Elder Montague's Mission

February 26th, 2018 9 months, 1st week Thailand, Bangkok, Surin Branch samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) "And it came to pass that they did repent, and inasmuch as they did repent they did begin to prosper." Helaman  4:15 Well, I guess I repented, because I was just sent to the promised land! I show up here and we have a baptism the very first Sunday. My companion and I have high expectations, standards, and goals for this our blessed Transfer, endearingly named Jeff. I was thinking of maybe calling this a transfer of fire, or of learning, but my companion suggested Jeff and we went with it. My companion, Elder Joshua Dylan Sudekum the First, hails from small town Liberty Hill of the great state of Texas. He was a thespian, a 6'6" basketball hero, and he has dabbled in magic. He'd like to say he can rap, but you're more likely to catch him tickling someone's funny bone. He has endured 3 transfers already, mea

February 20th, 2018 8 months, 4th week Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) I feel like I have lived my whole life in Chiang Mai. I have been here for 6 months. I have celebrated almost every holiday here. I am friends with so many members and have had the opportunity to get close to a lot of them.  I actually know where I'm going when I bike and haven't gotten lost in the past couple of months.   Nevertheless, Christ did say ว่า,  "for I will show unto the children of men that I am able to do mine own work." (2 Nephi 27:21) So I guess the work  doesn't  depend on my being here. I am.being transferred  tomorrow to Isan, tok an area called Surin (สุรินทร์). I am going to be the Senior Companion (555 not sure how  that  judgement call was made). This last week could've been terrible (I had a record number of cancellations ผิดนัดs), but I refused to let that get me down. I learned

February 12th, 2018 8 months, 3rd week Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) So Bingtong, the 12th member in this blessed nation who joined the Church treated us to Khaw Soi last week;  hosted us again. Except this time she had a lot more people over, and this time we were able to provide her service.  She has an incredible garden our front but I didn't realize exactly how large it was and many different  fruits and vegetables plants she has. After we were done, the highlight of this afternoon was cracking open several coconuts, which everyone was treated to.  I love that it is part of the norm here to just pick from your garden a coconut to eat. I don't know if I mentioned that a few weeks ago, but it finally hit me that I'm living in Thailand! That it's normal for me to have rice with every meal, eat mangos, coconuts, and pineapple whenever and that I go to the mountains at least once a week

February 6th, 2018 8 months, 2nd week Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) Well the work for this week wasn't the best but we still had some good moments.    So the disappointment we had was due to a lot of cancelled appointments.  Several of our investigators that had lessons set up were not at their homes for out teaching appointments.  We always have some that miss their appointments, but it just seemed we had more this week.  Even more sad was the brother that was baptized last week didn't come to church to receive the  gift of the Holy Ghost.  And the investigator we had scheduled for this week, due to doubts,  wants to reschedule his date for next week because of some minor issues.  Small struggle, but สู้ๆนะ. During our zone conference, we were blessed with further instruction from our dedicated President and Sister Johnson, who doused us with some inspirational trainings. It was actual