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

Lesson learned: Don't Be Prideful

This week my mission president went home, all the way to Ashton, England (with in the mission boundaries).  Haha, he can't email us right now because we're on our missions, but if we serve in Ashton we'll still see him because he lives there. He is going on holiday soon though. We had a conference in Manchester and it was crazy. We had to leave the day before and stay in the assistants flat because we are at the other end of the mission and we needed to be early because they wanted me to play in the musical number. So that was nice.

For the musical number they gave me some sheet music and said to learn it in five minutes and some missionaries were going to play the violin and sing with me. It is a good thing we were doing it for a church thing or I probably wouldn't have gotten my gifts of the spirit and stuff and been able to play it. But I did,  sorta. So I played it fine right from the beginning when we were rehearsing it. I was actually doing better than the singers and much better than the violins when we started. But basically, the violins were were having trouble staying together with anyone, so they decided to just play a verse on their own and then we would come in, which was fine, but then I got the chance to learn a lesson in humility in front of half of the mission…. :)

So then during the actual musical number, the violins did ok, and then I came in with the singers and we did one verse fine, and then on the second verse, I was thinking prideful thoughts about how much better we were doing than the violins, and I was struck down and I totally lost my place, and I was also struck with deafness, so I couldn't hear where the singers were at all, and I just fell out completely. It was bad. So I just ended up not playing half of it and then coming back in right at the end. So yeah. Don't be prideful. You will lose every time. Especially when you are basically relying on gifts straight from God anyways. 

So anyways, aside from that, this week has actually been really good. We had someone we have been trying to get a hold of for a while that told us she had met with missionaries before, and we finally came to her house one day and she said, 'come on in!' So we did. :)

She was super nice and she had a ton of questions. She was raised in some christian churches and she wanted to believe, but there were just questions that she asked that they couldn't answer. She started asking us her questions. Some of them we answered because we have the true church and we know, and some of them were extra deep stuff that I still want answers to, and I told her that. She thought it was amazing that we had enough faith to believe in Resurrection without understanding the science behind it, but I told her that I believed that someday I would learn and that I know that I have had an answer to my prayers and she was so excited. It's amazing how prepared people are, even in Wales, where everyone thinks that they already have the answers. :)

Well, have a nice week. Bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

Time to break the streak….

Hi,

This week, I got a new companion. His name is Elder VB.  He is pretty good. He has a Ukelele. I don't really like Ukeleles, but I'm getting pretty good at it already, so it's ok. haha. 

After transfer meeting, we ended up missing a bus which made us miss a train which made us get back at 10:30.  I think it was the first time I've been outside of the flat in the dark in Newtown. haha.

Everyone says that Elder VB has an American accent, but he doesn't, not even close. He just pronounces rs. 

We found a new investigator on Friday! He is a Christian and he's really nice. He actually checked his work schedule to see when would be the next good time to come by, so we won't have to go hunting for him when he's not home for the next appointment. It's pretty exciting. There have been no baptisms in Newtown for the past two or three years, but it looks like it might be time to break that streak. Ha.

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

From Amy -

So there was no explanations for the last picture, so I thought I'd get your opinion.  Reply or post on facebook a comment & give me a caption for this picture.   I'll send your results to him in his next letter just for fun. 

This first Picture is from Ryan's old mission president that use to send me so many awesome pictures.  He sent me this quick email a couple days ago:

 I went to missionary transfer day on Wed and look who I met. He's good esp since he has a piano in his flat. Imagine that!  Brother N

Which side are you on?

I'm getting a new companion! His name is Elder VB. He is from Holland. He was my district leader in the MTC. He was trained by Elder H. He is nice. It will be an interesting transfer or probably two. 

This week we went to a Zone meeting. That was nice. After zone meeting we went on exchange and I came back to Newtown with a missionary from New Zealand. He was nice. We found a new investigator right outside of our flat. We taught him the restoration right away and he accepted it right away. We gave him the Book of Mormon and he said thank you. It's funny how sometimes people do that. Usually people just say 'Not interested' or just do the universal sign language for 'No thank you; I am happy with my own religious beliefs for now but maybe next time.'  So that was nice. 

We also ran into someone who is a member that doesn't come to church anymore. He basically tried to tell us that our church was wrong, but he was polite and would still listen to what we said. We explained how he was false doctrinally and he accepted it, although he still thought that we were wrong. It's interesting how people will open up a conversation with you like that. 

One time someone was talking to Joseph Smith about all of the Apostasy in the church at the time. He said that if he decided to leave the church, he would just go somewhere else and not bother anyone about it again instead of trying to tear down the church. President Smith told him that that isn't how it works. He said that once you are baptized you have chosen a side and left the neutral ground, and you can never go back. Either you are totally on the Lord's side, or you are totally not. That is what I learned this week. Bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV

(Amy)  I looked up what he was referring to and found this story
https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-27?lang=eng

The new area…

This week was nice. We were actually in our own area for most of the week, so that was good. We have an investigator that is a Sunni Muslim, one that is a Born-Again Christian, and one that believes in reincarnation, and whatever else she decides to believe. 
None of them is really planning on changing, but that's ok, because two of them are kinda new, and one of them seems like she actually does sort of want to know, she just doesn't like the idea of organized religion.

Yesterday I read the Bible for bashing scriptures just because someone sort of asked me to prove the church is true with the Bible. I'm not going to actually bash, I just want to know them just in case. I think it helped me to build my testimony of why we need the Book of Mormon, cause the Bible is confusing. No wonder there are so many christian churches in the world. 

Well, bye!

-- 

Elder Ferguson

mormon.org/me/C2WV