March 25, 2010

I don't know what happened to the last post. I did it last week. Oh well, here is the report for this week. This is Mom writing. Now on to Elder Ferguson.

I'll be happy when it starts to really act like spring around here. It's been really nice the last week or two with highs in the 10s. Then all of a sudden we wake up to see it has snowed and frozen to the windshield of the car in a nasty way. It's minus 7 out (March 22), so not super comfortable. You would think I would be semi used to this by now, but I still don't like there being snow on the ground when I should be able to see greenish grass. It's just going to take a little while longer. The sun light is longer now, It is nice. Instead of going down at 5 p.m. it goes down at about 8:30. Of course the daylight saving switch helped with that. Now I don't feel terrible for ringing doorbells after dinner time. Before I would just feel really bad because it was like I was invading time when it was time for people to be going to bed.

We had a special stake meeting with Elder Melchin, an area authority. He spoke about temples. The Edmonton Temple President and his wife also spoke about covenants and genealogy work and temple work. We had a special meeting Saturday with Elder Russel M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve. He spoke on how we cOuld approach member missionary work a different way and tr a new way to get referrals, which I'm just fine with doing, but my companion doesn't want to do it. We'll see what happens. we also got the opportunity to shake hands with Elder Nelson and his wife, Elder Melchin and Elder Donald Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy. Elder Hallstrom and Elder Melchin spoke on Saturday as well.

We go to the food bank here in St. Albert to do service work. We shelve and sort things, but last week we helped moved a refrigerator. We e-mail from the public library. I finally got my shoulder bag that I inadvertently left in Peace River. I practice on my violin on P-day by playing hymns and figuring out other songs.

We have 14 to 17 investigators that we are working with. Dallas Voung has a baptismal date, but is struggling to quit smoking. It keeps us busy. We also go tracting, but I don't like it. I hope to implement the new way that Elder Nelson gave us, working with members for referrals.

I 'm trying to be healthy and work out. It's hard when it's cold in the mornings though. Bishop Gatt, who's from England, bought a bow flex that we are able to use. It is really nice.

More later.

March 2, 2010

Elder Jordan Ferguson has been transferred to St. Albert. It is just north of Edmonton. He is glad to be in the Mission Hill Ward. His companion is Elder Phelps from Alpine, Utah. He has been in the mission for about 6 weeks, but has gone through training. He is a cousin to Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer. Elder Ferguson wrote, "He's a pretty cool kid, very hard working." Elder Ferguson is no longer a district leader. He said it was fun, but he hated the paperwork. He is enjoying being a missionary.

Elder Ferguson reports that one of the investigators, a sister, has a baptismal date. Other investigators are new. One investigator used to be a changer for a Roman Catholic Church. He is going to be gone for a while and says he won't have the time to give the church the attention that he knows it deserves. Terry, a friend of the Bishop enjoyed going to church and said he will probably be back, but he actually lives in a different area of the mission. They will have to forward his information on to that area.

Elder Ferguson was glad to see the Olympics come to a close. "Now that the Olympics are over we may be able to get some more work done. No one wanted to listen when we went to the door during the closing ceremonies. When the American hockey team beat the Canadian team last week, no one was very happy when we came to the door. The chapel on Sunday was semi-
empty because the big game was on and people didn't want to miss it. We had a Stake Priesthood meeting we didn't attend. We were tracting instead, which really did nothing for us because the Olympic closing ceremonies were on, and NO ONE wanted to turn it off and let us in. It was ridiculous."

He also wrote: "Time has been flying by since I cam to Canada. I just can't believe that I'm more than halfway through my mission. When looking at it from the beginning I thought it would take forever, but time has gone by so fast."