Week 10!

So This week has been great! We had Zone conference and got to do skits and watch ephraims rescue! Alos, Justin has been struggling with Testimony so please pray for Justin Bearden to be strengthen and feel God in his life :) We also had out Christmas party on friday and sister Boyson and I were asked to sing in the program and on our way down  some steps to go sing I fell and sprained my ankle so sister boyson sang a solo and we were in the emergency room til 12:30 that night haha... so i am now a crutchy haha... its been quite an adventure but at the same time it has been very rewarding. Sister Boyson has been great in helping and encouraging me and i will definitely have rock hard abs, one of my calves and arms at the end of this!!!  :) We also got a Branch Mission Leader FINALLY and so it will make life a lot easier for us :) and also, HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I love you all!!!!

Week 9!

Hi! This is Jeffrey Rawlins, with a small note that the torch has been passed to me, and so I'll be the one updating the blog and Facebook. If you have any questions or would like to be added to the email list, feel free to email me at j.Rawlins@me.com! Thanks!

Well this week has been so great!!! We had exchanges and I went with my Sister Training Leader, Sister Jones and she was so awesome!!! we had lots of cool things happen when we were together! We also had a Less active make a baby Cristmas tree with us!!! It was super great :) also, we have been seeing the yangs more and they should be coming to church this coming sunday!!! But Justing was supposed to be baptized this coming saturay but hes not quiteready so we will be moving it back to the 28th hopeully that will work out. PLEASE PRAY FOR JUSTIN BEARDEN to be ready and to feel the truth of the gospel by this sunday!! :) also I learned a cool lesson from the spirit haha... so i had a very strong prompting that we needed to ask a specific male member to come with us to a lesson because i didnt feel it was safe. so he came and we went over and no one was there!!!! I was so confused! So we went straight over to the members house for his lesson because he is recently reactivated. and beause we had extra time we went knocking after and found a wonderful mother and her daughter who had just lost her husband!!!! It was so crazy how the spirit knew what we needed and sent us around just because he knew where it would lead!!! So that was a cool lesson :) also we finally made our goal of 20 lessons this week!!!!! :) it was sooo cool!!! :) Yesterday we also did a fireside for the youth of 2 wards :) it was so fun to put together the whole thing and show it to them even though there was quite a few technical difficulties. AAAAAAAAND i lost my camera..... so I will definitely not have as many pictrues til i cant figure out how to get another one since i am piggy-backing on Sister Boyson's camera haha.... so it was a pretty great week!!!! I'm praying for you guys!!! LOVE YOU!!!! :)

PS: Tuesday is Zone conference and we get to play Basketball and watch Ephraims Rescue!!! So excited!!! :) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

~Sister Dominique Sage Montoya

Week 8!

Well, Heeeeellloooooooo UTAH!!!!! ( And other places that could be of any origin on the map of where people reside that I dearly love and adore :))

This week has been great and crazy!!! We have an investigator, Justin that I am not sure if i told you about but he is AWESOME!!!! :) he didnt even know if he believed in God when we started teaching him and now he is giving meaningful prayers and keeping every commitment and coming to church every week! He's great, we are expecting him to get baptised on the 21st! :) we also had a crazy experience when we were knocking wednesday and went up to an investigators house that we have been to quite a few times and this time I had a feeling we shouldnt go and then i ignored it (bad idea) and we went and there was a very angry dog and he was running at us, so naturally we ran away and i repented haha but then we went back saturday and he was there and we didnt know he was the same and he ran at me baring his teeth and so i swung my bag at him and yelled as loud as i could and he ran off... God has my back haha.... well gotta go Thanksgiving was great. We played Ultimate frisbee for turkey bowl and i wore JEANS!!!! YEEEEEAH!!!! :) Oh and I got to help a lady with Calculus homework as service haha :) she said she would never miss chuch if god helped her with her homework and we showed up and i helped her haha.... it was great... CHURCH IS TRUE!!!! :)

Week 7!

Well Heeeeeeelloooooooooo everyone! :)

This week has been great! I had hurt my back this week so we made a emergency trip to CVS pharemacy so that I could get a heating pad and we ran right into an investigator that we had lost contact with!!! it was sooo divine and i was sooooo glad i had hurt my back! haha.... We also had interviews this week which was awesome because President Holm told me that I remind him of his wife and that he knows that I am supposed to be here and that I am a strong missionary!!! :) We also so a less active that no one has been able to catch for like 3 months!!! hes 16 and a great kid, just unsure of himself right now. But he came to church!!!! :) soooo great!! :) I also had my first experience of someone trying to convert ME here.... haha I kinda felt bad though.... he had seeked too far into things he did not understand and it confused him and made it so he was closed off to the spirit. He had watched a temple endowment online and read into church history selectively and it was just a bad situation so unfortuantely we had to drop him, BUT Saturday was sooooo great! We met all of our goals and had 18/20 lessons total for the week!!!! SOOOO GOOD!!! :)I also got to give my first church tour on my mission!! it was so great :) and our investigator Terry is SOOO on fire!! we met her just under 2 weeks ago and she has read the Book of Mormon twice! :) Sunday I got a blessing because I have a sinus infection and it was the best thing ever! Its so amazing how Heavenly Father knows our needs and addresses things no one but God could know about!!! THE PRIESTHOOD IS REAL!!!!!! :) well Happy Thanksgiving ya'll!!!! :) I love ya! :)

~Sister Dominique Montoya

Week 6!

Hey Everyone!!!!

Sister Montoya here, coming at you with news from the week about the work of salvation here in my neck of the woods of Cowpens South Carolina!\

I am loving it here so much, except it is definitely a lot colder than I expected haha but I was so grateful for my family sending me a coat so that I wasnt completely freezing! This week we had a lot of amazing experiences and miracle moments so prepare yourselves! :)

So the first came as we were tracting on a street and trying to find people prepared for the gospel and we ran into this lady named Terry, and she was a little overwhelmed and busy but she invited us back after reassuring her that her baby that passed away was not going to hell... so she invited us back and when we came back a few days later, we sat down with her and immediately I felt something was wrong. There was a very bad feeling in the home and there was a definite tone that something had happened there and it wasnt good. So I really was wanting to get out of there and leave and Sister Boyson, who couldnt feel it as strongly, kept teaching and I eventually joined in. well when we got to the first vision, we told her that she needed to pay close attention and she kind of started like she had just woken up and as we told her the first vision, it was like whatever bad feeling was there completely was DESTROYED!!! and the room was filled with warmth and the Spirit!! It was so incredible! and afterwards we talked about how the spirit just came charging in like a Rhino. I felt like Heavenly Father was teaching us a lesson, looking down on us and saying "O ye of little faith, do you really believe that ANYTHING is stronger than MY power." it was a wonderful lesson of faith and of the spirit :) A couple days later we went back and Terry was telling us that indeed some bad things had happened there and that the previous owners had locked their daughter in the attic and left her there to die. and she felt that there were bad spirits in the home. so we had the opportunity to dedicate and put a blessing on her home! :) it was amazing and i look forward to checking up on it later this week :)

We also got to see a wonderful investigator who is basically teaching himself, Klyde Brown!!!! HE IS SO ELECT!! He truly believes and started the B.O.M on his own!!! :) we havent even actually taught him a lesson yet haha and he is already reading the B.O.M front to back and has read the Restoraiont pamphlet!! We also are teaching a Less Active member who is a deacon in another church and thinks the B.O.M is fake so we will see where that goes!!! please pray for his heart to be softened!!!

The highlight of the week though was on Saturday when we went to West Columbia and got to meet with Elder Bednar!!!! It was so incredible! He is the epitiome of teaching by the spirit! He really didnt even teach anything the whole 3 hours he was at the potium! we all got to do a picture with him and while we waited sang hymns as a whole mission :) Then as we went in it basically was the whole time of him asking us what we learned (for those who where here last time!) oh yeah and he said this is the first time that he has gone to the same mission twice in a row! so thats why he asked people who where there a year ago to tell what they learned last time and then had all of us ask question and then asked us at the end what we learned!!! it was so amazing!!!

Some of the highlights where when an Elder asked how he could not be negative, Elder Bednar compared it to a water bottle filled with black sand, with a cap on each end and a hole in each cap just big enough for 1 grain of sand to fit through. he said that when you put one grain of white sand in one end, a black grain pops out the other end, and that keeps happening. after 3 grains he said "does it look any different? no, but it is! There are 3 grains of white sand in there!" and then he said "Now dont go back and try it for a couple days and then give up and then say THIS DOESNT WORK, No, YOU didnt work it!" Another highlight was he said when he was a bishop that he knew a Brother who never paid his tithing, and so he called him in and asked him "Will you allow your children to be sealed to me and my wife" and the man said "Bishop, that is the stupidest thing ive ever heard!" and Elder Bednar said "You know what i think is stupid?! that you have made coventants with the Lord in the Holy temple of God and you cant go in because you dont pay your tithing!" and the man sat back and said "Well i've never thought about it that way before." and Elder Bednar said "well its about time that you did!" he said that in situations, Go with what comes, and sometimes people will need a soft reminder and other times they will need a spiritual slap in the face! Just a couple more things, So one theme of the conference was to "Jump out of the boat" just as Peter walked on the water and jumped out of the boat and kept his gaze on the Savior. Well one sister in my mission stood and asked what to do if she couldnt jump out of the boat that she was watching everyone else jump out and that she couldnt, and Elder Bednar said something but i dont even remember what it was because i was getting such a strong promting to stand and say something to her. so i locked gaze with Elder Bednar and drove my arm into the air and he promptly called on me and I turned around and told her "Dont compare yourself to anyone else jumping out of the boat! They dont matter! You should only compare how you progress jumping out of the boat and if you only feel comfortable sticking a toe in and then you go back and stick your foot in the next time then that is great! Beacause You can only compare yourself to your own efforts and strive to get a little farther each time, because if you compare yourself and are jumping out of the boat with your eyes closed because you're not ready then you're going to sink every time. Be ready at your own time so that you can jump out of the boat and keep your eye on the savior.

It was so amazing and Elder Bednar asked me how I came to know that and I couldnt really answer him... because that was something that I too needed to learn.... :)

The last thing was just something funny that he said. With everything we wanted to improve upon he told us to get a cheap paperback Book of Mormon and look for every instance that it siad "patience" or "wait upon the Lord" or whatever it was. and he said that his sons always would go and try and look in the many copies that he had of these and ask him to look in his and he would always say "If you touch them, I'll break your arm!! If you want one go get a paperback book of mormon and do one for yourslef!" and then they would always ask, well when you die, dad, then can we have them? and he would say "my last breath will be spent striking a match and burning every single copy of the Book or Mormon so that you will never see them!!" haha.... Elder Bednar is so great! Lesson learned that we cant rely on other's pieces of knowledge gained from the spirit, we must find our own! :)

Well sorry this has been so long ya'll!!! :) but one last thing that if any of your know Brandon Christiensen, He is on a video on hastening the work callled "I'll go where you want me to go" he plays the missionary!!! :) Love you all

~Sister Dominique Sage Montoya

Week 5!

Hey Ya'll!!!!!!!

It has been such a great week!!! we had exchanges where I got to work with Sister McNeece for 24 hours! She is one of my Sister Training Leaders and is so wonderful!!! I learned so much from her!! We also had a swap-n-shop and so I finally got a proselyting bag so that I am not carrying my huge bag when i go knocking! It kind of smells like old lady but it works and i love it!!! :) Saturday we also had a mini-misison with some of the youth in the area and had a 16 year old come with us ( lots of exchanges this week!!!) It went so well and she even helped clarify a topic with an investigator that we couldnt quite explain things to him and she did it in 4 words!!!! :) There was also a triple baptism Saturday! no one that I am teaching but it was for 2 investigators in the Elders Area and an 8 year old baptism! A lot of funny stuff happened this week as well!!! First, there is this one lady we are teaching, Candi and her son was just super flirty with me, winking and eyebrowing me and stuff and he knew i liked their kitten and so he would try and get my attention with the cat and when we came back for a return appointment, he went to get the cat out and held it up and it was dead!!!! it was the most awkward thing ever.... Sister boyson told me after that he must have been really upset to lose his charming device.... ha... funny but terrible!!! Also, while tracting on Friday, we walking to this house and there was a wolf looking dog in the drive way. a man in the garage came out and started motioning for us to go away waving his arm straight over his head toward us... so we started walking away and he held his pointer finger up in the air like "wait one minute" so we turned around and started walking back toward him then again he proceeded to wave us away!!! all while on the phone and not saying one word! So we just stopped right in our tracks and looked at each other, very confused and waited and then he proceeded to very intensely and dramatically point at the ground. so we, thinking he meant come there, started walking again and finally he said very loudly to the person on the phone, "HANG ON! I HAVE 2 JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ON MY PROPERTY!!!" so i found it best to correct him and called over to him "WE'RE NOT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES!" and he looked over at us and said "THE DOG WILL BITE YOU! I'M ON THE PHONE!" and walked away... it was the weirdest, funniest thing ever haha... also this week we found out that all the churches are now getting rid of all hard copies of texts in churches so that people can use ipads and tablets and cost the church less money to make books! crazy right??? also this week one of the members told us a funny story about in the firehouse how the hazed a new member named chunk by getting a bag of saline and dripping it over his face in the night and when he told them that there was something dripping over him they said it was where the bathroom was above him and he proceeded to smack his lips and say "sure doesnt taste like sewage!" haha....

Also this week was so wonderful that i got to sing in sacrament that was the most amazing experience, i cried the whole time and wasnt even really singin adn i thought it went horribley.... but everyone in the whole congregation cried with me as i sang.... and one family even came and tld me that was their mom/grandmas favorite song and they could feel her in the congregation that day... one of the investigators baptized saturday even cried and held me so close in her arms adn told me i did great and did that 2 more times during church. The Bishop annonced at the pulpit as well that he knew i wasnt happy with how it went but that it was the most powerful testimony and the RS president thanked me in RS as well.... it was the most amazing thing that heavenyl father used me to touch those people and not by how well i sang because i didnt really sing at all... but becasue HE brought the spirit to those poeple adn to me. I had prayed in sacrament that i would sound good... and then, changed my mind and asked him to let the congregation feel the spirit and to not let me forget the words... both of those things happened... God andswered my prayer, maybe not how i was expecting but how everyone in the congregation needed.... as we drove home from church i looked out the window and felt the distinct words in my mind "well done my good and faithful servant!"

GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! :)

~Sister Montoya

Week 4!

Well Hello everyone!!

This week has been so great but crazy!!! We had a wonderful halloween and went over to our Branch president's and he fed us some great spaghetti and italian sausage!!! We also got reverse trick or treated and a ward membe brought each of us a great big thing of candy and then we got treated even more when I got a package from my sweet mommy with a treat bag for me and one for my companion as well with all my favorites in it!!!! (She knows me so well!) we also had a great Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) that I felt like a one man show praying, leading the music, and teaching haha.... it was so great though! I also get to sing in sacrament this sunday!! The theme is "Why am I a member?" So i am singing "I know that my redeemer lives" This week was my ONE MONTH MARK!!!! so crazy isnt it??? it feels like I have been out a week!!!!! time goes so fast here when you are anxiously engaged in the Lords cause!!! We have had a lot of great investigators who are on date(4 right now) who we really feel will make it to baptism but you never know... there is so much that could happen!!!! We have had a lot of cancellations this week and so its hard not to get down but at the same time, with how much heavenly father is hastening the work, it is so impossible to get down with how many doors open to us and are ready to hear the message of the gospel!!! I dont know if i told ya'll this story so if i did- too bad I'm gonna tell it again haha....

so a couple weeks ago we were tracting and this man answered the door and he proceeded to talk to us about the city of enoch and say that ,when the "lord came down on a chariot of fire" that those where made for carrying people!! So guess what !!! it was really a space ship!! and when they came down they gave Sampson a Ray GUN!!!! because thats how Sampson could kill all those people... it wasnt a jawbone of an ass like the scriptures say.... noooo it was a RAY GUN!!!!!!

some people are pretty exciting!!! haha... SOOOOO GREAT NEWS!!!!! within the next couple of months we will each be getting our own ipads to use!!!! we will also be getting FB to use and willhave one hour a day where our prosyliting area is extended world wide!!!!!! I am sooooo very excited!!! THE WORK IS HASTENING FORTH!!!!!! I am so very excited and happy here... its the hardest and best thing ive ever done!!!!! THE GOSPEL IS TRUE!!!!!!

~Sister Montoya

Week 3!

Hey everyone!!!! This week was crazy!!!! there will be a picture of me with the butterfly I mentioned in last weeks letter coming next week! This has been crazy! We have an apostle coming to see us this month! we think it sBednar but we arent supposed to speculate haha... We are working on baptizing a whole family right now!!! They are so awesome and we have the daught megan who is 17 committed already! They are so cool and the Lord has prepared them! We also have an amazing invesitgator named Steven who has been progressing like a mad man but he could use ya'lls prayers because he needs help to quit smoking and finding a place to live because he is being kicked out by hi GF. it was great though because we sent in a prayer request to our whole mission for him this morning and i kid you not, like right as i hit send we got a text from him saying that he was crying when he woke up this morning and that he looked up and said "God Help me! I want to be happy like those sister missionaries!" we are going to really try and see him baptized this week because we know that this is how he can be happy... through the true and restored gospel!

We also got to do a trunk or treat this week and it was so fun! we got to be the judges for the costume contest and they had the best church haunted hallway that i have ever seen!!! it was soooo fun!!!! I have also been asked to sing in church this month! so i am so excited for that and I am also excited because my companion and I as well as another set of sisters will be singing at this large gathereing the day before thanksgiving with a whole bunch of different churches!!! I am so excited! Well, send letters everyone! The church is true and I know this is Gods work!!! I love ya'll!!!

Also here is an awesome poem i came across here

What is your Adversity Reaction?

Getting Bitter? or Getting Better?

Its the difference of one letter!

If you're bitter, notice why,

its that selfish little "I"

-Peter Czerny

~Sister Dominique Sage Montoya

Week 2!

Well my first area is Cowpens SC!!! right up by the border of SC-NC! Its so rural and farmy here!!! haha.... goats, llamas, cows, horses eveyrwhere!!! but i love it! :) the people are great and i love being a missionary! oh and our first day here, Pres Holm had us go to this grove and we had our own sacred grove experience! As we exited the grove there was the temple and they let us in without even without reccommends because of our nametags!!! Im beginning to realize how important mission work really is! As we left the temple i found a butterfly as well and picked it up and carried it to the bush!!! i tried putting it down but it flew back on me haha.... so great! all the elders were watching me and apparently i am a look a like for this Sister Chi from Hawaii who just left!! its been really weird... haha we tracted on day 3 and had no luck but it was really amazing because my tracting companion became my actually companion and trainer, Sister Boyson!!! It has been so wonderful!!! she is super fun, we are both short but she has light brown hair and blue eyes.... we both love to sing and are both pretty outgoing but amazingly enough we have been getting along really well!!! WE have 2 progressing investigators (Steven and Christy) and Christy is on date to be baptized! it has been so cool though! My first day i invited people to be baptised and have invited 2 more since then (one was Christy!!!!) :) My District leader is actually having me speak on boldness and how to ask people to be baptized this thursday :p SO funny.... he assked me my second day in the field!!! But I am loving it! Please keep me in your prayers as I do for all of you :) I love you all and am misssing everyone like crazy but i know the time will go by fast!! Also, send all letters and packages to the mission home address but ALL PACKAGES MUST BE PRIORITY or i wont get them for weeks!!

I love you all!!!!!! -Sister Montoya

http://youtu.be/Jq-7lF-zxMg

this is a video of my 2nd day in SC!!!!