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.

Week #33 Personal Email's this week.....

Here is my  Email that he sent to me:  (mom)

well the hottest week will not come for another month or so, so i don't know yet :) i am not melting but i am losing weight or at least i think so. the goals are going well but the missionaries are not working with faith is the problem. i need to try and make them feel a little more urgency in their days. i am glad to hear the weather is a little colder but at least you guys could try and send some down to me... okay maybe not. i heard that your lesson went great and that you did a wonderful job teaching! i also heard from jordan that she is on the trek committee and is assisting the singles ward. sounds like our prayers are slowly starting to be answered. i hope you know how much i love and look up to you mom! i am really grateful for all that you guys do! i know this is a big sacrifice for you guys but i am so grateful that you raised me in a way that i never had to question about a mission. i never doubted thanks to your example. like it says in alma 54 "and they did not doubt that their mothers new it" i never doubted you knew this is the true church. so thank you mom for all you have done for me and i hope you have a wonderful week! take care, be safe, and i love you!!

Your son austin

Mom:Thanks son, I really appreciate it.   I love you too.  We will say extra prayers to help with the Faith of the other elders.  Anything else u need? 

Austin: no i think i am doing great but thank you! are you guys all still good?

Mom: Yes we are all doing pretty good, nothing really new.  Just the same stuff.  If u loose to much weight u will disappear.  

Austin: that is what the other missionaries keep saying. the zone leaders now sing a song that they wrote called the disappearing elder... :) 

Mom: I guess I need to get some protein  send to u.  We don't want the song to become true.

Austin: If you could send some protein that would be awesome! but i don't know if it would be cheaper to buy it here. they have a GNC here in liberia.

Mom: I will see what we can do, how are all up friends? Anything new with them?

they are great! well i have got to go. love you mom!

Week # 32 7 months & a Scorpion .........

Well how did the last week go for you guys??
I hope everyone is doing great and that you are all enjoying school and the abnormal warm winter. Here in my area it is still is crazy hot and I am dying in the heat!  The breeze is dying down and it is almost what they call "Santa Semana" which means holy week. Everyone says it is the worst week to be in Costa Rica. During that week the sun is its closest to Costa Rica and there is no such thing as a breeze during this week, They say it is so hot that the dust doesn't even get up to move... so ya that will be a week to try and live through, but besides that my week was a real normal and fun week. My companion and I have been working hard We are getting to the house exhausted each night so I will say we are working with success and working hard. In my district we are working hard to try and have 15 confirmations between the 8 of us for the month of March. Today my capacitation I set up a plan of action with my district so that we can reach our goal. It will take us contacting and teaching more than ever before but we want to see the miracles in March. Aside from that we have not had anything new happen Well... I guess aside from the scorpion I found in my house last night... ya it startled us all a little but we got him sent to the spirit world for now. :) I will send some pictures of that.

For valentines day the elders all went to the Mexican restaurant here in town and it was amazing and then when I got home I opened the letter and package I received on Saturday it was a good and successful day of work and stuffing our face. We saw lots of miracles in this last week but I will hold off on telling them until next week after the baptisms.
Well I hope you are all doing good and I love you all very much!
Thanks for all the support and for the examples you have all been.

Elder Ferrin 

I had asked him a few Questions in my email and this was his response:

Hey mom I am doing fantastic and things here are moving forward. Today starts the day of some pretty crazy hard working. We have made some great goals for the month of March and if we do our part we will reach them all. Yes I am one of the district leaders and Elder Kirk is the district leader of the neighboring district so we team up and do some pretty great activities. President made it back to the mission and his first message to the mission was " I am back and now is the time to conquer more mountains" so we are about to conquer the mountain of 250 baptisms in March. But yes mom things are fantastic!! I hope you know I love you and that things here are fantastic for me and my companion. I love you mom.

Thanks to all the family & friends who send him letters & packages.  

He said it is so nice to receive letters out of the blue.

Week #31 Just another day in the Lords vineyard..............

            Well this last week was a super successful and wonderful week! this week we had a great missionary activity for investigators and for recent converts/ less actives! it was a great success and i loved every minute of it!!! we had the blessing for just before that activity to find a miracle as well! we have been praying and working hard to find a lot of news and prepare for the month of march. march has 5 sundays so we have 1 chance than normal to baptise and confirm in the same month. since this is the last 5 sunday month for our mission president before he leaves we are really trying to prepare a lot of people to send him out with a new record of confirmations for the month! well like i said we were on our way to the activity and we were running a little late. so as we started on our way to the church we felt as that we should try to find one more person. we had no idea why but we felt that we should even though we would be late. so we found a street and decided to contact the first house that had a door open. well as we walked up to the house and yelled for them to come to the door, a man came to the door in a big hurry. looking a little surprised and confused but he said he wanted to hear what we had to say. well as we began to share with him and as we testified to him about christ he began to cry. when he could talk he said to us that he was fighting with his family right before we got there and that he had went to the kitchen and prayed for god to send him some peace and happiness. and after his prayer we showed up. he told us that we had used the back door by accident but he said that if we had used the front door that he wouldn't have been able to talk to us because on the front door it says "we are catholic and we don't accept other religions" well long story short we finished the lesson with an invitation to come to the church for the activity. well he came to that and he also came to the church on sunday! he later told me that he wants to keep following in the church because he feels something different. I really know this man was a man sent to us from god! i also know that none of this was a coincidence and that there are people like him in every city of the world so i just want you all to please look for these types of people because if we don't look we don't love our savior. "IF YE LOVE ME FEED MY SHEEP"

also this week my redneck skills came in handy.. we had an investigator that as we were passing her house last night start screaming ELDERS!! ELDERS!!! HELP ME!!! well we were a little startled but went running up to her gate anyways... she later explained that she had the "biggest" toad in her house and that she could not sleep until it was gone. so i got to go catching frogs last night. :) it was a great time and as you can see from the pictures we had success. :) well i hope you all have a great week and that you are all safe! take care and know i love you all!!!

Elder Ferrin

Liberia, guanacaste, costa rica

                                       

missionary activity:

I taught about the importance of the sacrament

I had asked it that was the Toad in the bag and he said:  ya it is the toad. she told us to take it a long ways away! and the food is a treat i learned how to make yesterday they are called patacones but it would be said like pota-co-nys i am sending more pics and the directions of how to make them.  

okay here is a series of photos for you to see how to cook a super delicious treat that i learned this week. but... i dont know if you can find platano by our house. 

so first cut them into fat slices

fry them lightly on each side

smash them with a cup or between a couple plates

fry it again until crispy

put a little salt on them and eat them!!! 

they are super super super delicious, but it might have to be one of your cheat days. 

I love you mom!!

He also sent us a voice clip I will have to try to add it later.  He has learned how to play the Guitar and he played us so of  If you could hie to Kolob, it was so good to hear his voice & he is pretty good at the guitar too.

Week # 30 Bad Dog........

Well hey how is everyone doing?! still dont have any snow? i hope we get some quick or the hunt this year is going to be rough. work here in liberia continues to be great of course! i lived through this transfer with out being changed thank goodness! i have now the first 6 months of my mission in the same area! i am loveing it as always but it is starting to get even hotter which i was not sure was possible! not much new.. well i hope you all take care and know i love you all!

the story of the week is a little less that appropriate and really really funny... so i am training an elder his name is elder acuña from mexico... but anyways we went to an investigators house last friday and as we get there and we were waiting out side the house the neighbor dog came over and started to do "stuff" with the leg of my companion... well he is a smaller guy and he was trying to kick the dog off his leg but it didnt work and so the dog just kept doing his thing... so ya i was laughing pretty hard but well when the investigator opens the door the look on his face was perfect and he just smiled and said " the dog has pretty good taste in legs doesnt he...?" it was the funniest thing ever!!! but anywho that is just one moment this week. 

well i hope you all have a great week and that you know i love you!! well i gotta go because now my companion has to talk to president about what happened last friday... ;) 

Elder Ferrin

Les queiro mucho!!

this is one of the hermanas that left the area yesterday. now i have the most time in the zone. but this is hermana carrera from guatamala. she was a super great hermana and a lot of fun to work with.

Week # 28 Word of Wisdom...................

Hey family and friends! it was great to hear from some of you this week! from the sounds of things you guys have about the same amount of snow as i do! Here in the greatest mission on earth we are enjoying the heat and trying not to get burnt. People here are crazy by the way... everyone here enjoys eating soup for dinner and so the few times we eat dinners it is normally soup. now i honestly enjoy soup a lot. but the problem is, when the temperatures are in the 90´s and all you do all day long is sweat you don't show up looking for a bowl of insanely hot soup for dinner. :) but it is very delicious soup though. anyways for this last week we continue to find success and enjoy each day. this last week was a little more difficult with the assistance of our investigators because everyone wanted to go to the bull fighter shows but this next week we will have it back up to where we need it. in the last week we continued to see many miracles and enjoy the help of many members but in one experience especially i was able to see the lords help. as we taught a couple that we are about to marry and baptise this week i felt that they really needed the word of lesson in that moment so we began to teach and explain what it is and why. as we taught i saw a full bottle of vodka on the fridge and was having a slight inner battle inside myself about what we should do with it. i then remembered a scripture i found in my studies that morning that says once we receive the commandments we must live them or we will be in an awful state. so i shared it and as i finished i said to the husband " okay well now that you have been given this commandment will you as a couple live the word of wisdom?" they said yes so when he did i got up and said well then you wont be needing this vodka right? well you all should of seen the look on his face! it was priceless! i have never seen a whiter Latino in my life :) well he quietly said no as he tried to explain that it was very expensive.... well as i was pouring it down the drain he told me it was worth about 100 dollars here in Costa Rica. Well long story short we helped him get rid of all his cigarettes and all of his coffee as well. But the best part of the story was when he said the closing prayer. i have never heard a more repentive, and humble prayer in my life. this man has not smoked or drank a single thing since that night. and him and his wife have plans for a wedding and a baptism this week. i know that the lord is helping us and that with his help we can perform miracles if we are humble and ask for his help

 (2 Nephi 9:42-43)

I love you all and hope you enjoy your week!

Elder Ferrin

Elder Rios and i were taken to lunch by the senior missionaries because i translated for them so that was delicious and if you can tell in the pictures that is a wagon being pulled by two big bulls in the river. kinda weird but i thought it was something really cool that i saw about 50 yards after leaving my apartment. :)

Week # 27 6 meses????‏ Yes it been 6 months...............

well hello family and friends! how are people doing? is there a lot of snow? well i guess it is time to inform some of you about how the work here in Costa Rica is going. I heard that my mission was on the news this week so maybe some of you saw that. We were told a two weeks ago about our new presidents of the mission and from what we are told they are amazing men! i am very excited to see that change but i am also sad to see our current president of the mission leave! he is such a great and hard working man. well for me here in Liberia Guanacaste things are still pretty normal. my district is finally starting to find some good results after our divisions that we did last week. also this last p-day my companion and i were able to go to the mission home for his month checkup and we had BBQ!!!! i had the best "rice and beans" that i have had in the last 6 months because we had BBQ baked beans and rice crispy treats! :) ya you could say i was happy. well from this last week one of the miracles that i was able to see may have been a small one but it was still a great one for me and the elder i was with. i went on divisions to help a companionship that was having trouble finding news and in two days of fervent prayer and talking to everyone we were able to find 14 new investigators for them. more that they had found in two weeks! it was such a great blessing to help them and learn so much from them. and the other part of the miracle is that i didn't die. we had one of the investigators of them is a really poor family but they still enjoy cooking for us well when we got to the house the little daughter was playing with a dead dove and the son was playing with a dead iguana well shortly after she began cooking and we noticed the animals had "disappeared" well she shows up with a plate of rice and some funny looking stuff that she calls meat and tells us to eat it.... well i am not going into more detail but lets just say we were not allowed to leave the house until we finished the food..... Love you all and pray for our health!  well i wish you all a good week and hope things are great!! love you and please help your missionaries because it makes it a lot easier for the missionary leaders as well. :) 

Elder Ferrin

Liberia, Guanacaste Costa Rica.

 He was Finally able to get to the mission home to get his Christmas box.

 I am guessing this is Spiderwire & a Fishing Lure

Thank you to whoever sent this....

 The moon one night

1 Month check up for his new companion & can you believe it has been 6 months already??

Week #26 Hello 2015 and 6 months already?????

Well this week nothing new really happened...

 we have found a whole bunch of families for this month and next month. We should have 3 weddings and 7 baptisms for this month if we can make everything work like we want it to! I am super excited and things are going great with Elder Acuña things are good. He was raised by strictly women so he is a little on the sassy side I have come to find out but I  love him none the less! I do have to work on being a little less farmer and more gardener with him and his delicate self... he is a great elder:) it is fun to work with him. :) but really we are finding a lot of success and  we just need to continue working like we have been! well nothing more than normal stuff this last week. I did get my package though! I would put on the computer some pictures but this computer today doesn't have a way to put the pictures on. but thank you so so much for all of that!! I am almost out of jerky already and the candy bars are almost gone as well. But the pants are great and the shorts and the shirts! and the recorder is great so thank you guys a ton! but why was there not a letter from dad in the package? well that was my week and I don't know if we will have much time to talk today but if you have a second we can try. I love you all and I hope you guys can get out on the ice soon! 
Love you!!

Week # 25 Good Bye 2014.......... Its been a good year!!!

Well hello and welcome back to the life of Elder Ferrin!

 I hope that you guys had a great week and that you enjoyed Christmas with snow and with all the fun that goes on this time of year. Grandpa I think you would enjoy it down here because you could ride your horse all year long the only problem is you would probably have to teach it to swim first. Well this week for me was fantastic and I loved getting to talk to the family! Well I found out that I was the only one who didn't cry out of the elders when they talked to their parents. Ha Ha it was pretty funny to watch them walk back into the room and see them like that. :) but ya things here are good! My district is improving and things are good. We have a slight problem with two elders who feel it is okay to sleep in.. but I addressed that today so we are good now I hope. Apart from that the district is slowly improving. December was rough here because everyone goes to the beach but now we are back to normal so we will just increase from here. We have some exciting goals for this week so we will see what we can do. 

 This is how they cooked their Christmas meal.  

Yes this is a Fan.  

 Some of the Elders and the Family that is taking care of them.

More Family

 and even More Family....

 There are some cool trees down there

they are big too.

 close up......

 Elders out walking 

 Elder Ferrin Had wonderful experience with this man, 

the Sister contacted him and then Elder Ferrin met him

Elder Ferrin Had this made for his new companion, they are scripture covers.

They teach from the New Testament & the Book of Mormon so he had a gentleman combine them and make this.

Week # 24 Feliz Navidad!‏

Well hello family and friends again! i hope you all are enjoying and finding the good in everything! i am loving the mission and my companion and i are preparing 3 families for january and i am super excited!! one family is super super prepared! we were walking and i had never payed any attention to this house we pass everyday but i never payed it any attention or really knew it was there. and then we were passing it and all of a sudden i just thought to myself "talk to her" but there was no one out side or in the road so i just thought i was crazy until a woman stepped out of her house and looked at us, sat down on the porch and smiled at us. Well we decided to talk to her about the chruch video el es la dadiva and as we were talking we began a lesson. well long story short the husband showed up a few minutes later, we taught them and invited them to the branch party on saturday, they said they would come and then we left the house. well my new companion was super super excited because they are a family of three and were super open to the message and even asked for a book of mormon after we answered the question they had of what it is. They showed up to the party saturday and after a tour of the church and talking to a few of the members they asked us what they have to do to become members and be baptized in the church!!! Well obviously we were about ready to jump up and down with joy (which may have happened after they left) and so we explained they need to know the church a little but we would love to help them with that. well they assisted the chapel on sunday and now they have a fecha for the 10th of january and we are so so so excited for them. litterally i testify that the lord is preparing people and it is just like a crop of hay. we just have to wait for the alfalfa to go grow and if we are worthy we will be the ones to harvest! 

well i love you all and i will talk to you all next week!! take care i try to look for ways to serve!