Elder Eric Montgomery: Week 32: The Wrath of a Mother

Monday, May 12, 2025 4:38pm

Transfers are on Tuesday, so this was my last week in the Springhill B area!! Which is sad, because it's a very good area and an amazing ward.

My new area will be called Copper Mountain, I think, and my companion is Elder Nicaragua... one guess as to where he's from. I actually don't know yet, so your guess is as good as mine. We'll see.

The transfer information says we have a car, but the car information says we don't. We probably do not. It wouldn't make sense for us to have a car anyways. 😞

This week, we've been teaching our friends Ana and Jose. They were a little skeptical when we first met them a couple weeks ago, but they wanted to come to church and check it out. When we talked to them the Monday after, they said they loved it! They felt super comfortable and welcome, and like they'd been going there for a long time, like it was their first attendance!

They're super kind, and it's been amazing to see their enthusiasm for learning. They've been reading the Book of Mormon without us reminding them! We were able to put them on date for baptism for this Saturday, the 17th!

This week, they also brought their daughter and granddaughter to church with them, that was awesome! It's kinda strange how much they like us after one week of knowing them. They made us eat with them after our 2nd lesson. We told them one of us was going to leave, and they were devastated. The spirit really just makes people trust you.

We were really hoping our friend Jesús would be baptized this week, but he was kind of giving us the slip. We couldn't meet with him a single time. He didn't make it to church yesterday either. So we passed by his house to see if his car was there to have a surprise visit.

We told him that if he's too busy to be committed to the Lord, we'll step back until he's ready and has more time. But he told us he's still wants to be baptized and we're gonna do it this week. Hopefully, all goes well!

We were teaching two younger girls just old enough to be baptized for awhile, but one of them was unsure and their family situation makes it a bit complicated. Friday, they both told us they really wanted to be baptized on Sunday, the 11th. "Alright, sounds good," we thought. So their dad told their mom who doesn't live with him by email that they were gonna be baptized.

The mom apparently did not agree, and was... upset, accusing us of trying to baptize them without her permission... Which we were not in fact doing, and it would have been impossible anyways because she had the girls with her on the 11th, so what's the big idea?! I'm just confused.

Worst part about all of this is that I won't even be in this area anymore when all our friends get baptized. Maybe I can come back to watch.

I love the talk from this general conference by Tamara W. Runia called, "Your Repentance Doesn’t Burden Jesus Christ; It Brightens His Joy." The title itself conveys mostly my favorite message from it. When we're in need of repentance, it can be hard to feel like God could love us. But He does. And the best way to feel that is to repent.

Just as in the parable of the prodigal son, our Savior doesn't care what we've done, where we've been, or how much our stupid decisions have costed Him. He just wants us back. He will welcome us with open arms and the measure of His joy will be filled when we choose to leave the pain of sin behind.

I can testify of the peace, joy, and love that is felt from daily repentance. It's easy to feel overwhelmed as a missionary, to feel like maybe I'm not cut out for the work and make too many mistakes. But because of Jesus's Atonement and His love, I can continuously repent and work to improve. And He will always be with me.