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!

Week # 23 Welcome Back to The Wild World of Elder Ferrin

Well hello again family and friends it is great to hear from you all each week and see that life back home is still going good for you all! well this last week was pretty crazy! it is super stressful to be district leader and train at the same time for your first time! i don't have a single second of down time it is just work work work. but honestly i am loving it! my missionaries are fantastic and my new companion is super great. he is speaking with everyone around here and he is a very hard worker! his name is Elder Acuña from Tijuana Mexico. 

elder acuna and i are having a great time and he is working hard and loves to teach. I have learned a lot from him this last week! also as district leader we have the goal of 12 baptisms this month and so we are working on that. right now we are half way there and so we can still get it if we work hard and do really good followup with everyone! well aside from that for me this last week was pretty normal. tomorrow we go to the temple for a Christmas activity as a misison in San Jose. so ya that will be really fun and i can get some stuff from the temple for my converts. any who.. i hope all is well back home or wherever you all are and i hope you all know this work is the most important thing we can be apart of. so if you are not currently participating. GET TO WORK.  well i love you and thanks for all the support and prayers!

Elder Ferrin

Elder Ferrin is doing great!!

Week # 22 Well you're not going to believe it..

So how is everyone doing?? I hope things are going great and I hope you all know I love you. This last week was a crazy and great week for many reasons. I was blessed to help another great man received his ticket to salvation on sunday night right before we had our changes announced to us. This man is named Renné. Let me explain a little bit about him first. He is a man who is from Nicaragua but is here in my area building houses in a little gated community. We contacted him in the street one day as he was working and he said it would be fine if we passed by and taught him another day so we did. He received us the first day and we taught the first lesson on the restoration and he loved it. The following Sunday he arrived to church and was very excited about the church and all. The following Tuesday we taught him a little about lesson 3 which is the evangelio de jesucristo and half way through the lesson I felt to ask him how he feels about the church and he said to me this "elderes I don't think I know this church is true.  I know it is!" It was so amazing to see the spirit testify through him and it was amazing to watch the way his testimony grew so fast. Right now we are sending the directions of his house to the missionaries in Nicaragua so his wife and daughter can be baptised as well. One thing that my companion said that I liked was he told him that there is no way that any of this was a coincidence because we had elders from 3 different countries teaching a man from a separate country being taught in a country that was foreign to all of us. Which is true! There are no coincidences in this gospel!!

and this brings me to the other big news......  I received a new assignment for this next 8 weeks....

I am the new DISTRICT LEADER of my district and I as well am going to train a new Elder! Pretty exciting right??? I am leaving for the capital tonight at 4 to go pick up my new companion in the morning. I don't know who he is until tomorrow morning. I am very excited but it is also a little intimidating. I have such little time in the mission but I know that the Lord is just trying to push me out of my comfort zone so I can grow to be a better instrument in the Lord's hands. 

Aside from that I had to say bye to my trainer Elder Soza today. He ended his mission and is returning to mexico on thursday. We have  been companions for 1.5 transfers but we have been in the same house. It was tough to send him off but he left me with a lot and lot of material to study about being a better leader and how to be the best missionary. Well that is about all I have for this week so until next I will talk to you all. Take care and I love you all!! Don't forget to pray for my poor newbie. 

With love from Guanacaste Costa Rica

Elder Ferrin 

 my cocinera y family

this is reneé 

and then this is what I had made for my trainer before he left the mission from our zone.