseeing out in the bush. I was very careful because I will admit there was quite a bit of water and you just can’t trust that there isn’t a crock inside it. Even the smallest water hole could have one. We went to the Adelaide River, where there is the famous jumping crocks boat tour, we didn’t go on the boats it makes you feel better mum. It is pretty crazy to think that river had thousands of crocks in it. Maybe we will go on it on another day. I saw some birds I had never seen before. Dad would be jealous. We finished off today when the Bryants took us back to Darwin city and we went to the Museum. That was pretty cool. There was a sound room recording of cyclone Tracey that hit Darwin in 1974. It totally destroyed Darwin. The noise of the wind and the metal scraping for multiple hours would have been a nightmare.

We had to be in our flats by 5 pm on New Year’s Eve and we couldn’t leave the flat until 2pm the next day. People just would not be in their right state of mind if we had called in on anyone. It was the same deal last year. Traditions in Australia are the same in America. Heaps of fireworks throughout the day went off. There were no guns fired unlike in America. In a drunken frenzy some guy shot his wife with a crossbow and killed her. That is pretty nuts. We went to bed at 10:30 didn’t do anything interesting, we just did our weekly planning. We ordered a pizza for Dinner.

This week we had really good lessons with some of our investigators. Scott has read up to Alma. He is on fire with his reading. He has been praying earnestly for his answer. His wife Jen is going through a hard time with chemotherapy. Scott has been unavailable to go to church to take care of her while she is going through this tough time. Scott believes that the events and people in the Book of Mormon are real but he is pondering whether the religion is real. Quite a different concern from what I have come across as a missionary. Scott will be baptized as soon as he gets his answer.

Sara is going well. We visited her 3 times this last week all with different members present. We taught her again the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration, we also taught her about Temples. Her reading of the Book of Mormon is much slower than Scott. She is in the latter end of first Nephi. Sara is set to be baptized in April; she has already felt the Holy Ghost. She just needs to obey the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity.

I am just going to finish up anything else I need to do for P-day. I live on number 19, unit 5 on Mannakin Ct in the suberb of Bakewell. First units on the left if i was driving into the street. P-day will be on Monday next week and from now on.

Love you heaps

-Elder Montgomery