Transfers - Shrewsbury & Pictures!

Hey, guess what?!?! I'm being transferred again already! I've been here for one transfer and we're being whitewashed out. I'm actually pretty mad, because the members are great here and I was hoping to stay for Christmas... Oh well, we had a good time, and it's good that I'll never get bored of Wrexham or have any bad memories of it. Unless something happens in the next five days. I'm going to Shrewsbury, which is actually just the next area over, I was in the District of Shrewsbury last transfer when I was in Newtown. It's pretty nice, I will send you some pictures that I took there on exchange. I've heard the members are nice there too. 

Wow, it's super hard to email because I'm on the fast computer today and wow can you do family history fast on this thing.

This week, we did a lot of finding, us usual. I'm kinda sick of finding. So I think I'm going to start doing it better, and then I won't have to do it as much cause I'll just be teaching. I started by reading the social skills section of the adjusting to missionary life booklet, and it has a lot of good tips. It should be good, this will be fun, Shrewsbury has been doing really well in missionary work and I'm going to keep it going. 

I don't really have a lot else to say. I went to Nando's this week for our District meeting lunch. It was pretty good, and they were playing Latin music!! It was so exciting, I was super hyper all day after that. haha. Then we got soaked because it rained really hard, so that was fun. 

Yesterday, we were at a members house, and Elder O. mentioned Llangollen and he pronounced it wrong and they made him say it right, then they told me to say it and I said it right on the first try. They were all very impressed. They also told me I had a northern accent for a minute that night as well. HA.

Well, here are some pictures, bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

Tracting in Llangollen

  Font in Pink:  Written by me - Mom of Elder Ferguson  

He had asked me to get some music for him.  Well,  I couldn't find it anywhere.  I searched for the name on Google with no results etc…  I thought it wasn't going to work and gave up, but then an idea came.  I'm on a mission mom's facebook group.  There is 6,441 LDS moms from all around the world and one of them has got to know about this Craig Larson, so I put a feeler out there for it.  I did find someone who knew about him!  Apparently it's this lady's stake president.  He made the album for his mother.  She said he wasn't trying to make it for a profit.  She asked him and he gave her permission to make a copy for him.  She mailed me the CD at no charge.  I sent him the music through the email yesterday.  The way to this boy's heart is music!  This was his response:

Wow! thank you! Do you think it would be ok for me to forward this to some friends? PS Can you tell her or him or whoever you talked to thank you for me? This is great!

I also told him in our letter to him last night about our Relief Society lesson and how Sister Giles asked what the missionaries appreciate or helps them as missionaries the best.  This was his response:  
I think member work is way important. My favorite thing that members do for us is find us people to teach. That is always the best way to bring people in to the church, because everyone thinks that we're brainwashed, but their friends will have a much easier time getting to them. The members that help with the missionary work are the best. The church has three (sort of four) main purposes; Proclaiming the Gospel, Perfecting the Saints, and Redeeming the Dead. Missionary work covers all three of those. When you are teaching your friends about the gospel, you are being perfected, and their conversion will lead to countless others receiving saving ordinances in the temple. That's what it's all about. Missionary work is about making God's work and His Glory, our work and our glory, and it's just as important for 'normal' members to do it as it is for us full-time missionaries.

Wow, I almost forgot to write my weekly letter. This week was nice. We did a lot of tracting. It is fun. Sort of. We found a nice little town called Llangollen. It's basically a tourism town, because it has a river and some hills. It reminded me a lot of Newtown. I took a picture, but unfortunately, I can't plug in my camera or I would have to take out my USB and if I did that I would have to stop listening to my music. Maybe in a little while once I've finished this album. 

Anyways, in Llangollen ( I would say how to pronounce it, but there isn't English for the sound the ll's make), everyone was really friendly. I don't know if it's because they considered us tourists, and wanted our money, or if it's just because missionaries don't come down very often, but they were very polite and a lot of people would at least listen to us for a minute before they told us no. It was nice. 

Last week, President Ulrich made everyone packets to study the Atonement for all month. It's been really good. The only sad thing is, a lot of the talks quote each other and overlap, so it's a little redundant. But it's nice. It has been keeping the Atonement closer to the front of my mind, and that's where it should be. Joseph Smith said that everything in the church is about the Atonement, everything we talk about is an appendage to that. The more I study it, the more I understand how true that is. Every saving ordinance is directly symbolic of the Atonement the Jesus Christ performed for us. 

Here is a joke for everyone. Why did the pie cross the road?

Because he was meetin' potato!! (haha get it? meat and- Meetin') 

Now it's your turn, send me a joke. 

Bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

Here is some peanut butter that expires the same time I come home. :)

A Straight Forward Conversation

Hey, it's October, that means it's almost Christmas!! 

This week was a horrible one for missionary work sort of. We pretty much just did some tracting and tried by some former investigators. Didn't get much out of it. But we did finally teach a Baptist Preacher that Elder O. found just before I got here. Haha, it was funny because it was a really straight forward conversation. He asked what we did, we told him, he asked what we told people and we started talking. Of course, like all people who make a living off of convincing people our church isn't true, he didn't like it very much, but he was still very polite and he listened to what we said. My favorite part was when we got to the subject of the trinity. I don't know why people get so hung up on that one, since the doctrine of the trinity was clearly invented by pagans when they wrote the Nicene creed, but he started getting bashy. "Clearly it says that they're three in one in John 1..." And then I said something amazing. I said, "I don't want to argue with you." Haha, he was shocked that I didn't want to bash with him and then he just took it and it was much easier. After that, everything I said seemed to make more sense to him, and he accepted everything I said as something that I believe anyway, so that was nice. Hopefully next time he will commit to read the Book of Mormon with real intent. :)

So anyway, General Conference was great! There was one point during the third session where I considered calling the mission president and asking for permission to stay for the last session even though it started at 9pm with the excuse that we live across the street from the chapel, but then I realized that the zone leaders and assistants would have had to stay up until we called them to tell them we were home, plus he would have said no anyway, but the first part was good. I loved Elder Oaks's talk about loving our neighbors. I noticed this week that if you listen closely, the messages almost always have some things to resolve people's concerns about the gospel, and it always has an invitation to change, and they are very bold. They don't ask for permission from us to tell us to change. It's expected of us. 

I also thought that it was interesting that there were three talks in a row that all talked very specifically about sustaining the prophet. I can't wait to hear President Monson's last talk, nobody spoil it for me! Although I am going to start it in a couple of minutes, so don't worry about it for next week or whatever, just if you get this within the next half hour or so. Anyways, have a nice week!

 If you have the ability to attend the temple in the next week or so, do it, you will be blessed! 

Bye!

Hey, here is a random picture so no one thinks that I'm not sending pictures home. :)

I took that this morning. Isn't it beautiful?

What a Twirp - Amy (Elder Ferguson's Mom)

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV