The Week of the Wedding Planner (Week #49)

Hello World!

This last week was honestly exhausting but incredible! To start off, transfer calls came in last night, and while everyone was expecting me to be transferred..NOPE!!! J Thankfully, God let me stay here a little longer! But my companion Elder Medina was transferred for Fortaleza, and today we have 3 new missionaries arriving here in Quixada! And I’m the only one of the 4 of us that knows the city! But I´m super excited to stay here and to get to know my new companion and my new district! Elder Deza is my new companion, he’s from Peru and until now, the last hour or so with him has been good! High hopes!

Elder Medina and I about killed ourselves walking this last week because we had many people to teach in two different sides of the city! We were all set for the wedding of a couple live here to happen on Saturday, and that’s a bit of a funny story! This couple lives in the area of the other Elders, but when they were transferred, it fell to us to organize everything. I thought the other elders, being transferred only one week before the wedding, already would have gotten everything in order….NOPE! Nothing was planned, and we had to do everything! The plan was that the couple would be married, and then the bride, Suzy, would be baptized after the wedding service. Well thankfully, Tuesday night we went to go visit them. (We had to call the assistants to request permission to arrive home later because it was soo far) When we arrived, we found out that the other missionaries literally never had visited them there! That we were all planning on the baptism of Suzy after the wedding service but the other Elders actually had not taught her! She had been taught my missionaries a year ago but did not have desire then and did not remember their lessons! We taught her the basics and asked her some questions. Luckily, she truly is a convert and had been studying church manuals that her boyfriend who was a less active member had, so she already knew a lot, but that was a stressful moment! We helped her get ready for baptism and we planned everything for the wedding. On Saturday, Elder Medina and I did a split with members of the Elders Quorum here so that Elder Medina could invite people to go to church, and I could coordinate all the preparations for the wedding

The wedding was scheduled to start at 5 PM…….but the bride arrived at 7. But in the end, everything worked out ok! Suzy and Victor were married and afterwards Suzy was baptized. Sunday morning Suzy was confirmed and now the both of them are strong members in the Quixada Branch. And I gained expirience in wedding planning! Maybe I´ll make a buisness of it post mish!

That was the biggest highlight of the week! Frequency at church was a bit low yesterday, we only had 60 people, but now that were back to 2 companhionships in Quixada its gonna go back up for sure!

I hope you all are having a great week! 

Love and miss you all!

Elder Ferrell

1) The old District Quixada

2) Bruno and Suzy (Yes I was the photografer also)

3) Bruno and Suzy

4) Bruno and Suzy pre Baptism

Yeah, I'm half-way there! (Week #48)

 Hello World!

Im sorry for the lack of an email last week, Everything was shut down on P-day because of Carnaval! It seems like every week here there is at least 1 Holiday....but oh well!

This last week was uterly exhausting! We had a normal Tuesday, and Wednesday the Elders from Quixeramobim stayed in our house to travel with us to Fortaleza for Zone conference. Also because of Carnaval, the assistants werent able to buy tickets for us to travel Wednesday afternoon like usual, the only seats available were on the 4 AM bus to Fortaleza on Thursday. So Quixeramobim came to stay with us, and at 10 PM on Wednesday, President Leite called to tell us that 2 Elders in my district were being emergency transferred and President was closing their area. They had to stay up all night packing to be ready to go at 4 AM....So basically it was a long night. Zone conference was pretty good, it was basically the same things that President tells us in Leadership Council, but still was a good oportunity to focas even more on the work! Which we need!

I was hoping when president transferred these two missionaries that he would send a new companhonship, but he didnt...so now Elder Medina and I are the only missionaries for the entire city of Quixada, and its exhausting, but rewarding! We were blessed with a baptism yesterday of a Young Single Adult, Vitoria. 

Vitoria WAS an athiest unil her friend, Cecilia was baptised by the other Elders and she started to talke to the missionaries. Little by little Vitoria started to feel the spirit testify in her heart that our words were true, until the day she had the corage to ask for herself and she recognized Deus speaking to her. She is an awsome person and she was so happy after her baptism last night! This week we have another baptism on Saturday, and were hoping to have 4 more throughout the week, but we will need a miracle for sure! The Baptism on Saturday is the girlfriend of a Less active member who is reactivating now and recognizing the blessings of the gospel in his life. They are currently living together, but this Saturday is their wedding! They will get married and after the marriage his girlfiend, Suzi, will be baptised! 

In other good news, we found out a few weeks ago that the process has already been started to buy the land here in Quixada to construct a church!!! That alone is an incredible blessing!

Just as with the lamanites in Alma 25, we are having the pleasure here of seeing God pour out his spirit among the people, and its incredible!

This coming Sunday is transfer Sunday so its possible I wont have a lot of time to write next Pday, but I want to bare my testimony to you all. Jesus Christ is the son of the living God, he lives and is waiting for all of us to get to know him personally! 

I Love and Miss you all! 

And last thing, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD #foreveryoung

Until Next Time,

Elder Ferrell

1) Baptism of Vitoria

2) I´m holding a Monkey!!

3) This is an endangered species for American Missionaries in Brasil (Thanks Fam!)

4) Baptism of Priscila and Imaculada 3 weeks ago

Things continue to grow (Week #46)

Hello all! 

This weeks email is real fast because we are here in Fortaleza and I dont have a lot of time, but everything is well here! We had a hecktic week but it all payed off by having 87 people in church Yesterday!! Things just keep growing and growing, and yesterday we had a councilor of the Mission visit to scout out a plot of land here in Quixada with the Branch president for the church to purchase to construct a big Chapel!!!!!!!! (Thats huge news for us)

God continues to bless us!

I hope all is well with all of you!
Until next week!

Love,

Elder Ferrell