A new companion

Well, this week has been really good. The companion I have that is training is Elder S, but he just barely got emergency transferred to a new area because I think another missionary went home. It's pretty sad, he's a really good missionary already. He's actually waiting for his visa so he can serve a mission in India. Well, anyways, I don't really have a whole lot else to say. Thank you for the birthday wishes. Bye!

A letter from England from the Bishop's wife.

I got this great email today from another member of his ward in Middleton.

Hi Sister Ferguson,

My name is Chris Bushnell and I've been a member of Middleton Ward for over 50 years.  My husband is Bishop at present and so we have worked with your son at times, giving him lifts home many times. I have had two sons serve missions and would have loved to have heard from a sister in the ward they were serving in, and I know I ought to have written before, but since my husband had a big heart attack and myself a stroke,  Elder Ferguson joining us just after, I haven't felt up to it so please forgive me.  I hope you don't mind my writing.

In 52 years I've met a lot of new missionaries. Mission President's seem to think we are good at unnerving the new trainee's, but Elder Ferguson has been one of the special one's.   He came to us so timid.  I don't really think he could understand my English accent at all.  He just smiled.  He started to play piano for us, as our pianist had stopped doing it, and as nervous as he must have been, he plodded on regardless.  He has been able to play his jazz for us during our ward activity evenings, and we've even had a few notes out of his trumpet.  (I have watched your youtube to Bro. Maurice , and he is excellent).  I, having a musician for a dad, a pianist for a sister and four children learning and playing piano, and trombone, appreciate your son's abilities.

I'm writing to tell you that I have seen Elder Ferguson overcome his shyness, not that he has become a loud missionary, I've seen him teach the gospel with his own parables so that the sister they were teaching could grasp something; I've witnessed him speaking in Sacrament meeting and bearing his testimony to us.   He is a very special young man and you, as I usually describe our feelings, must be 'well pleased' with him.   He is a gentle giant and I 've warned him he will be in big trouble if he doesn't come back to see us at the end of his mission. :)

The sisters in our ward are very kind and motherly and they, we, have loved mothering him.  We hope he is happy in his new area, Crosby.  If he thinks he's had trouble with our accents, I've told him he is going to have big trouble there, in the Liverpool area. They really do have an accent of their own, but will be lovely people and he will enjoy the challenge.   

Sincerely 

Sister B

1st Transfer - To Crosby/Liverpool Stake

So I'm getting moved to Crosby on Wednesday, which is in Liverpool Stake.  I only have fifteen minutes to email you, but maybe I'll tell you more next week. Today was good. Elder H is staying here, so you can still write him at this address, but I'm leaving. My new companion is going to be Elder F.  He's going to train a new missionary at the same time, so we will be in a trio. If you have some free time, feel free to email me the links to some deep doctrine talks so I can listen too/ read them. This Saturday we are baptizing two of our Hungarians, and another will be baptized next week. So that will be really good. Bye!

Christmas/ Boxing Day

I'm getting transferred this week so don't send me any letters to my address, just the mission office. I'm glad you gave me the pictures of my family and Midnight in the book thingy. I showed that to some investigators last night and it really helped them to see that I'm pretty much a normal person. 

Well, anyways, Christmas was good. I watched Indiana Jones on Christmas with some members, and then we went over to some Hungarians and they had a party and played gypsy music. So that was pretty good. It was really funny to watch one of our Hungarian members dance. He's really good, and he's pretty old. He has a son in his twenties. 

On boxing day we went to the chapel in Oldham with some other missionaries and I played a lot of the music you sent me. That was really good.

So anyways, happy new year. Bye!

Elder Ferguson

Christmas Skype Instructions to family

Do I email you 5 am on Monday? I will be emailing about 6.30 pm or something like that, so it will be somewhere around noonish. The ward member's address thingy is _______

You can call it if you want, he'll probably get who it is. Or I think you can even send him a chat message or something. I will tell him your name thingy today too. Just remember that if you call him in the evening it will be the middle of the night here. I guess I'll just call you on Christmas. You should make a list of things to talk about too, because I don't really want to spend too much time thinking about calling home. It's not really an effective use of time, and I will probably just run out of things to say faster if I have a checklist. Bye!

Ward Christmas Party / Every nation kindred, tongue, and people.

(Everything written in pink is from me - Amy, his mom)
I had asked him if he's got his Christmas package from us.  He responded:

I probably won't get it until January because it will go to the mission office and we don't get stuff from there until we have a zone meeting and our next zone meeting is in January.

Did someone send you the picture of me playing my trumpet at The Ward Christmas Party?  

(Yes, and they're on the blog now.)

I had told him about our ward Christmas party and teased him that he probably couldn't jet out of there as soon as he was done eating, like he was use to at home, in his new ward on his mission, from their Ward Christmas party.  

 I actually did leave it early because it was late at night and they started playing dodgy music, so hah. 

I will probably Skype you from a member's house around the middle of the day sometime. Like one o'clockish or something. I'm only allowed to Skype with my family members, so don't let anyone else over on Christmas cause they aren't allowed to see me. What is your Skype address thingy? 

This week was good. We taught a lot of people. We are teaching a Romanian family too now, and we have a Latvian potential investigator and a Polish potential investigator. And we have a Nigerian family we're teaching, so that's pretty fun. We had about 12 Hungarians show up to The Ward Christmas Party on Friday. That was really funny. The ward members didn't know what to do about it. 

Well, Bye!

Elder Ferguson

More from Mom- 

After reading this last part of his letter I kept thinking of a phrase that kept coming to my mind.  I looked it up.  In the Book of Mormon, Alma the prophet is entrusting the records (which is now the Book of Mormon) to his son Helaman, and He said of the records, 

"They should be kept and handed down from one generation to another… until they should go forth unto every nation kindred, tongue, and people."   

It sure sounds like that is happening.  I never even heard of Latvia!  I had to look it up.I googled and found out that the Book of Mormon is printed in 91 languages, if Wikipedia is right.  I couldn't find it on the LDS website. 

I can't wait to talk to him at Christmas and ask a few more details.  

Ward Christmas Party

I got an email from his ward mission leader. 

This is from their Ward Christmas Party.

 He's looking pretty happy.  

Look what the ward mission leader found for him.  

I think I see a smile under that trumpet.

-Amy