Week # 38 Hola Again

 Hello again! Things are going fantastic here in siquirres (sick-ear-ays) and it is hot, humid, and green! I am loving it! My new companion is supre great and he is a lot of fun! This week we get to go to San Jose to receive my citizenship card. I am officially a citizen of Costa Rica!! whoo!  but aside from that it has been a normal week. I have come to learn that I am terrible at soccer and that I truly do not like that sport... the youth tell me that I play to '" physical" with them... there were a few of the youth on the ground and limping when we finished... There was no blood at least. So along with that we are having success here and we have started working in a new part of my area that is called Brooklin. I would send the pictures but the computer here doesn't have the ability. So I will try next week in the other Internet cafe, but the houses and the people in that area are really receptive to the gospel. They live in an area that is extremely poor.  Because they just moved onto a open piece of land and built houses from scratch most do not have water or light but they are truly good people. When we went there on Saturday we went in to a new part and we were trying to decide where to go as my companion and I felt we should take a foot path. We found a family  to teach.  The wife was having a bad day & really need us.  We testified to her that her father in heaven loves her and that he knows each and every one of us individually. I also would like to leave you all with my testimony that we are instruments in the hands of our father in heaven. Invite your friends and family to listen and watch general conference and each of us will be part of a miracle.

Elder Ferrin

siquirres, limon,  costa rica

Week # 37 Welcome to Limon

                      well this week has been absolutely crazy but to shorten down the story I will only say the important stuff. Well it started off with the weird schedule for changes this week and all that. But on Wednesday night I got the call from the assistants saying I would have changes but they wouldn't tell me where I was going to go and what was going to happen to me or my companion. So I packed up and Thursday evening we headed out on the bus to San Jose. We spent the night in the mission office and the  next morning we went to the meeting with Elder Mayne's and Elder Duncan of the seventy. They spoke to us about traditions and how we have to be living celestial traditions to reach the celestial kingdom. It was a really neat meeting and a super spiritual experience! Well following that meeting Elder Duncan and Presidente Mayne's left and our mission President met with all of the missionaries.
 In this meeting he announced that he was going to divide 3 zones in the mission!! So we have began preparations for all of the new missionaries! He announced that my companion from the MTC Elder Kirk is one of the new Zone Leaders in the New Zone of Guanacaste. He also announced that I am the New Zone Leader of  the Province of Limon. We have 12 missionaries in the zone and president wants a stake here in Limon now. We are working on getting the stake here in Limon now. It is the same thing that I was part of in Guanacaste as we were trying for the new stake over there back in December. 
But I am super super excited!! We have 12 super great missionaries here in the zone and we are going to get that stake! but here in Limon it is really different it is less hot and more humid. It rains about every day and everything here is super green! Also my new companion in Elder Xicarà from Guatemala (you say his name like Chicara) but that is how things are here and I am super excited and a lot of humbled to be assigned to help here in Limon. Right now I only have had 2 days of work but I am loving my area. 
Oh! and I also will become an official citizen of Costa Rica this Thursday. I am going to the capital to receive my residence card. But ya that is how I am doing and I hope that you all are doing great as well!! 
Take care and I love you all!! 

Elder Ferrin

This is my new companion and a picture of the area that I am in. The city is called Siquirres. 

Love you all!! 

Siquirres, Limon, Costa Rica 

New Companion & New Zone Leader

 Saying Goodbye to Members From Guanacaste 

 Picture of What Hard Work will do

Picture of all the Missionaries in Costa Rica Mission:

Week # 36 Good Health Physically & Spiritually.........

well this week i will be writing a short email to everyone but i hope that you are all in good health physically and spiritually. i am happy to report that things here in Liberia are going great still. we had the blessing of another baptism this last week. the baptism was the kid of a family of investigators that i found in my first week here. we found this family that is partly members. all of the kids have been baptized but the parents still are not due to the divorce that they are waiting on before they can get married and baptized. but the kids name is Isaac. he is one of the craziest and funniest kids i have ever met! mom he reminds me of my cousin Parker (clausse). :) aside from the little cannon ball dive he did after he left the baptismal font the baptism went all smoothly. :) yes i said cannon ball in the baptismal font. like is said he is a little crazy. but anyways things went smoothly for the most part. besides that our week has been pretty normal. but this coming week is really exciting! we will have elder Mayne's of the presidency of the seventy coming to the mission for a full mission wide conference this Friday along with the area seventy president Elder Duncan. we are all really excited for the conference! but as for the changes that were supposed to happen yesterday. the changes will be this Friday during the conference since every missionary from the whole mission will be there at the same time. so i will find out if i stay in Liberia or if i leave. but this week should be really fun. anyways that is about all that is new in my life and i hope you all are happy healthy and living the gospel. never ever waste a day here because as John Wayne said 

"we´re burning daylight" and Alma 34:33 basically says the same thing. so lets get to work and find someone for the local missionaries to teach! I love you all!! 

Elder Ferrin

 This  family is my costa rican version of a family. they always feed me gallo pinto, eggs, cheese, and salchicha. which by the way is super super super yummy!! 

Week #35 I love the Gospel!!

                       Well this week has been a crazy great week! I am loving and working and serving as much as I can and the blessings are coming in! We have been blessed to start off the month with 3 baptisms and we still have a lot to come. the first baptism we had was our own personal miracle. if you guys remember about 3 weeks ago I told you about a miracle that we had but I didn't want to share it just yet..? Well his name is Jose  he is the single man that we baptised. His story is pretty amazing. He was the member of a part member family that had received the missionaries for 9 years. He never decided to be baptised because he never felt it was the right time or missionaries. Well he liked to drink and honestly if you ask him he will tell that he was a drunk. Well three weeks ago we got a call from his sister telling us that he wanted to hear the missionaries that kept coming to the house to visit the family. (his wife, daughters, mom, brother, and sisters are all members) so we recieved the call and went to visit him and while we were teaching him he told us that he felt that we were the missionaries that should baptise him and that now was the time. so after 1 week of teaching and preparation he was finally baptised after 9 years of hearing the messages. so he was our blessing!! 

The other two baptisms were a contact in front of the church one day and we finally were able to marry and baptise them this week! The only problem was we didn't have water or electricity in the church because someone forgot to pay the bill... so when we got to the church to fill the baptismal font and found out there was no water we went to the member that lives next to the chapel and asked if we could fill buckets for the baptism. well after 4 hours of filling buckets and running them into the church the font was finally full of water (or sweat not really sure which one it was...) but ya the miracles continue to come to my area each and every day!! 

As well we were taught a new principle by our counselor in the area 70. he taught us to be more direct in our way of talking to people and inviting them. he told us of when he was a misison president how he would go up to people to contact on door steps and in the street and tell them " hi we are here to prepare you to be baptised into the only true church on the face of the earth!" well we all thought he was crazy but he promised us that if we would try it that it would work for us. And so.... well, my comp. and I went to contact a house saturday night and i well i felt that i should say that so when we walked up to the house and the lady came to the door she asked us how can I help you guys, so I said " well actually we have come here to prepare you to be baptised in the only true church on the face of the earth" well first off my companion just looks at me like I have gone crazy and the lady responded "that would be great!" so we taught her and now she is preparing to be baptised in a month. ya we are kind of crazy but the promise is true. :)  but I hope you all have a great week!!!! I love you all and I hope things are going great in school and work! take care and I will write you all next week! 

Elder Austin Ferrin

This is my convert from october. We were passing his house and offered to help him unload his truck. he sells pipas which is just a coconut cut open that has been chilled in a cooler. They are super super delicious and super cheap,  but of course I always have them for free. :) But we helped him unload over 1000 from the truck and you can see a few in the pictures and this was a day that we went on divisions so that is why I am with elder kirk.

Week #34 Zone Conference

           

      Well I had the pleasure of taking the 5 1/2 hour bus 3 times this week and now I will have to take it one more time to return to my área. I am with an Elder here in the hospital of San Jose writing because he got an infection and well so here we are, but the good part is I wont have to pay for my internet now! So that is something good from this, But ya the Elder will be here for about a week and tonight we are just visiting him because we came to San Jose for a multi-zone meeting with the presidency of the área. We are all excited for that! but this last week we have been working really hard and we are changing a lot of things that will help. We are also qualifying to start a group of saints in part of my área that is really far from the chapel. We will start having church services in two parts of my área within the next week. I am super excited because that was one of our goals since I  got to my área in August. 

Well I do not have a whole lot more time today so I will end it with a scripture Galatians 6:9. 

For all of you missionaries please use this in the literal sense and apply what you teach.

 Perserverar hasta el fin (endure until the end) as a leader of the misión there is nothing more frustrating than to see a missionary that has taught this principle millions of times not apply it to his or her life.

I have a missionary in my district that sadly did not learn this principle very well, so please never relax in the misión. We can have fun but we should really be running from door to door, and teaching with urgency in each and every day & not just at the end of the week, month, year, or misión. 

For those that are not missionaries this means that each and every day we should seek and strive to plant the góspel in every place we go because if we are truly planting the góspel in the hearts of the people, then some day someone will come along and reap a great harvest!

 So please do that!

But I hope you all know I truly love you!!

Elder Ferrin

Liberia, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

President  & Sister Wilkinson  with the area seventy Elder & Hermana Alonso.