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 ...

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 onc...

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 so...

January 21th, 2018 7 months, 4th week Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) Isaiah 57:15 states: "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, having a deflated means of transport , to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." What a lovely scripture. There are many which iterate the same statement on what the Lord expects of us; the well-known phrase of a broken heart, contrite spirit, and flat tire. Waiiit, y'all DID read the scripture right? Well plot twist, I added it in because it's among the latest developments in my life! 555. Ya, so my tire was just randomly flat after a teaching appointment a few days ago. We walked home (thankfully not  too  far) and pumped it up with air, hoping that would fix things. It was all...

January 9th, 2018 7 months, 3rd week Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) We've been having several get togethers because the senior couple, the Barlows who've been here for 2 years, are now leaving. They've been in this area for a long time and are really loved by the families and wards here.  so we had several Family Home Evenings in their honor and ward parties  to honor them and send them off. That was a lot of fun and a chance to get together with the members. We've been experiencing a lot of exciting teaching opportunities this past week and a half. We switched off with the zone leaders this past  Monday; which is always good as I get opportunities to observe their approach and be part of teaching investigators.  W e've just seen some solid results for our hard work here. We've seen an increase of new investigators, we've gotten a lot of solid referrals from members (blessing...

December 31th, 2017 7 months, 2nd week Thailand, Bangkok, Chaing Mai  District samuel.montague @myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you) Wow what a wild week. Christmas was still exciting although this is the first time celebrating it without my family which made me a little homesick.  Our district got together and did a secret Santa and then we ate traditional South African soup. We had prepared for English class an interactive Nativity and it would have been excellent, except NO ONE showed up. That's always so frustrating :( This week has been characterized by us going through our investigators and evaluating what further efforts we needed to do or looking at passing them to a different set of missionaries to see if they might have a better connection.  Which makes me slightly sad, as it shrunk our teaching pool. But we experienced some small miracles on those whom we taught and we now have some solid looking FAMILIES (the best to teach and the bes...