Elder Marqueza (from Mozambique) , Montgomery Safari Angola Africa 4-7-2014
President and Sister Merrill, great leaders and teachers,
Elder Montgomery, Safari 4-7-2014
86 Weeks in Angola April 7, 2014
Ola Minha Familia!
It is a very out of body experience this whole getting close to coming home thing. So since I can’t really remember how my week went, I’ll just say it was awesome! and ended with conference last night, and a safari today, and I have loved every second of it.
I want to get all spiritual on you all, because I know I
haven’t always written the most spiritually uplifting letters, and I want to
bear my testimony of some of the things I’ve learned in these last two years.
Gratitude. I am thankful for gratitude. I loved Elder Utchdorf’s
talk on gratitude last night. There is something indescribably amazing about
the lives we all have been given, and the amazing country we live in, and the
amazing gospel that helps us live our lives in a way that we may someday return
to the presence of our Father. The people of Angola, are a very amazing people.
happy, in some of the saddest circumstances, they shine. I have seen things
here that shatter my entire outlook of life and how much we really have been
given, I am so so spoiled, and cannot even hope to one day fully repay the lord
for my life full of blessings. I realized slowly over these last two years, and
I’m sure I will realize really fast next week, just how much I and we truly
have, and because I have been given much I too must give. The way we show true
gratitude is not through the words thank you. But by actions that show those
words. I am so grateful for my life and everything I have. Gratitude is
something I have come to more fully understand.
Something as an Elder I have learned is the gift and miracle
of forgiveness. I’m definitely not perfect, and neither are the people of
Angola, and neither are you. We all need repentance, and we can all taste
forgiveness, true forgiveness that only comes and came through our Saviors Atoning
sacrifice. I am so grateful for the forgiving power of the atonement. Like
Elder Cardon (?) said, the Lord wants to
forgive. I have truly felt that on my mission, as I have studied and tried to
earn forgiveness and seen it happen in my life and the lives of others. I know
the lord more fully, because I have tasted his atoning power and felt the forgiveness.
I love my savior Jesus Christ. I know he lives and that he died for me and for
you. I am so grateful for the opportunity to repent each and every day and feel
of his forgiveness. I love the Lord, and I love my Heavenly Father. Their great
plan of redemption is made possible by the Lords Atonement and his power to
forgive. I am so grateful for that.
I don’t know where I was going with this letter, but I want
you all to know that I am a different person because of the things I have
learned and learned to live as a full time missionary of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am a different person. I was reborn again when I was baptized, but through
learning and repentance and living the gospel and loving the Savior more fully,
I have experienced a change of heart. I feel a lot like I think Alma the
younger felt.
I love each and every one of you. If you get this email, it
is because I love you and you have a part in my life, but I want you all to
know that I love the Savior. My testimony of him and his atonement and his true
church burns like a fire within me, and I know that I can never let that fire
go out.
In the coming days as I say goodbye to friends and converts
and members, and say hello to family and friends and loved ones, I hope more
than anything that the love of the Savior shines in me to you, like he
commanded us to shine before the world. I love you all! I know this gospel is
true. This has been The Best Two Years of my life so far. I have truly felt the
promise of the prophet of God like it says in my call letter, that more
blessings and happiness than I have ever experienced await me as I give my
life to the Lord. I hope I have made him proud, and all of you as well. Love
you all! I hope this week is wonderful for all of you. It will be very bitter sweet
for me. I love the Angolan people so much. This is my 2nd home and my 2nd
family. I will never forget the people I’ve met here, and the difference they’ve
made in my life, and the difference the Lord made in theirs and mine. I love
you all so much.
Have an amazing week!
com amor,
Elder Montgomery
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