Keeping Your Head in the Game

Well, this week was nice. We didn't do anything too exciting, but it was ok. I will send some pictures of the waterfall we found though. Hopefully. If I remember by the end of this email.  (He must have forgotten about the pictures.)

Anyways, this week, we have been doing a lot of finding and a lot of traveling just for the sake of talking to people along the way and it's been pretty boring. I've had a lot of time to think about other things. So I've mostly just thought about going home, because it's exciting, but then I discovered why missionaries always frown upon thinking about going home. It's a waste of time, and it's distracting. It's not bad to go home at the end of your mission. It's not even bad to think about it sometimes, but I was thinking about it a lot and when those random people on the streets ran into us, I was not thinking, ooooh I want to baptize him! I was thinking, hmm, after I finish being rejected by him I will decide what video game I will play first when I get home. Haha.

So I have been lowering my expectations because I don't want my video game ideas to be interrupted, and that is not good. If I don't think that man on the street is going to listen to me, he certainly isn't going to think he's going to listen to me. If it's not a desire for me who knows about the gospel, it's certainly not going to be one for him who doesn't know anything. So this week I have learned about desires. If you haven't already, get your scriptures ready. This emails going to be full of them. Kinda.

So Alma the Younger saw an angel. And it called him to repentance. And he started getting a little distracted thinking about what his "increase" could be and less about what his "sacrifice" was. (D&C 117:13) And he wanted to be an angel, instead of a missionary. But then he caught himself and he said, 

3 But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.

4 I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire,whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable,according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.

5 Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth‍ good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.

6 Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform‍ the work to which I have been called?   (Alma 29:3-6)

He realized that his desires were not aligned with God's. We recieve according to our desires and our faith, and if we have desires to do what's right, God will give us what we want, but we need to align our will with his. Enos and Nephi learned the same thing. (1 Nephi 11:6; Enos 1:12) Sometimes, we don't get our prayers answered because we don't have the faith, but do we ever miss an answer because our desire isn't there? We have to have "real intent" if we want God to help us. (Moroni 10:3-5)

So focus on what God wants. Think about that, and you can change your desires to match his, and you can have all of the life and joy that God is willing to give you. (Alma 29:5)

Sorry for the long email, bye
-- 

Elder Ferguson

Refreshing Investigators

Wow, I almost forgot to write this. Haha.

This week has been nice. It snowed a lot. It didn't snow last year. So that was pretty weird. It snowed a lot. 

At district meeting, I gave a training on finding. But pretty much all I did was I went up and made a bunch of jokes about the pre-mortal existence and read some scriptures and said, what did we learn from that? I let the missionaries just talk about it for ten minutes, and then I was done. It's actually not very hard to give trainings with missionaries, because all you have to do is ask a super vague question and everyone will want to put their two cents in, which they will try to sell like it's a hundred dollars even though we're already on their team. It fills up loads of time no problem.

We taught some investigators for a second time, which is a pretty big deal because if you can teach a second lesson and get a solid return appointment, after that, then they're pretty much guaranteed to get baptized, and it happened. We taught them the plan of salvation, and both of them are in their twenties and they're both pretty smart, and it was kinda bad because I kinda forgot that I was teaching people who knew basically nothing and not members, because it felt like I was just talking to friends, so I sort of started teaching principles from the three pillars of eternity and stuff. Luckily, I caught myself halfway through, before I started telling them about sons of perdition, and having your calling and election made sure, and the three degrees in the Celestial Kingdom and all of that, but they were still super good, even after that super detailed lesson.  They still were willing to meet with us this week. I can't believe how humble they are. It's so nice to meet people like that.

Church finished early this week because it snowed three inches.

Oh, I almost forgot, on Monday I went to get a Kebab at a famous Kebab house. Oh my goodness. It was so good. And it was so cheap. If you are American, you don't know what a Kebab is, it's not the same at all. I will send a picture of one next week hopefully if I get another one. Elder H didn't like it, so I'm going to have to go on Tuesday while we are on exchange... :)

-- 

Elder Ferguson

*  From Amy, Elder Ferguson's Mom - FYI  We discovered this past week that Elder Ferguson's current companion's uncle was Elder Ferguson's Dad's zone leader while he was on his mission in Venezuela   We sent him a picture of the two of them together.  Small World!

New Investigators/ Staying in Rochdale

Well, this week was nice. We found tons of investigators, and some of them actually gave us real phone numbers and addresses. So that's pretty exciting. Our progressing investigator is still progressing. She is funny because she believes the Book of Mormon is true, but she's afraid to actually pray about it because she's scared it will make her go loopy or something. But she finally did this week. And she was fine. :)

 

We taught an investigator yesterday that had tons of good questions and he was already very open to the philosophy that God made evolution happen. He makes me laugh, I think I might have known him in the pre-existence, but I don't really know. There isn't really too much information in the scriptures about the pre-existence besides the basics, and I don't really have access to many of the teachings of the modern prophets as a missionary... :/

 

We got transfer calls this morning and I'm staying in Rochdale. Yay. That means that my next area will probably be my last unless I start getting these weird one transfer areas again after this. 
Here are some pictures.
-- 

Elder Ferguson

haha, here's half of a curry I made the other day. I decided half way through eating it to take a picture.

New Year's Eve / & Coming to church / Fake Addresses

Well....

 

I don't really have a lot to say this week. This week for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, we were allowed to watch some more movies, we saw, Prince of Persia, Chronicles of Narnia 1 and 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Mirror Mirror, and Mulan, so that was nice.

 

Our amazing investigator came to church again, this time she ran to church because she was running late. I think she missed the bus or something. I didn't actually get to teach her this week cause I was gone on exchanges when they taught her.

 

This week, we had amazing numbers, we found loads of new investigators, but the sad thing is, of the ones that we found, we have gone back for return appointments with about half of them and of those, 100 percent were fake addresses, and I have a feeling that the rest are going to be just the same. I don't know why that's happening exactly. All I know is that our District Leader came here on exchanges with Elder H and I came back and they had five new flimsy investigators, and all of the sudden everyone will listen to us and tell us yes to whatever we say and then give us a fake address and leave. It's weird because this is actually motivating me to work harder, because when people don't show a lot of interest, I just leave it instead of just forcing a lesson on them anyway for numbers. Maybe it's bad, but I want to start the conversation with as many people as possible so that I can teach them right or drop them instead of wasting our time. Oh well. I'm sure this week will be better. At least we're not just getting bad numbers, but I don't think it's ever really been about the numbers...

 

Have a nice week, bye!

 

-- 

Elder Ferguson