Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
It is my last day in the MTC and the changed the schedule and surprised us with an opportunity to go to the temple. We met one of our teachers Frere Startita and his wife at the temple and did an endowment session. It was absolutely wonderful! We have been told that we won't be able to go to the temple in Montreal until the last day of our mission so I'll have to wait for 17 months! Appreciate the temple! Take advantage of your opportunity to go! The peace there is so amazing! I definitely took it a little bit for granted, and I;m sure I'll miss it, although i'm excited to go share the blessings of it with others.
We had a good weekend.! Lots of craziness and a few tearful goodbyes...but it has been good. Saying goodbye to our Elders (Ringle and Overson) last night was rough! My district feels like a family. We have spent every day, all day, with them for the past 6 weeks!
I am not nervous to leave.....Only excited! I'm ready to go out there and get this french down and start sharing the good news! I'm super stoked to meet my mission president. I'm determined to make a good impression and show him I'll be a hardworking and obedient missionary.
I'm so happy they've called me on a mission! :) It is where i'm supposed to be.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Hey! It's my last week in the MTC!
In exactly seven days from now my plane will be touching down in Montreal! How wonderful is that! And crazy? And scary?! And awesome! I can't wait to be out in the real world again. It's been almost six weeks since I have been outside a mile of this place> But also I'm remembering that the real world is kind of scary, and people in the real world will probably make fun of my french and not want to get baptized. So the MTC feels safe :), and that's kinda scary to leave.
So this week...Krystal left! For those of you who don't know, my cousin who is my same age and who went into the MTC the week before me left yesterday> I saw her on Sunday before the devotional and we chatted and hugged and cried a bit. :) She is so amazing. I thought she was absolutely glowing the day of her farewell...If only you could see her now! She is absolutely radiating! She has learned how to live close to the spirit and it's had a profound effect on her. She's got such a strong testimony and one of the biggest hearts out of everyone that I know. She'll be awesome, and I am so blessed that I could see her before she left.What an amazing missionary she'll be. Gah! Love her.
This last week we had the privilege of having Elder Richard G. Scott speak to us at last Tuesday's devotional!!! It was really special. Sister Stiles and I were singing in the choir along with Sister Curry and Sister Del Castillo...The song we learned was Nearer my God to Thee. Our choir director is fantastic! He expounded about how the hymn is actually about Jacob (think Jacob and Esau...? Issac and Rebekah's son?) when he is wandering in the wilderness. Go look it up in Genesis. It's really, really neat. And the arrangement is absolutely superb. So! We were already stoked about the song, and excited because since we were in the choir we had pretty decent seats...:)We'er just sitting there, waiting for it to be time for the devotional to start and in walks an apostle of the Lord...Wow! What an amazing spirit. It was such a blessing to be able to open with that song, to bear my testimony to a living prophet, and then to hear one of the most amazing discourses on prayer that I've ever had the opportunity to hear. He was so complimentary of the sisters...It made me cry.:) His first words? "I fell like I've died and gone to heaven...And I'm so happy to see so many sisters." He gave us a lot of promises that our missions would bless us, our future families more that we can ever know. It was amazing!
After telling us how wonderful we were for making the decision to serve, he said that he wished he could sit down with each one of us, to hear our stories, to hear our struggles, our hopes, our progression...and we'er all in the audience were wishing SO badly that that could be possible...and that's when he goes on "it would not be practical or possible for me to do that with each one of you...But there is one who is capable of such a thing...Our Heavenly Father."...Wow. I think we all had a bit of a reality check realizing just how huge the blessing of prayer is in each of our lives. He reminds us to pray often, take our time, and feel the responses...He urged us to really TALK with our Father, to tell him all the desires of our hearts, not just the big ones, but all of them...He reminded us that if the Lord seems a bit slow to answer our prayers he's giving us the opportunity to exercise faith, and that it's our time to act, not just sit around and wait.
Ultimately so much of his talk was promises. A promise for those learning the language, that if we pray and remind Heavenly Father that he called us to speak a language and that we want to master that language...that the language will come. Over all...I fell like my notes aren't adequate to express the power of his talk. It was very comforting.. He reassured us that we are not alone,, we always have help, that He called us and He will help us and ultimately fit our calling to our capacities. :) Awesome.
So, in our zone, next week 17 of us are headed to Montreal, only 4 of those are Elders. Sister power!!! Sister Stiles' dad told her in an e-mail that there was a massive maple syrup heist in Canada a couple of weeks ago. I laughed, really hard. I mean c'mon...A maple syrup heist?! Is that even a real thing?! I'm going to Canada!
Love you all,
Sister Ferguson
In exactly seven days from now my plane will be touching down in Montreal! How wonderful is that! And crazy? And scary?! And awesome! I can't wait to be out in the real world again. It's been almost six weeks since I have been outside a mile of this place> But also I'm remembering that the real world is kind of scary, and people in the real world will probably make fun of my french and not want to get baptized. So the MTC feels safe :), and that's kinda scary to leave.
So this week...Krystal left! For those of you who don't know, my cousin who is my same age and who went into the MTC the week before me left yesterday> I saw her on Sunday before the devotional and we chatted and hugged and cried a bit. :) She is so amazing. I thought she was absolutely glowing the day of her farewell...If only you could see her now! She is absolutely radiating! She has learned how to live close to the spirit and it's had a profound effect on her. She's got such a strong testimony and one of the biggest hearts out of everyone that I know. She'll be awesome, and I am so blessed that I could see her before she left.What an amazing missionary she'll be. Gah! Love her.
This last week we had the privilege of having Elder Richard G. Scott speak to us at last Tuesday's devotional!!! It was really special. Sister Stiles and I were singing in the choir along with Sister Curry and Sister Del Castillo...The song we learned was Nearer my God to Thee. Our choir director is fantastic! He expounded about how the hymn is actually about Jacob (think Jacob and Esau...? Issac and Rebekah's son?) when he is wandering in the wilderness. Go look it up in Genesis. It's really, really neat. And the arrangement is absolutely superb. So! We were already stoked about the song, and excited because since we were in the choir we had pretty decent seats...:)We'er just sitting there, waiting for it to be time for the devotional to start and in walks an apostle of the Lord...Wow! What an amazing spirit. It was such a blessing to be able to open with that song, to bear my testimony to a living prophet, and then to hear one of the most amazing discourses on prayer that I've ever had the opportunity to hear. He was so complimentary of the sisters...It made me cry.:) His first words? "I fell like I've died and gone to heaven...And I'm so happy to see so many sisters." He gave us a lot of promises that our missions would bless us, our future families more that we can ever know. It was amazing!
After telling us how wonderful we were for making the decision to serve, he said that he wished he could sit down with each one of us, to hear our stories, to hear our struggles, our hopes, our progression...and we'er all in the audience were wishing SO badly that that could be possible...and that's when he goes on "it would not be practical or possible for me to do that with each one of you...But there is one who is capable of such a thing...Our Heavenly Father."...Wow. I think we all had a bit of a reality check realizing just how huge the blessing of prayer is in each of our lives. He reminds us to pray often, take our time, and feel the responses...He urged us to really TALK with our Father, to tell him all the desires of our hearts, not just the big ones, but all of them...He reminded us that if the Lord seems a bit slow to answer our prayers he's giving us the opportunity to exercise faith, and that it's our time to act, not just sit around and wait.
Ultimately so much of his talk was promises. A promise for those learning the language, that if we pray and remind Heavenly Father that he called us to speak a language and that we want to master that language...that the language will come. Over all...I fell like my notes aren't adequate to express the power of his talk. It was very comforting.. He reassured us that we are not alone,, we always have help, that He called us and He will help us and ultimately fit our calling to our capacities. :) Awesome.
So, in our zone, next week 17 of us are headed to Montreal, only 4 of those are Elders. Sister power!!! Sister Stiles' dad told her in an e-mail that there was a massive maple syrup heist in Canada a couple of weeks ago. I laughed, really hard. I mean c'mon...A maple syrup heist?! Is that even a real thing?! I'm going to Canada!
Love you all,
Sister Ferguson
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Two weeks from today I'll be headed to Quebec! So excited.
Our teacher Frere Sybrowsky served there and the other day he was telling us stories. :) He said that the people who speak french, especially in the countryside, speak with a Quebecois accent. Apparently I shouldn't expect to understand it for a couple of weeks...I'm stoked. :) He is pretty good at imitating it.....It sounds HORRID, but kind of cool and intriguing at the same time. It makes me laugh, every time. Unfortunately our district has found out that I sometimes snort when I laugh and it's become a daily district goal to make that happen.....He also told us a bit about the cold. He and his companion wold have competitions on the cold winter mornings and try and see who could guess the temperature. He said he learned some tricks...If it hurts to breathe, it's below -20. If it hurts your eyes, it's below-10. i should probably be scared, but when I hear about that I'm just ridiculously excited.
This week was good! Really good! On Wednesday Stiles and I taught probably our best lesson so far. It'll probably be my best lesson in the MTC. :D It was with Jean! The time before we had finally gotten him to warm up to the idea of the Book of Mormon and we asked him to read 3 Nephi 11, the chapter when Christ comes to the America's. A little bit about Jean...or rather, the real Jean, who Frere Startita is acting like, who Frere Startita taught on his mission to Africa) He lives in Africa, LOVES the bible, loves Jesus, but dislikes any notion of any other revelation. But we figured since he loves Christ, 3 Nephi 11 would be a good one for him to read before our visit on Wednesday. Welll...He didn't read it. So! That's what we did for our lesson. That account is So powerful. And it was perfect, because it talked about baptism and how Christ gave the prophet Nephi the authority to baptize. So we had a really good discussion about baptism, authority, the restoration of the correct and true authority...(which was the l had planned to teach him about the restoration, but since he didn't read we had to wing it!!) It worked out!!! We asked him about being baptized and he said yes!! Our 'date' is April 20th. :) The spirit was so strong. It was awesome. And we both did a good job following it and asking inspired questions, because we were winging it completely! And it was amazing! I'm excited and I'm really excited to be able to teach him as a recent convert before we leave. Pretty awesome.
Our teachers asked our district to start doing progressing investigators with each other. We will take turns teaching each other as if we were nonmembers. So basically the same thing we have been doing with our eachers. It's exciting , but now we we are planning for 2-4 lessons a day! We're so busy!
Funny story of the day: Fere Sybrowsky had a companion that once told an investigator the after you're
baptized you receive "le gateau de l"esprit"...(the cake of the spirit) instead of "le cadeau de l'esprit"...(the gift of the spirit)...Oops. :)
Another fun fact...The abbreation for my mission is the CMM mission. Canada Montreal mission or...another nickname for itis the elestial Marriage Mission. A lot of people joke about how an uncanny amount of people end up marrying people from their mission. O.o. Not happening to me, I assure you. just funny.
Love you to pieces,
DFTSYPARYS! (don't forget to say your prayers and read your scriptures)
God loves you, and so do I!
Love,
Sister Celina Ferguson
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Three weeks left!
So! Craziness! I leave for Canada three weeks from today! I'm more than halfway done here at the MTC.
Wasn't conference amazing! I certainly thought so. It gave me the boost I needed. Did any of you go to conference with any questions that got answered? If so, I'd love for you to share them with me, or maybe any favorite talks or things you learned.
Did you watch the little short program in between the Sunday sessions? It got me SO pumped! I'm so happy to have 'caught the wave' as Elder Nelson put it. It's so awesome to be here and be part of it!
Dad, I couldn't help thinking about you when Elder Bruce D. Porter spoke about his cheerful roommate that was singing that song for Oklahoma, "Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day..."...i just smiled and thought of you belting that throughout the house. I miss that for sure.
This week is going better, Sister Stiles and I got two lessons planned and we ended up teaching one to our investigator Jean. He had a really hard time last time ...But this time we totally rocked it!! We did so well!! Our teacher gave us both high fives and only pointed out one little nit-picky thing we could do better for next time. We were untied, stuck close to the spirit, asked good questions, and got him to commit to read the chapter in the Book of Mormon when Christ appears to the Nephites. :) So, YEAH! Best feeling ever!
The French is coming much better, and my teachers keep telling us we're all doing really well considering how long we have been here. So, that's comforting. Plus this week we'll start getting more into other tenses and such which will really help me speak better French. So, things are getting better! I'm a little sick of the food, but it's okay. On our P-days when we go to the temple we usually go to the cafeteria to eat and boy are we grateful for it. I'm excited to get to Canada! I miss and love you all SO much!!
.
So! Craziness! I leave for Canada three weeks from today! I'm more than halfway done here at the MTC.
Wasn't conference amazing! I certainly thought so. It gave me the boost I needed. Did any of you go to conference with any questions that got answered? If so, I'd love for you to share them with me, or maybe any favorite talks or things you learned.
Did you watch the little short program in between the Sunday sessions? It got me SO pumped! I'm so happy to have 'caught the wave' as Elder Nelson put it. It's so awesome to be here and be part of it!
Dad, I couldn't help thinking about you when Elder Bruce D. Porter spoke about his cheerful roommate that was singing that song for Oklahoma, "Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day..."...i just smiled and thought of you belting that throughout the house. I miss that for sure.
This week is going better, Sister Stiles and I got two lessons planned and we ended up teaching one to our investigator Jean. He had a really hard time last time ...But this time we totally rocked it!! We did so well!! Our teacher gave us both high fives and only pointed out one little nit-picky thing we could do better for next time. We were untied, stuck close to the spirit, asked good questions, and got him to commit to read the chapter in the Book of Mormon when Christ appears to the Nephites. :) So, YEAH! Best feeling ever!
The French is coming much better, and my teachers keep telling us we're all doing really well considering how long we have been here. So, that's comforting. Plus this week we'll start getting more into other tenses and such which will really help me speak better French. So, things are getting better! I'm a little sick of the food, but it's okay. On our P-days when we go to the temple we usually go to the cafeteria to eat and boy are we grateful for it. I'm excited to get to Canada! I miss and love you all SO much!!
.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
April 2, 2013
Holy Cow! Tomorrow I'll have been here for 2 weeks already!! It's less than a month before we ship off to Quebec!Crazy talk!! It's exciting though. The French is coming easier.. Still frustrating as heck, and makes me annoyed.. But I'm really learning over and over again the the french will come when I/and the spirit needs it to IF I rely on the spirit. There have been times already in lessons with investigators when the spirit is prompting me to testify even though I don't know the words...and so I just GO for it, (which requires major trust in the Lord)... and bear testimony in the most broken French EVER, but then the spirit just comes, and the testimony actually is super powerful. Pretty amazing.:) The spirit is absolutely mandatory. We can't convince someone the gospel or the Book of Mormon is true, they have to read and pray and find out for themselves. The spirit is what gives them that knowledge. ANYWAY! Cool stuff.
So funny, the power often short circuits in the mornings in the girls residences because of all the blow dryers being used. Easter Sunday we had to reset them three times!! Hahah. Speaking of...Easter was fantastic!! We had our fast and testimony meeting at 7:30 AM with our french branch. :) Then at 10 A.M. we went to sacrament meeting. What an experience!!! The sacrament being served to over 3,000 missionaries (1/3 more than the stripling warriors!!!), by over 100 elders. Super amazing.
Our April fools was funny. I guess on April fools in France there's such thing as a poisson d'avril (fish of April) where you try to stick a post it or something of a fish on someone's back without them noticing and lots of other fish pranks... Our teacher Fere Sybrowsky hid an open can of tuna in our classroom as his poisson d'avril joke Haha! He is a hoot! The other day he was making fun of how everything in French is so passionate. Foe example, if you'd like to say something like 'everyone' in french it would be 'tout le monde'... or directly translated 'ALL THE WORLD'..Haha:) Funny, funny.He keeps telling us thet we're going to be lost when we get to Quebec because Quebecois is so different. He said the accent is best described as ...Pirate French. YAY!
I get to watch Mormon messages/conference etc while i work out at the gym. i saw a really cool Mormon message about fatherhood. :) Look it up.
Love,
Soeur Ferguson
Holy Cow! Tomorrow I'll have been here for 2 weeks already!! It's less than a month before we ship off to Quebec!Crazy talk!! It's exciting though. The French is coming easier.. Still frustrating as heck, and makes me annoyed.. But I'm really learning over and over again the the french will come when I/and the spirit needs it to IF I rely on the spirit. There have been times already in lessons with investigators when the spirit is prompting me to testify even though I don't know the words...and so I just GO for it, (which requires major trust in the Lord)... and bear testimony in the most broken French EVER, but then the spirit just comes, and the testimony actually is super powerful. Pretty amazing.:) The spirit is absolutely mandatory. We can't convince someone the gospel or the Book of Mormon is true, they have to read and pray and find out for themselves. The spirit is what gives them that knowledge. ANYWAY! Cool stuff.
So funny, the power often short circuits in the mornings in the girls residences because of all the blow dryers being used. Easter Sunday we had to reset them three times!! Hahah. Speaking of...Easter was fantastic!! We had our fast and testimony meeting at 7:30 AM with our french branch. :) Then at 10 A.M. we went to sacrament meeting. What an experience!!! The sacrament being served to over 3,000 missionaries (1/3 more than the stripling warriors!!!), by over 100 elders. Super amazing.
Our April fools was funny. I guess on April fools in France there's such thing as a poisson d'avril (fish of April) where you try to stick a post it or something of a fish on someone's back without them noticing and lots of other fish pranks... Our teacher Fere Sybrowsky hid an open can of tuna in our classroom as his poisson d'avril joke Haha! He is a hoot! The other day he was making fun of how everything in French is so passionate. Foe example, if you'd like to say something like 'everyone' in french it would be 'tout le monde'... or directly translated 'ALL THE WORLD'..Haha:) Funny, funny.He keeps telling us thet we're going to be lost when we get to Quebec because Quebecois is so different. He said the accent is best described as ...Pirate French. YAY!
I get to watch Mormon messages/conference etc while i work out at the gym. i saw a really cool Mormon message about fatherhood. :) Look it up.
Love,
Soeur Ferguson
All the girls in my district- Me, Soeur Curry, Soeur Martinez,
Soeur Del Castillo, Soeur Ruiz, Soeur Stiles and Soeur Wrght
Soeur Stiles and I at our temple walk.
We get to wander the around the temple
every Sunday for an hour.
Too bad she closed her eyes...
Our district! Elder Ringle our district leader is the goofball up in the
upper left hand corner. Elder Oliverson is in the lower left.
So many sisters!
Soeur Del Castillo and I
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