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.

Just Love Random......

I just love the technology that we have today.  Sometimes we just get emails from strangers that have met our Missionary.   It is always a blessing.

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 # 29 Cattle Drive Costa Rican style............

Hey Mom and Dad how are things?
This last week was a little loco but we made it through the week just fine. I had a pretty great time I don't have much time today because things are a little crazy today. We have to get the house ready for the new missionaries that are coming today but I am starting to send a bunch of pictures from the last week and yesterday I got to help with a little cattle drive for p-day it was so darn cool! I got to work with the lasso and everything! I just had to do it all on foot... it is much nicer on a horse but I had a great time!
 Right now I am doing great but this last week as you both thought was a little bit of a rough week for me and the responsibilities of leadership were weight heavy on me, but I did have a special dream that helped me a lot in my dream I was in the mission and working like normal. Well in the space of what felt like two weeks in my dream my mission ended and as it ended I went into a huge panic!! like all I could say was "wait, no! this can't be  I need more time!!" and I just kept saying that and as I arrived home in my dream I was very unhappy and upset with my mission. Well I woke up in a panic from my dream and I am not going to lie I honestly thought I was in the house with you guys it was such a realistic dream that I started to panic thinking it was real... so I got up and looked at where I was and realized what happened and that I was still in the mission and so I calmed down... but I realized something.  I need to be ending each night of my mission with the mentality that if I had an emergency and had to go home the next morning without ever returning I could do it happily knowing I had given my all,  but that is what has happened. 
We were able to find some success but not the success that we needed. my district did the best in the zone but we should of done a ton better!  I hope you guys are doing good!

I love you!! 

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. :)