Nobody Talk about Star Wars Please! (Week #39)

Hello all

This last week was busy but good!
We had Leadership counsil in Fortaleza last Tuesday, and our Christmas Conference the day after, so I basically passed the whole week in Fortaleza last week, which was cool but also a little frustarating because we wanted to work!

President showed us the Disney Christmas Carol for the christmas Conference. It was weird to watch a movie! 

Sorry for the short emails, hopefully time will improve! In the future! Have a good week, Merry Christmas, and also my moms Birthday is this Friday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Love you all,

Elder Ferrell

NOTE:  No letter the week of December 11... Too busy!

God is my companion...But really (Week #37)

Hello All! This last week was a week of miracles to be sure! 

This last transfer was difficult because of my companion Elder Brandao. It was an excellent learning experience, but he needed a lot of help, and last week was probably the worst week of the transfer as far as working with him. We got to be friends after a lot of work, but he was struggling with his testimony a lot. He always had a hard time with obedience, and I learned a lot of patience and understanding because of that, but the last few weeks he didnt want to work, and when we went to teach lessons there were a lot of times where he refused to talk in the lesson and left me to teach alone. I honestly was struggling and praying a lot for God to still bless our area and help us find a way to still help the people here. God definitly answered my prayers, as last week was miracle after miracle. To sum it all up: Yesterday we were blessed with 4 people to baptise. God litterally handed us these incredible youth on a silver platter. Almost all 4 of them had a spiritually impacting dream throughout the week that left them with a strong desire to be baptised. 

Also Yesterday our Recent Convert from last week received the aaronic priesthood. The only words I have are that god is real and he works miracles demais!

Although it was difficult at times, I honestly came to be good friends with Elder Brandao, so today was a bit difficult as he was transferred for a new area. It was a lot of work to get to be friends with him and as soon as our relationship as companions improved he left, but thats how a mission goes! 

This week I will go to Fortaleza again to meet my new companion. I am training a new missionary again!!! I am very excited about it! 

I hope you all are doing well, and I wish you the best!

Until next week,

Love,

Elder Ferrell

1 Yesterdays Baptisms! Gabbi, Daniel, Jwalis, Monoel

2 Baptism of Marciano from last week

3 Daniel and Monoel from yesterday

4 Ana Marcia, investigator from Quixeramobim who married and got baptised last week!

Water Works the Week (Week #36)

Hello All!

This week was CRAZY!

We had zone conference on Thursday so passed the day in Fortaleza. Conference was good, and it was awesome to see my ´´filho´´ of the mission, Elder Passos. He is still in Pedregal training a new missionary! We talked a lot, and had lots of opportunties to learn from president Leite. The most interesting part about Conference was that at lunch they ran out of food. Elder Passos, Elder Tozin, and Elder Koster and I were the last ones in the food line and didnt get any, so President had Sister Leite drive us to a Restaraunt and eat there haha.

We returned to Quxada Thursday night, and Friday worked all day long until 5 PM when we went to Quixaramobim. This was incredible, I had the oportunity to see Ana Marcia, the investigator I discovered with my first companion Elder Paixao, finally get married so that she could be baptized. When I was teaching her with Elder Passos, she wanted to be baptised so badly but her husband didnt want to. I remember promissing her that one day he would change his mind, and am so truly blessed to have had the oportunity to actually see it!

Then Saturday morning I interviewed her for her Baptism, and that was probably one of the most powerful interviews Ive ever seen. Her testemony was incredible, and her desire to see her family change and also decide to follow her on this path, and how much these things already have changed her life and the life of her family! And after she asked for me to Baptise her! The whole thing was a true blessing!

Saturday after the baptism of Ana Marcia we litterally ran here in Quixada, and ended up closing a baptism of our investigator, Marciano. He is a young man of 16 but incredible. He told us he was going to be baptised and also bring all of his friends with him to be baptised. I thought of President Neslon and his experience teaching about the book of morman to a King, and the king said he would bring his whole tribe with him. At first we thought it was funny but Marciano is making good on his promise! He was baptised yesterday, and next week he will be confirmed and receive the Aaronic priesthood, and after church he will baptise 2 of his friends who visited church yesterday and attended his baptism!

Truly was a week of miracles.

I testify to everyone that Jesus Christ lives. That he truly is our lord and Savior. 

I hope you all had a wonderful week this last week with your families and friends, and I hope everyone is excited as us missionaries are for Christmas! But dont forget to try and be the light in sombody elses world this holiday season!
Love and miss you all!

Elder Ferrell

I will send pictures of the baptisms next week, this computer is having difficulties!

Hello All! (Week #35)

This last week was crazy but the good news is that we finally moved houses! We now live in an appartment that I dare to say resembles  an apartment in the United States!! Today is full of orginizing and cleaning because I hope that I will stay here for a little while at least! ( Now that I said it I´ll probly be transferred)

This next week we have zone conference, and An investigator I taught in Quixeramobim when I was there will get married on Friday and Baptised after! Very Exciting!
Happy thanksgiving to you all! Until next week!

Elder Ferrell

Busy Week! (Week #34)

Hello All!

I hope this email finds you all well!

This last week was busy! 

Last Wednesday I went on a Split with Elder Tozin, the elder in Quixeramobim right now. He was an assistant to the President who is finishing out his mission training a new missionary there. It was an awesome experience and I got to learn a lot from him! It was also incredible because we had an opportunity to teach a lesson with the Couple I baptised there, Isidio and Cristina, that was incredible! 

Thursday I came back to Quixada to work like normal, but before we had a chance to finish our afternoon studies, I got a call from Elder Tozin, and they had an emergency baptism that they needed help with because their investigator was about to leave town to travel, but wanted to be baptized beforehand! So Elder Brandao and I went to go set up for the Baptism and found that there was a problem with the water system to fill the baptisimal font, so we spent the entire afternoon filling the baptisimal font by hand one bucket at a time, until 5 PM when we had to litterally run to a neighborhood far away and close the baptism of our investigator, Bia, and after run back to the church to help finish preparing for the baptism....

It was a busy day for sure, but it was cool because everyone in the district came together to help with the baptism, and after I bought pizza for everyone to thank them! After That day, everyone started getting along really well and being a lot more united!

Friday and Saturday we worked a lot, and Yesterday we had the Baptism of our investigator, Bia!

She was a friend of a member who we got to know because she was already visiting Seminary! We started teaching her less than two weeks ago, but after the first day she wanted to be baptised! 

It was a true miracle! 

Hope everyone there is doing well,

until next week!

Love and miss you all,

Elder Ferrell

A Blessed Door (Week #33)

Just a quick email this week guys!

This week was busy! We had Mission Leadership meeting in Fortaleza last Tuesday which was good! It was all the zone leaders, the assistants, and...me. Haha but I learned a lot!

We are still living in an appartment above a bar because they are having difficulting renting a new appartment, and Saturday night something funny happened.

The bar didnt close until 5 AM, but i remember waking up at 2 am, and at first being angry because I woke up. But then I started laughing because it was a drunk lady who was blessing our door for close to 30 minutes!

´´May god bless this door. What a door of god´´

Same thing over and over....

The next day I told elder Brandao that we dont need to lock our door anymore because its sacred. He didnt get it but it was funny

Hope you all had a good week! 

Love you all!
Elder Ferrell!

Who Needs Sleep Anyways? (Week #32)

Hello world!

My email will be a bit fast this week because of being a bit short on time!

Quixada is Awesome! And difficult at the same time! After spending 6 weeks in Pedregal (where its ´´cold´´) I am getting used to the unbearable heat once again. Quixad is hotter than Quixeramobim because there are a lot of enormous rocks inside and around the city that heat up really fast. But it’s a big area and there are a lot of people to teach!

I am the District Leader here, which is interesting because our district isn’t part of a zone so I work directly with the assistants. But its awesome because Quixeramobim is part of my district so I get to visit there to do interviews and go on splits! I went to do an interview for the Elders there last Saturday and it was awesome to visit and see a lot of the people I got to know so well there!

The part that’s difficult about Quixada just for now, is that our house is exactly above a very famous bar here, so starting on Tuesday through Sunday, every night there is awefully loud music, and crazy drunk people screaming all night, so nobody is sleeping at night basically. Last week we spent a lot of time hunting for a new house, and hopefully will be able to move to a very quiet and tranquil apartment soon if all the paper work works out, but until then god is just giving us the strength to continue!

That’s about all that’s new here! I hope everyone is doing alright back home!

Love and miss you all, Until next week!
Elder Ferrell

 1- Elder Brandão

 2- Quixada

 3- Quixada?

The dream with everything white (Week #31)

Hello world!

Today is a bit chaotic because its transfer day, but last week was awesome!

First of all, I am being transferred to Quixada! If anyone remembers from my previous emails, Quixada is just 30 minutes away from Quixeramobim, and part of the same district! Not only is it an awesome area, but there is a large possibility that I will be able to visit a lot of my friends and recent converts there when we have splits!

My companion is a newer missionary who arrived in the same group as Elder Passos named Elder Brandão.

As for this last week, it was a week of a lot of work but went well! It was really hard to say goodbye to some of our investigators, especially Joao Paulo and his family (Joao Paulo and went to church yesterday in slacks, white shirt and tie!), but that’s part of the mission.

We had a rather incredible experience last Saturday with an investigator who is having a lot of difficulty discerning between our church and another Methodist church. The preacher in the Methodist church preaches a lot of negative things about our church and about us as missionaries, so she is very back and forth, but has a desire true to discover the truth and so is reading the book of Mormon.

Last Saturday we were passing by just to see if everything was ok with her, and she said she had had a dream the night before. To properly explain this dream, first its important to say that she has only been taught about the restoration. Shes been to church a few times but we have only actually had an opportunity to teach her one full lesson because she talks A LOT. Well she told us about this dream and it went something like this:

´´I dreamed that I was in some strange clothes and everything was white. Literally everything I was wearing was white. Then I looked up and saw a thing on my head, as if for a wedding, that also was white, and I looked down at my feet, and was surprised to see they too were white. Then a woman walked by saying that I needed to hurry because it was about to start.´´

We invited here to talk to a member she is friends with who has already been through the Temple about what she dreamed, but she definitely recognized it as and answer to prayer. It was an experience incredible!

I hope you are all well! Next week I will have more to say about Quixada!

Praying for you all always!
With love,

Elder Ferrell

One more week of training (Week #30)

Hello all!

It has been a busy week here in Pedregal! This last week we had zone conference in Fortaleza, so we had P-day on Monday, Weekly planning on Tuesday, Then Wednesday District meeting in the morning and travel to Fortaleza in the Afternoon, and finally returning from Fortaleza Thursday night. So basically we only had Friday and Saturday of last week to really work, but they were good days!

Last P-day, after emailing, Elder Passos and I left Aracati early to go to the house of one of our investigators where he taught us how to prepare castanhas! Pedregal is rich with cajueiro trees, which bear fruit called cajues! (Kah-jew) BUT, cajues have a strange stem attaching them to the tree, that if you remove and allow to dry, and after put in fire for a few minutes, you can break open and eat the nut inside, which back in the united states we all know as cashews! So last P-day we prepared and a ate a lot of cashews which was cool!

I understand that the last few weeks have not necessarily been easy in the United States. While I have a responsability at this time to dedicate all of my focus on the wonderful people of Brasil, I wanted to pass a small thought of comfort on that we learn from the Corinthian saints in the second book of Corinthians. While these saints were experienceing every kind of persecution and difficulty, their statement to Paul was this:

´´ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body they dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.´´

                                                                                                                      (2 Corinthians 4:8-10)

When we are faced with hardship, difficulty or discouragement, we have a choice to decide how to react. It can be easy to fall into despair, but if we put our faith and trust in god we will have the opportunity to respond as the Corinthian saints, and make the life of Jesus manifest in our own bodies. Because of Christs sacrifice all of us can receive help with our trials and challenges, and if we try to always follow his example, he will not only help us with our own sorrows, but use us as an instrument in his hands, to help meed the needs of others.

I am praying for you all every day, and wish for a good week for you all,

Until next time,

Elder Ferrell

Bom Dia!!! (Week #29)

Bom Dia!

Hello all! I hope your last week was incredible and that this email finds you all well!

This last week was interesting here in Pedregal, but good! To be honest, not A LOT happens here, but we still managed to have numerous spiritual experiences, and I would like to share one of them with you all today!

About two weeks ago we started teaching a family that is incredible. The Dads name is João Paulo, and he lives together with his ´´wife´´ (really Just his girlfriend) and their 3 year old son. Joao and his family are a true example of the Lord preparing the hearts of the people. We started teaching them on Monday and by Thursday of that week they started having a desire to be baptized. We are working right now to help Joao Paulo get divorced from another woman he is technically still married to, and after to help them get married so they can be baptized. But we (more accurately: he) had an experience incredible with him last week! On Wednesday we arrived at his house and everyone was incredibly happy and and excited. Joao told us that started the first day we visited when we taught him how to pray to his father in heaven, he started praying every single night, specifically asking for help to find a steady job to support his family. At the time, he was leaving the house every day for the city to see if he could find anyone to give him work for the day, and many days didnt find anything. But Last Wednesday he recieved notice that a company in Aracati (the city that is about 10 minutes from Pedregal) wanted to hire him. He started work that next day, Thursday, and it is going well. He is able to support his family now, and he is receiving health and vacation benifits through this new job as well. The incredible part, was that first night, Wednesday, when he had found out he got the job, he told us the first thing he did was get on his knees and thank heavenly father, then his wife did the same, and his son wanted to pray so they did their first prayer together as a family…It was awesome! His whole family was in church yesterday, participating in all the meetings and learning more about the góspel!

The rest of the week passed quickly and in a blur. Pedregal has a lot of drug problems, more than other areas of Brazil generally have, so we are helping a lot of our investigators right now in dealing and healing from addictions, not an easy task but with the help of our Lord and Savior Jesus Cristo, all things are posible.

I testify to you all that Christ lives and loves every one of you.

I hope you have an excellent week!

Until next time,

Elder Ferrell (its pronounced Fehel)

1) Elder de Souza (DL)

 This ones for Dad (I think all Ferrells will understand)

 A ´´castanha´´ (a cashew straight from the tree)

 Waiting for the car to leave from Aracati for Pedregal

A Bit fast today (Week 28)

Hello all,

I hope everyone had an opportunity to enjoy the wonderful instruction we received from our Prophets and leaders this last weekend.

All is well in Pedregal, the work is progressing and every day the we are one step closer to having a ward here.

My email is short today due to time, but I would like to share with you all one last thought from general conference.

Elder Hales will be missed, but its incredible that he knew exactly what the world needed to hear this last conference, and I would like to echo his final words to us all.

Faith is a choice, and when we CHOOSE to have faith in our heavenly father, we are preparing ourselves for his presence after this life.

Its something simple, but today I plead with you all today: when temptation and difficulty arise in our life, we can use our agency to choose to have faith just the same as we can use it to choose to doubt. As President Uchdorf said, look for truth, and in turn look for light, and CHOOSE to have faith.

I love you all and send you the best of wishes, 

Until next week

Elder Ferrell

                                                                         Ramo Pedregal

(Week 27)

Hello all!

This last week was a blur!

We went to Fortaleza on Tuesday for a big mission conference where we heard from a member of the 70. Then the rest of the week was just working to build our area!

We have been working nonstop to help our area be more united becuase there is a lot of tention here between members. But our work is helping! Yesterday we had 51 people in church! This, again was the highest church attendance in the history of the Branch here! We had a lot of minus activos come which was awesome!

God also blessed us for trying our best, and while were were focused on fortalecendo the members here, he blessed us with an awesome young women who just showed up in church our first sunday and had a huge desire to be baptized! We baptized her in the river here on saturday!

Hope all is well with you all! 

Love,

Elder Ferrell

1)Leaving for Fortalez

 2)Elder de Souza (our district leader)

 )Baptism of Rayysa on Saturday

 4)Pizza night yesterday

Bro, I was already Baptised in your church! (Week k#26)

Hello World!

This week was crazy but good! We passed Monday traveling and in Fortaleza, then Tuesday left for Pedregal, a neighborhood in the city of Aracati, Ceara. To give you an Idea about our área, if you have seen the movie Glory Road, the scene where the new basketball players are on the bus for Elpaso Texas for the first time, and start wondering where in the heck they are becuase theres litterally nothing but dust for Miles, we understood this very well when arriving here in Pedregal. It is a city next to the beach, but it is also a desert, and has very strong winds that kick up and push around a lot of dust.

When we arrived  a tour house here, we spent most of the Day on Tuesday we arrived Just cleaning to allow it to be livable. The first night here was rough, but after that, cleaning little by little every Day, we were able to make things a lot better. Its a huge house sufficient for 6 missionaries that only Elder Passos and I are living in right now.

The awesome thing here is we actually have Members!!! We have lunches every Day and the members here are incredible. They havent had missionaries here for a long time, so the branch has been doing missionary work alone for the last few months. The Branch president is a very straight forward guy, but very dedicated and excited to work! Its cool because in his mind he never stopped serving a mission, and is determined to have his branch grow!

One such story was a result of this.

We had a plan to go visit an investigator with him, but after trying to call him numerous times, we started back to the Presidents house. Before we arrived, President told us we were still going to teach a lesson, and called a young man over to his house. President was doing some type of identification card for him, and told him to sit down and listen to our message while he worked on the card. So we started to teach him about the gospel of Christ, and when president finished he came and sat with us. We taught for about 25 minutes, and the lesson went well enough so I finally I gave elder Passos the signal to invite him to be baptized. After elder Passos invited him, it was quiet for about a minute, and then he responded:

´´Bro, I already was baptized in your church man´´

President looked supprised and went to go check his records while I tried my best not to start laughing, and President came back and sure enough, he had been baptized back when he was still a kid.

Thats the interesting part of our area, we have over 200 people that were already baptized, but when we arrived they had an attendance of only 22-30 people in church on sundays, with a branch record of 42 people. God worked through us a lot last week and yesterday in church we had 44 people, and more people arrived after sacrament meeting.

It was a good week!
Hope you all are well,

Love, Elder Ferrell

Isidio and Cristina, the married couple Elder Passos and I Baptized

Quixeramobim

 Baptism in the river last week

 Our first transfer

6 months ja? (already) (Week #25)

Hello all!
My email will be very brief today because it is a VERY busy day.

I got transferred, but the interesting part is I got transferred WITH my companion. We had a barbeque last night in the house of our group leader in Quixeramobim, and I was expecting to stay because I am training. Well, I am still training elder Passos, and President has asked me to go and open a new area!! 

I dont know how to spell the name of the area we are going to, so I will have more details next week.

I hope you all are well, I am praying for all affected by crazy weather conditions there. Hope everyone is safe!
Love and miss you all,

Elder Ferrell

Always on the Run (Week #24)

Hello All!

This last week was a blur, and we are always busy as bees here. I do not have much time to write today but will do my best. There were 2 main things that happened this last week. Saturday, we spent most of the day preparing for an activity we were hosting. Since we are just a group here, Missionaries are responsible for any activities planned with members and investigators, so we decided to host a Movie night (my parents will not be at all suprised that this was my Idea).

The room we have church in has a projector and the leader of our group has a computer, so we hosted a ´´Cinema´´ Where we played the movie 17 Miracles and had food and soda. It was one of our best activities because we had members from Quixada come and visit to help, but it was funny because if you have ever seen 17 Miracles, it is a good movie but has many sad parts...well we got through the whole movie up until the final sad part, and the Internet quit on us (we only had 2 minutes more to go!) so that was kind of funny because we had a lot of investigators there and we had to explain to them that there really was a happy ending and we didnt just invite them all to watch a depressing film.

Then the other thing was church yesterday! We only had 19 people arrive but it was an incredibly spiritual fast and testimony meeting. My recent convert, Isidio, blessed the sacrament for the first time which was awesome, then an investigator of ours who is waiting to get married to be baptized, stood up and bore her testimony about how the gospel has changed her life. It was awesome! But the funny part that happened was that last week Elder Passos and I encountered a strange man on the street. Whenever we talk to people and they dont really listen to us, we always just invite them to church and move on. Well yesterday in church when it was really quiet, we had a man that we had done this to actually show up. But it was how he showed up that was funny. We were in Gospel Principles class and all a sudden we hear in a loud booming voice ´´Jesus Christ is returning´´.....

One of the other elders here said he was close to falling on the ground because he thought this was it and Christ actually just showed up haha. He was an interesting character, and kept sharing scriptures from the bible with me although it was a Jehovas Whitness bible and so it was very different from the bible we are all used to. But after church he asked a lot of questions about the book of mormon and wants us to visit him! 

Thats it for this week!
Love and miss you all!

Elder Ferrell

Another Week Gone (Week #23)

Hello World!

This last week passed in a flash! We had a little time to visit people last Tuesday, but then Tuesday night our bus left for Fortaleza at 5 PM. Wednesday morning I went with the Executive Secretary to some Federal Building so that I could receive a social security number and actually be able to use my health insurance card IF I need to. Then after this Elder Passos and I went out working in the afternoon in the área of the assistants. Thursday we had a zone conference which was awesome! Then the rest of the week was pretty normal!

Yesterday our recent convert, Isidio, recieved the Aaronic Priesthood which was awesome! He is so excited about it and He and his wife are growing so much as members already!

I do have one funny experience to share. On Thursday after the Zone conference we went back to the mission Office to wait a few hours until our bus left for Quixeramobim. We left the mission Office 2 hours early to make sure we had time, because I am used to taking a bus from the Travel terminal to the mission Office when we arrive in Fortaleza, but I have never taken the bus from the mission Office to the bus Travel terminal. So before we left I asked one of the secretaries which bus we needed to take. He told us bus number 50,51,52, or 53, and that the bus would finish at the travel terminal. So we left for the bus station, and finally were able to get on a bus numbered 50 (after many attemts being foiled by a stampeid of people as soon as the bus doors opened). We rode this bus for about 20 minutes, but nothing was looking familiar, so I called the secretary to make sure. He Said as long as we really took bus number 50, we Will end up at the terminal, but IF I wanted I could as someone on the bus were the route would finish to have more certanty , so thats what I did, and the person closest to me told me that the bus would finish at the Terminal, so I figured we were Just going a different way. Well, everything I had thought at this point was actually correct, except for one fatal flaw.

Whenever we take the bus FROM the Terminal TO the mission Office, we arrive coming from a certain direction. Silly me thought that to go from the Mission Office TO the Terminal, we needed to catch a bus going in the opposite direction....well after an hour and a half bus ride, our bus definitly finished at the bus terminal, Just the wrong one. We were supposed to catch the bus going the same direction as when arriving to the mission Office because it Just goes in a circle. So Elder Passos and I figured out which bus went to the correct terminal, and after a 3 hour detour in down town fortaleza we finally arrived only an hour after our for Quixeramobim had already left. But everthing worked our, we changed our tickets to a later bus.

And thats it for the adventures here in Ceará Brasil! Tune in next week for more exciting action!

Love and miss you all,

Elder Ferrell

Hello My good People (Week #22)

This week was a week of miracles!

Saturday, 2 of our investigators, an awesome married couple we have been working with for more than a month, got baptized and yesterday were confirmed. Our church meeting was a little hecktic, but they still loved it and I see them more and more happy each time we visit. The wife, Cristina, Had a hard time quitting coffee, so we woke up at 5:30 am every day for a week to help her stop, but now she doesnt even want it! It is truly incredible!

Also on Saturday. We received a reference from a member who visited last sunday from Sao Paulo for Brasilian fathers day. He told us his dad was already a member and lived here in Quixeramobim, just not in the city in the countryside. To give you an idea about the countryside here in brasil, or at least in Ceará, the streets dont have names and the houses dont have numbers. So when we went to search for this member on Saturday not knowing where he lived, I was nervous, but something told me we HAD to go and that everything would work out. We started walking to the bus station to catch a bus going that way, and ended up having a friend of ours pass by with his car and give us a ride. This was the first mini miracle because we arived at the bus station just as the last bus for the day was leaving for that area. We managed to get seats on the bus, and after a 25 minute bus ride, we got off the bus in an area that didnt have a house in sight! We decided to walk back the way we came, and through talking to many people ended up discovering his house, and meeting with him. This was incredible. He started crying as he shared he has lived there for 20 years, and been praying every day that the church would arrive in Quixeramobim. We talked with him for a while, and are now helping him return to be a completely active member in the church, and he wants to go through the temple! The last part of this story is we arrived at his house at 5 PM, and had a Baptism the same night sceduled for 7:30. We did not have a way to get back to Quixeramobim, and it was more or less a 3 hour walk if we had to walk. But this member called a friend who gave us a ride to arrive for our baptism exactly on time.

This is just a testament to me. Jesus Cristo will always send someone for you. He will always leave the 99 for the 1. He loves us all, and through us, we saw him realize a miracle in this mans life.

I love you all, and hope your weeks were good!

Love, Elder Ferrell

Happy Birthday Quixeramobim! (Week #21)

Hello world! 

It was another fine week here baking in the sun! But also very busy. Our mission has a new goal of fulfilling 10 contacts every single day. While this is a lot more difficult in the small city of quixeramobim, Elder Passos and I have been doing our best, and we were blessed with more people than we had time to teach for it last week! 

Nothing particularly interesting happened other than on Wednesday night, the city had a ceremony for all of the courses they sponsored, and my english class was one of them. They all sang Happy by Pharrell Williams, and as I was exiting the stage you just know I tripped in front of all those people!

I do have a message for you all this week. As I am starting to understand a lot more Portugues, it is starting to become easier to focus on learning more life and spirtual lessons throughout the week.

Today I want to share with you a thought that I have been pondering after hearing it from Janhailson, the leader of our church group here, this last week. 

It is very similar to President Uchdorfs talk on not using fear to motive, and i encourage you all to review that talk when you have time. But basically, as mankind we have two ways of teaching: through love, or through pain. Teaching through pain, or through pressure, manipulation, any form of teaching that trys to translate our will onto others with force, is a very powerfull teacher. But as these things are not of God, they will teach to fear, teach to loath, and teach to hate. These teaching most of the time can be almost impossible to remove. But if we focus on teaching with love, with patience, we may not see a chance as rapidly as with the alternative, but you will teach with more power than you thought possible. 

This is not my promise, but the Promise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Until Next week! Love you all

Elder Ferrell

I´m a Dad? (Its a mission term) (Week #20)

Hello Everyone!
This last week was a mix of Incredible and Sad. Tuesday, about an hour before my bus left for Fortaleza, we found out that my recent convert whom I had just baptized on Sunday was arrested. There is still confusion as to whether he actually did anything wrong, but because he was arrested he was fired from his job, and has not been home for us to speak to him all week, and personally I feel like he really does not want to speak to us. Soo that was definitely not the most awesome thing in the world, BUT:

On Wednesday a met my new companion! His name is Elder Passos from Rio de Ganeiro, and he is awesome! On a mission, they call a missionary you train your ´´son´´ and your trainer is your ´´father´´ of the mission, which is partially a joke but also partially a truth because when new missionaries arrive they are very lost with so much to learn and so much to adjust to. So elder Passos is my first son here in Brazil! We did training on Wednesday and returned here to Quixeramobim on Thursday.

The week itself was pretty normal except for the fact that God definitely has blessed us with miracles. The first miracle was with my Portuguese! I wasn’t at all nervous to train a new missionary, but I was a bit nervous about communication in general. But from the moment they announced Elder Passos as my companion I have been able to understand almost everything in Portugues, and speak a lot more as well. This is just a confirmation to me that when God calls you to the work, if you put your faith in him he will always bless you with what you need to succeed.

Then yesterday we closed a baptism for a married couple we have been working with for over a month. They are awesome, and it was incredible because yesterday the Husband stood up and bore his testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting! That was truely special.

I hope everyone there has had an incredible week, and that this coming week will be just as good!

I love and miss you all,

Elder Ferrell

Transfers (Week #19)

Hello all!

This last week was awesome! We went for all you can eat pizza last wednesday night which was awesome! Then Yesterday I baptized the first person here in Brazil that I actually contacted myself, and helped teach all the lessons to. His name is Junior, and we met him less than two weeks ago! He was definitly a miracle, and someone God put in our path because he really needs the gospel in his life, and he has already changed so much!

Tomorrow I will travel for Fortaleza because I have been called to train a new missionary which is weird! President rarely calls brand new missionaries to train, and I just finished my own training last week so it is a huge honor that president has that kind of faith in me.

Thats all for now! Everything here is awesome! Hope you all are well, and I will write more next week!
Love,

Elder Ferrell

Week 18! (Actually week 17!!)

Hello All!

This last week was truly incredible! We put our noses to the grind stone here and worked, and ended up finding a young man who not only is very receptive to the gospel, but after speaking with him and hearing about his family struggles it is clear to me that God put him in our path because he needs the comfort of the gospel more than anything right now. Beyond this, We had an investigator named Ezidio, and his wife Kristine. They are an interesting couple to be sure, and when we first started teaching them three weeks ago, we came close to moving on to other investigators because Ezidio was not following any of our invitations. But we kept on visiting them because his wife, Kristine, was actually reading the Book of Mormon on her own! We kept teaching them, and Kristine kept reading the book of mormon and asking questions but she didn’t seem very interested even still. Then that Sunday, Ezidio surprised us by coming to church! So we kept on teaching them, another week passed by, and they were still in the same place, not very interested but Kristine again was still reading so we kept coming. And again that Sunday, Ezidio surprised us by showing up for church, but Kristine wouldn’t come. This last week started off the same. On Wednesdaywhen we asked Ezidio about church he said he wouldn’t go because he had his 50^th birthday this Sunday (Yesterday) and he had family coming. We understood and kept visiting. Friday Morning, things were different. We arrived and Kristine was really cheerful and happy, and had some great questions about the book of Mormon. We asked Ezidio about his plans for his Birthday and he said he decided he was going to go to church! Then they invited us to have lunch with them on his birthday! (Not important, but the food in that lunch was incredible!) In this lunch he told us that he wanted to drink beer for his birthday but decided not to! Then He came to church that day, and after the church meeting tolda Janhuson, our group leader here, that he knew everything was true and that he wanted to bring his wife and family! It is truly incredible to see the Gospel Changeing him!

Then in Church yesterday we had 32 people! if you remember my first week here we had around 14 People in church. To have 32 yesterday was a miracle and true evidence that god is working here. 

Those are the most important parts of my week!

I hope you all are well!

Love,

Elder Ferrell

A Good Week! (#16)

Hello World!

It has been an awesome week here in the Easy Bake oven of Brazil! We had a zone conference in Fortaleza on Thursday, which meant we had to travel to Fortaleza on Wednesday, and Tuesdays we don’t have much time to work because of weekly planning and English Class, and Monday was P Day, so last week we really were only able to work 2 days before Sunday. BUT, with just these two days of work, our numbers were better than the entire week before!

Yesterday, church was a miracle indeed! Every week we generally have members from the Branch in Quixada visit to help us with sacrament meeting, but here everyone is on summer break from school, and a lot of people are traveling, so we found out at lunch yesterday nobody from Quixada was going to come! This was after only having two days to work this week, and we knew that some of our members here and some of our investigators who visit every Sunday (just waiting to get married for baptism) were out of town as well. Generally in sacrament meeting here we have around 23 people, and this is with 8-10 people from Quixada. Well yesterday we had 17 people in church, with just 2 days of work, no one from Quixada, and 7 people who usually frequent gone. It was incredible. In past weeks, there have been times where I have been caught up in how hard things are, with my health, with the sun, with my companion, and with the Language, that I have also at times forgotten how incredibly lucky I am to be here, and to take part in the building of the lords kingdom here in Quixeramobim. It is truly incredible.

That’s about it for last week! I hope you all are well and I wish you the best!

With lots of love,

Elder Ferrell

Hello All! (Week #15)

Hello My Friends!

This last week was incredible! I spent Monday and Tuesday in Fortaleza working things out with my Visa, and I think it is all taken care of now which is a relief! Then we returned here to Quixeramobim late Tuesday Night accompanied by our Zone leaders, and Wednesday went on splits with them which was fun. Throughout the entire week we were focusing on doing whatever we could to teach more by the spirit and it really made a difference! On Friday we went to teach the Grandmother of one of our investigators Who is 15 years old. We have been teaching her for about two weeks now, but her Grandmother wouldnt let her go to church because she didnt believe that she was actually going to go to church. So Friday we went to try and smooth things over with the Grandma and Explain why were there and what we were doing, and we were really nervous because our investigator told us that her Grandma was really Catholic, and here that generally translates into were about to have some lady screaming at us how aweful our church is. But we walked up to the house and she was sitting out in front reading a church pamphlet on the Restoration! She invited us in and started talking to us, then started crying because she explained that she was affraid of dying. We were able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation, and it was Just an incredible experience! It is true evidence that Gods Prepares people to recieve our message!

Other than that nothing is new here, Just the same old grind as the Sun slowly but surely cooks my skin, and the mosquitos consume me one (more like 50) bites at a time! Haha I hope everyone there is having a good Summer. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Ferrell

1) My Brasil Family!

2) Bannanas Here

3) The first tie I made