Follow the Prophet, He Knows The Way

Well, this week was nice I guess. We didn't get very much done. I went on exchange with a missionary from Shrewsbury. That was nice, but we didn't get much done. It made me very grateful to have a companion that knows the doctrines of the church and has good teaching skills. 

Most of our investigators right now are hiding from us. They all want to set up appointments for two or more weeks in the future, or they just won't set up an appointment and say come whenever, which is fine, but then it's really hard to bring a fellowshipper 'whenever' and a lot of them are women. :/ So it's kinda tough right now. 

On Monday, we taught a lady who was very nice and she goes to a Christian church already. She believed that all we had to do to make it to heaven was to say a prayer and then we were saved. Haha. We talked to her for a super long time and by the end, she actually referenced the same scripture to say that you DO need to keep being good after you are 'saved' that she had just used a few minutes ago to say the opposite. It was great, she is so nice. I hope she gets baptized. 

On Saturday, we went to one of Elder V's old investigator's baptism. It was really fun, and Elder F, my old companion, was there. It was great because we could both laugh at the silly things some certain missionaries were doing with guitars together… :) This week, the lesson I am learning is that some people are …. There are people in our own church, even missionaries, who will study the scriptures, and then they come up with their own ideas and start to apostatize just a little bit. I don't get it. I heard a missionary talking about doctrine, and another missionary disagreed because he didn't know as much, and when the first missionary and myself started backing up his point with the teachings of an apostle, he said that you can't trust the apostles. I am still really mad at him about that one. Like, really mad. That is an incredibly prideful statement to make, I don't care what it was about or whose side you're on, you don't say that you know better than the apostles. Ever. 

So that's what I'm working on this week. Learning how to teach people lovingly not to spread apostasy, because for me, that is something to get angry about, and it probably isn't. I need to learn to be more Christlike and it never gets easier, but I know the church is true, and I know that the men who lead it ARE inspired by God to say what they say. I know that "whether by [the Lord's] own voice or by the voice of [His] servants, it is the same."(D&C 1:38) "Be careful you don’t apostatize."(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Chapter 27)  https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-27?lang=eng

Have a nice week, bye!

Hey, I forgot, I also went to an Apostolic Faith Mission service. That was really fun. They just sang hymns almost the whole time. It was great. They had a sermon called "The Final Restoration of Spiritual Blindness." It was beautiful. My favorite quote was, "Jesus's trash is better than Bethsaida's treasure!!!"

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

Bikes, unexpected friendship, & more lessons…

Hmm. This week it was really easy to get through all of my emails. Yay, now I have more time to tell everyone about all of the amazing things that have happened in Wonderful Wales! =D

So anyways, this week, pretty much nothing happened. I went on exchange to Shrewsbury. That was really fun. They actually use their bikes there. Also, the missionary I was with was really good. I have been slowly noticing a pattern over my mission, and that is, that there is no pattern with people. 

Everyone is different, and just because someone plays an instrument or doesn't even play one, that doesn't mean they are a bad person or that I won't get along with them, and just because someone played all the same video games as I did and likes the same kind of music and everything, that doesn't mean that I'm going to like them or that we have to be friends. 

Elder J. doesn't play any instruments. He was really humble and we had a great time. Our exchange lasted way longer than they are supposed to normally and I didn't even want to come back. I would have been perfectly happy to stay in Shrewsbury with a missionary that doesn't play any instruments or video games or even listen to good music. Cause he's a good missionary, and that's what I'm here for.

This week I also learned about apostasy. I read a quote by a general authority whose name I forgot, but it was hilarious so I will paraphrase it for everyone to the best of my ability. He said something like, 'There are only two kinds of people in the church that spread false doctrine, and they are almost the only cases of spreading false doctrine ever. 

The first kind is people who don't check their sources and will just take anything they read as doctrine, such as talks that a website like latter-day-saintconservative.com will claim to be given by a prophet, although the church recognizes no such claim, is doctrinal.

The other kind is people who will twist the scriptures to believe something that is false, and they will be too prideful to accept that they are wrong when someone, even a general authority, disproves them, so they will continue spreading their false doctrine and fall into apostasy.'

Have a nice week, bye!

Elder Ferguson
mormon.org/me/C2WV

New Mission President, & beautiful scenery pictures

Well, this week, we found the hill. I will send you pictures, but we found it. 

Also, we had a multi-zone conference with President Ulrich. He is crazy. He said he wanted to talk about The Articles of Faith, and I thought he was going to be like a primary teacher and always talk about how they're our 'mission parents' and treat us like children, but then he told us stuff I never even thought about before. He told us all sorts of 'deep doctrine' that I'm not going to post because this goes on a blog, but wow. It was super fun. I felt the spirit. I received personal revelation. It was fun. I am so excited to have him here. And next month we're going to have interviews with him. I'm super excited. 

This week, we also taught the Catholic school lady again. She is still nice. Hopefully she will get baptized in a while, but it might be tricky because she's scared she might loose her job if the kids in school start talking about her meeting with the Mormons or going to church with them and stuff like that. 

I know that most of the people reading this are Americans, so I am going to tell you and important news update. Germany just won the world cup. I wish I could have watched it, I think the final score was 2-1. They beat Brazil 7-1. That is crazy. 

Have a nice week. Bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

We're getting iPads / New investigator

Hey!  Guess what!  We're getting iPads!  In September, and we're taking them home at the end of our missions so that we won't destroy them! And we're going to use facebook and youtube. But I'm not sure about any more than that right now. I just heard that through a phone call. But the announcement is out.

Anyways, this week, we got a lot done. We had 18 lessons this week, which is way better than the 7 we had two weeks ago. On Saturday we went to Welshpool, which is the next town over, to go finding and we didn't find anyone, so we got some kebabs and went back to Newtown, cause that's where the prepared people are, apparently. 

Then we went to a street and started knocking doors and the second or third door we knocked, a lady answered it and was super friendly. She is Catholic and she teaches at a Catholic school, but, of course, she has questions that the textbooks refuse to answer and kind of even refuse the possibility of the question. And the JW's have tried to answer them for her, but they were wrong, and they still couldn't answer everything, so she started asking tons of questions. I don't know why it takes us so long to find these people sometimes. I guess it just goes to show that God really is saving them for just the right time. So we answered all of her questions and she said that she was sure she had more that she'd forgotten, so we told her we'd come back in a week and tell her some more. It's exciting, because she is so good. You can tell that she is aware of the Light of Christ because she understands that truth is reason and that some churches just don't have the truth. And she wants to know. So that was my miracle for this week.

Also, all of the kids at the skate park have started talking to us and a lot of them are really nice. There are two that were thinking about joining the church and going on missions. Then they asked us about a certain commandment they would have to keep, and we told them they'd have to keep it to join, and they weren't so sure, but we'll just keep building their faith. They are super good, and we taught them the Plan of Salvation and everything. So we'll see where that goes. Have a nice week, bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV