Elder Montague's Mission

Day 35 June 27, 2017 Tues Provo, UT Picking up from last Tuesday several good things occurred..  We finished the day with a great devotional by President and Sister Hallstrom from the Presidency of the Seventy. Choir that day was great, because in the "sneaked-in" gospel lesson Brother Egget gives, he covered the exact 3 topics I was studying that week! This last week as a whole wasn't so great, as I was hit by the worst of my sickness that continues to affect me (I still have a cough). I got a blessing on the worst day of it, and I felt tons better the next day. I lasted through it knowing that I was going to get sick sooner or later, and that I'd prefer to be sick while in the MTC vs Thailand. A new technique they've introduced is that we've started teaching each other now.  My companionship has been assigned to teach Sister Engstrom (Maddie) and Sister Roberts (Mckall).  They in turn practice teaching on us. When we are being taught, we are ...

Day 28 June 20, 2017 Tues Provo, UT  Most of our zone went through the temple with our Elder from Thailand, which was a very exciting thing for us to experience together. Our Tuesday devotional was by Elder and Sis. Nielson of the 70. More free stuff after my service  on Friday ! Literally makes my day. I ran into Ashlyn Taylor going to Washington Spanish speaking, she was in my BYU FHE (Family Home Evening group). I did my first interviews as District Leader, for the 2 companionship's in our district.  This was really my companionship and the zone leaders - who interviewed me following my interview. Because of my assignment, I had two leadership meetings  on Sunday.  The first meeting  required me to tragically wake up early.  But Sunday ended on a good note at the Sunday  devotional which was by DONNY OSMOND.  Although I vaguely knew him from songs credits to I'll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan that was about the extent of m...

Day 22 June 14, 2017 Tues Provo, UT We hosted once more, but since the new buildings have opened we received different responsibilities. This week, I helped direct missionaries to the correct floor for their classrooms in building T4, instead of helping them get their stuff like last week.  Our newest member to the zone arrived on  Wednesday , from Thailand! His name is Elder Namtam and he's learning Lao and English so he can go to San Diego to preach the gospel. He was shy and a tad scared the first day or two (didn't help that he couldn't speak any English), but he's warmed up to us, and he is loving it now! We love him and having him- it's so nice to have a native Thai around. We tried to do a speak-only-Thai day  on Thursday . It was so hard as I struggled to form my thoughts in Thai, but we made it happen. Over this past week, (with much of the Lord's help) I have memorized the Thai consonants by class and the accompanying letter. This has been a s...

Day 15 June 7, 2017 Tues Provo, UT As the header suggests, I started my Typhoid pills this week. I have to take them every other day, and I can't eat until an hour after taking it, but I let my companions go through the cafeteria line. I sit there watching them eat, go through sack line, and have the food just chilling there until around 10:30  when I can eat. It's a small torture. We got to host new missionaries last week, which was super exciting! The Thai district also got to do the early arrivals, so we hosted an extra missionary each. I loved it so much, because I was literally in their shoes 7 days ago. I had the pleasure of helping out Elders South, Hansen and Osborn. Tragically, since then I've only seen two of them once, but they seemed to have acclimated well. We get to host again  tomorrow ! We taught our last lesson to our first investigator, t ə əy (pronounced doy). We were able to commit her to baptism, which was super cool! My tri-panionship is sl...

Day 7 May 30, 2017 Tues Provo, UT So day 1 was soooo long. They dived right in and our teacher, Brother Tirrell, only spoke Thai to us. I ran into 5 people from my ward during meals, including my old roommate Elder Sweeney (who is going to Russia), several classmates and of course many of my coworkers still work in the missionary training center (MTC) cafeteria. It's pretty wild. My P-days (preparation days - for now at least) are Tuesday. My district has 13 people, including me. Our district consists of just our class. I have 2 companions of my own, Elder Wilde from Minnesota and Elder Brown from Utah (also the senior companion). There is one other Elder companionship- Elders Truman from N. Carolina (District Leader) and Guanzon from the Philippines. The rest are sisters, let's see if I can remember this:  Sisters Roberts from California and Engstrom from Utah, Peterson from Canada and Bingham from Utah, Phierson from Alaska and Hall from Idaho, Shaw from Idaho and...

Day 1 May 24, 2017 Wed Provo, UT  I've finally arrived at the Missionary Training Center (MTC), my home for the next two months. My flight over was lovely- I sat next to a nice lady who texted you a picture of me when I asked. The flight was smooth, and I think I napped some on the way over. When I got to SLC, it was pretty easy to pick out the missionaries. I went out front to wait for my shuttle with a sister missionary I found. During our 2 hour wait period, we cycled through about 7 other missionaries who had family pick them up. It was a little stressful, because I couldn't use my phone to pass the time, so it seemed like it went on even longer than it probably did, but also because the MTC didn't actually give us any information about the shuttle, other than that we were scheduled for it. 2 other vans for the company we were waiting on passed by us and we were afraid we were skipped over. It finally came just as we had given up hope (our group had grown up to...

First, I'd like to thank everybody that has given support, encouragement, love, and attention before I left. I appreciate everyone making me feel special in church, on social media, in person, and through their actions. It has helped me and my family as I finished my preparation to leave for my church service. Getting ready to leave has been tough, and not just because I pushed just about everything to the last minute. This mission has been a long time in the works (19 years actually), and I have been nurtured and shaped to be who I am from my parents, siblings, friends, peers, teachers, advisers, fellow committee members, officers, thespians, soccer players, young men and women in the ward, the kids I babysat, the lawns I mowed, the time I spent at camp, my year at BYU, my callings, my hobbies and interests- literally everything. I could not be who I am, doing what I am about to embark on, were it not for all the good times and the bad ones that I've been blessed to sha...