"We had Stake Conference this Sunday. It was a live broadcast from Salt Lake City to all of Australia."

February 13, 2011

Hello from Brahma Lodge!

We had a good week this week. We taught more lessons this week than we had our first two weeks in the area. Things are starting to roll. We have a handful of investigators now that we are teaching. There will be more investigators more to come. We go out finding heaps. Maybe more so than at any other point in my mission. We have used our Area Book and we have contacted most of the potential investigators, we have gone through many of the former investigators. We have also knocked on a couple of choice streets. One thing I think I could work on is receiving referrals from members of the church, or really anyone. I will try and do that more often. Referrals are usually the best investigators because they have that foundation of trust with their relationship with the member.

At the beginning of my mission I learned how to speak Chinese and Swahili phrases and other languages. I have forgotten them and if I did forget them, my pronunciation is incorrect. Now that I am back in Adelaide it is like refreshing my memory. Maybe when I go home I can show off the entire lingo I have picked up. Really I could just something up and you wouldn’t know the difference, same with Australian slang.

Yes that is the units of my flat. Adelaide is actually a bit green at the moment. More alive than that Google earth photo. I remember last year by December everything was dead, or at least everything in Murray Bridge was dead. We are having a more cool summer. Some days have reached over 100 but not many. I reckon today it will be around 80.

My area is quite small so there isn’t much sight seeing. Murray Bridge, Mt Gambier and Palmerston were all regional areas and were ridiculously huge and there were things to see. But I am in the middle of the city.

We had Stake Conference this Sunday. It was a live broadcast from Salt Lake City to all of Australia. That was pretty cool, we heard from Richard G Scott and President Utchdorf (sp?). It was cool to see the old members from Modbury Ward. Some Sisters were pregnant when I was in the area but now the babes are well and truly crawling, it is crazy. I also went on tradeoff in my old area of Modbury Ward. I visited some old converts, Tammy, Anthony and Robert. I hadn’t seen them in over a year; they had gone less active a couple of months ago. After visiting with them we helped them get a vision of having an eternal family. I invited them to Stake Conference and they came! They also spoke to the Modbury Bishop and they will receive help preparing to go the temple. The invitation from me shouldn’t have gotten them back to church. They will need to receive a strong enough testimony to endure to the end. As we all do.

I am going to now. It is good to hear from you mom. Glad to hear everyone is alive and generally healthy, kind of. Remember to tell me even the sad news, you have done well. I want to come home rejoicing and not in grievance. Yes I would like to know any information on any of my friends, especially Moroni. I believe Jarom will receive his mission call this Thursday as well. I can’t wait to find out. Where ever he is called to go, I know there is a purpose behind it.

I received the package of the SD cards. Thank you. I will probably send a small package home pretty soon. I have collected a few things that I wish to send to you guys.

It didn’t even faze me it was Valentines Day. It is just another day; well it is P-day.

I think we are just going to play sport at the chapel today. I need to loose weight.

Love you heaps

-Elder Montgomery