"...someone pulled out a mailbox and whacked him across the head with it."

March 15, 2010

Hello from Murray Bridge!

Things are going well here. We had a Sudanese man named Robert come to church on Sunday. He use to come to church heaps in 2003 but since he moved to Murray Bridge he had been looking for the church. He says he joined the church but he wasn’t baptized. I think he just enjoyed the church and considered himself joined with the church. We haven’t taught him anything yet but we will begin this week. Michael and Lee went to Mt Barker for the weekend. We are going to go fishing with them today. Sometimes Michael likes to fish for ducks, just luring them in with pieces of bread and then he hooks them with his rod. The weather is perfect here. Summer is ending and it is going to get quite cool soon. We eat the ducks off the river, and you might see a video of something getting its head cut off. We are teaching Krystal and preparing her for baptism as well. She just turned eight 2 days ago. She will be interviewed for baptism next week.

We began teaching this Aboriginal family. They were hard to catch. This less active sister felt the spirit ten years ago when she was baptized. But once she moved to Murray Bridge and became displaced with the church she felt her spirituality was stagment, and now since we have been over she feels what she felt 10 years ago. We taught some of her kids. Mainly her 16 year old son named kurtly. He has lived a rough life so far. He has been apart of gang related activities but he has been recently humbled a few months ago when someone pulled out a mailbox and whacked him across the head with it. That would settle anyone down I think. As we were teaching him the Plan of Salvation he felt something he hadn’t felt much ever in his life. He felt the spirit, he felt love. We started to dig at him to find his needs and concerns, asking soul searching questions. He began to become emotional, he couldn’t explain what he was feeling and he began to cry. We will continue to work with him. Hopefully he will progress in the gospel and turn his life around for the better. Rosetta and her family should have been at church yesterday but she slept in. So that’s just part of the roller coaster of Missionary work but we will visit them and get them rolling forwards. Rosetta’s husband Joe is going on a two week holiday to Perth to go to his Aunt’s funeral. Which is excellent, there is little spirit in him except for the spirit of contention. He is racist towards everything that is progressive like laws, order and authority. Also he passionately hates the police, white Australians and the Catholic Church. I will admit he is pretty funny though.

Also we are teaching another guy named Chris, he is a 21 year old aussie bloke. He sincerely wants a change in his life. Last week he became a father, he wants to give up his drug addiction. He wanted to come to church this week but the misses just had the baby and wanted to rest, that is understandable.

Also last night me and Elder Taufa were walking along the River just ending the night. We approached these three Aboriginal women. I felt prompted to ask them if they had family that were members of this church. I have never before asked that question to someone we just contacted. They said to my surprise, yes our cousin is a member of the Church, her name was Michelle Barnes. Michelle Barnes to me disappeared out of nowhere, she too is a less active, she moved here in Murray Bridge 9 years ago, didn’t know the church existed here and fell away. We had been working with her to rekindle her fire. We found out her new address and we will make contact with this sister this week. We began to teach a little bit about our church to these 3 women. I remember asking Michelle once, what is the happiest moment in your life, she thought about it for awhile and then she said her baptism was the happiest moment in her life. It was easy to testify to these 3 women that they will find happiness they never had before unless they fully embrace the teachings of the restored gospel just as their cousin did 10 years ago. These 3 women now want to be taught and want their kids to be also taught about Jesus Christ. We are working heaps on the aboriginal network and we will begin on the Sudanese network soon. Lily and June should be back any day now and between the beginnings of April. Looking forward to when they come back. The work is progressing in Murray Bridge. Happy to hear from everyone. I love you all heaps.

-Elder Montgomery