Progressing

Hello all of you!, This week,  I have a story and a new doctrinal sermon. Surprise!!, 

So this one day, we're doing the same things we always do, hoping for different results,  as usual,  and we knocked on Jill's door,  and guess who answered? Jack! Jack who has been hiding from us for like a month! And he was like,  "Hiya mate, how are you?" And I was like,  "Hiya Jack, where on earth have you been?" But I already knew where he had been. Or rather,  I could smell where he had been... But he is turning around again,  and he wants to be active and live the commandments again,  so that was good.

Then we went to a couple's house. I need new names. Peter is a recent convert and Rebecca is not a member. We have been seeing them pretty much the whole time I've been here and they really like us coming over. Rebecca always tells us that she isn't interested in the church because she's smokes and drinks tea. But she listens to every lesson and she loves having us over and she posts Book of Mormon scriptures to another member that she's friends with that she looks up herself, so she pretty much is ready. So one day when Rebecca was in the other room,  we asked Peter what we needed to do to get her to live the Word of Wisdom and he says,  "Oh, well, yesterday I found an electric cigarette and some nicotine patches and she said they were hers. She just doesn't want to tell anyone she's trying to quit because she doesn't want you to be disappointed if she doesn't actually quit." So that was nice. We're bringing her to church now. She mentioned going to church and now we're going to bring it up every time we come over... :), Phew,  this email is already really long. I can't actually remember what I was going to say. But it had something to do with 1 John 4 and 5. 

Have a nice day. 

Bye! 

Elder Ferguson

I love the temple

Wow, I thought I was doing really good on time until I realized that I hadn't actually written this email yet. Just be glad Elder M handed me my camera back or I might have forgotten and you couldn't have had this beautiful letter I am about to make up.

Well, this week, we went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! That was super fun. Except for the part where we had to leave at the end. We had a proper production line thing going too. There was one couple (from Wrexham!) that were temple workers and everyone else was a missionary. We baptized, we recorded, we witnessed, we confirmed, we did everything. It was so much fun. Before we started, we all waited in the chapel to be given instructions and I got to play prelude music on the piano, but anyways, yeah, it was great doing baptisms. When I look at those cards, I see people. Not literally, but I know that those cards represent souls who are being given a chance for redemption. It's amazing.

Aside from that, this week was really boring. We went finding everywhere, and we found no one, but, we did get some less-actives to church, and we have established a good relationship with a member and his non-member wife. We are going to get her baptized before I go home. That is my goal. Don't tell her though. She still thinks she's a Baptist.

What I have learned this week, is that the Book of Mormon is full of stories with important precepts in them. You can get a message out of any story in the Book of Mormon, it wouldn't be there if you couldn't. So read it. The end. Somebody ask me some questions. I feel like all of my emails are getting really boring cause I have nothing to talk about.

-- 

Elder Ferguson

A Fireside

Oh. I forgot. I guess I should write the weekly email stuff. Well, this week we just said goodbye to everyone, because my companion got transferred, and then we said hello to everyone with my new companion. Boring... There is an investigator lady who's married to a member and she gives all of the missionaries nicknames so she can remember our names. I got two. So my nickname is Harry Potter aka Minion. So anyways, I drew a picture in Elder Hillam's book and then I was so proud of it I took a picture.

Anyways, there isn't a whole lot that happened this week. My companion is ok. I guess. We had a fireside that we were going to go to in Manchester. I guess I'll just talk about that. We were going to go with our golden less-active, but she wasn't feeling good because of a long story, so she cancelled half an hour before we were about to leave, and we're not allowed to go unless we have someone it's going to help. So we texted that part member couple I was talking about and they said they would come! Which was great because the non-member doesn't usually come to stuff like that, and also they had asked me to play the piano for some musical number thing, so we went.

The fireside is supposed to be like a testimony meeting, only with just recent converts and investigators talking about their conversion. It used to be really good, but this time, everyone took about twenty minutes or more. They were all just going up there and talking about whatever came to their minds. It started at 7:00 and it ended at 9:30, and President Ulrich, who normally talks, didn't even talk because he just wanted to end it. It was pretty disappointing. The musical number was fine. I did marvelous as usual.

Anyways, have a nice week, bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

Transfer call-Staying, & Missionary story

We got Transfer Calls!! I'm staying in Rochdale and I'm getting a new companion named Elder M! He is going home, I think this transfer. And then, I will probably go to a new area and have my last companion.  We are going to be one of the oldest companionships in the mission.

This week, we went to teach a less-active lady we only just recently met, and as we started talking to her, she interrupted us and asked if we could find her a ride to church on Sunday, so we did, and she came. She has not come to church in years and we hardly did anything to bring her back. We just knocked on her door one day and she told us that she wanted her faith back. It was great.

 

Elder Ferguson

FEB 16, 2015 Pictures!/ Keeping Focused/ YSA/ 2 New Investigators

Well, this week was good. Have you ever seen The Best Two Years? It's a funny movie about missionaries and one missionary gets a bunch of letters from home and he's reading them and he says, 'This is Trunking me out of my mind!!' It's pretty funny. That was my Tuesday/Wednesday, not because of letters though. It was because we had a tea appointment with a YSA aged member and pretty much all she talks about during our tea appointments is movies, and they're usually movies that I haven't seen yet, but I will be seeing in approximately five months. So that was nice, but then on Wednesday, we had a meeting in Chorley. Which was great.  We got to see Meet the Mormons because it's coming to England! Be jealous, all of you other foreign missionaries. The only thing is, guess what month it's coming to England? June. 

(He comes home June 25th)

Yeah. And then we had a series of activities in groups and the whole time I was thinking, 'wow, this must be what institute/YSA is like...' So yeah, but don't worry, I got refocused and now I'm fine. Plus, we had some great missionary work which I'm going to tell you about via ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. =D

 

 On Thursday in the hour before weekly planning, we went out and tried by some people who weren't in and street contacted on the way. The last five minutes before we got back to the flat, we found two new investigators in a row. One of them, we've already seen him again. He is amazing, he doesn't really look like the type of person who would be interested in the gospel, but he said that he always talks to Jehovah's Witnesses when they stop him and he's really interested in religion and finding out about the purpose in life and in changing his life around. We met him again at the library on Saturday and he told us that he really wants to get forgiveness and he's really excited to learn about what we're teaching him.

We also have another investigator that we actually met last week, but we didn't get a chance to see her until Saturday. She is Catholic, but she isn't practicing and she was interested to learn about what we believe. She is also looking to find the truth and she told us that she has already studied some other religions, including Buddhism. When we came to our appointment, she invited us right in and we taught her the restoration. Our recent convert, (Jill) was there and she bore a great testimony, and she told her that she used to be a Catholic when she was younger, which we didn't even know. (Jill) knew just what to say to help, and it was amazing.

Have a nice week, bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

Mysterious Referral Story

This week we got a referral. Which they just send us by text now, but they don't tell us anything but the contact information. So we went to check this referral, and the person's husband opened the door and let us in. We came in and she was just sitting there on the couch and she was like, "Oh, Hi, come in, sit down," and stuff, and we were like, "Who are you?" So she told us that she was a member and she had gone less-active in the nineties. The NINETIES! 

She was doing her family history, and she found familysearch.org and she thought, oh yeah, I used to be a Mormon. She hardly remembers anything about the church, but she remembered that she was a member, so she referred herself to ask for a Book of Mormon. Woo! Her husband isn't a member and they were both really happy to have us over again and she wanted to read the Book of Mormon again and see if it was true.

Well, I don't really have any more time because another missionary just sent me some deep doctrine charts and I don't have the right amount of change to print all of them, so I'm going to read them. Bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

The story of Jack & Jill

Well.                

 

I would like to start this letter thingy by informing everyone that I am NOT TRUNKY! (anymore) So don't worry about it. I will just keep my daydreaming about home to pdays until 6.

 

Anyways, this week has been great! We had a training by the assistants and President Ulrich on Tuesday. Guess what we talked about? Not being trunky. They pretty much might as well have just read everyone my email from last week. It was kinda funny. I think that must be what it's like to study the lesson before you get to church. It definitlely makes it more exciting.

 

This week we saw a few of our investigators, but there isn't much to say there. They are all just kinda taking it slow... We are finding a lot of new ones. But then when we go to their houses, we find out that they don't actually live where they told us they live. They must think they're really funny.

 

But, this week I did learn two very important lessons. Yesterday. So this is going to be another rebuking email, sorry if some of you were enjoying my cynical humour and stuff, but that's going to have to wait till next week I guess.

 

So! We have two recent converts. We will call them Jack and Jill because this will get confusing otherwise. So Jack is going back to his non-mormon ways and it's not good. He's friends with Jill, and he goes to her house a lot, but he doesn't want to talk to us anymore, so whenever we go to Jill's he tells her to tell us we're not there. So we pretend like we believe her and teach her on her porch. But on Saturday, we asked Jill if she wanted to come with us to a fireside in Manchester. And she said yes. And then she asked if we could meet at the library that day, cause it's warmer. So we came over and she told us that she was feeling bad because she hadn't been reading the scriptures every day. So she's going to start again and we're going to call her to remind her and stuff. Then when we were about to leave we asked her if she wanted to speak at the fireside (to bear her testimony, a lot of recent converts do it at the fireside). We thought she would say no, but instead she said yes.

 

So then on Sunday, we were in Gospel principles and this was the first principle that I learned/ taught. Jill asked if someone sinned enough, and they kept repenting and going back, could they reach a point where they can't repent. And the answer is no. Actually, I kinda wanted to pull an Elder Scott in class and tell everyone that the philosophy that you can't repent after too much sin is one of Satan's Lies. Because it is. It is never, ever, to late to repent. So just repent already. And here are some scriptures just to prove I'm right. (Mosiah 26:30; Matthew 20:9-14)

 

Then at the fireside, there were tons of recent converts bearing their testimonies, that's kinda what it's for, and I felt the Spirit testifying to me that these people are just as powerful and capable as anyone else in the church. Some of the things that Jill has said in the past two days amaze me. She has only just started reading the Book of Mormon and she is already learning tons of things. The Holy Ghost teaches her everything she needs to know and just like the people in that scripture in Matthew, they are given the same tools and the same Gift as anyone else in the church, and they will still have just as great of a spiritual capacity as anyone else in the church.

 

I lied, there's a third, I forgot it. Also, when we are baptised, we recieve the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit can give us promptings and give us counsel that all the knowledge in the world can't give us. Do you realize the the Holy Ghost is a God!?!!?? He's a member of the Godhead. He knows EVERYTHING (Alma 7:13)!! So just listen to him, and look for his promptings. Actively seek the counsel of the Holy Ghost, cause he knows. 

-- 

Elder Ferguson

This is definitely a Tikka Masala that I made with a special Paste thing some members gave me, so this is one step closer to making it from scratch. And it was really good.